Here are two songs of Escovedo's, one, "Arizona," off his new release, the other a re-release from 2002.

I've been a fan since

and I think

one of my favorite albums, so it's a happy week that Escovedo, who's survived a lengthy and vicious fight with Hep C (there's a reason so many of the songs, and album titles, are about drinking), releases a new, and extremely good, album.

Dark, haunting, forlorn, uncanny. Strange and familiar. A friend who knows you too well. A friend you don't know at all.