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• Wednesday, June 27, 2007 10:44 PM

  Help me, I can't stop expanding this list

  Tom Waits is f*cking amazing. To see that incredible voice booming out of that skinny, electric body was breathtaking. And the man has class.

  For my money, Wilco is the best large-scale rock band these days, but TV on the Radio might catch up to them. People tell me Radiohead is up there.

  McCoy Tyner pounds the heaviest, most relentless hard bop I've ever heard in my life.

  If Charles Mingus formed a funk band, it would sound like Boostamonte.

  David Murray is from another planet.

  The Jacob Fredd Jazz Odyssey lives up to its name. The drummer holds them back, but they go on some wicked journeys.

  I love every incarnation I've seen Skerik and Matt Dillon (formerly of Critters Buggin') in. Their musical rigor, interplay, eclecticism, and audacaioiusness can't be beat.

  Gang Gang Dance sucked me deep into their crazy polyrhythms.

  Mike Watt is a force of nature, no matter who he's playing with.

  I'll never forget seeing the Extra Action Marching Band run a bad hair metal band off the stage of the Giant Rubber Ducky at Burning Man.

  The way the Boredoms pulled precise changes out of cacophony blew me away.

  I never miss a show of local boys My Last Day on Earth.

  The happiness and danciness emanating from Toots and the Maytals should be bottled and shipped off to war zones.

  I almost didn't go see Bruce Springsteen solo acoustic, but he was intense. I've never seen anyone command an auditorium with an acoustic guitar like that.

  Todd Snider tells the same stories every time, but he can make a theater or a festival feel intimate.

  Jason Webley has earned a cult following with his 2 hour+ one man accordion band shows. I've never seen anyone get jaded hipsters to sing along and act like kindergartners like he can.

  Jonathan Richman is enthralling and heart breaking.

  Antony and the Johnsons and CocoRosie made me cry.

  When I think of New Orleans good time music, I think of Anders Osborne--ideally at the Rock n Bowl.

  Daniel Lanois plays healing music. It's like a soft blanket that envelopes you. His guitar tone is the most luscious I've ever heard.

  But having said all that, none of them are in the same league as the Grateful Dead.

  Neurosis is the "bizarro world" Grateful Dead. They're the only band that approaches the same magnitude of primal musical energy.

  And Akron/Family might be the most psychedelic show I've ever seen.

  I can only think of three bad trips (that I haven't repressed):

  Will Bernard sounds like he should be good, but he can't finish a solo to save his life and he has no guts or imagination.

  The String Cheese Incident has the emotional range of an ecstasy overdose.

  M83 was so lifeless and pre-recorded, I haven't listened to his great music since.

  —Jeremy in SF Read Jeremy in SF's other letters
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