• Two of the founding members of Depeche Mode are soon to release new solo albums. Songwriter Martin L. Gore returns to the covers concept he debuted in his 1989 Counterfeit collection, with Counterfeit2 due at the end of April on Mute Records.
• Fans of the defunct Smoking Popes are treated to a double scoop of power-pop memories this Tuesday when Double Zero Records, owned by founding drummer Mike Felumlee, releases two separate CDs saluting the band's Windy City reign.
• One of the strangest pairings in music comes this Tuesday when Geffen Records releases the soundtrack to House of 1,000 Corpses, the new Rob Zombie-directed horror film. Among odd tracks from the Ramones, Buck Owens, and Slim Whitman are six new sick tracks by Zombie, one of which is his "Brick House 2003," a twisted re-make featuring original Commodore Lionel Richie.
After a one-month absence to allow for a guest conductor, Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) Music Director Donald Schleicher returned to the podium to conduct a concert of extremes on March 2: silly juxtaposed with the serious, German romanticism alongside “contemporary” American music, and program music leading into pure music.
• Dude! This Tuesday brings an excellent twin-cam sonic salute to the musical culture of the proud but coiffure-challenged bearers of the shameless American mullet. Or as the Epic Legacy Records label has succinctly put it: Mullets Rock! Almost an anthropological study, this 35-track, two-CD set is a killer collection of hard-rockin' classics guaranteed a righteous "thumbs up" from any soul brushing his Michigan mudflap - all business up-front, and all party in the back.
The Japanese band Elekibass produces a type of music that both loses and gains something in translation, almost as if aliens visited Earth and tried to combine several types of sugar-sweet pop as a way of explaining Western music.
People who don't yet have the blues - or those who just don't know quite what the blues are or how they came to be - have a fantastic resource in the form of a new book-and-CD package put together by the Davenport-based Mississippi Valley Blues Society.
• Fans of National Public Radio's All Things Considered should seek out Wonderlure, the new spoken-word CD from Kevin Kling. The Minneapolis storyteller, playwright, and actor is a frequent contributor to the program, with eight of these recent radio pieces collected on one budget-priced CD.
Wicked Liz & The Bellyswirls might create the softest rock music anybody’s ever heard. Even at its hardest – even when the band is making a serious effort – there’s not a sharp edge to be found, with nothing remotely threatening.
Over the past few years, there have been times when the Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) has dazzled the audience and received well-deserved praise and ovation. The conductor and orchestra, working so closely, produce a fluid, uncompromised musical revelation.

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