In the course of a phone interview last week, Page Hamilton - lead guitarist, singer, and composer for Helmet, performing on October 8 at RIBCO - dropped the names of Beethoven, John Williams, Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane.

That collection gives a good sense of the breadth of Hamilton's musical study and knowledge, and some indication of why his band rewards close listening. It also hints at why Hamilton's rigorous heavy music has found only modest commercial success, with one gold album (1992's Meantime) and only top-50 peak chart positions in the United States.

What's important to understand is that while there's an essential academic/philosophical component to Helmet's music, the band has also been distinguished by an uncompromising pummeling force, what the All Music Guide described as a "very precise and diabolical din - full of martial barks, jackhammering drums, rumbling bass, and some of the most brilliant IQ-lowering guitar riffs since Black Sabbath's first four albums." Hamilton rejects the assertion that Helmet is simply a metal band, but it operates almost exclusively in an aggressively gritty guitar/bass/drum framework. Within that structure and self-imposed limitations, Hamilton explores musical theory.

"The Helmet vocabulary is the drop-tuning, the chord voicing, and the figure writing, or riff writing," he said. (There are also players employing different time signatures, a technique borrowed from composer Glenn Branca that Hamilton said creates "this sort of forward propulsion.") "It's thematic writing. It's the same approach a jazz improviser would use, or a classical composer." He then mimicked the openings of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and John Williams' title-crawl theme for Star Wars, and discussed how they quickly establish themes that are then developed. "That's my approach to writing. I'm not stringing a bunch of shit together - the drummer came up with this, and I came up with that. That can work, but I think eventually you run out of ideas. We're all using the same 12 notes in Western music."

If that makes your eyes glaze, it must also be noted that Hamilton's solos - which he said he approaches like a "spaz jazz idiot" - are razor-wire sharp and exhilarating, regardless of a listener's music-theory understanding.

In April 2008, Seattle alternative-weekly paper The Stranger dubbed Shenandoah Davis its artist of the week, writing that "fans of Joanna Newsom have a local act to love." The comparison to the idiosyncratic harpist/singer/songwriter was flattering, but there was one problem: Davis had never played in public as a solo artist.

She began to get inquiries about shows, but she was unseasoned as both a songwriter and performer. "I remember very distinctly that there was one show that I was so nervous about I canceled it maybe half an hour before - the second show I was ever supposed to play," the 26-year-old Davis said in a phone interview promoting her September 16 show at Rozz-Tox.

So started a steep learning curve for Davis, who began playing piano as a toddler and has a degree in opera performance but has been writing her own songs for less than four years.

Keegan DeWitt is inviting his fans along on his journey, in what passes for real time in the music industry.

The Nashville-based musician and composer has many of his film scores available for free on his Web site. His earlier solo recordings found him in singer/songwriter mode. A trio of singles over the past year have shown him making the transition from solo artist to bandleader. And he hopes that all those elements will come together on the album he and his band are working on.

A Daytrotter.com veteran with three sessions under his belt and an EP (last year's Nothing Shows) released by the Quad Cities-based site, DeWitt will perform as part of the September 3 Daytrotter Barnstormer 5 concert in Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn.

Two years ago, he said in a phone interview this week, he recorded largely by himself with a couple of string players. As he's built a band, he said, "we wanted to make sure that everybody was following us on that trajectory, instead of listening to something that was super-outdated. ... We wanted to make sure that through this process of making music ... we weren't waiting on anybody."

As "This Masquerade" begins on her recently released live CD recorded at Davenport's Redstone Room, Pamela Reese Smith's voice emerges from the piano prelude of Manny Lopez III as a husky, tuneful whisper, growing louder and more intense from phrase to phrase. As she builds, she blends breathiness and fullness to create a wistful and passionate melody. Her use of a light, breathy tone establishes the mournful mood of the song, especially when singing the word "lost," imparting confusion and hopelessness.

Her voice continues to soften and grow with the lyrics. When singing the phrase "this masquerade," she starts quietly and then allows her voice to expand as she holds out the line -communicating strength, despair, and other feelings.

Throughout the album, Smith employs this effectively expressive technique, and her big voice creates a deep, encompassing sound. But at times she misses the pitch a little, and the heavy richness of her voice becomes a disadvantage.