The latest edition of the School of Rock franchise — which has 80 other schools for young, aspiring Rock musicians in the U.S. and Mexico — opens this weekend in Mason. Like the other facilities, School of Rock Mason provides lessons for students ages 7-18, including the chance to play real venues in front of real audiences.    

 Since releasing his Nick Lowe-produced classic debut, Howling Wind, back in 1976, Graham Parker keeps delivering his vintage brand of spiked lyricism and jangly Pop Rock in potent doses. Thirty-plus years into his dynamic, underrated career, Parker still stands tall among his more commercially successful peers.   

Officially, Philadelphia-rooted Psychedelic/Garage Rock outfit Purling Hiss consists of three members, but the brain stem of the whole affair is undoubtedly singer/guitarist Mike Polizze. The project is  the product of Polizze messing around with a grab bag of elements, from sound levels to white noise to the song structures.  

Some guitarists form in the womb and emerge ready to push their instrument’s limits and in turn be pushed by them, using their childhoods as a proving ground for the brilliance to follow. That is not Cincinnati’s Natalie Wells.    

One spin through Pete Dressman’s new album, Vol. II, might give the impression that the Cincinnati singer/songwriter and his band, the Soul Unified Nation, are unrepentant lovers of contemporary classic Rock icons like Pearl Jam who wouldn’t be the least bit out of place opening for locally-based Psych Rock trio Buffalo Killers. And you’d be right.   

Covington native and legendary bassist on numerous crucial sessions done for Cincinnati’s King Records, Ed Conley, passed away on Jan. 5 at the age of 84. Following the private memorial for family a couple of weeks ago, friends and admirers this Thursday will gather at the Gwen Mooney Funeral Home (inside Spring Grove Cemetery at 4521 Spring Grove Ave.) at 1 p.m. for a public ceremony.  

In an interview last year, frontman Andrew McMahon of Pop Rock band Jack’s Mannequin said the band’s mission was simply to get “people fired up for some new music.” That new music arrived in early October with People and Things, the third album from the group led by the piano-playing vocalist McMahon.   

One of Kry Kids’ live trademarks is a structural complexity that finds everyone but Donaldson moving constantly between instruments and roles. Like a well-choreographed but also intuitive ballet, the switch-ups are planned and practiced but come across graceful and natural enough to not be a momentum killer.