It would be incorrect to say that Scott Miller gloated, but he sounded genuinely pleased with his good fortune. He decided to self-release his 2009 album For Crying Out Loud, and that allowed the Tennessee-based singer/songwriter to do the proverbial more with less.

"It's not about making more money; it's about keeping your money," Miller said in a phone interview last week. "Before, you're making these records, and you're making 12 percent on the dollar on those. And now I make it all. I can sell half as much and make twice as much, as dumb as that sounds."

And here's that which borders on gloating: "I'm sorry it was such a hard year for everybody else; it was a good year for Scott Miller."

The 42-year-old Miller -- a respected roots singer, songwriter, and guitarist who also fronted the similarly respected V-Roys (championed and signed by Steve Earle) -- will be performing a solo acoustic show on Tuesday, March 30, at the Uptown Neighborhood Bar & Grill in Bettendorf. And he seems comfortable in his "top of the middle" status -- a phrase he borrowed from drummer Jimmy Lester that means "you're not selling millions, but you're not selling paltry amounts. And you can live here."

On the song "Superstar," Regan sings that "I'll pay the price for fame / I'll even change my name" and "I've worked really hard and I've paid my dues."

Regan performs using her middle name, so that's already done. But the senior at Bettendorf's Pleasant Valley High School is (and sounds) 18 years old, which is too young to have paid many dues in the music industry.

Yet the biggest irony is that Regan -- who will perform at the Redstone Room on March 11 -- has had a charmed path in her burgeoning music career. She was selected -- based on songs on her MySpace page -- for the Crash Course to Stardom program in which she spent a week in Los Angeles learning the ropes of the music business; that's the kind of experience and advice that most singers would kill for at the start of their careers. Her debut EP was shaped by established producers and has songs with the hooks and attention to musical detail that would sound right at home on mainstream country or pop radio.

The leanness of singer/songwriter Laura Veirs' new album, July Flame, was born of considerations both practical and artistic.

On the logistical side, her band "fell apart" since she moved to Portland, Oregon, she said in a phone interview this week. So one goal with this set of songs was "getting back to the root of just a guitar and a voice and seeing what I could do with that again."

Her last album -- 2007's Saltbreakers -- was "really heavily dependent on everybody else being there for the songs to work," she said. Crafting tunes that could be performed in a solo setting meant she could tour the album on the cheap, and with a band if she had the money. (When she plays her Daytrotter.com show on Monday at Huckleberry's in Rock Island, she'll be bringing her band.)

But on an artistic level, "I really like sparse music that still hits you in the gut and does a lot with a little."

When Mondo Drag drummer/singer Johnnie Cluney says that "we're kind of bringing in more of a pop element" to the band's new songs, take that with a giant rock of salt.

The Quad Cities-based band released its full-length debut, New Rituals, on the Alive Naturalsounds Records label last month, and it's a hazy, sludgy affair - bluesy psychedelia borrowing heavily from the 1960s and recalling the contemporary sounds of Dead Meadow.

Yet there are indeed hints of accessible melody in the massive riffs and thick keyboards. "Love Me" hides on its downslope a compelling ascending chorus with heavy vocal emphasis on the downbeat. Calling it poppy is a stretch, but it opens the door to the remainder of the song. "True Visions" has a similar late revelation, with moaning layers of keyboards and guitars as its extended coda.

The quintet - celebrating the release of New Rituals on Saturday at the River Music Experience's Performance Hall - has begun to build a national profile. The band had its Daytrotter.com session released last week, and even though that Web site is based in the Quad Cities, it certainly doesn't play favorites with hometown bands.