Five years ago, it didn’t look like Lucero was going to make it. As noted in the beginning of Dreaming in America, Aaron Goldman’s 2005 documentary about the Memphis quartet, they were a “band without a label and without a single royalty after 20,000 albums sold. Touring (was) their only income.”   

Umphrey's McGee has developed into one of the heavyweights of the neo-Jam Band scene. They were formed in the late '90s at the University of Notre Dame, quickly moved to their new home base of Chicago and exploded onto the scene in the early with their improvisational wonder workings. Bassist Ryan Stasik describes their sound as "distinctly Umphrey's," which can mean anything from 20-minute improvisational jams to face-melting two-minute guitar solos to succinct, four-minute Pop/Rock gems.  

"Soul Music will never die," proclaims Herbert Wiley, a veteran of a 1960s-era Southern Soul band now staging an improbable comeback. For 66-year-old, this second time around might become much bigger than the first.  

Steeped in the no-bullshit fervor of Black Flag and the ominous imagery that The Misfits crafted so well, Hour of the Wolf violently barrels forward without a pause in sight. The barbed bellows and croons of guitarist/vocalist Lance (whose surname is usually published as Wolf) propels the band as its instruments wreak the kind of destruction you would expect from the weather during Armageddon.   

Life’s too short to remain unnoticed, at least that’s what Dali said. This is the catch-all mantra that many of today’s appreciable artists — including Rock musicians — whisper to themselves at night.  

Many of you, at least a dozen, know my work as a music journalist for CityBeat and a variety of regional and national publications — some actually still in business — but virtually no one knows I’m also a musician of some discernible skill. I’ve never been in a band nor played out, though.  

Already formed and broken up once by 1982, The Queers began to grab headlines with the reemergence of perennial frontman Joe Queer in 1990. Queer would be the consistent nucleus of a band whose roster was a haphazard game of musical chairs; roughly 30 members since 1982 have been a Queer. Twenty five years later, the band still shows no signs of stopping, with an upcoming CD release slated for 2009 and a tour that included a stint at South By Southwest in Texas.  

Keeping up with today's popular music performers is like walking past a funhouse mirror. For every favorite culture or literary hero you or anyone else is liable to have had, real or fictional, there's probably a contemporary Rock act appropriating the name.  

There’s rarely a chance these days to witness musicians who represent both the roots and evolution of a genre. In the ’60s, for instance, you could see music history being written in Jazz clubs all over the country, featuring artists who were not just masterful players but creating and expanding an entire musical tradition.  

When Pomegranates released their 2008 debut album, it was the culmination of a number of significant advances in a relatively short time. Within months of forming, the quartet had notched accomplishments that evade some bands for years. Their new album, 'Everybody, Come Outside!,' bristles with an engaging Indie Rock energy that simultaneously references and transcends their avowed influences: Talking Heads and Brian Eno.  

Play It Forward is the year-old Cincinnati support group that wants to financially help musicians who give us remarkable entertainment in clubs and concert halls on a nightly basis, often at the expense of their financial security and well being. It's the brainchild of Gary Burbank, the veteran humorist, radio personality and former Memphis session drummer who retired from WLW-AM at the end of 2007.  

David Harrington, founder and leader of the world-famous (and world-traveled) Kronos Quartet, finds it hard to believe the group hasn't played Cincinnati since 1987. Kronos will be the headliner for both nights of the MusicNOW festival March 11-12 at Memorial Hall in Over-the-Rhine.  

Joshua Radin never intended to become a musician, at least not outside of the confines of his personal life where he always quested for new ways to artistically express himself. Painting and screenwriting had largely occupied these efforts until 2004 when friend and singer/songwriter Cary Brothers prodded him into recording a song called “Winter” in his bedroom.  

Tokyo Police Club has emerged out of a crowded Canadian music scene due in no small part to their catchy song structures and flair for independence. The band released critically acclaimed EPs in 2006 and 2007, and the major labels sought them out, hoping to land what many deemed as the next Strokes or Death Cab for Cutie. But instead the band released their debut full-length, 'Elephant Shell,' on Omaha-based independent label Saddle Creek, home to such acts as Bright Eyes and Cursive.  

The death of careers, the death of trends, the death of fads and the death of the industry itself have all been heralded by morbid media seers from the very beginnings of Rock in the '50s, when the mainstream media predicted that the new youth movement in music would ultimately bring about the very collapse of civilization as we know it.