Driver of the Year’s Jason Parris promised a few months ago that the band’s new full-length release, Statik, was going to be as “bare bones” as possible. That phrase is vague when it comes to music.
• This Tuesday William Shatner further embraces, rather than denies, his 1968 psychedelic stinker, The Transformed, with a new album in collaboration with Ben Folds. The new pop affair, Has Been, was produced, written, and arranged by Folds, and boasts a cool guest list, from country boy Brad Paisley and the serious Henry Rollins to Aimee Mann and electronic artist Lemon Jelly.
It was Rob Cimmarusti, the owner of the Real Trax recording studio in Davenport, who turned me on to Martin Sexton. The most incredible live performer he'd ever seen, he said. Don't mess with the studio recordings, he advised; go to Live Wide Open, his double-disc live set from 2000.
This summer season was rife with wonderful activities, from the Grand Excursion to the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest to the Bix festival. But in my "saving the best for last" opinion, the festival that truly marks the end of season is the Chicago Jazz Festival, which this year honored one of the Quad Cities' own, Jimmie Jones, with an after-fest birthday party earlier this month.
• Uncannily timed with the recent death of Johnny Ramone, two new documentary films are telling the story of the three-chord foursome from Forest Hills, Queens, with one film recently debuting in New York and the other arriving on DVD next week.
• The place to be this coming Tuesday morning is lined up at the door of your favorite record store, as the Epic Legacy imprint is releasing an expanded re-issue of The Clash's double album masterpiece, London Calling, from 1979.
The word “mature” isn’t something one should expect to associate with the local band Human Aftertaste. This spook-show industrial-tinged rock band prides itself on being outrageous, proudly claiming to have been banned from clubs and glad to warn you that a performance will likely include being sprayed with substances pleasant and not-so-pleasant.
• The first fruit from the collaboration of Nancy Sinatra and Morrissey hits store shelves next week, with the Morrissey-penned "Let Me Kiss You" CD single on Attack/Sanctuary Records. A full- length album, To Nancy, with Love, is due at the end of this month and features a star-studded guest list, with Bono and the Edge from U2, Elvis Costello, Jon Spencer, Pete Yorn, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, and Dennis Diken of the Smithereens.
• A founding father of the roots-punk alternative-country scene with Jason & The Scorchers, Jason Ringenberg takes up a political picket in his new solo album, Empire Builders, due this coming Tuesday on the Yep Roc imprint.

Most performers would kill for one of Kris Kristofferson's careers. But he has three of them: as a great country songwriter, a musical performer of no small repute, and a successful actor. This man has been in a musical group with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings, and as an actor has worked with Martin Scorsese, John Sayles, Sam Peckinpah, and Tim Burton.

Pages