The amount of music and music-related stuff that crosses my path – whether landing in my mailbox or found via the net – gets overwhelming. My hope with Record Needles in the Camel’s iPod was to give space to this.

Have I been keeping up on that end? Not at all.

So, here’s my first blast at redemption.

A glance of the things that came into my orbit in the last couple days weren’t exactly “all new.” They all had a warm familiarity and that can be a wonderful thing.

In the last couple years, Ani DiFranco has made more local news as  patron saint of the corner of West Tupper and Delaware. That’s hardly the whole story, however.

Beyond the rehabbing of the historic downtown church she now calls Babeville, Ani’s also been busy being a mother to daughter Petah (born in January 2007) and not so much slowing down her musical life as balancing it with her new role. 2007’s best of Canon marked a quick stop gap as DiFranco was readying to move ahead. Her new album finally comes out September 30 and some well-placed friends over at Righteous Babe made sure I got a copy of Red Letter Year a little early.

A couple listens in, it has to be her most daring and engaging work in years. In some ways, it feels like the “post-Ani” Ani record. While it doesn’t lack any of the immediacy of her earlier work, it does bear the marks of a record that was slowly and carefully put together over time. Her writing is a naked and honest as it’s ever been but there’s a tempered subtley and a very jazz imbued flair. Ani getting torchy? A little bit and it’s a terrific turn of events. You can see the goings on of all things Ani at her Righteous Babe site.

And on the other side of riot grrrl rock/feminism aisle, Rhino says “We do put out!” to one the greatest punk movies ever. Now, everyone can finally see Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains!

The 1981 cult classic chronicling the rise and fall of an all girl punk band in the seamy world of rock and roll – with a cast including real punks like Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, The Clash’s Paul Simonon and “white punk on dope” Fee Waybill – had about a thirty second theatrical release and would only occasionally pop up on late night cable television in the ’80s, filling hours on the old USA Network’s killer wee weekend hours program Night Flight. Otherwise, it was a coveted bootleg in the days of VHS.

Finally, a very spiffed up digital release is on the shelves as the first installment of Rhino’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Cinema series. The DVD has the usual upgraded sound and picture and includes breand new commentary track with stars Diane Lane and Laura Dern as well as one with director Lou Adler.

It’s a full-on girl punk revival almsot thirty years later. The Stains even have their own MySpace page.

And as I go back through my past, I can admit that I owned Tony! Toni! Toné!’s 1993 new jack swing opus Sons Of Soul highlighted by the irrepresible hit “If I Had No Loot,” complete with its Ice Cube sample. The band issued one more album before Raphael Saadiq went solo. Now, Saadiq on his own was always a bit of a headscratcher. I liked some of his production work but his Lucy Pearl project was lackluster and his solo records sounded – to me – like unremarkable standard fare r&b/soul,pop.  What happened to that son of soul?

This time he got it so right it’s as if he stepped out of Hitsville USA studio circa ‘66 into a time machine.

An unabashed homage, with The Way I See It Saddiq has made a record of all new tunes but written and recorded with the stylistic earmarks, cool and sheer power of prime Motown, Stax, Huff/Gamble and the like. Saadiq has never been a straight revivalist. He was always the type to mix a bit of “old school” so as not to scare off modern audiences. This time around, he’s clearly not worrying about that.

One look at the Marvin Gaye-aping cover and you get an idea where he’s going.

The bio reads, “Listening to The Way I See It, it’s immediately obvious that it could have been recorded thirty years ago.”

Thirty years? Try forty!

The entire record is in the vein of ’60s to early ’70s-style soul. It’s a gem and I’m hooked. Listen to some songs here.

I never really got around to fully recapping my SXSW 2008 beyond this Day One report featured in ARTVOICE. At this late point, a full rehash of the dirty particulars is just not gonna happen.

Needless to say, my trip to the annual music conference last month was everything I expected. Perhaps I’ve come to expect a lot because hopes were high and it was ultimately tremendous. There’s more to it than seeing 80+ bands over a week. There’s more to it than getting into the Texas sun in throes of a dreary Buffalo March. There’s more to it than the over the legal limit of bbq and mexican food.

In my five years of attending I can only put it as something kin to a lost week at a music lover’s Disneyworld. It’s overwhelming, overloading, kinda surreal and often like a dream come true.

Yeah, dreams come true. Like those Disneyworld vacation ads. Is this a hokey take on what’s supposed to be a music industry powwow? Maybe, but I do mean it with sincerity.

Where else can you see the bands that everyone will be talking about in the coming months, bask in the sheer ego of Lou Reed celebrating himself in conversation about what a genius he is or stand by side with one of the guitarist/singers of the only band that mattered?

The good news for Clash and Big Audio Dynamite fans: Jonesy has lost nuthin’, erm… ‘cept maybe some hair. His latest project Carbon/Silicon (with Generation X/Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Tony James) is sharp, worldly punk-infused rock and roll heavy on thoughts and hooks. Carbon/Silicon’s full length The Last Post (Caroline) is a refreshing record loaded with rock that you can believe in and raise a flag for.It’s the perfect antecedent to The Clash and B.A.D. Punk ain’t dead, it just keeps getting funkier.

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