Los Angeles is a driving city. Here, everything, everything, is at least twenty minutes from anything else. Except during rush hour, when everything is, at very least, an hour’s drive.

Of course, as a subway-riding New Yorker, I’ve actually rather enjoyed the countless car hours. If nothing else, they’re prime listening time, and throughout LA’s highways, byways, surface streets and back alleyways, I’ve been burning the grooves off the trusty CDs I brought with me.

By now, however, after nearly two months of heavy listening, those CDs are beginning to bore me to tears. Which is why, earlier today, I swung by the exceedingly impressive Amoeba Music (on Sunset) and picked up a couple of new CDs.

Feeling the need to bolster my alt-country holdings, I bought:

• Son Volt – Trace
• Uncle Tupleo – 89/93: An Anthology
• Whiskeytown – Stranger’s Almanac
• Wilco – Being There

All of which thoroughly impressed me on first listening and further bolstered my growing appreciation for the genre. A few weeks of this and I might could almost be a Southerner.