Music

I don't make music, but I sure love listening to it.

And taking road trips to concerts.

In fact, if you stand too close to me I'll try to make you a CD, which will include songs by the following people:

Jonatha Brooke has the best "Whoa, my heart has done what her voice just did" voice I've ever heard, and she knows how to use it. And how to play guitar with impossibly brilliant tunings. And how to write amazing music that really stays with you.

Glen Phillips wrote and sang the songs for Toad the Wet Sprocket and still makes music brimming with wisdom and warmth; if my soul has a voice, I hope it sounds like Glen's.

Garrison Starr has a voice and a style like no one else and writes lyrics that will leave you suspecting she knows you better than you know yourself.

Kay Hanley fronted the late, great Letters to Cleo and now launches solo songs into sexy, sassy orbit with THE hottest voice in rock. "I'm not your mom. I'm a fucking A-bomb." Amen to that.

Nina Gordon was the sweet who made Veruca less Salty, but her smart, soaring solo stuff is anything but sugar.

Lovely Lisa Loeb wakes up every morning and bakes perfect pop nuggets like "Let's Forget About It." I'd like to build her a cake or something.

Someday when the history of me is written, I hope it reads, "John Bierly lived happily ever after with his wife, singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson, and their three little girls with strawberry curls: Ella and Nelly and Faye."

With and without his friends in the Old 97's, Rhett Miller sweats bullets of voice and guitar brilliance.

New Edition didn't invent R&B, but they still do it better than anyone else. My dream job would be being the seventh member. Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Mike, Ralph, Johnny … and Johnny. They don't even have to turn my microphone on.

Some other favorites: Gin Blossoms, Duncan Sheik, Dan Wilson, The Sundays, that dog., Juliana Hatfield, Matthew Sweet, Counting Crows, Tonic, Better Than Ezra, Ellery, Fiona Apple, Rachael Yamagata, Jenny Lewis, A Fine Frenzy, Pearl Jam, Living Colour

That's a good start.

Please feel free to ask me about the others.

The many, many others.