What’s the first album you bought? When? Why?

Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends. It was also the first Jewish album I ever bought.  The first gentile album I ever bought was Abbey Road, and the second gentile album was Creedence Clearwater Revival. I listened to Bookends
over and over [starts singing the title song].  It’s very
Jewish—it actually has voices of old people in a nursing
home. It’s the only rock album with a Jewish nursing home in it.

What was the best concert you ever saw? What made it so great?    

The best rock concert I ever saw would have to be one of many Grateful Dead concerts. I went to some forty or fifty.

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If you could join any band, what would it be?

It
would be the Dead, even without Jerry. The best would be the late
70s era, though. I like everything they were playing then:
"Weather Report," "Wake of the Flood."

What’s the most embarrassing album you own?

The
Judds. Naomi and the other Judd. It’s not that embarrassing,
but it’s still pretty bad. Also, you know, "House At Pooh Corner,"
Loggins & Messina, all that melodic stuff.

Name the song you loved so much you played it to death.

There are Dead songs I’ve played too much. I did that to "Box of Rain."

What song do your parents wish you’d never heard?

"Why Don’t We Do It in the Road"— it led to a very embarrassing period.  We’ll leave it at that.

What slow dance song do you most remember from your bar mitzvah? Why?

I
wasn’t bar mitzvah’d, and I don’t remember going to any bar mitzvah
parties.  When I was a kid, bar mitzvahs were just bar
mitzvahs. We didn’t have big parties. It wasn’t like when my
kids’ friends were getting bar mitzvah’d and they’d play these songs
like "That’s What Friends Are For" and all the girls would
sway. That I remember from my daughter’s era.

What’s the most recent album you’ve purchased?

I
usually purchase albums to replace the ones I’ve lost. Lately I’ve
bought Dar Williams, but also, like, my eighth copy of Workingman’s Dead or *Nassau**Coliseum, May 10, 1980*.  My son programmed my iPod, so I’ve also been listening to that.

What’s the most Jewish your music collection gets?

It
doesn’t get very Jewish. We play klezmer music on the show every
day, on the Al Franken Show, but in my collection, the most Jewish it
gets is Simon & Garfunkel or Bob Dylan. Who else was Jewish?

Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, KISS…

I hate KISS.