Today, Neil Young popped on the list. This song’s not very old. It’s the eponymous Fork in the Road, which was a pitch-perfect send up to the recession. It really affected me in a time when the world was going more crazy than usual.

Anyway, I had to smirk when Shakey blasted out this verse:

Keep on bloggin’
‘Til the power goes out
Your battery’s dead
Twist and shout

Immediately preceding this great lyric is:

Download this
Sounds like shit

On the knee-slapping video of this bit, he has a pair of headphones plugged into an actual apple. After he sings that bit, he takes a bite out of the apple. Funny stuff, but it’s one hell of an irony that I love Neil so much I had Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World engraved on the back of my ipod.

Then it was off to Denver to see my sister-in-law. She and her husband have lived in Aurora for a couple years now. We shopped and ate and saw a ball game. A wonderful  trip all around.

The whole thing had a particular purpose, though. We went to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at Red Rocks. The concert didn’t disappoint. Krauss’ voice is incredible live. Plant was infecting everyone with his grooving enthusiasm. And Red Rocks. It is the most spectacular venue in America. Breath taking. You could tell the performers were more excited to see this place than the audience was!

Now, all of that was great. I really hoped that would be my impression. But, they snuck one in on me, too. Plant and Krauss teamed up with T Bone Burnett. He’s a legendary producer and a performer in his own right. They let him play a couple songs with just the band. The guy looked like an outlaw undertaker. He wore a long black coat, which just made his tall frame look leaner and meaner.

I had never heard his music before. It was good. Probably still not my style, but I enjoyed it. But, he played a song that just knocked me out. It’s called The Primitives. I had to go look it up later; the studio version is just as stirring. The chorus makes me smile and damn near frown at the same time:

Primitives dress in feathers and masks
To scare away their enemies
The frightening thing is not dying
The frightening thing is not living
Scientists guess which is worse we will ask
The medicine or the disease
The frightening thing is not dying
The frightening thing is not living

I’ll drink to that.

Fortunately, today there was plenty to enjoy. It was my night to cook. I got ambitious and tried to make chicken pad thai, one of my favorite treats at local Thai eateries. The experiment was a god awful smelling mess at first. That ubiquitous Thai ingredient, fish sauce, is potent stuff. Canada and the kids huddled in the front room while I tried to turn lead into gold for dinner.

Damnedest thing was, I managed to make it remarkably edible. We ate pad thai, and it had the right flavor, but not well blended. I could taste each ingredient, especially that fish sauce. It needed a subtler hand or a secret I don’t know. But, it was successful for a first stab.

After dinner, I told Canada I’d but us a new album. She quickly turned cynical and translated that as “Album for Matt.” Then, I made her listen and pick out the voices. She pegged Alison Krauss straight. That other vocal took a few minutes, but it hit her. Robert Plant.

Raising Sand is another bit of magic ingredients. I’d never have guessed Plant and Krauss would pair up and release an album. Turns out the thing’s damn good! Melodic and wistful, sprinkled with a bluesy swagger here and there. I picked it up on Amazon to test out their new MP3 downloads. A little bit of browser fuss didn’t outweigh their cheaper prices and lack of pesky digital rights management! Now, Canada and I can share tunes of an album with two of our favorite artists.

There’s gold in there somewhere.