Greetings, and welcome to the 26th-annual IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival!

We at the Mississippi Valley Blues Society are proud of our accomplishment of producing this nationally acclaimed festival for more than 25 years. We now embrace the challenge of continuing on this tradition by bringing you quality entertainment for at least another 25 years. To do this we will continue to provide features that our fans have come to expect: world-renowned blues acts at both of our main stages, interactive BlueSKool programs on-site for the young and young at heart, and a free photo exhibit and workshops for one and all at the Freight House.

Dale Watson

On the day he's playing a Daytrotter.com show at RIBCO, singer/songwriter Dale Watson will release Carryin' on, and the album seems a natural fit for a guy who's been a country-music relic from the beginning. That's a compliment, by the way.

Since his 1995 debut Cheatin' Heart Attack, Watson has been writing and performing country songs in a style out of fashion for decades. But it wasn't until this new album that he was able to combine his own songs with musicians from the era he emulates.

His band for Carryin' on was assembled by steel guitarist Lloyd Green and included Hargus "Pig" Robbins on piano and Pete Wade on guitar -- all noted session players active in the 1960s and beyond.

While Watson's regular band -- with which he'll be performing in Rock Island -- is adept at old-school country, the 47-year-old said in a recent phone interview that people his age and younger simply can't beat the old-timers: "It's just something you have to have lived to play."

Chevelle

Chevelle's Sci-Fi Crimes raises one major question: Does the band believe in the paranormal subject matter it tackles with such earnestness on its 2009 record?

"Pete and Dean and I have this ongoing discussion about whether it can happen, whether aliens can even reach us," said drummer Sam Loeffler in a phone interview last week. "It's all in fun."

Which is to say that the members of Chevelle -- brothers Sam and Pete (guitars and vocals) Loeffler and brother-in-law Dean Bernardini (bass) -- aren't believers. Yet.

So when Chevelle headlines Saturday's Rock the District event in Rock Island, feel free to share your beliefs, theories, and evidence with the band. Sam, at least, claims to have an open mind.

Peter Wolf Crier

Roughly 100 seconds into "Down Down Down," the third track on Peter Wolf Crier's debut Inter-Be, the drums kick in. That's the duo in microcosm, as Peter Pisano's fully formed guitar-and-vocal songs are amplified by the drums and other accents Brian Moen added relatively late in the process.

The band will perform a Daytrotter.com show at RIBCO on Tuesday, June 22, and the moral of the Peter Wolf Crier story is to follow things where they lead.

Caribou's Dan Snaith

Dan Snaith sounds tired of answering questions about math.

He comes from a family of mathematicians; he earned a Ph.D. in the field in 2005. And because he records and performs (under the name Caribou) electronic music, journalists (this one included) ask him a lot of questions about the relationship between his primary academic and musical pursuits. They both involve computers, don't they?

Snaith -- who will be playing with his band at a Daytrotter show at RIBCO on Saturday, June 5 -- said there are some similarities. But not many. "Being able to do what you want ... is kind of an intuitive process," he said in a phone interview last week. "In both mathematics and in music, you kind of have to use some gut-level intuition to piece things together. [But] I think they're very different in many ways."

What's evident listening to the music of Caribou is that Snaith's electronic instruments are largely tools, not ends. There are certainly electronic sounds, but the songs sound organic and feel handmade, and his singing voice is ethereal, warm, and emotive -- a perfect offset to any digital coolness. Put differently, there's nothing mathematical about Caribou's songs.

Tiana Washington, a.k.a. DJ PowderOn May 30, St. Ambrose University will host the Quad Cities Black Music Conference, a gathering of Midwestern artists, producers, beat masters, DJs, and promoters for a first-of-its-kind symposium on the Midwestern hip-hop scene. Yet while the event's main focus is music, for organizer Tiana Washington - better known as program host "DJ Powder" for St. Ambrose's KALA-FM - the day is all about learning.

"I realized that there was not enough education," says Washington, "especially for those who are serious [about hip-hop] and have created some headway for themselves. And it was time. Time to create an event that focused on not just the music element, but on the education and business sides of music.

"Because, you know, [radio station] B-100 can't play something that's not put through the proper channels. DJs cannot just do a friend a favor and play their music. And there's this perception that that can happen."

Washington laughs. "We gotta talk about that."

Images by photographer Chris Jones from Sunday's Barenaked Ladies concert at the Adler Theatre, with opener Serena Ryder. Click on any photo for a larger version.

Barenaked Ladies:

The Shondes

Describing the Shondes' new album My Dear One, violinist Elijah Oberman noted in a recent interview that "it's basically a break-up record. ... We're both happy and terrified to be participating in that tradition. On the one hand, it's a very universal topic, and something that most people can relate to. And on the other hand, you really have to work to make it your own."

Mission accomplished. Because the New York-based band -- which will perform at Iowa City's Blue Moose Tap House on Friday, May 21 -- so masterfully blends its atypical identities into rock music, this break-up record sounds like no other.

Images by photographer Chris Jones from Saturday's Taylor Swift concert at the i wireless Center, with openers Kellie Pickler and Gloriana. Click on any photo for a larger version.

Taylor Swift:

Images by photographer Chris Jones from Friday's Paramore concert at the i wireless Center. Click on any photo for a larger version.

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