Music notes

iPod rules! iPod rules! Intergalactic shuffle mode! Is there a better working band in America than Cracker? I don't think so. Gin Blossoms were the Raspberries of their day. Especially on "Til I Hear It From You" -- that could be the magic touch of Marshall Crenshaw that took them all the way. Who rocks? Elvis Costello rocks. That's who rocks. Sitting at the ice cream stand on Sunday, forced to listen to "oldies," Johnny Rivers's "Poor Side of Town" comes on and I have to rush right home and listen to the Nick Lowe version. Some songs did not need violins, okay? Also, Nick slowed it down a touch, if that's even possible to imagine. If you haven't seen Mark Romanek's video for Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt," you must. It is nothing less than an elegy for a man who hasn't left us yet. There will be tears.