I did not rock this year. My 2003 and 2004 was full of music and even rock. I saw Elvis Costello in July 2003 and yelled along with every song making the full circle of my adult life from rec room 1978 complete. I saw, lost my hearing and stood around with Sloan in October 2003. And in spring 2004 we went to see Sarah Harmer start the tour for her last album which was fine but did not blow me away like her summer 2002 concert in Summerside PEI did. I even found Franz in 2004 but stupid, stupid, stupid man that I am passed up seeing them in a pub that summer.

But now there is hope I will engage again with the world of music. I may rock again. This Friday the CD random play button is playing Green Day's Dookie, Franz Ferdinand's second record as well as Sarah Harmer's new CD I'm A Mountain. It is perfect, both the mix and this last CD. Sarah is back to her best and it is hard to describe it other than by how the new work speaks to her confidence. There is something Billy Bragg about her that works even though it is guitar, plunky banjo and double bass. The sort of thing you might hear on Prairie Home Companion if they had any sense in the booking department there. The instrumentation choices are sound, the lyrics are solid and the music is fun, robust and saucy. Like Bragg you have the sense you want to meet the person, that the art is the identity. I have to console myself in the knowledge that we likely buy strings at the same place.

Buy this CD.