The View On Pop Culture: Tommy Womack, Todd Snider, Will Hoge (2003)

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THE BEST OF NASHVILLE, 2003

Tommy Womack could easily be the poster child for Nashville’s non-country music scene. There’s enough Rolling Stones vibe coursing through his veins to make him persona non gratis among Music Row’s country label elite, and just enough twang in his voice to scare off all but the gutsiest rock radio programmers and label A&R people. As a result, this talented cult artist is slipping through the cracks and is in danger of becoming a footnote in the city’s musical history.

‘Tis a shame, too, ‘cause Womack is one of the brightest talents that the “Third Coast” has to offer. His self-released Washington D.C. was recorded last year in the nation’s capital, a live XM satellite radio broadcast beamed out into the universe with no second takes and no overdubs, just 54 minutes or straight-forward rock ‘n’ roll. A collection of songs culled from Womack’s three studio albums, along with the odd tune from previous bands (the bis-quits, Government Cheese); Washington D.C. is a perfect showcase for Womack’s songwriting skills and performance acumen.

The band that Womack assembled for the gig is a tight as a drum, with old friend Kenny McMahan providing a six-string counterpart to Womack’s imaginative fretwork. Womack’s music mixes roots rock and punkish intensity with Southern flavor, distilling it all into his unique trademark sound. It’s the lyrics that stand out, tho’, Womack’s world filled with saints and sinners, whores and virgins, his words drenched with passion, rage, insight, and humor. Tunes like “Betty Was Black (& Willie Was White)” and “I Don’t Have A Gun” tackle racism and hypocrisy while “Fake It ‘Til You Make It” offers a helpful philosophy for life and “Up Memphis Blues” pays homage to the King. If you prefer your music to have an edgy intelligence and wit instead of mindless trendiness, you should grab a copy of Womack’s Washington D.C.

Tunesmith Todd Snider’s career resembles Womack’s in more ways than one. Snider is also an enormously gifted songwriter, adding brains and laughter to his material, and the two have shared the stage together, written songs together and both have struggled against a star-making machinery that has found them too honest, too unpredictable, and too unmarketable for prime time. Thankfully, John Prine’s Oh Boy Records continues to support Snider’s work, his latest – Near Truths and Hotel Rooms – a collection of live performances from the last year.

Much like Washington D.C. showcases Womack’s underrated abilities, so too does Near Truths and Hotel Rooms serve as a wonderful introduction to Snider’s folkish material. Whereas lighthearted, comedic tunes like the raucous “Beer Run” or the satirical “Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” have earned Snider a reputation as alternative music’s court jester; his heavier fare reveals a darker, more serious side. Bittersweet tales like “Lonely Girl” or “I Spoke As A Child” illustrate a poet’s grasp of human complexity while story-songs like “Easy Money” or “D.B. Cooper” are realistic and insightful portrayals of the absurdity of life. Snider’s between-song stories and comments define his personality and are almost as interesting as his songs. With an acoustic guitar and a song, Snider has traveled the highways and back roads of America for over a decade. He has a lot of tales to tell, and Near Truths and Hotel Rooms will whet the appetite of any interested listener.

Will Hoge doesn’t bring the same pedigree or experience to his music as Womack or Snider, but he’s a young talent on the rise. Hoge’s major label affiliation hasn’t seemed to have watered down his music to any degree, Blackbird On A Lonely Wire (Atlantic Records) an exciting work by a rapidly maturing songwriter and performer. Hoge’s obvious musical heroes are giants like Springsteen, Dylan, John Fogerty, and John Lennon. Rather than wearing his influences on his sleeve, Hoge brings a fresh perspective to the table, combining super-charged rock with pop melodies and some of the finest romantic songwriting you’ve heard since the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine over the Jersey state line.

Romance is Hoge’s muse, whether it’s the flame of the moment that burns a little too hot, the bittersweet love that got away or the unrequited dream that never was. With the backing of a damn fine band that snaps and pops like a string of firecrackers, Hoge’s lovelorn lyrics and mournful vocals betray a weary heart. “Hey Tonight” will reduce all but the most jaded listener to tears while you can literally feel the heartache in “Secondhand Heart.” The thinly veiled jealousy and self-loathing that fills “Someone Else’s Baby” is painted with the skill of a Picasso. The album closes with the beautiful “Baby Girl,” a ballad with weeping pedal-steel guitar that has more in common with Roger McGuinn than Garth Brooks. There are half a dozen songs on Blackbird On A Lonely Wire that would sound great on the radio, preferably sandwiched between songs by Tommy Womack and Todd Snider.    

Chances are that you won’t hear Nashville’s best music on the radio, though. While the city’s “Music Row” continues to crank out country-fried pop divas and Stetson-topped, bluejean-clad male pseudo-traditionalists, the real talents are making records for obscure little indie labels and playing night after night to audiences that you can count on the fingers of your two hands. While artists like Womack, Snider, and Hoge follow their rock ‘n’ roll dreams, they toil alongside kindred spirits like Jason Ringenberg, Bill Lloyd, Threk Michaels, Donna Frost, Mark Aaron James and many more who have never found the acceptance and success that they so richly deserve. (View From The Hill, 2003)

Short Rounds: Buzzcocks, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Charlie Daniels & Friends, Will Hoge, The Pretty Things & Walter Trout (October 2022)

New album releases in 200 words or less…

Buzzcocks – Sonics In the Soul (Cherry Red Records U.K.)
British punk/new wave legends Buzzcocks built their reputation on Pete Shelley’s caustic, insightful lyrics; Steve Diggle’s livewire fretwork; and an overall melodic, high-octane pop-punk sound that became influential far beyond the band’s modest record sales. Since reuniting in 1989 after an eight-year hiatus, Buzzcocks has been firing on all cylinders, Shelley and Diggle ensuring that they remained a vital creative outfit and not a ‘nostalgia’ act. With Shelley’s death in 2018, the band’s first album without its charismatic frontman had to be a daunting challenge to record. Diggle proves with Sonics In the Soul that there’s still gas left in the Buzzcocks’ tank. Flanked by longtime bassist Chris Remington and drummer Danny Farrant, Sonics In the Soul is essentially a Diggle solo album, but one sporting the crucial ‘fast ‘n’ loud’ Buzzcocks sonic ethos. Diggle’s voice takes getting used to, and his attack-dog guitarplay pales somewhat by the loss of Shelley’s counterpoint. But songs like the locomotive “Manchester Rain” or the riff-littered “Bad Dreams” display a fierce creativity and musical deftness matching or surpassing the band’s previous post-millennial albums. Extra credit awarded for “Don’t Mess With My Brain”, a rifftastic stomped that blends typical Buzzcocks’ lyrical wit with stunning instrumentation. Grade: A-   BUY!

Creedence Clearwater Revival – At The Royal Albert Hall (Craft Recordings)
Just as CCR’s enormous success as a “singles band” (nine Top 10 singles in four years) often overshadowed their album-making prowess, so too did it obscure their strength as a live outfit. As proven by 2019’s long-overdue release of Live At Woodstock, and this recent At The Royal Albert Hall, Creedence was a white-hot live band, each performance bristling with fire and brimstone. This is the first release of the April 1970 show*, which straddles Willie & the Poor Boys and the upcoming Cosmo’s Factory, but the setlist is well-balanced across albums and includes all the “classic rock” radio hits – “Fortunate Son”, “Born On the Bayou”, “Proud Mary”, and “Travelin’ Band” – as well as gems like “Midnight Special” and an extended “Keep On Chooglin’” jam among its dozen tiki-torches. A few deep cuts stand out, notably their bluesy cover of “The Night Time Is the Right Time”, which is closer in spirit to Ray Charles’ version than to Nappy Brown’s original; the riotous, punk-fierce B-side “Commotion”; and the swamp-blues fever of “Tombstone Shadow”.  It’s a shame that no CCR live LPs were released during their heyday (Live In Europe was a posthumous release) as Creedence was a helluva performing outfit. Grade: A+   BUY!  

* The Royal Albert Hall Concert album was released by Fantasy Records in 1980 to cash in on the band’s lingering reputation, but mistakes were made and the tapes used were actually from a January 1970 show at the Oakland Coliseum. Fantasy recalled the album and reissued it months later as The Concert – same cover, same concert, different title…  

Charlie Daniels & Friends – Volunteer Jam 1, 1974: The Legend Begins (Blue Hat Records)
Southern Rock had been around for a half-decade by the time that Charlie Daniels held the first ‘Volunteer Jam’ at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville. It could be argued, however, that October 4th, 1974 was the day that Southern Rock burst into the mainstream, the first of 21 total Volunteer Jams held over the next 47 years, the event eventually outliving its creator. That entire 1974 show has never been released commercially (two live songs from the concert were included on the band’s 1974 Fire On the Mountain LP). Aside from Daniels’ crackerjack band, the performance includes “friends” like the Marshall Tucker Band’s Toy Caldwell and Paul Riddle and the Allman Brothers Band’s Dickey Betts and Jamie Nichol. The twelve-song tracklist skews heavily towards CDB’s upcoming Fire album, including the Top 30 hit “The South’s Gonna Do It”, and is fairly indicative of the talented band’s set at the time. Daniels was a skilled multi-instrumentalist, keyboardist/singer “Taz” DiGregorio could have fronted his own band, and guitarist Barry Barnes was the CDB’s secret weapon. Honestly, you either love Southern Rock and the 1970s-era CBD or you don’t; but for fans, this set is long-overdue document of a talented, hot-shit band. Grade: A   BUY!

Note: With this new CD, six of the first seven Volunteer Jams have been released on vinyl/CD, with 1976’s self-titled Volunteer Jam album comprised of a handful of performances from the 1975 Murfreesboro TN event. Jams III (1977) and IV (1978) were condensed onto a single double-LP set, while VI (1980) and VII (1981) received single-disc releases. The landmark 1979 (V) jam has never been released, although the show featured the reunion of Lynyrd Skynyrd for the first time since the 1977 plane crash that killed several band members; the event also included guests like Toy Caldwell and George McCorkle from the Marshall Tucker Band, John Prine, Link Wray, and the Winter Brothers Band, among many others. I was there and it was a pretty explosive moment when the surviving Skynyrd members hit the stage … so when will we see the show on CD?

Will Hoge – Wings On My Shoes (Edlo Records)
Nashville’s Will Hoge has long drawn inspiration as a lyricist from the late, great John Prine but, with the album-opening “John Prine’s Cadillac”, he picks up the songwriting legend’s mantle with an exquisitely-drawn story-song that offers up brilliant lyrical imagery while also serving as a reverent tribute to the fallen troubadour. It’s just the first of an album’s worth of fine material on Hoge’s Wings On My Shoes, and if the singer/songwriter has moved slightly away from his earlier power-pop, jangle-rock sound to a rootsier, Americana sound, it hasn’t lessened his poetic acumen or energetic delivery. Gorgeous love songs like “It’s Just You” and “The Last One To Go” are brimming over with romantic yearning while story-songs like “Dead Man’s Hand” and “Queenie” draw from the Prine/Guy Clark school of penmanship. The wonderful, nostalgic “Ain’t Like It Used To Be” is about my former hometown, contrasting the old, rural town with the new, upscale city while “Whose God It This?” is wickedly satirical, its humorous narrative hitting the MAGA bullseye. Each performance is infused with soulful vocals, ringing guitars, and a big drumbeat; if this is the sound of “new country,” then I’m all in… Grade: A   BUY!     

The Pretty Things – Live At the BBC (Repertoire Records U.K.)
Even if relatively obscure stateside, the Pretty Things were one of the better bands from the British Invasion and they enjoyed a lengthy career that spanned six decades and a couple dozen albums, right up to the tragic passing of longtime band frontman Phil May. The material included on this six-disc box set was originally broadcast by BBC radio and although a lot of it has been previously-released on a handful of collections, this compilation is the last word on the British rocker’s hometown performances. Live At the BBC packs a lot of energy and vitality into its six discs, which offer performances from as early as an October 1964 appearance on the ‘Saturday Club’ show through a July 1975 performance for legendary British DJ John Peel. There are a lot of stops in-between over the decade-plus documented here, capturing the band in its various guises, from R&B shouters to psychedelic pioneers to hard rockers. Sure, there’s a lot of duplication of songs from various shows, but where else are you going to hear turbo-charged live takes on great tunes like “SF Sorrow Is Born”, “Religion’s Dead”, “Belfast Cowboys”, “Defecting Grey”, “Rosalyn”, and “Singapore Silk Torpedo”, among many others? Grade: A+   BUY!

Walter Trout – Ride (Provogue Records)
At 70 years old, Walter Trout still performs with the energy and creative vitality of an artist half his age. The life-scarred blues veteran has been treading the bricks for nearly 50 years at this point and with Ride, his 30th album, Trout proves that there’s a lot of life left in the old road dog. The guitarist is always looking for ways to challenge himself musically, so Ride showcases Trout’s songwriting and instrumental skills in a variety of blues-based styles. Album-opening “Ghosts” is a hauntingly-brilliant (pun intended) blues-rock flamethrower while the biographical title track echoes the jazz-flecked, guitar-happy Southern rock vibe of the Marshall Tucker Band. Trout’s underrated skill at balladry is on display with the lush “Follow You Back Home” and the emotional “Waiting For the Dawn”, which offers up some of Trout’s most evocative six-string solos. Blues-rock fare like “High Is Low” (featuring Trout’s overlooked harmonica skills) and “Better Days Ahead” feature the guitarist at his incendiary, guitar-slinging finest while “Leave It All Behind” is a classic rock-styled raver complete with raging hornplay and heavy guitar. Altogether, Walter Trout’s Ride continues a string of excellence that began with 2008’s The Outsider and continues unabated to this day. Grade: A   BUY!
    
Previously on That Devil Music.com:
Short Rounds, July 2022: Shemekia Copeland, Jade Warrior, Gwil Owen, Prince & the Revolution, Sour Ops, Supersonic Blues Machine & ‘Heroes and Villains’

Short Rounds, December 2021: Calidoscopio, Deep Purple, Tom Guerra, The Specials, The Wildhearts, Sami Yaffa & ‘I'm A Freak Baby 3’

Short Rounds, September 2021: Marshall Crenshaw, Crack The Sky, Donna Frost, Mark Harrison & the Happy Tramps, Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram, the Rubinoos, and Jon Savage’s 1972-1976

Short Rounds, June 2021: The Black Keys, the Bummers, Michael Nesmith, Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost, Quinn Sullivan, and the Vejtables

New Music Monthly: June 2020 Releases

Wow, things have gone to hell in a hand basket the last couple of months with this damn coronavirus thing...restaurants and bars have been closed, tours cancelled and clubs shut down, even the major labels' distribution has taken a hit as vinyl-pressing plants have closed with orders sitting on the books and record stores temporarily (or permanently) closed. There's a bunch of great music scheduled for June release, though, so as the country attempts to re-open, there will be new music to help get us through the struggle.

If you're boycotting Amazon and don't have an indie record store close by, may we suggest shopping with our friends at Grimey's Music in Nashville? They have a great selection of vinyl available by mail order, offer quick service, and if you don't see what you want on their website, check out their Discogs shop!
 
Release dates are probably gonna change and nobody tells me when they do. If you’re interesting in buying an album, just hit the ‘Buy!’ link to get it from Amazon.com...it’s just that damn easy! Your purchase puts valuable ‘store credit’ in the Reverend’s pocket that he’ll use to buy more music to write about in a never-ending loop of rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy!

JUNE 5
The Choir - Last Call: Live At the Music Box [two-CD set]    BUY!
Dion - Blues With Friends   BUY!
Dr. John - Ske Dat De Dat: The Spirit of Satch [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
No Age - Goons Be Gone   BUY!
Run the Jewels - RTJ4   BUY!
Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal   BUY!
Joe Louis Walker - Blues Comin' On   BUY!

JUNE 12
Built To Spill - Built To Spill Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston   BUY!
Larkin Poe - Self Made Man   BUY!
Paul Weller - On Sunset  BUY!   

JUNE 19
Blues Pills - Holy Moly!   BUY!
Grayson Capps - South Front Street: A Retrospective 1997-2019   BUY!
Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways   BUY!
Shirley Kings - Blues For A King   BUY!
Lamb of God - Lamb of God   BUY!
Brian Wilson &  Van Dyke Parks - Orange Crate Art [25th anniversary reissue]   BUY!
Neil Young - Homegrown (long-lost 1975 LP)   BUY!

JUNE 26
Nick D’Virgilio - Invisible   BUY!
Fanny - Fanny [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
HAIM - Women In Music, Pt. III   BUY!
Will Hoge - Tiny Little Movies   BUY!
Kansas - The Absence of Presence   BUY!
Corb Lund - Agricultural Tragic   BUY!
The Turtles - Battle of the Bands [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Turtles - Happy Together [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Turtles - It Ain't Me Babe [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Turtles - Turtle Soup [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Turtles - Wooden Head [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Turtles - You Baby [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention - The Mothers 1970 [4-CD box set]    BUY!

Album of the Month: There's a lot of great music that might be coming out this month (the jury's still out on the label's ability to distribute new product), but if I were to choose one of the month's albums to crow about, it would be rock 'n' roll legend Dion's Blues With Friends. Recorded with a veritable "who's who' of blues and rock legends like Joe Bonamassa, Billy Gibbons, Sonny Landreth, Bruce Springsteen & Little Steve, Joe Louis Walker, and more this promises to be one of the better blues discs of 2020...

New Music Monthly: October 2018 Releases

We're nearing the finish line for 2018, kiddies, and October promises another slobber-knocker slate of new releases that promise to tax your bankroll and please your soul. You got your new music from folks like Will Hoge, Graham Parker, Doyle Bramhall II, High On Fire, Elvis Costello, John Hiatt, Tom Morello, Ace Frehley, and many others as well as archive releases from Lindsey Buckingham, Permanent Green Light, Mott the Hoople, and R.E.M. among others. So, like I said, lots of tunes to spend your hard-earned coin on.

If we wrote about it here on the site, there will be a link to it in the album title; if you want an album, hit the 'Buy!' link to get it from Amazon.com...it's just that damn easy! Your purchase puts money in the Reverend's pocket that he'll use to buy more music to write about in a never-ending loop of rock 'n' roll ecstasy!   

OCTOBER 5
Anthrax - State of Euphoria [deluxe 30th anniversary reissue]   BUY!
David Bowie - Live In New York 1987   BUY!
Doyle Bramhall II - Shades   BUY!
Lindsey Buckingham - Solo Anthology: The Best of Lindsey Buckingham   BUY!
Coheed & Cambria - The Unheavenly Creatures   BUY!
Hugh Cornwell - Monster   BUY!
Echo & the Bunnymen - The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon   BUY!
Electric Six - Bride of the Dead   BUY!
Kristin Hersh - Possible Dust Clouds   BUY!
High On Fire - Electric Messiah   BUY!
Will Hoge - My American Dream   BUY!
John Lennon - Imagine [deluxe box set]   BUY!
Cat Power - Wanderer   BUY!
Sari Schorr - Never Say Never   BUY!
Unicorn -  Laughing Up Your Sleeve   BUY!

OCTOBER 12
Martin Barre - Roads Less Traveled   BUY!
Lindsay Beaver - Tough As Love   BUY!
The Bottle Rockets - Bit Logic   BUY!
Elvis Costello  & the Imposters - Look Now   BUY!
John Hiatt - The Eclipse Sessions   BUY!
Peter Holsapple & Alex Chilton - The Death of Rock...   BUY!
Calvin Johnson - A Wonderful Beast   BUY!
Dave Keller - Every Soul's A Star   BUY!
Paul Kelly - Nature   BUY!
Tom Morello - The Atlas Underground   BUY!
Nazareth - Tattooed On My Brain   BUY!
Graham Parker - Cloud Symbols   BUY!
Permanent Green Light (Michael Querico) - Hallucinations   BUY!
Primal Scream - Give Out But Don't Give Up: The Original Memphis Sessions   BUY!

OCTOBER 19
Terry Callier - The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Sandy Carroll - Blues & Angels   BUY!
Neneh Cherry - Broken Politics   BUY!
Disturbed - Evolution   BUY!
Ace Frehley - Spaceman   BUY!
Marty Friedman - One Bad M.F. Live!!   BUY!
Handsome Jack - Everything's Gonna Be Alright   BUY!
Los Straitjackers - Complete Christmas Songbook   BUY!
Will Oldham - Songs of Love and Horror   BUY!
Yoko Ono - Warzone   BUY!
R.E.M. - R.E.M. At the BBC [box set]   BUY!
Soulfly - Ritual   BUY!
Various Artists - Stax '68: A Memphis Story   BUY!

OCTOBER 26
The Action - The New Action! [vinyl]   BUY!
Eric Bibb - Global Griot
Fifth Angel - The Third Secret   BUY!
Mott the Hoople - Mental Train: The Island Years 1969-1971 [box set]   BUY!
NRBQ - All Hopped Up   BUY!
Ty Segall - Fudge Sandwich   BUY!
Joe Louis Walker, Bruce Katz & Giles Robson - Journeys to the Heart of the Blues   BUY!

Album of the Month: Mott the Hoople's Mental Train is a six-disc box set that collects includes remastered and expanded versions of all four of the band's original Island Records label releases; an entire disc of unheard and unreleased material; and a full disc of live and BBC performances. Each of the original albums - Mott the Hoople, Mad Shadows, Wildlife, and Brain Capers - has been expanded by 8 or 9 tracks, adding single versions, demos, alternate takes, and much more. A fifth CD, The Ballads of Mott the Hoople, is subtitled "Unheard and Unreleased Music from the Island Archive." That's a lot of great music for the Hoople fan!

New Music Monthly: August 2017 Releases

Wow! July offered a slew of new album releases but the month of August just backs the truck up to your garage and dumps a ton of great new albums for our listening experience. For one, there are a number of very cool vinyl reissues, including LPs by New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands Samson (featuring pre-Iron Maiden Bruce Dickinson) and Jaguar as well as some of Brian Eno's best work, appearing on high-resolution 45rpm vinyl for the first time since the 1970s. Throw in more great Nick Lowe albums as part of Yep Roc's restoration of the pub-rock legend's back catalog, a previously-unreleased album by power-pop kings the Raspberries, and new music by the likes of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, the Hard Working Americans, George Thorogood, Will Hoge, and others and August is a month destined to bankrupt our music budgets!

AUGUST 4
Accept - The Rise of Chaos   BUY!
Coldplay - Kaleidoscope EP   BUY!
Def Leppard - Hysteria [deluxe 5 CD/2 DVD reissue]   BUY!
Brian Eno - Another Green World [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Brian Eno - Before and After Science [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Hard Working Americans - We're All In This Together   BUY!
Jaguar - Power Games [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual Live at 25   BUY!
Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band - Lay It On Down   BUY!
Samson - Shock Tactics [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Kim Simmonds - Jazzin' On the Blues   BUY!
Thor - Beyond the Pain Barrier   BUY!
George Thorogood - Party of One   BUY!
The Winery Dogs - Dog Years: Live In Santiago & Beyond 2013-2016   BUY!

AUGUST 11
Rick Estrin & the Nightcats - Groovin' In Greaseland   BUY!
Peter Himmelman - There Is No Calamity   BUY!
Will Hoge - Anchors   BUY!
Paul Kelly - Life Is Fine   BUY!
Dwight Yoakum - Live From Austin, TX   BUY!

AUGUST 18
Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins   BUY!
Ray Wylie Hubbard - Tell The Devil I'm Getting There As Fast As I Can    BUY!
The Raspberries - Pop Art Live   BUY!
Steven Wilson - To the Bone   BUY!

AUGUST 25
The Cadillac Three - Legacy   BUY!
Alex Chilton - A Man Called Destruction   BUY!
Gogol Bordello - Seekers and Finders   BUY!
Iron & Wine - Beast Epic   BUY!
Nick Lowe - Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit   BUY!
Nick Lowe - The Rose of England   BUY!
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains   BUY!
Savoy Brown - Witchy Feelin'   BUY!

Album of the Month: The Raspberries Pop Art Live is a two-disc set that documents that near-legendary House of Blues concert performance from 2004 by the reunited Cleveland power-pop legends. Pop Art Live features live versions of songs from all four of the band’s classic studio albums, including favorite hits like “Go All The Way,” “I Wanna Be With You,” “Let’s Pretend,” and “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)” as well as their unique performances of timeless songs by rock music legends like the Beatles and the Who. In addition to this month's CD release, plans are to release Pop Art Live as a three-album vinyl set later this year.