Cobain's 'Journals' at top of gift list

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The weather is turning cold, neighbors are sticking up more lights than the Griswolds, and Courtney Love is desperately digging for gold inside her dead husband's coffin.

Here's the Music Lover's Gift Guide, and "Kurt Cobain: Journals" is at the top of the list.

Honestly, it feels like a sin to leaf through Cobain's private thoughts, especially since the book (Riverhead Books, $29.95) reproduces handwritten pages straight from his spiral notebooks.

Yet, the book carries a voyeuristic energy. Whole sections lumber along, and then a tiny snippet will cast a Nirvana song in a fascinating new light.

Ultimately, "Journals" drives the reader back to Nirvana's music. As Cobain wrote: "Words suck ... words aren't as important as the energy derived from music, especially live."

More words: music-related books

When it comes to rock 'n' roll books, it's all about the old guys.

This year brought new stuff about the Grateful Dead, KISS, Led Zeppelin, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Rush and so on.

On the purely prurient level, Tommy Lee's "Motley Crue: The Dirt (Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band)" offers the most strippers/drugs/insanity per page.

For more discerning readers, "Shakey: Neil Young's Autobiography" is the finest music book of the year. Jimmy McDonough spent a decade trying to pin down the moody, difficult, contradictory artist through hours of interviews.

What results is an 800-page search for Neil Young, and I'm not sure if he's a charitable musical genius or a mean-spirited control freak who loves model trains because they allow him to be a god over his own universe.

Now this is music: albums

As for the big CD releases this year, only you know if the music lover in your house would prefer Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" or The Roots' "Phrenology."

But I want to plug one recording project with local connections.

Colorado Springs' own Western Jubilee Recording Co. has turned out good albums for a while now. But the best yet is this year's "High Lonesome Cowboy."

The album is a search for common ground between cowboy music and bluegrass (as part of Western Jubilee's "Appalachia to Abilene" series). Western singer Don Edwards and bluegrass leader Peter Rowan are the visionaries, with big assists from flatpicking virtuosos Tony Rice, Norman Blake and others.

This gem was recorded in Western Jubilee's cozy studio in downtown Colorado Springs. And it ranks up there with the best music to come out of the recent roots revival. ($15 at www.westernjubilee.com or call Western Jubilee at 635-9975 for other outlets).

Ideas from guys at the music stores

Unless you know EXACTLY what your beloved musician wants, buying a guitar or drum set is just too risky. Music store employees say lots of accessories make sense for the holidays.

Brad Denison, owner of Fall River Music at 410 S. Eighth St., recommends electronic tuners, metronomes, guitar pedals for funky effects ($35-$100), and guitar humidifiers (it's so dry here that acoustic guitars can crack and warp without some moisture, $12-$18).

Denison also sells drum sets for tiny guys. "My 2-year-old was in here playing on them," he says ($109 for the smallest, $299 for the next age up).

Hand drums such as bongos and djembes are great gifts for beginners or drummers looking to branch out, say Joe Phillips at Meeker Music and Andy Walter at Graner School Music.

Phillips says the sale of hand drums exploded in recent years. Walter, drummer for the band Martini Shot, says djembes run $38 (for a seven-inch head) to $400, while bongos are $34 to $200. He says more mallets and cymbals are always on his Christmas list too.

Guitarists may want a peg winder to make changing strings easier (a few bucks), a guitar restoration kit from Gibson for $17 or specially coated Elixir strings for $14, says Steve Miles of the Folklore Center (who plays with the Miles Rinsky Project on Tuesday nights at 32 Bleu).

Miles says Ultrastands music stands ($25) are also a good choice. "We sold a lot of stands just today," Miles says. "It's a really good stand, so the drunks don't knock them over - and that's just the guys in the band."

If you have time to stop at only one place, make it The Dulcimer Shop at 740 Manitou Ave. in Manitou Springs. It's nearly impossible to leave without something.

"We had a guy from New York come in and say, 'I've never seen such a collection of crazy (stuff) in my life,'" says Bud Ford, owner for 33 years. "I said, 'Please sir, we prefer to call it eclectic merchandise.'"

Ford has lots of hand drums, American Indian flutes ($66), crystal flutes ($55), and the Melody Maker miniature hammered dulcimer ($40).

On the novelty side, The Dulcimer Shop has the Humanatone nose flute ($1.50), which Ford will be happy to demonstrate, all kinds of whistles and bells, a jaw harp for $5, a rack of castanets and claves and finger cymbals, and "the ever-popular kazoo ($1.50-$2.50)," says Ford.

Rock fans should check out the Janis Joplin and Rolling Stones lunch boxes ($15.95). And The Dulcimer Shop is stocked with all kinds of Grateful Dead merch: cookie jars, a dancing bear alarm clock ($23.95), teddy bears and the Jerry doll ("a classic, complete with his hair and wire-rim glasses and anatomically correct right hand," says Ford, $25).