Heady Metal, Britain's Favorite DJ, and a Defense of Americana's Best Killers

Sufjan Stevens live!"Put Sufjan Stevens on/And we'll play your favorite song," says Gary Lightbody on Snow Patrol's new "Hands Open." You know you're on to something when peers are literally singing your praises. On Stevens' just-completed U.S. tour, he debuted a remarkable nine-minute-plus theme song, "Majesty Snowbird," which began with a small piano figure redolent of Satie but drew tears with an expansive, noisy finale. The show was poignant by nature and funny by design: During a Christmas song, dozens of inflatable Santa Claus dolls were dropped on the crowd like beach balls at an REO Speedwagon show.


John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft'sMargrave of the Marshes (Bantam Press)On October 25, 2004, the famed BBC DJ John Peeldied of a heart attack while on vacation in Peru. A year later came this (auto)biography — started by the man himself and completed by his wife. Among the book's revelations: Peel getting buggered by a bully as a teenage schoolboy; dissed by Marc Bolan after T. Rex became famous; and physically abused by his first wife, a 15-year-old Texas schoolgirl he married during a '60s stint living in America. Scandal, however, is not why you should read this. Rather, it's a road map to sustaining idiosyncrasy in a world where "eclecticism" is a brand. Buying Sub Pop records, shopping at American Apparel and listening to KCRW doesn't make you interesting; by contrast, Peel's tastes — which ran from grindcore to happy hardcore techno to the works of Africa's Four Brothers — were exquisitely unreliable. I always assumed Peel fell victim to a heart attack because he fell in love with too much, too madly — the Fall, the Undertones' "Teenage Kicks," Liverpool football. What comes across, though, is mildness, kindness and endless curiosity. Margrave is available only as an import, yet it deserves a proper U.S. release. Perhaps next October — upon the third anniversary of his death?