I've reviewed several recordings by both Sean Ryan (solo and with his band The Dawn) and Jim the Mule over the years, but the You're Gonna Regret Me EP is the first opportunity I've had to hear Ryan as part of the latter band.

It's a bit of a revelation, as Ryan's voice, musicianship, and sensibilities are excellent complements to Jim the Mule's sturdy country rock. With multi-instrumentalist/singer Ryan and guitarist/singer Tom Swanson splitting songwriting and vocal duties over seven tracks, there's a natural variety, and the EP format feels like an ideal showcase for the different facets of the ensemble.

More importantly, each song is mature with a fully formed, distinct personality, yet they clearly spring from the same parents; their differences resonate as much as their similarities.

The Facebook biography of the Chicago-based trio Cains & Abels is four words: "honest rock and roll."

That might sound glib, vague, evasive, or even a dig at other bands - and it is. But a truer explanation is that singer/songwriter/bassist David Sampson means it, and to expand on the idea would simply take too long. When I asked him a general question about the genesis of "Money" - from the band's gorgeously, patiently articulated My Life Is Easy album - he talked for more than four minutes.

He touched on how his fictional songs seemed to bring their specific sadnesses into his life, and how he decided - almost as a joke - to write happy songs to conjure a different vibe.

"One of the main troubles in my life is money," he said. He discussed how hip-hop artists rap about what they aspire to, and "if it works out, ... they've made it happen by talking about it. ... So I decided at one point that I should try to write some songs about how awesome it is to be wealthy, or at least comfortable financially."

He then deflated what had seemed a hopeful tale. "I ended up writing a song addressing money as a lover that spurned me," he said. "It didn't actually come out the way I intended it to."

Even Sampson's fantasies are weighed down by truth; he couldn't complete a tongue-in-cheek exercise in wish fulfillment.

Josh Duffee admits that his Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival schedule is intense. The 32-year-old percussionist will be playing with three groups and performing more than a dozen times over five days, but he said it's not exhausting.

"Usually, by Monday, I'm feeling it a little bit, but ... it's kind of like Christmas for me," he said in a phone interview last week. "I'm going to take advantage of every single second I can get, and if I can sleep on Tuesday, August 7, then I'll go ahead and do that."

The Bix fest opens on Thursday, August 2, with a full slate of concerts the three days after that and an event on Monday, August 6: a show at one of Bix's old haunts - Jim's Knoxville Tap, formerly known as the Bluebird Inn - on the 81st anniversary of his death at age 28. Most concerts will be held in the RiverCenter, the Adler Theatre, and LeClaire Park. (For a full schedule of events, visit BixSociety.org/festival.html.)

Triple Play

Over the course of a week, from July 21 to July 27, RIBCO will offer an impressive array of acts: half of The Sea & Cake on Saturday, the national-pastime-themed supergroup The Baseball Project on Thursday, and the up-and-coming garage-rock duo JEFF the Brotherhood on Friday.

An interview with The Sea & Cake's Sam Prekop can be found here, and an interview with JEFF the Brotherhood's Jake Orrall is below.

We interviewed The Baseball Project's Scott McCaughey last year, and that article can be found at RCReader.com/y/baseballproject. In addition to McCaughey - known for the Young Fresh Fellows and the Minus 5 - the band includes Steve Wynn (of Dream Syndicate and Gutterball), Peter Buck (of R.E.M.), and Linda Pitmon (who has regularly worked with Wynn).

As we wrote last year, songwriters McCaughey and Wynn help the band transcend gimmickry: "The songs don't settle for easy recitations of historical highlights. Some are pure celebrations - such as the punky 'Ichiro Goes to the Moon' - that exude a love of the game through their understanding of it. But most of the songs are more complicated."

More information and tickets for all these concerts are available at RIBCO.com.

Jake Orrall said that major labels these days wouldn't put out something like Hypnotic Nights, the just-released album from JEFF the Brotherhood.

They might have in 1994, he said in a phone interview last week, in advance of his band's July 27 show at RIBCO. And if that seems an odd date to choose, consider that was the year DGC released Weezer's self-titled debut, popularly known as the Blue Album.

You'll have no difficulty making the stylistic link between the two records, both packed with candied rock hooks, punkish drive, infectious melodies, and gleefully arrested development. As Stereogum casually put it: "Whenever people say to me, 'Man, I miss Blue Album-era Weezer,' I reply, 'Then why the hell aren't you listening to JEFF The Brotherhood already?'" To which the A.V. Club added (discussing JEFF's 2011 album): "They've sidestepped Rivers Cuomo and created the album he's no longer interested in making."

The irony is that Hypnotic Nights was released by Warner Bros.