It’s 95 degrees and I have a date with a hammock and a glass of lemonade, so let’s get this over with.

This year’s Top 10 List is already strong enough to be respectable. Wilco is pretty firmly entrenched in the top spot right now, but new contenders seem to spring up every week, including great new ones by Tom Waits, Neil Finn, Eminem, Bruce Hornsby, Michael Roe and Counting Crows. Plus, I’ve just heard that September 24 is the “official” (meaning infinitely mutable and changeable) release date for Peter Gabriel’s long-awaited Up album.

You’ll notice, however, that it feels like a boys’ club up there in the creme de la creme, with not a single female artist making an appearance so far. Honestly, the women have been holding back until the second half of the year, I think, and I expect great things from Aimee Mann this month, Sixpence None the Richer next month, and Tori Amos the month after that. And to kick off the (hopeful) avalanche of excellent releases by women is the inimitable Beth Orton.

I’ve heard some people refer to Orton as boring, and that strikes me as a minor form of blasphemy. Still, I’m trying to be more understanding and accepting in my old age, and I took my first spin through her third album, Daybreaker, with that thought in mind. And no, I’m sorry, I just don’t hear it.

For one thing, Orton has a great voice. This is not the same sense of that phrase you might use to describe your friend who’s better than the rest of the bar on karaoke night. Orton has a voice that will stop you in your tracks, the kind of voice the sirens may have used to lure unsuspecting seamen to smash themselves upon the rocks. You hear it for the first time, and all at once you want to keep hearing it, studying it, turning it over and over in your mind. All by itself, her voice is captivating enough to justify buying everything she does.

And like most great singers, Orton is most effective when she allows her voice to be the main attraction. The second half of her wonderful second album, Central Reservation, is largely just her voice and guitar, and the sound they produce together is so affecting that you can’t help but have diminishing returns when you place other instruments on top. Oddly, though, it’s those very models of sparse emotion that have been labeled the most boring of her works.

The truth of the matter seems to be that people need lots of stuff going on to keep their attention, which is why moody, drawn-out movies like In the Bedroom don’t do as well as busy, effects-laden ones like The Mummy Returns (and, yes, like Star Wars). That’s why radio concentrates on the three-minute single, and producers fill those three minutes with as much ear-catching gloss as they can. The days when Tim Buckley could hold an audience in the palm of his hand for three hours with just an acoustic guitar are long over.

Even Orton seems to realize that, which is probably why Daybreaker is her fullest, most produced album to date. There’s certainly nothing wrong with production, if done right, but nowhere on Daybreaker does Orton just let herself carry the song with her voice, and as such, it’s a less immediately seductive album than Reservation or her debut, Trailer Park. This one provokes fewer “ahhhhs” than it does “hmmmms.”

For all that, though, it’s a pretty magnificent piece of work. Daybreaker is a restless album, flitting from one style and sound to another over its 10 songs, but each one shines in its own way. Opener “Paris Street” is one of the best, with buoyant string lines complementing Orton’s soaring vocal nicely. The single “Concrete Sky” follows, and it marks the first pairing of Orton and Ryan Adams, the wunderkind from Whiskeytown. Their voices merge beautifully, and the song, though written by Orton and Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, sounds like vintage Adams.

In fact, the only song not written by Orton also sounds like vintage Adams, because it is. “This One’s Gonna Bruise” finds Orton crooning Adams’ song while he accompanies on guitar, and while the tune is remarkable, I can’t help imagining Adams singing it. It’s the one spot on Daybreaker in which Orton’s glorious voice is maddeningly ineffective, and surprisingly, it’s also the one unadorned number on the album, just voice and guitar. The mismatch is puzzling.

Less puzzling, however, is the sheer impact of grand experiments like “Mount Washington,” with its ascending chorus and sweeping atmospherics, or the title song, with its fluttering electronic drums and wistful strings. “Carmella” is a tale of hope amidst a bad relationship, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised to find out that its inspiration is Carmella Soprano, from HBO’s hit series. “God Song” pairs Orton up with Emmylou Harris, and is the most classic-sounding down-home American piece the British chanteuse has ever written. Harris, Orton and Adams all merge their voices in an extended coda that sends chills.

And then there’s the closer, “Thinking About Tomorrow,” which flies higher than anything else here. In a dazzling six minutes, Orton brings the orchestra back and sends us off with a classic pop song in which everything clicks. Daybreaker contains little of the misery and confusion that marked previous efforts, and especially here in its final song, it spreads a certain kind of joy wherever it goes. It’s the sweetest album she’s ever made, capped off with the sweetest song she’s ever written.

One may accuse Orton of a lack of focus, what with 10 different styles sitting next to each other here. The truth may have more to do with the real goal of experimentation: to find something that works. Orton is neither a jazz crooner, a folk poet nor a pop songstress, but she tries all of them here, looking for a way to make her heavenly voice fit earthly styles. She possesses a love of classic songcraft, and one can hear the works of Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones and Emmylou Harris in her songs. That she’s a better singer than any of them may mean that she’ll have to leave her influences behind and create something wholly new before she finds that perfect fit.

For now, though, Daybreaker is a fine album, and a swell companion piece to her other two. It’s also, to my ears, miles and miles away from boring.

This means nothing, but check it out: look at the covers of Daybreaker and Trey Anastasio’s solo album side by side. The similarities are striking, aren’t they? (If you don’t own both and don’t want to go to the record store to see what I’m talking about, click on the link below to Amazon.com and call up the pages for both albums. It’s pretty eerie.)

Next week, a couple of surprises.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This week’s column is about maturity, so I thought I might start it off with an immature rant against the entire auto mechanics industry. And I’m not even going to ask permission, so nyah.

Okay, granted, my eight year old car is a piece of shit. And granted, I don’t exactly treat it with the loving care that I probably ought. But still, this pissed me off. My car has been making this loud, belching, rattling sound lately, and while I don’t have the highest level of mechanical acumen, even I could figure out that it probably shouldn’t be making such a racket. Funny thing is, it hadn’t been doing any of that before I brought it in to the local Midas to get the burnt-out alternator replaced (for $350). Thinking there may be a connection, I trundled back to the same Midas and asked just what the hell was wrong with the crapbucket now.

And the Midas people told me I needed to replace something called a solenoid, I think. (Spellcheck isn’t red-flagging the word, so I guess it’s a real one, and that I spelled it correctly.) For $150, they told me, my problems would be solved. So I agreed, knowing shit about cars, and had the sole-whatsit replaced. Did it make a damn bit of difference? Of course not.

When I pointed this out to the Midas man, he shook his head, opened my hood, poked around for a second and then sprayed a cleaning fluid into my air intake system. Presto – the noise was reduced by about 60 percent. “It’s just dirty,” he said. “All you need to do is get the injection system cleaned.”

“Oh,” I said. “And how much is that?”

“About $40.”

“So, um, why did I pay $150 for this other thing?”

“Oh, you’d have had to have that replaced eventually anyway,” the man shrugged. And that’s when I kicked him in the balls.

Oh, wait, no, I didn’t. I paid him and left, grumbling about the Mechanics Mafia. $190, all told, for a $40 procedure, just because I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to cars. Personally, I’ll be quite pleased when they finally invent those Star Trek style teleporters, and we don’t need these rolling hunks of money-sucking machinery to get around anymore. Let’s get right on that, NASA, okay?

In the meantime, wanna buy a Saturn? Cheap.

* * * * *

One of the sweetest delights music holds for me is the chance to see artists grow before my eyes. (Or rather, hear them grow before my ears, but you knew what I meant.) Strangely enough, though, most people don’t seem to want their artists to grow up, and will gravitate to youthful energy over mature artistry any day of the week.

Some acts have made whole careers out of remaining immature, grasping hold of their original audience and playing strictly to them, and always giving them what they want. Observe the incredible longevity of a one-note band like AC/DC, who proudly revel in the fact that they’ve made the same album more than a dozen times. Or how about the irrepressible hair-metal tour that Poison headlines every year, that somehow manages to sell hundreds of thousands of tickets? People want their “Nothin’ But a Good Time,” and heaven forbid the band try to feed them anything else. Luckily for Poison and AC/DC, that suits them just fine – they have all the artistic ambition of Milli Vanilli.

But what about the risk-takers? It’s not very often that a band can sustain a lengthy, successful career while developing and morphing their sound. The rare exceptions are usually hailed as genius: the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and R.E.M., for example. By and large, though, people don’t want their rock stars to grow up.

It’s especially difficult to attain some level of artistry if you first become known for your immaturity. I can’t imagine Andrew W.K. sustaining his career beyond one more disc, especially if that disc isn’t as chock full of moronic party tunes as his debut. One of the few acts that’s managed the jump from novelty to respectability is the Beastie Boys, and even they don’t understand their own success. Still, the Beasties moved from “Fight For Your Right to Party” frat boys to social activists and artistic commentators with remarkable ease.

It hasn’t been that easy for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but with the just-released By the Way, the band has completed their transformation from silly funk outfit to genuinely affecting songwriters, all without sacrificing their core sound. They’re still the Chili Peppers, but lately they’ve been exploring their grown-up side. And I have to say, for a band that used to parade around naked with socks on their peckers, the Peppers wear maturity well.

By the Way follows the same path the Peppers began forging on 1999’s Californication, minus the ill-fitting sex-pun title. The whole disc is mellow and well-crafted, so much so that it’s hard to reconcile this work with the minimalist rap-funk of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, from only a decade ago. Here Anthony Keidis, often the worst thing about the band, summons reserves of melody we’ve never heard from him, crooning slow numbers like “I Could Die For You” without a hint of irony. And John Frusciante, whose return to the fold could have signaled a return to the rump-shaking days of yore, proves himself yet again as a textured and emotional guitar player. He takes on the whole thing with clean tones, never once amping up and distorting out.

There is, of course, a thin line between maturing and selling out, but where that line is remains subjective at best. Even though By the Way only jumps beyond mid-tempo-land once (“Throw Away Your Television”), there’s a palpable sense of honesty to this recording, an investment of emotion and belief that can’t be faked. The album will likely be met with casual disdain from the folks who climbed aboard in ’92, as it contains no “Give it Away,” no “Sir Psycho,” nor even any soft-loud-soft stuff like “Under the Bridge.” For those who have been with the band a bit longer, it’s the culmination point of a trip they’ve been on for years. Rather than a ploy for radio hits, By the Way feels like an argument for longevity, and quite a convincing one at that.

Oasis find themselves in a similar situation. They started off all brash and swagger, all cigarettes and alcohol, led by the brothers Gallagher, the self-styled Mick and Keith of the next generation. Oasis wrote balls-out rock songs peppered with the sense that the Gallaghers really thought they were running the best band in the world. By the time they imploded on the self-obsessed and ridiculously overdone Be Here Now, Oasis were living the mouthy rock star thing to the hilt.

The band’s problem always seemed to be the vast disassociation between their music and their opinion of their music. Oasis has always been a pretty good band, and if the Gallaghers (singer Liam and guitarist Noel) hadn’t strutted about proclaiming themselves better than the Beatles, they probably could have gotten by on that. Instead, they aimed for the brass ring, and fell several miles short.

The fallout landed all over their last album, the nearly pitable Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, and it appeared that Oasis needed to pull back and reexamine just about everything, or else break up. Happily, they’ve gone with choice A, and even though their fifth album, Heathen Chemistry, is not nearly their best, it points confidently in a number of right (and, dare I say, mature) directions.

For one thing, Noel Gallagher has lifted some of his often tyrannical control on this disc. Previous albums found him writing every song, singing several of them, and producing (and often over-producing to death) every note. Heathen Chemistry feels like a democracy, with songwriting contributions from all five members. Rather than The Gallagher Brothers and Some Other Guys, this album sounds like the work of a band, and that’s a remarkable step.

The album itself ain’t too bad, either. It represents a search for simplicity, with the appealingly straight-ahead single “The Hindu Times” setting the pace. You can draw a straight line, in fact, from the band’s no-bullshit rock and roll debut, Definitely Maybe, to this one. Even the slower songs, like sure hit “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” and “She Is Love,” aim for subtlety more than the bombast of previous ballads. The chorus of “Stop Crying” is augmented by a string section, but one that barely calls attention to itself. Even Liam’s signature rasp is reined in here, to nice effect. Speaking of Liam, he acquits himself well as a songwriter on Chemistry‘s closing tracks, the melancholy “Born on a Different Cloud” and the rollicking “Better Man.”

What’s sort of remarkable about Heathen Chemistry is the number of times the band could have gone for the jugular, sonically speaking, and decided not to. Because of that, it doesn’t quite have the punch of What’s the Story Morning Glory, but it deftly avoids the self-indulgent overkill the band had almost become known for. Chemistry is just a little rock and roll record, but it may be the most important one this band has made. It’s the kind of album whose very creation bespeaks a kind of self-discovery that a band like Oasis desperately needed if they were to continue. It sounds for all the world that they’ve stopped trying to convince everyone that they’re the best band in the world, and started going about the business of actually becoming that band.

Next week, the great Beth Orton returns with Daybreaker. Can’t wait…

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I just realized I never got around to penning my quarterly new releases list for summer.

Naturally, I don’t have the space to do so this week, but I thought I might highlight some of the new discs I’m most looking forward to in the second half of the year. The rest of summer is pretty full, with new ones by Beth Orton, Filter, Starflyer 59, Duncan Sheik, Joan Osborne, the Black Crowes and Coldplay, and so far the Top 10 List this year is looking pretty strong. Here are a few more that will likely vie for the top five:

Aimee Mann comes back on August 27 with Lost In Space, reportedly picking up where her last great album, Bachelor No. 2, left off. Amazingly, if this hits its release date, it will be her first album since her 1991 debut to be released on time, and since it’s on her own label (SuperEgo), it likely will be her first to not get dumped by some stupid record exec.

Peter Mulvey, Boston’s best-kept secret, returns as well on August 13 with a live album recorded in the Boston subways called Ten Thousand Mornings. If you haven’t heard his last swell album, The Trouble With Poets, I highly recommend you get to www.petermulvey.com and order that puppy. He has a terrific voice, a unique acoustic style and a great way with words. Read some of the lyrics on his site – that alone should sell you.

The Levellers, those scruffy fiddle-rocking Brits, have a new album called Green Blade Rising that comes out across the pond on September 24. Of course, there is no U.S. release date, which is a shame, since the band has been going through an artistic metamorphosis lately that resulted in one of their best albums, 2000’s Hello Pig. Another band to hear, if you haven’t – www.levellers.co.uk.

Ours, the musical find of last year, releases their sophomore album Precious on November 5. If you miss Jeff Buckley and wish that the young’uns would show some respect to his legacy, you need to hear this band.

Ben Folds puts out his first-ever live album on October 8, bestowing it with the imaginative title Ben Folds Live. This disc was recorded on his most recent tour, which was split into full-band nights and more intimate shows with just Ben and his piano. Expect the album to reflect that dichotomy, and to sport its share of inventive reinterpretations and covers. Oh, and swearing.

And just like last year, Folds and Tori Amos are releasing discs one week apart. (Those two really should get together for a piano duel or something, kind of a Billy and Elton: The Next Generation.) Her new one is called Scarlet’s Walk and hits on October 15. It’s been preceded by a single, called “A Sorta Fairytale,” which uberfan Jay Tucker informs me is super-commercial. Feh.

That’s it for now, but here are a couple more contestants for this year’s list. It just keeps getting better…

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A quick digression, though, and then we’ll get cracking. Remember last year, when Wilco announced that Reprise Records had, in its infinite wisdom, dropped the band’s fourth and best album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, for being too musically adventurous? Remember how it took almost a year to get the disc out, and when it was finally released in April, it was met with widespread critical acclaim, and an almost dumbstruck disbelief that anyone could have seen fit to dump this record?

Are you ready to do it all over again?

Unbelievably, it’s happened a second time. The band’s fifth effort, Down With Wilco, has been dropped from Nonesuch Records, the label that released YHF. Jeff Tweedy is, naturally, pissed off and has already started working on getting this album out elsewhere. (Perhaps yet another Warner Bros. subsidiary?) I’m appalled that this has happened again, but I’m sure Aimee Mann is nodding her head and silently urging Tweedy to start his own label already. Down with the man, I say. Give us our damn Wilco.

I mention this because this week saw the release of a disc with a similar history. In 1999, the Dave Matthews Band huddled in a studio with Steve Lillywhite (a swell producer who has worked with Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., and Phish, to name a few) to craft the follow-up to their best album, 1997’s Before These Crowded Streets. They emerged with 12 unfinished songs, opting to shelve the project entirely, hook up with glossy popster Glen Ballard (Alanis’ guru), and sell out entirely with the crappy Everyday.

But wait. The Lillywhite Sessions, as the original dozen tracks came to be known, ended up all over the internet, and fans far and wide declared them Everyday‘s superior in every way. Matthews, unhappy to say the least about the leak, couldn’t help but notice that the fanbase rejected Everyday and kept downloading these other songs, and so it was a no-brainer (especially for a band that released an album called Listener Supported) that the quintet would finish the job Lillywhite started and officially release it.

And here it is. It’s called Busted Stuff, and while it’s not a straight release of the Lillywhite material, it’s pretty close. Nine of the 12 Lillywhite songs are here, in slightly altered versions, and they sit alongside two new ones. Also, as incentive to buy (not download) the disc, the band has included extensive CD-ROM material and a bonus DVD of concert footage. If this kind of value is an unintended effect of rampant downloading, then I say keep it up. Make ’em work for your dollar, it’s the American way.

The absence of Lillywhite from the Busted Stuff sessions may lead you to believe these are watered-down versions, full of Everyday‘s pop goop. Wrong-o. Except for a few (okay, a lot of) lyrical changes, the nine Lillywhite tunes remain intact, and serve as Exhibit A that Everyday was a drastic veer from course. “Grey Street” is a classic DMB song, with memorable stop-time leads; “Captain” rages like the best stuff on Before These Crowded Streets; and the powerhouse closer, “Bartender,” lives up to the hype. The new songs, the epic “You Never Know” and the single, “Where Are You Going,” thankfully sound like the DMB of old.

The real difference between the albums, though, is that Everyday felt like a Matthews solo project, and Busted Stuff feels like the work of a democracy. The former album displayed virtually none of the talents of Matthews’ amazing bandmates. Not so Busted Stuff, which shows off the ambidexterity of the awesome Carter Beauford on drums, and gives plenty of melodic and improv space to saxophonist Leroi Moore and violinist Boyd Tinsley. The album is remarkably concise, much like its predecessor, but it feels looser, less obviously calculated. It’s still not as great as Streets, but it’s a fine return to form.

Matthews, of course, doesn’t see it that way, claiming that this album is a product of fan pressure more than artistic expression. It remains to be seen which path the DMB will continue on, though I’d really like to see them reconcile the two extremes. Everyday is largely a big pile of happy, while Busted Stuff is lyrically dark and meditative, and while I prefer the latter, I can see how it would start to wear on Matthews to keep his pissy face on all the time. In the last 18 months, we’ve been handed two albums that sound like the work of two different bands. It should be interesting to see how the DMB tries to bring them together.

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Can you believe there are seven members in Counting Crows now?

They started as a quintet, and since their last album, 1999’s wondrous This Desert Life, they’ve added their third guitarist, a guy named David Immergluck. It would be nice to say I noticed, but the band’s fourth, the just-released Hard Candy, sounds just like their third, which sounds just like their second, and on and on. Steve Lillywhite, who seems to be everywhere this week, produced Hard Candy, but likewise, it never seems to matter who mans the boards for this group – they always sound basically the same.

This is in no way, shape or form a complaint, mind you. The Crows have been building their own little universe somewhere to the left of the radio-poppers for 10 years now, and they believe in musical isolationism. It wouldn’t matter if the entire world suddenly embraced polka and every other type of music dropped out of the charts, Counting Crows would continue making artful pop records like this one, and their grateful fans would keep snapping them up.

It’s hard to describe the appeal of Counting Crows, because it seems all together separate from the actual 13 songs presented here. Most of it is all wrapped up in Adam Duritz, one of the best singers to emerge in the ’90s. Like Grant Lee Phillips, he has an incontrovertible voice – you somehow believe every word he sings. When he announces in the band’s new single that “American Girls” make him “feel so incredible,” it comes off as soul-baring, rather than cliched. In the same song, when he confides that “I could have been anyone you see, I wish it was anyone but me,” it breaks your heart.

Duritz ends up breaking your heart a whole bunch of times on Hard Candy, which, despite its easy-to-digest title, is anything but a sugar rush. As usual, half the album is given over to slow, sad numbers about pain and escape, and you’d swear while a number like “Goodnight L.A.” or “Black and Blue” is playing that you’ve never heard anything more beautiful in your whole life. If you look at them with a critical eye, these are simple little songs wrapped around simple little confessions. If you give them access to your heart, however, they’re extraordinary.

And that’s what’s so hard to describe about them. Yes, there are a few new wrinkles here, like the almost-’80s-sounding “New Frontier” or the surprisingly successful hidden cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” but it’s the simpler, smaller things about Hard Candy that make it a treasure. Songs that I wouldn’t accept from anyone else sound gorgeous coming from this band, even ones with titles like “Good Time” and “If I Could Give All My Love.” The best way I can describe it is this: You know those moments at the end of your favorite television episodes, where the main characters silently reminisce and often engage in tearful hugs? And you know how those moments are as emotionally manipulative as anything else on TV, but they get you in the heart anyway, and you find yourself affected in spite of yourself? Counting Crows write and play the music that goes over those ending sequences, the kind of music that makes you nostalgic for the best moments in your life, the kind that gently finds its way past your defenses and into your emotions.

And that’s the best I can come up with. Hard Candy is, in every way, just another Counting Crows album, and if you ever liked them before, you’ll like this one. If I’m right about them, and they never leave the little private universe they’ve been creating, and every subsequent album from them sounds just like the first four, I won’t be disappointed in the least. In fact, I’ll treasure each one of them.

* * * * *

Next week, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, probably.

A quick note before I go: Not Lame Records wrote me today to let me know that the long-delayed Jellyfish box set, Fan Club, should be winging its way to me next month. If you haven’t heard of this project, it spans four discs (twice the number of the band’s official output) and covers demos, live tracks and unreleased recordings from the best pop band since the Beatles. In their time, they only released an hour and a half of music, but everyone (and I mean everyone) should hear this stuff. A full report is forthcoming once Fan Club hits my desk.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s no secret that I attended Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois this year basically to see one band.

They’re called the Lost Dogs, and they’re sort of a nexus point for a number of great spiritual rock bands. They’re made up of members from three of my favorite acts: Derri Daugherty from the Choir, Terry Taylor from Daniel Amos and Mike Roe from the 77s. And since I’ve wanted to see the Choir, DA and the Sevens play since the early ’90s, and all the Dogs were going to be there, it was a no-brainer for me to take advantage of my newfound geographical proximity and go to C-Stone for the first time.

And yeah, the Dogs and their respective bands were great, but I’m so glad I went for a number of other reasons. I got to meet everyone I’ve ever wanted to meet from this corner of the musical galaxy, and I got introduced to a few new bands I plan to follow forever. I also got completely turned around on one act in particular I’d been resisting, and got to see the remarkable artistic growth of another I’d loathed for years. And, of course, I bought 24 CDs, 14 of them brand-spankin’ new, and I’m here to tell you all about them.

First, though, the festival itself. Cornerstone has been an annual thing for 18 years, and typically draws between 20,000 and 30,000 people. It’s billed as a Christian rock festival, but if you’re not in the mood to be preached to, don’t worry about it. Hell, they had Pedro the Lion on the main stage this year, despite the fact that David Bazan’s work is often littered with profanities and offers no easy answers. Best of all is the price: $65 for advance tickets, $85 at the gate, for a week-long event. That price includes camping as well, as Cornerstone takes place on this huge farm in the middle of nowhere.

And the bands are more than worth twice the price. I’d have paid that amount just to see the 77s tear through their two-hour set, and I got 35 more concerts on top of that. I even missed two days, and feel like I got more than my money’s worth. It’s sort of sad to see so few people turning out for such great shows, but then again, Cornerstone is an intimate affair at its best, a secret you’re sharing with only a few, and that makes it somehow more special. (Although I wish someone at some major label somewhere would just take a listen to Mike Roe…)

If there was a catchphrase for the Dogs’ shows, it was this: “We used to play the big rooms.” Terry Taylor delighted in chuckling that line out, mostly because, for more than 20 years, none of these guys have ever played the big rooms. The extensive catalogs of Daniel Amos, the Choir, the Sevens, and numerous other Cornerstone bands are waiting there, like buried treasure, to be discovered. Once you hear this stuff, you won’t believe that millions of people across the globe aren’t lining up for tickets to these shows. The small, select fanbase has them all to themselves. For the fans, it’s the best of both worlds, but for the bands, it’s a sad state of affairs, even though they’re appreciative of every fan they have.

* * * * *

The first show I caught at C-Stone was an acoustic set by a guy named Bill Mallonee. This guy looks like Guy Pearce, sings like Bruce Cockburn’s rowdier younger brother, and plays a mean guitar. He also writes a decent Americana-tinged pop song, as you can hear on any one of his 14 albums. Truth be told, I’ve only heard a few, but samples from the others have done nothing to dissuade me of my opinion.

Mallonee used to be the leader of a band with the unfortunate name of Vigilantes of Love. The VOL has always been a money-losing proposition for Mallonee, and so last year, after the two best VOL albums (1999’s splendid Audible Sigh and 2000’s poppier Summershine), he broke up the band and pursued a solo career. His first solo album, Fetal Position, came out last month. However, when it came time to tour behind that record, he called the same musicians back and made it a VOL tour. They now go by the hysterical name Bill Mallonee and the Trophy Wives.

I’ve been trying to be a Mallonee fan for a while now, and haven’t managed it. The problem, I discovered, is that for his entire career, Mallonee has been trying to capture his live sound in the studio, and it just hasn’t worked. He’s electric live, a powerhouse of energy, and he turns simple rockers like Audible Sigh‘s “Goes Without Saying” into dramatic rides. Give him a real rave-up like Summershine‘s “Putting Out Fires With Gasoline,” and then hang on. The Trophy Wives show was a revelation. (Special props to Anne, who’s been trying for months to make me a fan. Mallonee himself managed it in two hours.)

And that’s part of my disappointment with Fetal Position. I had heard a number of the songs in a live setting first, and they cranked, especially the brisk “Life on Other Planets.” Hearing them again decked out in studio trickery was a diminishing experience. Opener “She’s So Liquid” has a high-wire falsetto part in the chorus that brought an instant smile to my face live. On record, it’s not nearly as ingratiating, especially since Mallonee’s guitar is processed and swirled a bit too much.

If you accept that the albums will never be as good as the concerts, though, Fetal Position ain’t bad. It continues the ornate yet guitar-centered poppiness of Summershine and adds a few new twists: the piano-driven “Wintergreen,” for example, or the subtle “Crescent Moon.” His lyrics are, as usual, in fine form here as well, a mixture of Cockburn and Springsteen filled with keen observation. There’s really nothing wrong with it, but I’m hopeful that someday Bill Mallonee will find a way to translate his terrific stage shows into equally terrific studio works.

Pick up Fetal Position as well as a whole bunch of Mallonee’s back catalog from his new label, www.pastemusic.com.

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The other guy I wasn’t too keen on seeing was Michael Knott. I’ve always kind of hated Knott, even though I’ve perversely sought out and purchased everything he’s ever done. Lest you think that’s not a big undertaking, Knott has made, under various names, more than 25 albums. Until recently, each one has left me vaguely cold. Knott often stops short of writing whole songs, preferring to let the noise and power of the guitar carry everything for him. The names may change (Lifesavers, L.S.U., Aunt Bettys, Bomb Bay Babies or just Michael Knott), but the sound rarely does.

It turns out, though, that Knott has spent the last 20 years or so battling alcoholism, and his recent rehab stint may have been the best thing that ever happened to him. At his concert, of course, he was suitably maniacal, preening and lumbering across the stage like a crazed rock god with painted-on sideburns. At one point, he knelt by the edge of the stage, scraping at his eyes for a full four minutes. At another (actually during “Sorry”), he wrapped the microphone cord around his neck and raised it behind his head like a noose, which he held tightly until he turned red. He screamed, he spit, and he always went for emotion rather than precision. It’s no wonder audiences have come to see him since the ’80s.

But the concert wasn’t the eye-opener for me. Knott has lately been making (gulp) good music, not just pummeling his audience with repetition. This trend started last year with his finest solo album, Life of David. There was a palpable sense of penitence on that record, a shame and a sorrow that somehow translated to finely crafted songs like “Candle Killing Light” and “Halo.” Or like “Chameleon” and “Shoe Gazer.” Or, hell, like the whole album. It’s far and away his best.

But his two new ones aren’t far behind. Both the full, rocking Comatose Soul and the stripped-down, sweet Hearts of Care show Knott’s newfound sense of craft, which only appeared sporadically in the past. Comatose Soul opens with a typical Knott tune, the thumping “Cruisin’ Ride,” but swiftly veers into more complex territory with “Callous Wheel” and the great “Pusher.” The latter song revolves around the line, “If you don’t want me to jump off this bridge, you might have to do something about it,” the most unsentimentally honest cry for help I can remember hearing.

Highlights abound from there, including the so-cheesy-it’s-cool synthesizer line on “Pop Goes the World,” the swirling melody of the title track, and the veddy British “Gold.” Unlike most of Knott’s catalog, Comatose Soul keeps surprising you all the way through to the end, the summery “Lollipops and Daisies.” It’s a painful album in places, dealing as it does with addiction, recovery and loss, but it’s an honest and complete one that’s actually quite impressive.

Knott plans to release Soul independently, and hence he made signed and numbered pre-release copies available at the show. His other album, though, is officially out on Northern Records, home of Cush and the Violet Burning (whom we’ll get to in a moment). Hearts of Care was produced by Andy Prickett, who used to play with the late, lamented Prayer Chain and now anchors both of the above-named bands. It features voice, acoustic guitar, harmonica and violin, and that’s it. It also includes some of the sweetest and most off-kilter songs Knott has ever written.

“And I Love You Girl,” for example, rises on a dissonant violin line that stands at odds with the simple love song lyrics. “She Steals This Heart” makes fine use of violinist Beth Spransy and Knott’s own weary voice. The title song strums and shimmers, and “Wasting Time” finds Knott playing off of Spransy’s sprightly voice well. All in all, it’s a very successful collection, even if the harmonica and violin sometimes clash, and it shows that Knott doesn’t need furious guitar playing to be effective.

Both new albums are pretty good introductions to Knott’s little corner of the world, and unlike some previous efforts, they get you on their side quickly. Hearts of Care is available at www.northernrecords.com, and they have sound clips there as well. I don’t know where or when you’ll be able to pick up Comatose Soul, but keep checking his official site at www.michaelknott.com.

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How cool is Northern Records?

Wait, here’s a better one: How cool is Andy Prickett? He’s an absolute master of guitar tone, and can turn one note into the most glorious and agonizing personal experience of this or any other lifetime. As a producer, he’s helped make some of the best-sounding platters available, like the Autumns’ gorgeous Winter In a Silver Box. As a player, he’s astonishing, whipping off complex lines and rhythms and then, two heartbeats later, adding finely woven textures to the song’s foundation. Musicians love to work with the guy because he always gives them what they need.

And despite his considerable talents, he apparently enjoys being in the background. He’s a born rock star, but he shuns accolades for both bands he’s in. The Violet Burning is vocalist Michael Pritzl’s project, and Prickett is content to stand to his right, adding soaring tones and snarling rhythms to Pritzl’s songs while the focus remains squarely on the voice and the lyrics. Cush, meanwhile, is a collective of anonymity whose membership and sound changes with each release. That makes it impossible to single anyone out, and Prickett apparently likes it that way.

Well, tough for him, ’cause I’m going to single him out anyway.

The Violet Burning show at C-Stone was a loud, lovely festival of sweet, weightless guitar, almost entirely provided by Prickett. Pritzl sang his little heart out, and his songs are pretty amazing, but they usually suffer when Prickett isn’t playing on them. Versions of tracks from the first two Prickett-less VB albums (Chosen and Strength) were twice what their studio counterparts were, especially the standout “As I Am,” and the new material was just great. Through it all, Prickett basically stood in one spot, chewing gum and making the most beautiful noise you’ve ever heard.

Of course, I don’t want to slight Michael Pritzl, who is as nice a guy as you could ever want to meet. His songs are epic constructions, often reaching eight minutes, and his voice is sweet and powerful, a combination few can pull off. Pritzl is a major talent, but in conjunction with Andy Prickett, he’s a musical force.

There is no new Violet Burning album yet, but there is the next best thing: a Pritzl/Prickett project called The Gravity Show. The album is called Fabulous Like You, and that tells you a lot of what you need to know about it. Despite some glam-pop overtones in the first few tracks, the Gravity Show is like a miniature Violet Burning album, especially when you get to the slower, more epic numbers like “Worlds Apart” and “Halo.” Remarkably, it never sounds like a side project – Pritzl’s voice is in fine form, and Prickett, well, what’s left to say about him? This is a cool record.

And then there’s the new Cush, which, like the previous two, is just titled Cush. As strange as this collective normally is, this is their strangest outing yet – a collection of old and new spirituals. I’d say “done Cush style,” but there is no set Cush style, and that’s one thing I love about them. You never know what you’re going to get. This time you get old-time gospel, like the claps-and-moans leadoff track “Run Mary Run” and the low, acoustic “We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace.” And then they throw you a curve ball – a straight acoustic rendition of the old Prince song “I Would Die 4 U.” As usual, there’s no mention of who did what, and on this one, they don’t even provide a list of who’s involved. It’s just Cush, and like always, it’s just great.

You can get everything Cush, the Gravity Show, some Violet Burning and cool records by Frank Lenz, the Lassie Foundation, Charity Empressa and others at www.northernrecords.com. The label is co-owned by Prickett and some of his fellow ex-Prayer Chain bandmates, and it’s a textbook example of great musicians charting their own destinies.

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Cornerstone is, if my experience is any indication, a great place to discover new music. Here are a few groups and artists I happened upon during my week:

Beki Hemingway used to be in a great punk-pop band called This Train, refusing again and again to take herself seriously. Her solo career, however, is proof that she can make terrific music that doesn’t need to wink at you. Equal parts Aimee Mann and Chrissie Hynde, Hemingway floated through a set of swell guitar-pop tunes from her second full-length, Words For Loss For Words, on the acoustic stage, and the only difference between the show and the record is the addition of electric guitars on disc. From the superb breakup song “Only Thing Worse” to the hopeful lilt “Siouxanne” to the folksy admonishment of modern culture “The Crows of Cashel,” this album is just great. She even covers soft rock hit “Just Remember I Love You” and makes it listenable.

There is one standout stunner on Words, though, and it’s called “To Spare You.” It jumps points of view so effectively at the end (“I say it’s me I’m sparing but that really isn’t true, it’s me that needs to be spared by you”) that it sends chills, and her husband Randy Kerkman’s acoustic work elevates it from mere pop song to real statement. This could come close to the ol’ Top 10 List this year. Check her out at www.bekihemingway.com.

The Elevator Division is a four-piece propulsive rock guitar unit that shimmies and shakes like the best of Sense Field and Fugazi. When they’re firing on all cylinders (as they are on their full-length debut Movement), their guitar lines weave in and out with startling originality over a bone-crushing rhythm section that never lets up. Their new EP is called Whatever Makes You Happy, and comes in a hand-stenciled cardboard sleeve that’s worth the $5 price all by itself. Dig them at www.elevatordivision.com.

By far, the best band I discovered at Cornerstone, though, is a six-piece from California called Ester Drang. Imagine if Radiohead had moved into the atmospherics of Kid A but had retained all the fullness and melody of OK Computer. Now imagine that with the aforementioned Andy Prickett on guitar. Ester Drang played a set that moved like a living thing, rising and falling in waves and swirling about itself. Their songs are coiling beasts, snakes eating their own tails, shifting every which way on changing time signatures and unorthodox beats. Their sound is layered and thick, yet lighter than air.

Ester Drang has an incredible album out called Goldenwest, their second, and it fulfills the promise of the live show and then some. Opening with the piano-driven title song, this epic monstrosity plays like a single piece of music, winding through the complex “Repeating the Procedure” and the ornate, sleigh-bell-driven “Words That Cure” before winding up at the sweet “Felicity Darling.” It packs more punch in 50 minutes than many bands do in twice that, and hopefully sets the stage for a long and wonderful career for these talented boys. Get thee now to www.esterdrang.com and purchase it.

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There is one show I wish I had seen at C-Stone: the multi-artist Brian Wilson tribute that Silent Planet Records put on. It likely was terrific, and all I have to go on for that opinion is the CD around which the tribute was based. It’s called Making God Smile, and it’s 26 tracks of inventive interpretations of Beach Boys and Brian Wilson songs by some great artists and a bunch of talented unknowns.

Of the more famous folks, there’s Phil Keaggy delivering a note-perfect run through of “Good Vibrations,” Sixpence None the Richer doing a lovely take on “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times,” and my boys the Lost Dogs singing a nearly a cappella rendition of lost track “With Me Tonight.” Other standouts include Aaron Sprinkle (of Poor Old Lu) doing a great medley of “I Know There’s an Answer” and its doppelganger “Hang On To Your Ego,” Phil Madeira playing an instrumental version of “Heroes and Villains,” Terry Taylor half-laughing his way through “Vegetables” and Rick Altizer making your jaw drop with his one-man rendition of “Surf’s Up.”

I do want to mention one in particular, though. There’s a guy that everyone at Cornerstone has seen, either tuning a guitar or running to get a capo, or maybe even playing the occasional bass part. His name is Jeff Elbel, and he has the crap job of being everyone’s roadie while hopefully garnering an audience for his band, Ping. Well, Jeff has a great voice, plays guitar well, and put on a great show, which almost no one at the festival saw. It’s a shame, really, but hopefully his swell reading of “You Still Believe In Me,” complete with glorious harmonies, will increase his profile beyond that of super-roadie.

You can get Making God Smile at www.silentplanetrecords.com. It’s worth it.

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Look at how much space I’ve used up, and I haven’t even gotten to the really good stuff yet.

Steve Hindalong told a great story at the Choir’s acoustic show on Thursday. Hindalong has two daughters, 11-year-old Erin and 13-year-old Emily. One evening while the family was out at a restaurant, Erin asked innocently, “Do you think anyone will come up and want to get Daddy’s autograph?”

To which Emily responded, “Oh, Erin, the Choir used to be popular, but now Derri and Dad are just two old men walking around.”

Old they may be, but they sounded great. The Choir was the only major band at C-Stone without a new album to plug, but I wanted to mention them anyway, because seeing them live has been a decade-long dream of mine, and I got to do it twice, and they didn’t disappoint. The acoustic set was great, featuring a revved-up “To Cover You” and a stripped -down “Yellow Skies.” Hindalong proved himself as one of the great drummers once again, eschewing the full drum kit for one snare, one tom and a tambourine between his knees. The full electric show was amazing, with guitarist Derri Daugherty showing just how much noise he can make. In a break with tradition, they started with “Restore My Soul” and came crashing to a conclusion with an extended “Circle Slide.” Dream come true.

* * * * *

Terry Taylor starts every show with an obnoxious, throaty, bellowed, “Howareya?” He got four chances to use that line at C-Stone: two Lost Dogs shows, a solo set and a fan-freakin’-tastic concert with his band Daniel Amos. Throughout the DA show, Taylor made reference to the age of his fans, playing mostly old stuff from the Alarma Chronicles (1981-86), and he only managed to get the lethargic audience to its feet for the mandatory participation number “Dance Stop.” Still, they rocked, securing the spot for second-best show I saw at Cornerstone, and it was really cool to hear old favorites like “New Car” and “Travelog” alongside soon-to-be-classics from the new album Mr. Buechner’s Dream, like “Author of the Story” and “Joel.”

The Dogs were similarly wonderful, playing up the kvetching rock star schtick they’ve been perfecting for years. “We used to play the big rooms,” Taylor said, to which Mike Roe instantly replied, “We used to play the big tents, too. Now we just wear ’em.” There should be a new Lost Dogs album out by the end of the year, although they played nothing from it. “Bullet Train” was great, though, and they dedicated the mournful “The Great Divide” to their fellow Dog, the Late, Great Gene Eugene.

Taylor has two new pieces of music, although one of them takes some explaining. In 1995, Daniel Amos released their most misunderstood album, the conceptual Songs of the Heart. It’s the story of Bud and Irma Akendorf, an aging couple who decides to take one last trip across America. The songs are simple yet strange, and most people (or most of that small number who heard it) just didn’t get it. Complicating the matter further was Taylor’s decision to play the part of Bud Akendorf vocally, adopting a low, rumbling, weary tone throughout. Many thought he’d simply lost his vocal range, not paying attention to the fact that he did all the high harmonies himself as well.

At any rate, Songs has remained the weird cousin to the rest of DA’s output, and Taylor has decided to rectify that a bit. Hence, the three-CD book set When Everyone Wore Hats, a reinterpretation and explanation of the Songs of the Heart album. Taylor has done a good job of making this relatively inscrutable project accessible. In addition to the original Songs album, you get a complete reinvention of same on disc two – acoustic arrangements with the full range of Taylor’s vocals. You also get two new songs, and Taylor reading selections from the 100-page book, on disc three. He’s done everything he can do to invite you in.

Does it work? Largely, yeah. I came away from Hats with a greater understanding and appreciation of Songs of the Heart, both of its original concept and of how short it falls of conveying that concept. Nearly without exception, the new acoustic arrangements work better than the originals, since the focus is more on the fantastic lyrics, and Taylor actually sings. “When Everyone Wore Hats” itself is a great song, with a lyric to die for – a particularly unsentimental salute to his father’s generation. (“When everyone wore hats, in the land of immigrants and pilgrims, the world came rolling off their backs and landed on their children’s.”) The original suffered from overproduction and that low, uninspiring vocal, but the new version is clean and perfect. Taylor leaps into falsetto for the chorus, which finally soars as much as it always should have.

In fact, even lesser songs like “The Organ Bar” benefit from the new arrangements, and when it comes to tunes that were already swell, like “Loveland” and “Get Back Into the Bus, Aloha,” the new settings take the songs to another level. Still, I’m glad that both versions of the album are included in Hats, if for no other reason than to have the full band cover of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” that opened the original. When Everyone Wore Hats is a successful reworking of a fairly unsuccessful album, one that will never be my favorite DA record, but one that has moved up a few notches because of this effort. I’d say that makes it time well spent.

At his solo show, Taylor played the entirety of his second new album, the six-song solo EP LITTLE, big. Thanks to a bizarre backing track setup, the show sounded exactly like the album, which is covered in synthesized instrumentation like a miniature low-budget Pet Sounds. Which isn’t far off, since Taylor has said he was inspired by his participation in the Brian Wilson tribute. Horns, strings, whistles, bird noises and bells come flitting in and out of all six songs, which are set to electronic drums and synth beds.

And true to its title, LITTLE, big is a study in dichotomy. The songs themselves are small, concerning mundane matters like family life, good friends and clever cats, but the sound is huge, nearly full to bursting. It’s an epic about tiny things that comes in at roughly 20 minutes, and fittingly enough, half of it is excellent, while the other half is less successful. “Molly Is a Metaphor” is a great name for a song, just not this song, all about the family feline, and the unabashed sentimentality of “Oh, Sweet Companion” and “Rob’s and Carolee’s” stays on one level. Taylor usually delves deeper than this.

But the other half, though – the title track is a mini Brian Wilson suite complete with harmonies and crashing percussion, “Lovely Lilly Lou” revels in its silly alliterative nature while bopping along to a Beatlesque groove, and the closer, “Mama’s In the Desert, Daddy’s In the Sky,” is a treasure. Taylor lost his father two years ago, and this song is the first time he’s dealt with that head-on. It’s a sad, sweet love song for his mother, one in which Taylor lays himself bare once again, reminding you that when he’s inspired, he’s practically peerless. All by itself, that song is worth buying LITTLE, big. (And yes, there is a full-length album on the way called Big.)

Get both new records, and a host of other stuff, at www.danielamos.com. If you haven’t heard the band before, a good starting point is the incredible new album, Mr. Buechner’s Dream.

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It would take a truly great concert to outdo Daniel Amos, but the following night, the 77s did just that.

I don’t care if any of you reading this ever make it to Cornerstone, though I hope I’ve made it sound somewhat appealing. But if you can, try to catch the 77s live somewhere. They’re the best band that no one in America knows, a rollicking three-piece that can stop on a dime, led by a guy who ranks as one of my two favorite guitarists, Michael Roe. For those of you sick of hearing about the guy, the hope is that I’ll nag you into at least trying one of his more than 20 superb albums, or into catching him on stage someday. If you’ve never trusted me on anything before, trust me on this guy. He’s amazing.

The 77s put on the best damn rock ‘n’ roll show I’ve ever seen, crashing from the powerhouse “Woody” through the punishing “Rocks In Your Head” to the encore, a note-perfect rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine.” Now, think about that for a second – Zep’s version is arranged for four players, which means that Roe played Jimmy’s part and sang Robert’s part at the same time. Meanwhile, bassist Mark Harmon and drummer Bruce Spencer hung together with Roe like a well-tuned machine.

Midway through the show, the band played all of their new EP, Direct. Man, what a disc this is. In six awesome songs, the 77s outdid their whole last album, A Golden Field of Radioactive Crows. It’s softer and sweeter than that album, for one thing, and trades in melody and nuance more than the band has done in a while. The new single, “Dig My Heels,” would be a smash hit if Tom Petty sang it, and that acoustic number cascades into the near-epic “Lifeline” and the Grateful Dead-ish jam “Take Your Mind Off It.” Also outstanding are the electrified opener, “Born on Separate Days,” and the love song “Perfect,” which is. Oh yeah, and the acoustic “Roesbud” (not a typo) is great as well. Direct is too short, certainly, but it ranks as one of my favorite 77s discs.

If that had been all Roe released this year, I’d be fine with it, but he had to go and make two more albums worthy of attention. The first is the second installment in his and Mark Harmon’s instrumental series, which began with Daydream. The new one is nothing like that one. It’s called Orbis, and it’s the work of insane men. It’s doused in fluttering electronic drums, clanging keys and some of Roe’s most bizarre guitar playing. It tells the story of a space mission gone awry in 74 mindboggling minutes, and though it plays like one long composition, there are songs, with titles like “Mars Bars,” “Spaceman 7” and “Funky Planet.” The centerpiece is the 16-minute “Some Young Moon,” a beautiful ambient exploration that shows off a previously unheard side of Roe. Sure, it’s self-indulgent, but it’s also splendid.

And finally, there’s the real prize, a 27-minute solo EP called Say Your Prayers. I’ve been waiting for Roe to make an album like this since first hearing his acoustic live set It’s For You. Prayers is just Roe and his acoustic, exploring all sides of his personality (as embodied in the title, which evokes both spirituality and an impending right hook). The results are fragile and beautiful, and remind me of nothing more than the album that inspired this column’s name, Simon and Garfunkel’s Wednesday Morning 3 A.M.

Highlights include “The Itch is Back,” an ode to learning to live; “Sunshine Down,” a sweet song that contains, as Roe said, “the stupidest lyrics he’s ever written, so sing along”; and the title song, the dreaded Song For His Daughter, that he somehow manages to make indelible. (It even includes a sly stab at the censored title of his 1992 album, Pray Naked: “Say them clothed, say them bare, say them in your underwear…”) Every song here is worth treasuring, though, from the sad reverie of “20 Years Gone” to the sarcasm of “Lutheran Hymn” to the flat-out prayer of “Hobo Messiah,” which concludes with the refrain, “Come and see that love is good.” Yes, it is, and so is this album, another shining standout in a career full of them. Michael Roe’s guitar and voice could make a deaf man weep, and will break your heart even if you don’t think you have any heart left to break.

For the 77s, go to www.77s.com. For Roe’s solo stuff, go to www.michaelroe.com.

* * * * *

One final grace note: For the last concert of my festival, I caught Sixpence None the Richer on the main stage, who played all of their new album, Divine Discontent, out on September 24. It’s beautiful, especially the closing number, and it provided the perfect capper to a week of wonders.

Thanks for plowing through this enormous set of reviews. We’ll be back to regular size next week, with a look at the new Counting Crows, among others.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I love the guitar.

I can’t play a note, of course. I make up for this by being a world-class champion air guitarist. I flail, I dance about, but most of all, I contort my face the way I’ve seen guitarists do when they hit a particularly resonant note. Seriously, you’d think I was a pro, if not for the complete absence of a guitar. In my head, I’m Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen and Frank Zappa all rolled into one. In reality, as several of my helpful friends have noted while laughing their helpful asses off, I look like I’m going into a grand mal seizure.

But I can’t help it. I love the sound of the guitar. It’s one of the few instruments that can call forth an emotional reaction from me all by itself. (Piano is another, and I can play that one.) A good guitarist can make you alternately pissed off and weepy, at his or her command. A good guitarist can make you sing, cry or shiver with chills, which is why it’s such a shame that the radio is so full of inexperienced six-string manglers.

Every Joe Satriani album is like a private guitar class, a textbook full of examples of the myriad textures and emotions available to the guitarist with the skill to bring them out. While so many so-called guitar heroes seem stuck on “ferocious roar,” Satriani manages to be loud, even searing, and still maintain his innate melodicism. There are very few Joe Satriani songs you can’t sing along with, even though he rarely includes vocals.

Strange Beautiful Music, Joe’s eighth studio album, includes 14 hummable numbers without words, and just when you thought he might have run out of ideas, what with the sadly boring Live in San Francisco last year emphasizing all of his weaknesses, he surprises with a fully realized, multi-layered work. It’s surprising because SBM is a return to the “classic” Satriani sound of Surfing With the Alien and Crystal Planet, but it adds new dimensions and some fascinating melodic choices to create something familiar yet fresh.

One thing Satch needs to work on is his song titles. They used to be cool and evocative, telling little stories (“Lords of Karma,” “Driving at Night,” “Flying in a Blue Dream”). Now, if he writes, for example, a song with a vaguely oriental melody, he’s apt to call the song “Oriental Melody.” I’m not making this up – “Oriental Melody” is the real name of the leadoff track on SBM. Elsewhere he whips out a seven-string guitar for a tune called, that’s right, “Seven String.” Not too imaginative.

But that’s forgivable, as the songs themselves are pretty inventive. “Oriental Melody” bops and grooves its way through numerous textures, as does “Belly Dancer,” which includes a charmed snake of a lead line. “Mind Storm” is pretty amazing, collapsing an epic journey into 4:10, and “What Breaks a Heart” bleeds with emotion.

There is one speed bump – a short cover of old surf tune “Sleepwalk,” the only remnant, apparently, of an historic meeting of the guitar minds between Satch and Robert Fripp of King Crimson. Truthfully, you can barely hear Fripp in the background, spreading his Frippertronics jazz all over the track while Satch plays a depressingly faithful rendition. These two could have traded licks for half an hour, and I wouldn’t have minded. Plus, they’re both unconventional composers, and I’d have loved to hear what they could have come up with together. To confine their collaboration to two minutes of someone else’s song is a crime.

And sure, it drags by the end, but all of Satch’s albums do, and he redeems himself with a closing trilogy that goes somewhere and, more remarkably, comes back by its conclusion. The gentle “You Saved My Life” closes out Strange Beautiful Music, and it sounds as though his guitar, at least, believes the sentiment. This is Satriani’s most successful project since The Extremist in 1992, incorporating the lessons learned on his blues and techno excursions back into an instrumental rock setting. As usual, bassist Matt Bissonette and drummer Jeff Campitelli are along for the ride, playing marvelously, but this is Satriani’s show, and it’s definitely one worth attending if you like the guitar.

Cool as he is, Satriani is not at the top of my list of favorite guitar players, but our next contestant is right up there. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: There are only two guitar players I could listen to for days on end and not be bored. One of them is Mark Knopfler, of Dire Straits fame, and the other is Michael Roe.

Roe’s playing has a fluidity and grace that only comes from two sources: years of practice and a generous helping of God-given talent. I’ve seen him play, and I’ve often wondered how invigorating it would be to be able to pick up a guitar any time you want to and do what he can do with it. Roe has, over a whole bunch of albums, taken on a number of styles brilliantly. His regular band, the 77s, is a rockin’ combo with bluesy overtones, but he waxes country on each Lost Dogs album, and his solo stuff is all over the map. Safe As Milk, all by itself, includes ’80s pop, gospel, boogie-rock, Van Morrison-style soul, and fragile acoustic fingerpicking. Oh, and his elastic voice matches each of these styles with aplomb, as well.

As if that weren’t enough diversity, Roe has recently launched an instrumental guitar series that opens up a few more musical doors for him. The first in this set is called Daydream, and is a collaboration with 77s bassist Mark Harmon. Daydream had minimal distribution when it first appeared some years ago, but now Roe has dressed up his baby in fresh new clothes and sent it out into the world on his own label.

This, my friends, is a sweet disc. It opens, coincidentally enough, with a similar cover of “Sleepwalk,” but Roe’s is subtler and serves more as an introduction to the 58 minutes of clean guitar bliss that follows. On beds of lush keyboards, Roe lays down some delicious solos, especially on “Amber Waves” and “Dancing Out on the Moonlit Nile.” There’s not much in the way of memorable melody here, like there is on Satriani’s disc, but Roe is more likely to sweep you away just with the flow of his playing.

Daydream is definitely mood music, but there’s quite a bit of musicality to it. It’s one of those discs that can send you somewhere else, but stands up to scrutiny as well, should you decide to stay where you are and listen intently. I’d recommend letting yourself go, however. By the time the nearly formless “Herald the Bud” fades into the closing reprise of “Sleepwalk,” you’ll undoubtedly feel like you’ve just returned from a pleasant journey. This isn’t fluttery new-age crapola, though – it’s a concrete musical work suffused with atmosphere.

And it just happens to sound really good on my air guitar.

You can buy Daydream at Roe’s brand-spankin’-new website, www.michaelroe.com.

I had hoped to include thoughts on the second installment of Roe’s instrumental series, the just-released Orbis, but my pre-ordered copy has not yet arrived. Since I’ll be reviewing two more of Roe’s new records in the coming weeks (the 77’s new EP Direct and Roe’s new solo acoustic disc Say Your Prayers), I’ll just add that in. I get to see Roe play four times this week – once with the 77s, once by himself and twice with the Lost Dogs – and I’m so excited I can barely get to sleep at night. Thoughts from Cornerstone and a whole bunch of new CDs when I return.

See you in line Tuesday morning.