This is better than therapy

We music obsessives are a sad bunch, aren't we? It's tough to get ordinary folks to listen to us prattle on about the latest happenings in pop music. We scare our mates, our parents, our hairstylists and our mail carriers with our zeal for discussing the latest MTV video or who's on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Which goes to show that we music freaks need a place for our own party chitchat. A place to exchange ideas, name-drop hot new talent, recommend a disc, discuss a video, DVD, the latest awards show, trends, who said what.

Here's the deal: I tell you what's rocking my world. You e-mail me your feedback, suggestions and heads up on what's rocking yours. Together, we'll stay hip, current, au courant as the French say. (But what do they know about pop music?)

So what if we scare our loved ones with our enthusiasm for this stuff? We'll have each other!

On that note, this week's column has a sort of "demented genius" theme:

GREAT NEW CDS: I'm loving the new Queens of the Stone Age disc, Songs for the Deaf, with guest drummer Dave Grohl, former Nirvana skin-pounder. Unfortunately, Grohl's band, the Foo Fighters, are not pricking up my ears with tepid new release One By One.

Then there's the "new" Nirvana single, You Know You're Right: slow, haunting verses, big brash chorus. Can you say f-o-r-m-u-l-a, Mr. Cobain? (Well, no, he can't say anything these days.) So we've heard this number before. Still, Cobain did it better than most. The tune rocks more than most radio fare, and it is the first cut on the greatest hits package finally released recently, which leads us to . . .

THE LAWSUIT THAT WOULDN'T DIE: Grohl and Krist Noveselic have finally settled that nagging lawsuit with the widow Cobain, er, Courtney Love. Details are sketchy, but Nirvana fans got the greatest hits package and can expect the long-awaited Nirvana box set in 2004. There's also talk of a rarities disc containing some of the never-heard tunes Ms. Love was hoarding. (Grohl and Noveselic have wanted to let fans hear the music for years; Love wouldn't budge -- until now.)

"As much trouble and as many hurdles and obstacles as we had to go through to get this stuff out, I think it's worth it," Grohl told www.cdnow.com, "just because there's people out there who really regard Nirvana as something important. And I'd hate to deny anyone of that."

BOOK: Check out Kurt Cobain's Journals (Riverhead, $29.95). It features pages of handwritten journal entries, lyrics, doodles and drawings culled from 20 notebooks Cobain left behind. Cobain's estate -- that would be Love and lil' Frances Bean -- was rumored to have been paid $4-million for the journals, and Love was allowed to edit them. So, that's why there are no nasty entries about the Missus!

VERY COOL WEB SITE: If you dig early Pink Floyd -- and who in the classic rock-loving Tampa Bay area doesn't? -- check out the Web site groups.yahoo.com/group/LaughingMadcaps for a recent interview with 1960s luminary Mark Wirz. He discusses his friendship with Floyd founder and certified wackjob Syd Barrett, who had a mental breakdown and had to leave the band in the early 1970s. The site includes a discussion group for Barrett acolytes.

SHOW US YOUR HANDS IF YOU STILL CARE ABOUT AXL: At the MTV Music Video Awards, Axl Rose and "Guns N' Roses" (yeah, it's in quotes on purpose -- who were those guys?) got folks talking with that haphazard reunion set. Can you say train wreck? Rose himself joked on the band's Web site of the lineup: "Okay, let's see. We have Mini Me and Nipsy Russell and Charles Nelson Riley and Colin Powell. Just kidding."

Now, Axl, the guy with the KFC bucket on his head and Tommy Stinson, former bassist for the Replacements, are hitting the road. The revamped G n'R arrives at the St. Pete Times Forum on Dec. 10. But Rose has already resorted to his old habit of not showing at gigs; he didn't show last week in Vancouver. Rose is still not ready to discuss a release date for the elusive Chinese Democracy, which will, someday we reckon, be the followup to G n'R's last album of new material, 1991's Use Your Illusion double set.

LAST: Fans of television's That '70s Show, pay attention. This season the writers have named each episode for a Led Zeppelin tune. (That band's demented genius? Come on, the late, great John "Bonzo" Bonham.) You've got your I Can't Quit You Baby, your Going To California. A Black Dog.

- To contact Gina Vivinetto, e-mail gina@sptimes.com

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