I have been a pretty big PJ Harvey fan for a long time, but my attention has waned in recent years. I haven’t been super impressed with any of her albums in years; I haven’t followed the type of music news that would cover her material. I am out of the loop, I guess you’d say. But when I saw an ad for her show with John Parish I felt interested and decided I’d like to see her again. The last time I saw PJ Harvey was a momentous evening: September 10, 2001. Nine or ten hours after the show, plane…

I want to spend a few weeks introducing some of my favorite Polish bands. I lived in Poland from the middle of 2002 until the middle of 2004, and I spent a lot of time trying to find good rock bands there. It was a struggle. Polish radio consisted mainly of boring Anglo-American pop and R & B and mainstream American hip hop, with a smattering of weak Polish variations on the same kind of music. (You can listen for yourself .) After years of struggle, though (during which I learned almost to like…