I usually come armed with an Ipod, in order to fend off the awful noise that comes from the city, in order to pump even more awful noise directly into my ears with bud headphones. As a result, I already have tinnitus, and I can't even buy a drink legally yet. I hope those scientists start making new ears pretty soon.

The music I'm listening to:

- Slint: Spiderland. A lovely album. A seminal work, only about 30 minutes long. There is not much singing - the vocalist usually tells a story in meter or whispers uneasily into the microphone. He'll suddenly break out screaming at climaxes. The guitars sound like delicate bells. The songwriting is immaculate, almost classical in form. Wild drums. I read online that after recording "Good Morning, Captain", the singer went to the bathroom and threw up all the pills he had taken to get through it - I think that you can hear it in the music.

- Aphex Twin: Richard D. James Album. Gorgeous electronic music, an intensely personal voice. Baroque in complexity. Hard to explain. Fits together so well. No words, no vocals. Just music.

- Dillinger Escape Plan - Irony is a Dead Scene. The metal band that started it all, just a few years ago. Before this, nobody had heard anything like DEP. The thrill of a tight instrumental foursome, time signatures galore, and a very creative and effective Mike Patton, singer in Faith No More and Fantomas, who is at his very best here.

- Meshuggah: Catch Thirty-Three. 47 minutes of howling nihilism. The guitarists in this band have been playing together since the age of nine - the band formed twenty years ago and are about as rhythmically together as you can get, without programming machines to do the work for you. Their strength lies solely in their rhythm - entire songs will use only two notes in a hypnotic repeating ostinato in some exotic time signature, juxtaposed on the perpetual 4/4 of the drummer's crash cymbals. Unrelenting.

- Psyopus: Ideas of Reference and Our Puzzling Encounters Considered. These guys out-Dillinger the Dillinger Escape Plan. They are insane. I have seen them twice live. Mind-blowingly complex music, executed as quickly and precisely as possible. Originality seeping out of their ears. Ridiculous technical competency.

- Sublime: Sublime and 40 Oz. to Freedom. LBC represent! Southern California manifesto and good punk / ska to boot. Get your ass to the beach. They would've hit it big and definitely would've put out some great albums, if Brad Nowell, the lead guitarist and singer, hadn't OD'd on heroin at the age of...wait for it...27. Their music is the perfect blend of SoCal chill and tragedy.

- Korn: Korn. None of their new stuff, I'll have none of it. They did the Spinal Tap, and one of their guitarists left, went evangelical, got a Jesus tattoo on his hand to keep himself from masturbating, etc. But this first album is something else altogether. Angst, angst, angst; nu-metal was alright back then. The beginning of Blind is so blandly nihilistic and brutal. The guitarists used down-tuned seven strings - some of the finest guitar tone I've ever heard. Shoots and Ladders starts out with a bagpipe solo, then goes into troubled, twisted parodies of children's songs. Brilliant.

- Circle Takes the Square: As the Roots Undo. Chaotic, loud, full of despair and hope. Fantastic lyrics. A young band. Some of their songs are only good - their best is transcendental. Their live show is the best I've ever seen. I think that they are onto something very special. My favorite song of theirs is "In the Nervous Light of Sunday."

- Rage against the Machine: Rage against the Machine. Oldie but goodie. I prefer this album to the rest, probably because of the masterful "Wake Up."

- Cypress Hill: Best Hits from the Bong. Because they're west coast, baby! And they're really funny. And they smoke tons of weed.

- Deftones: Around the Fur. Nu-metal doesn't suck, Deftones is proof. It was the marketing and the fallout that spelled its doom. But Deftones is still here...listened to this album a lot out in Death Valley this winter break. A contemplative album, loud, lonely, and warm.

- Ben Monder: Oceania. He's played in more side projects than he has original music - a musician's musician. Very very good guitarist. Deep understanding of music, transcendent musicality. Songwriting chops most can only envy. Classical sense of structure, Hendrix-style sense of freedom and compassion.

- Kayo Dot. I still don't own a Kayo Dot album; I do own Toby Driver's In the L.L. Library Loft. I mentioned in an earlier blog that there are some artists that you know are right there, and Kayo Dot is one of those bands that is right there. Anything by them I think is beautiful and meaningful and relevant. They see a world that is alien to me and you.

- Red Hot Chili Peppers: Californication. Undeniable.

- Caliban: "The Seventh Soul" and "Arena of Concealment". I don't own any of their albums. In fact, I only have these two songs of theirs. Everything else I've heard from them is mediocre or just flat out sucks. But just listen to that howl at the beginning of Concealment, and the ultimate solidity of The Seventh Soul. Fuck, that's good metal!

- Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf. Almost anything Josh Homme puts out turns to gold, but this especially kicks ass. Tied together with clever tongue-in-cheek radio broadcasts by loudmouth DJs, every song is pure rock 'n roll, and smart at that - the Iron Man-like structure of No One Knows, the strange harmonic realm in the verse of First it Giveth and its enviably catchy chorus, the flat-out rockage of Song for the Dead, the drugged out euphoria of Go With the Flow, etc. I think Josh Homme probably shits out awesome guitar riffs for breakfast daily.