A remake of Knightrider is under construction and Holy F**k should seriously pen the theme song. A sparse bass and drums unison ornamented by muggy melodies and synths, the tune shares structural similarities with the catalogue of Holy F**k. At City Hall, to the beat of their own KITT, the band married steadfast rhythms with jammy trances.A remake of Knightrider is under construction and Holy F**k should seriously pen the theme song. A sparse bass and drums unison ornamented by muggy melodies and synths, the tune shares structural similarities with the catalogue of Holy F**k. At City Hall, to the beat of their own KITT, the band married steadfast rhythms with jammy trances.

For a band whose name appears deliberately rebellious, Holy F**k's music obediently engaged the audience. The drummer and bassist would take off neck-and-neck while two other dudes intensely crafted quintessential (if generic) electronica on some sort of multi-knobbed noise-processors. The songs received new levels of palpable noise every turn, becoming more top-heavy with each inserted piece, like reverse-Jenga. Track "Frenchy's" does just this, starting with a hard beat and layering foggy synthesizers in the same manner as early-Air song "Brakes On."

Holy F**k also appealed to fans of jam-bands. The songs rarely strayed from their core beat once underway, so nobody had to steer the wheel-permission, whether or not intentional, for a few to dance ecstatically. Their place in the jam zeitgeist would be nearby the Disco Biscuits, a band that also denies traditional song patterns in favor of continual electronic iterations. While the majority of Holy F**k's catalogue was fast-paced, like the echo-laden and haunting "Pulse," the slowest, a bittersweet relaxing bit entitled "Lovely Allen" had more replay value later.

If Holy F**k inspired a combination of uncertainty and concealed enjoyment, M.I.A.'s set confiscated free-will and mobilized the troops. Albums Arular and Kala were put in their place as mere studio-enhanced documents of what M.I.A. is: an ostentatious entertainer.

First, the M.I.A. crew projected a short tirade by Japanese dissident Koichi Touyama encouraging us to destroy our country-anarchy about as deserved as Johnny Rotten's version. Opening track "Bamboo Banga" blasted beats and included a video reminiscent of that maze game popular on T.I. calculators. "Sunshowers" offered reprieve from the bass overload with its sweeter R&B chorus sung by someone other than the life of the party (whose real name is Maya). "10 dollar" conjured J. J. Fad and their grammy-rewarded song "Supersonic."

The immaculate "Paper Planes" closed and projected a doctored video of M.I.A. on the set of Super Mario Brothers, surfing an 8-bit cloud and firing her guitar like a shotgun. Afterwards, the lights went up, fans hauled out and ears rang: surely the sound of reality reentering the brain, and not too soon.

Mason Jennings and his music are full of contradictions. He is laid back and intense, drawn to faith but nagged by doubt, peaceful but angry, clearly passionate about his craft but aware that's he's just a guy with a guitar, distant but engaging, happy-go-lucky but shouldering a burden.Mason Jennings and his music are full of contradictions. He is laid back and intense, drawn to faith but nagged by doubt, peaceful but angry, clearly passionate about his craft but aware that's he's just a guy with a guitar, distant but engaging, happy-go-lucky but shouldering a burden. Perhaps his broad range is part of his appeal-and nowhere is the Minnesota-based singer/songwriter more captivating than in his live show.

The fullness of Nashville's cavernous City Hall at 9 o'clock on a Sunday night testifies to his subtle ability to connect with his fans. Over the course of the show, Jennings scarcely interacted with the crowd; but dammit if the kids didn't love him anyhow. Watching him on stage, it's hard not too. There's no telling how conscious he is about his stage presence, but in his suit vest thrown over a drab button-down shirt, curly hair swept back from his forehead, he looked like a mysterious southern con-man sprung from the imaginations of the Coen brothers. Gripping his Martin like a shotgun, he stared down the microphone into the crowd with a slow-burning ease and intensity. He seemed a bit more tired and reserved than my last encounter with him (Exit/In, 2006), but if so, his performance was not less enjoyable.

Jennings opened with the driving "Soldier Boy" from his forthcoming album In the Ever, before downshifting to the more mellow, more familiar "Darkness Between the Fireflies." By the fourth song in his hour-long set, "Bullet," he had the mixed crowd of fratty young adults, the usual Nashville hipsters, neo-hippies and even a few older folks singing along. Jennings played the majority of the set backed by his bassist and drummer, but they left the stage briefly for "Your New Man" and "Adrian." The former is another newly recorded song, but really only works in a live setting (notably, it is presented as a live recording on In the Ever). A joke song in the tradition of Cash's "Boy Named Sue," "Your New Man" got all the appropriate chuckles and hoots from the audience, even if it's less artful than most of Jennings's other material.

The last three songs of the regular set (ending on "Butterfly") demonstrated the pop-rock element of Jennings's sound. Interestingly, he isn't one of those players who brings an arsenal of guitars with him. When he needs to dirty things up, he distorts his acoustic Martin D2 for electric guitar tones that sound as rocking as any Telecaster. The upbeat closers left the crowd wanting more, so Mason and his crew obliged with two additional songs, "If You Need a Reason" and "Jackson Square" (with Jennings on both harmonica and guitar ). "Jackson Square" was chillingly good, and more powerful than the already excellent studio version from the Boneclouds album of 2006.

If only the evening had ended there. The show's self-absorbed headliner Brent Dennen wasted little time in turning City Hall back into a nearly empty room well before the close of his longish set. No doubt Jennings will find a more appropriate partner in Jack Johnson, whose tour he joins later this summer.

Jay Reatard (pronounced Ree-ah-tard) played through an incessant, homegrown set of garage-rock at Mercy Lounge Wednesday night, with exceptional efficiency. The set hardly lasted over half an hour with barely enough time between songs for a 1-2-3-4!-count and a loogie.Jay Reatard (pronounced Ree-ah-tard) played through an incessant, homegrown set of garage-rock at Mercy Lounge Wednesday night, with exceptional efficiency. The set hardly lasted over half an hour with barely enough time between songs for a 1-2-3-4!-count and a loogie. While the short gaps conserved little real-time, the effect was very powerful, sustaining the audience's focus on three gnarly dudes. The essence of Jay Reatard's set revealed efficient sound, fierce stage presence and horrible hair.

Researching the punk genre is like turning over a stone in damp woods: a multitude of specimen crawls out-they loathe exposure and opt to stay underground. So saying this band sounded like The Ramones is not only pretty accurate, but also a gesture to the roly-polies. Jay Reatard is somewhere around the 8th outfit for singer Jay Lindsey, a buff in the Memphis garage-rock scene (boasting its own festival: Gonerfest).

The band embraces more artistic-less political-punk pretensions, along the same lines as minimalists Wire and Devo. Sounding like a Wire song, "Not a Substitute" refused bass till the chorus and barely employed drums except for time-keeping on the snare; and absolutely no guitar solos. Show closer "Waiting for Something" involved a catchy bass line matched with trademark Devo vocals, which borrowed the vocal tone of Marvin the Martian; like when he says, "Take me to your leader."

On a personal level, some of their songs evoke the crises of teenage 80's horror flicks, packing in the drama of some unlikely hero vowing to defend his friends. "My Shadow" sounded like it could have been straight off the Nightmare on Elm Sreet III: Dream Warriors soundtrack, right after that track by Dramarama.

The band's stage presence also contributed to their overall presentation. Blasting through his set, Jay barely glimpsed the audience through his wall of hair (not to mention the impropriety of head-banging with one's eyes open). This also meant the audience never actually saw Jay's mouth move while he sang either. But bassist Steven Pope literally lip-synched every song, sans microphone, and offered lots of kinetic support, looking very grateful to be playing up there. This was rather ridiculous but also kind of endearing.

As vigorous as the group was, it was hard not to notice certain physical attributes. First off, the hair: Jay sported brown, wet curls identical to those of Weird "Al" Yankovic, the impish drummer styled it the same way but golden-blonde and with bangs, and most noticeable, Pope donned a curly, white boy's afro larger than a basketball, not to mention some baby-fat.

This Memphis trio totally lacks veneer, a trademark of punk, which is a genre some say is dead. But then again they've been honoring mistakenly producing Elvis obituaries in that city for decades.

Let's take a look at the polar opposite situation. You're playing a really super-bright Telecaster from the mid-60s, not an inexpensive guitar for any budget. Actually, this might be the only guitar you own because it's gonna run you around 10 grand...

LIST PRICE: $7.99
WEBSITE: D'ADDARIO

Let's take a look at the polar opposite situation. You're playing a really super-bright Telecaster from the mid-60s, not an inexpensive guitar for any budget. Actually, this might be the only guitar you own because it's gonna run you around 10 grand...

The sound you need is a warmer, less twangy sound. Why on earth would you change anything about that beautiful Tele? When the engineer dials up your sound, it is still shimmering bright-too bright for jazz or other styles.

If you were a guitar player in the ‘50s many, things would be different. First you'd likely be playing a Gibson, Fender, Kay or Gretsch. Second, all your gear could finance a yacht these days. Lastly, the only available strings would have been pure nickel. As rock got harder and tone got dirtier, the demand for warm-toned strings lessened.

The industry standard for strings became nickel-plated, steel round wound strings. D'Addario knows these things, and it also knows the varied tastes of players. I put a pack of these on my 1960 Silvertone, and it sounds like a completely different guitar than it did with standard nickel-plated steel strings. The sound was much warmer and less aggressive, not so Bakersfield, but way more smooth.

Some have labeled Tapes ‘n Tapes reverb-soaked songs "über indie." The Loon, the Minneapolis-based group's first record, ascended to buzzworthy status in 2007, which all-too-often leads to a sophomore-effort's premature fall from grace. Fortunately, the second LP, Walk It Off, shoves back, lowers its shoulder and moves forward..

The first single "Hang Them All" knots succinct, muddy guitars with an undeniably catchy chorus, while "Time of Songs" and "Say Back Something" sway with muddled synths and strums. But lead guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Josh Grier doesn't pay much attention to what folks think of Tapes ‘n Tapes' music. He calls in from Paris on the last leg of their European tour, and his refreshing honesty comes through without static.

"For me, with music, I like to be left to interpret things for myself. I'm the same with our music. However people hear it, and think about it, then it's their own thing. I want it to be open to interpretation. I know that sounds trite. Music, at least for me, is a very personal experience. Maybe the way I hear it is totally different than the way someone else hears it, and that's the way it should be."

Grier wrote most of the tunes on Walk It Off in an extra bedroom, on his battered acoustic, which might surprise some. "Oh jeez, it's a really, really cheap acoustic. When I was 16, I bought my Fender Lonestar Strat, they [the guitar shop] were having a drawing for a $100 acoustic guitar, and I entered and I won it. I got both of my guitars at the same time. It's a junkie acoustic, but I've always had it, and at this point I've played it enough so that I like the way it sounds. There are a couple frets that just clank out and don't work at all, but it serves its purpose. I like it."

Once they had about 15 songs in the queue, they headed to Tarbox studios to work with acclaimed producer Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT). It was truly their first chance to record in a studio.

"We knew what the parts were gonna be, and the guitar parts and we practiced them a lot. We'd tweak while in the studio, but mostly the guts were there. Dave's really the ultimate enabler."

Like the artists he's worked with in the past, Fridmann's touches on Walk It Off remain sparing, opting always to augment the band's M.O.  If Walk It Off is your first encounter with Tapes ‘n Tapes, brace for a well-rehearsed, assured second installment, complete with muddy blues influences and sing-along choruses.

Electric guitars are usually valued on a number of merits: type of wood, age, maker, era of maker, technological specs, desired pickup configuration, artist relevance, serial number against total production, condition...I mean, the list keeps going.

LIST PRICE: $6.99
WEBSITE: D'ADDARIO

Electric guitars are usually valued on a number of merits: type of wood, age, maker, era of maker, technological specs, desired pickup configuration, artist relevance, serial number against total production, condition...I mean, the list keeps going.

One throwaway factor is the strings. The strings are always discarded, as they are meant to be, and never really remembered. The metal used in a string makes a huge difference in how the string reacts to the pickup. The pickup is a magnet. The string vibrates over the magnet as it is plucked. The tone produced-resulting from the playing the guitar between the bridge and the nut-is how we get notes. Vibration of this note is sent through the guitar's electronics and projected through your amp.

All metals react differently to a magnet. All grades of metallic purity account for a different tonal response between the string and the pickup. With that said, a number of factors come into play when trying to find a specifically-desired tone (brilliant, warm, harsh, thick), and figuring out how long the strings will last (time, durability, corrosion).

Simply ‘going to get a new pack of strings' can be intimidating and overwhelming-especially when the metal god behind the counter always suggests whatever they have in overstock, or suggests that you try the strings some 50-year-old hesher shread-daddy finds desirable. No one uses eight gauges, OK, unless you're into tapping or haven't developed calluses yet. It's a sign of wankery. Enter D'Addario XL ProSteels.

These strings cover a wide range of needs in order to pull the best sound out of your guitar. A lot of times, players will change out the factory pickups on a guitar because they desire "more" of something. Don't be a tool. Keep the factory pickups and try some new strings to see if the difference is simply tone-through magnetic response.

ProSteels are the brightest and most magnetic strings offered by D'Addario. So if your situation is that you have a Les Paul but want a Tele sound for one track, the first option should be to use a Tele. The second option should be to brighten up the humbucker on your Paul. Before you spend any money on a new pedal or a crispier amp or any modification on the guitar itself, try ProSteels. You'll be amazed. You'll also be happy in 20 years, when you discover how much value you have added to your Les Paul by keeping it in its original factory form.

The most common standards desired by pianists for a digital piano are: number of keys, key weight, sonic quality of presets and functionality with other gear. The biggest problems with most digital pianos are: weight, price, lame preset sounds, the obsolete factor and connectivity.

LIST PRICE: $399.00
WEBSITE: YAMAHA

The most common standards desired by pianists for a digital piano are: number of keys, key weight, sonic quality of presets and functionality with other gear. The biggest problems with most digital pianos are: weight, price, lame preset sounds, the obsolete factor and connectivity. Yamaha has developed a great electric piano for gigging musicians who want to feel good about using their gig piano in the studio. The NP-30 is lightweight (12 pounds), 72 keys, affordable (see local retailer), has realistic sounds (all presets are sampled in stereo) and has the feel of a weighted keys only piano, without the weight (graded soft touch keys). What more could Yamaha possibly pack into 12 pounds? Add optional battery power. It runs on six AA batteries, as well as a standard Wal-Mart adaptor. Go check out the guts too; you can never really know the presets until you've heard them in person. I must add that, for catalog buyers, this is a great blind purchase.

Gary Louris has just released his first solo album, Vagabonds, but he's better known as a founding member of alt-country pioneers the Jayhawks.  He's also a pen for hire, having written for the Dixie Chicks, Nickel Creek, and others.

Gary Louris has just released his first solo album, Vagabonds, but he's better known as a founding member of alt-country pioneers the Jayhawks.  He's also a pen for hire, having written for the Dixie Chicks, Nickel Creek, and others.

Why did you make Vagabonds a solo record, as opposed to making it the next Jayhawks record?

People ask, oh, "Why don't you do the Jayhawks again?" and I think, well, you know, watch Let It Be. The Beatles were only together for 10 years, and they were the greatest band in the world but they got tired of each other. You'd like it to all be fresh and new and exciting, but after awhile, you start needing something different.

But another factor with not keeping it the band, rekindling my friendship with Mark Olson kind of became complicated again. I really like Mark again, and I wouldn't want to do the Jayhawks without him. And so, in certain ways, it felt wrong. And now, for all those people who always complain and said, "Oh you weren't the Jayhawks since Olson left," well now they can shut up, because now, there are no more Jayhawks. [Laughs]

I heard that there's a Mark Olson solo record coming out that you worked on.
I appeared on it.  I was there for a day and sang a bit, and played guitar on a song. And then he and I made a record together, early last year, which hasn't come out yet, which will be fabulous. It will be fierce, as they say.

In the song "Vagabonds," there's the lyric, "Sunday Morning, lying in my car, mustache warning, couldn't get too far."  What's a mustache warning?
[Laughs] It's a cop. Somebody sleeping in the car and gets the knock on the door, somebody gets displaced again: another metaphor for being displaced in life, whether you're homeless or directionless.

You've got a song here called "I Wanna Get High."  I like that one a lot.

Me too.

Are you familiar with the Lemonheads song "Style?"

I'm not. I like the Lemonheads and I'm a fan of Evan, but I'm not familiar with that song.  Is it on It's A Shame About Ray?

No, it's on 1993's Come On Feel the Lemonheads.  Anyway, it's got the same lyrical motif.

Oh, really [laughs]? What's it say?
"I wanna get high, don't wanna get high."

Really???
Uh-huh.

You're kidding me. I am not familiar with that. That's news to me. I stole without knowing. I don't know if that's stealing.

You've said that you like to write from the subconscious. In the co-writing you've done, for the Dixie Chicks and others, are you able to write from the subconscious as well?

Well, that's a good question.  I can't write from the subconscious actually, because a lot of the time when I co-write with other people, I'm writing for them as opposed to for myself.  When it comes to lyrics, I tend to want to give them their voice, since it's most likely going to be on their record, or somebody else's record. And I find for more commercial-style music, people want simplicity, less vagueness, and less space to fill between the lines, so to speak. So I can't be quite as ethereal and mystical.

What's it like to be in Golden Smog?  They're kind of like an alternate universe Traveling Wilburys.

Well, the Smog is kind of like being in a special kind of club. You're with your friends, you've got members coming in and coming out of it, you're serious, but only to a certain extent. It's supposed to be more about fun than about career. So it's a bit of an escape, and a way to hang out with friends, and make what we think is great music. We don't take it lightly, but it is nice the way we go about it.

How do you decide what songs end up on the record?

That's always been a bit of a tough call, because you usually like to save you're A-material for the band you're trying to make a career out of. On the other hand, you're not always the best judge of your own material. A song like "Until You Came Along" is one of my favorite songs I ever wrote, and it's on a Golden Smog record. I think that's part of the reason on the last record, we tried to get together and write songs together, specifically for the project.

You guys just played an Obama benefit.  How was that?

It was really fun. I've never been wanded [by security] before I went on stage. We were joking around about how, "Wow, we finally made it. There's like 22,000 people here," not that they were really there for us. But we had a good time.