Kyle Ferguson Most everybody knows that Blur song as "Woo Hoo," even though its proper title is "Song 2." Neither is particularly meaningful.

But Kyle Ferguson, a senior philosophy major at Augustana College, called one of his songs "Notes from a Solipsist," and that title frames the song's lyrics. Solipsism is a belief that one can only know what one directly experiences - that there might not be a world outside of your own mind.

"You identify your experience with the world," Ferguson explained. "So there's no reality external to your experience."

Trailercana The double-wides are rocking in Trailercana, a boogie-down ruckus from Antsy McClain & the Trailer Park Troubadours due next week on DPR Records. Growing up in a Kentucky trailer park named Pine View Heights, McClain knows his propane tanks, weeds, cinder blocks, and plastic fruit on the kitchen table, wrapping his kitschy wit around fun songs including "Living in Aluminum," "Joan of Arkansas," "Prozac Made Me Stay," and "KOA Refugee." A handful of friends attempt to class up the joint - from Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac to Bobby Cochran of Steppenwolf to Tommy Smothers - but there's no stopping the down-home wisdom of "I Was Just Flipped Off by a Silver Haired Old Lady With a 'Honk If You Love Jesus' Bumper Sticker on the Bumper of Her Car." Part Arlo Guthrie, part Jimmy Buffett, part Ray Stevens, and part Timbuk 3's Pat McDonald, McClain's humorous skew on the tornado-prone continues in his third book, It Takes a Trailer Park.

smile.jpg A country-music performer's decision to move to Nashville is typically the product of a dream. For Suzy Bogguss, it was eminently practical.

In the early 1980s, the Aledo native and Illinois State University graduate was knocking around the country, doing gigs at coffeehouses and ski resorts. She lived in the Quad Cities, Kewanee, Peoria.

She didn't envision a future as a respected and popular country singer. She didn't aspire to the gold and platinum records she would eventually earn.

"It just never really occurred to me that that's what my goal was going to be," she said in a phone interview last week, in advance of her May 12 performance with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra at the Adler Theatre. "It was just fun."

music_news_the_coolest_songs_in_the_world_vol_1.jpg Steven Van Zandt (of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and The Sopranos) has laid hands on two swaggering CD collections due this coming Tuesday from his new Wicked Cool Record Co. imprint - near-religious extravaganzas that dust the weak and electrify the willing. Fueled by the playlists of his syndicated radio program Little Steven's Underground Garage, the 15 personally selected tracks on The Coolest Songs in the World: Vol. 1 are each monsters in their own right. Blasting off with cosmic power-poppers The Shazam, Cincinnati's favorite sons The Greenhornes, and the wigged-out frenzy of The Forty Fives, the CD also features the snarling Ellie Vie fronting The Charms from Boston, a Mooney Suzuki rouser from 2002, and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's prophetic "Whatever Happened to My Rock & Roll." The sweaty, dangerous fun continues in CBGB OMFUG FOREVER, a tribute to the iconic, now-shuttered club with liner notes by Lenny Kaye. Sixteen tracks made the cut, with hits such as Blondie's "Hanging on the Telephone" from 1978 and The Damned's "New Rose" from 1977, along with a few rare songs including Japanese bonus tracks from Green Day and U2 (which covers The Ramones' "Beat on the Brat").

Future Appletree logoThe concept of record-label samplers is to introduce a listener to the sound and artists that a label offers. But too often, these compilations are nothing more than a hodge-podge of material tied together by a company name: Either everything sounds the same, making it difficult to tell one artist from the next, or the compilation is so disparate that it's impossible to settle in and sit through all of the songs.

Simon & Garfunkel The sacred fairgrounds of the Monterey Pop and Monterey Jazz festivals will bear new children in June and July with an expanded reissue of the 1967 pop festival and a new label debuting unreleased jazz treasures. Hot off a new documentary that recently screened at SXSW, Starbucks and Razor & Tie Records are teaming up for the two-disc Monterey International Pop Festival, highlighted by previously unreleased songs by Buffalo Springfield and Simon & Garfunkel. And kicking off with its first five CDs in July, Monterey Jazz Festival Records taps into Louis Armstrong from 1958, Miles Davis from 1963, Thelonious Monk from 1964, and Shirley Horn and Grover Washington Jr., each from 1994.

 

The Marlboro Chorus, Returning with its most pop-friendly album to date, The Marlboro Chorus knocks out nine rock-and-roll numbers on American Dreamers. Drawing influence from Buddy Holly, Pink Floyd, and Bill Haley, American Dreamers sees The Marlboro Chorus putting aside art rock in favor of a straightforward album complete with guitar solos, magnificently simple lyrics, and a raw sound. From the black-and-white cover to the title of the record itself, American Dreamers feels so easy, but it was a long time coming.

With Spider-Man 3 swinging into theaters on May 4, next week the soundtrack comes calling in a variety of packages. Featuring exclusive songs from Snow Patrol, Wolfmother, The Walkmen, and The Killers, the soundtrack includes a track from the Flaming Lips that has my mind salivating with possibility at the title "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to Be in Love." A limited-edition eight-inch box set is made to resemble Spidey's rubberized suit, with a 32-page hardcover book, collectible cards, and one more Flaming Lips song, as the band rips through the "Theme from Spider-Man." Turntable spinners aren't left out, either, as a two-LP gatefold set and a series of four different picture discs are due from Record Collection Records. Spider-Man fever is also burning up Broadway, as Tony Award winner Julie Taymor (of Lion King fame) is working with Bono and The Edge of U2 on an upcoming live-theatre production.

Issue 629 Cover I'm looking for the secret heart of blues singer John Németh's blindsiding vocal soulfulness.

It probably doesn't come from his surroundings, because he's a native of Idaho.

And it probably doesn't come from experience, because he's only 30 years old.

But the unaffected soulfulness of this singer, songwriter, and harmonica player comes through in his performances both live and in the studio.

Carrie Newcomer Singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer tells about a friend who leads a group of people who knit for the local food bank. They'll set up somewhere and knit with a sign that reads, "Knitting for the Food Bank."

"People will come and talk to them," Newcomer said in a phone interview last week. "Folks who might not maybe go up to someone on the corner and talk to somebody who has a sign will sit down with a group of women knitting and talk about the issue. 'What's happening with the food bank?'"

Pages