A few last minute gift ideas, featuring 2012 boxsets and  from The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, Grateful Dead, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Heart, Strange Euphoria, Bob Dylan, The English Beat, Elvis Presley, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Los Lobos and Taj Mahal.   

Exactly how much more praise can we lavish upon Richard Thompson before his head explodes? How many more times can we hail his fluidity and invention as a guitarist in both acoustic and electric settings, his elegant brilliance as a songwriter, his honey-with-a-double-bourbon-chaser voice and his almost supernatural consistency before he turns into a pile of ash like a not-at-all-teenaged vampire? Well, let's give it one more shot, because Thompson's latest album, 'Dream Attic,' is (take a deep breath, everyone) fantastic.   

No one really knows what death feels like. If they did, they’d be dead. As a kid I remember looking out the back plate glass window into the backyard and telling my mother that the rays of sunshine poking through the clouds and hitting the valley below were people coming back from heaven after they died.