The illusion of Guitar Hero II is powerful. Standing in my living room with a tiny plastic Gibson SG, I pull off a soul ripping solo on Heart-Shaped Box.

And gain a new appreciation for many fine guitarists.

And a renewed (if slightly nostalgic) love of grunge.

And that's just the second stop on the tour.

Scanning radio stations on the way home, I stopped (on the lower end of the dial) to listen to one of those story songs, some crusty raconteur reliving some nutty story, with musical accompaniment to nudge the story along. There was probably a character missing a tooth, an eye or a leg. Probably booze was involved. I waited for the punch line, and it was delivered.

Then I found out about X-treme Folk.

Which, apart from the moniker, is a pretty cool concept for a Friday night radio program.

I've often wondered why the good public radio stations don't broadcast more adventurous overnight programming. The generous blue hairs wouldn't cut them out of their wills because someone played an edgy song at 3am. God knows Merck wouldn't mind.

Radio needs more late night raconteurs. (But thanks for the effort, Jack White).

Sometimes I just get so tired of music.

But...

Only Skin from Joanna Newsome's "Ys," the kind of record music writers overuse metaphors to describe. I haven't read the reviews. I hadn't listened to the record. But after a month in which nothing seemed to inspire anything in me, it was this song that caused me to stop pressing shuffle and listen start to finish.

I love that it's her voice - her weird little voice rather than predictable drums and bass - that provide the stability, the shelf on which this song rests.

I presume the analog tape is at least partly responsible for the lovely timbre of her voice.