Listen to this Wilco Offshoot -- Pronto! (Heard)

Listening to a Wilco side projectsusually requires a bit of patience. Whether its Nels Cline shredding, or Glenn Kotche going off on the skins, or even the progressive rock of Loose Fur, the players are expanding their field and experimenting. And it's good music. I love both Loose Fur albums. But it takes some patience.

So what a treat to hear the fresh blast of 70s pop-rock on Pronto's debut All Is Golden. Pronto includes Wilco keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen and his former Lizard Music bandmate Eric Paparazzi.

Between the lead-off track Listen Lover and the closer I Think So there is little filler. This is one consistent, and accessible album, from the tender folk of Had & Have to the fuzzed-out Monster.

Pronto is at its best channeling The Band in I Don't Know Where All My Good Friends Have Gone and What Do You Know About You? When I'm on the Rocks sounds suspiciously like I Must Be High from Wilco's first album (a song penned long before Jorgensen joined the band).

You can hear the title track and I Don't Know Where All My Good Friends Have Gone on the right-hand side in Currently Playing.

Man Without an Ending (Read)

Late last week, I finished reading the Hugo Award-winning Man in the High Castle. It was my introduction to sci-fi legend Philip Dick, and I was immediately pulled into his terrifying alternative history. Following FDR's assassination, the U.S. was weakened and eventually lost World War II. Now the West Coast is Japanese territory and the East Coast belongs to the Germans. Dick makes this scenario feel realistic. It's quite chilling and draws you into the book. But, unfortunately, once the premise is set, the book goes nowhere and the ending is very unsatisfying.

Flaming Lips Cover Madonna (Seen)

Distractions' favorites Flaming Lips join Stardeath and Dwarfs for a spacy yet rocking version of Madonna's Borderline. Click here.

Rod MacDonald Returns (Heard)

Kudos to Rod MacDonald for another folk classic -- the 16-song set After the War, a stirring collection of both new and old material. The disc, which was produced by JP Bowersock, guitarist for Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, runs the folk gamut.

It includes the classic White Buffalo. But the highlight is actually Stop the War (also originally on White Buffalo), which sounds as relevant now as when Rod originally wrote it in 1982. Rod does a tender remake of the 1962 George Pitney hit Half Heaven, Half Heartache. George Gehring, who wrote the song, plays piano on the track. (Listen to Stop the War in Currently Spinning on the right-hand side of the page).

No, it's not the kind of move that's going to send Rod straight up the pop charts. But this is no oldies disc. Like all Rod's work, it's feels fresh and able to stand the test of time. And hey, Ballerina initially sounds like something out of the Hold Steady catalog before settling into something you could picture Bruce Springsteen or Ryan Adams singing.

LP Cover Lover -- Number Two (Seen)

I've already praised the cultural benefits -- and overall fun -- of the LP Cover Lover Web site. Well, you better sit down for this one. Men, you can stand. But don't miss yesterday's cover of The Bathrooms Are Coming, a 1969 classic "created, performed and released as a 'souvenir' to employees and customers by the American Standard bathroom fixtures company."

Go to Cover Lover and give this baby five stars. Then, head on over to WFMU's Beware of the Blog to hear the album in its beautiful entirety.

Just make sure to shut and lock the door behind you.

Nothing Comical About This Masterpiece (Heard)

Sunday morning.

Overcast skies

Sleeping in, then reading the Sunday paper in bed.

I've found Robert Wyatt's 2007 release Comicopera to be the perfect soundtrack for this type of morning. Wyatt's sad, sad voice and his mix of jazz, chamber-pop and avant garde are geared to those slow moments, where you can take time to let the music and words wash over you.

Comicopera is a 16-song set, broken up into three parts. If you're downloading, and short on dough, focus on the first part, starting off with the goosebump-inducing Stay Tuned.

Somebody Call a Priestly! (Read)

I picked up Steven Johnson's latest book not because of science, or even history, the author's areas of expertise.

It was religion.

The Invention of Air is Johnson's biography of Joseph Priestly, the founder and first minister of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. (It's aptly named, as the church is the first in the country to call itself "Unitarian.") The 14th minister of the First Unitarian was Rev. Ken Collier, who married me and my wife.

However, science plays a huge role in Johnson's book, which highlights Priestly's amazing string of success -- a productive eight-year period that included his discovery of oxygen and creation of soda water. It's probably just my lack of scientific curiosity, but I struggled through the middle of Invention. It seemed weighed down in science and unnecessary conjecture, as Johnson tries to find a connection between Priestly's amazing run of success and others, such as Joe Dimaggion's 56-game hitting streak.

Luckily, Priestly had a pretty amazing life outside of the home lab, too. He was an educator, writer, philosopher, politician, dissenting clergyman. It was his political and religious activity that led an angry mob to burn down his house and church, causing Priestly and his family to leave England for America.

Johnson gives Priestly a human quality, whether it's doing tricks for kids or conducting experiments at the local brewery.

Priestly was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. He was part of a group -- the Lunar Society -- that included not just one, but both of Charles Darwin's grandfathers.
Invention of Air is not really not just about Priestly. It's about an era, when men sat around coffeehouses discussing problems and searching for solutions; where science, philosophy, politics and religion mixed openly. Information was shared freely, which is why Joseph Schweppes ended up making millions off of Priestly's soda water.

Priestly makes for a fascinating topic and a book worth reading, even if it does veer just a little off course at times.