Before I embark on three glorious days of vacation, I wanted to clue you all into some new releases you ought to check out.

One is David Gahan's new solo outing, Hourglass. Lyrically, Hourglass sees Gahan turning further inward to study his very public fall from grace and his long road to recovery. Not as light or synth-driven as his previous work with Depeche Mode, Hourglass is an edgy, swarming, almost industrial, foray into electronica that's just as bruising and nasty as what life threw at Gahan. And yet there are moments of pure, watery beauty that you long to be drowned in. An unexpectedly brilliant work that revels in the flaws of its creator. (www.mute.com, www.davidgahan.com, www.virginrecords.com)

The next is the new album by Wussy, which features former Ass Pony and a one-time Goldmine advertiser Chuck Cleaver. Left For Dead is the followup to Wussy's 2005 release Funeral Dress and it's a minefield of strong, melodic, guitar-oriented indie-rock steeped in rust-belt Americana. Due out Nov. 6, Left For Dead is honest, straight-forward, ballsy rock that lets Cleaver get in touch with his inner guitar hero. His vicious, distorted solos rip flesh, and it abounds with tough, male-female vocals. Look for an interview with Cleaver either online or in an upcoming print issue of Goldmine. (shakeitrecords.com)

Another planned interview for Goldmine involves former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, who convenes the moody, polyrhythmic Global Drum Project for release Oct. 2. All about the beats, which seem to multiple in your ears like rabbits, the Global Drum Project sees Hart collaborating with Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain. They first joined forces on 1991's Planet Drum. A headphone feast of sound, the Global Drum Project takes world music to new places, including the last frontier of electronica. (shoutfactory.com, mickeyhart.net)

See y'all later. In the meantime, feel free to e-mail me with your Top 10 list of 2007 so far, or just give me a heads-up on some records you feel are the cat's meow.

Of touring today, Martin Atkins, former drummer for Public Image Ltd., Killing Joke, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, says, "It's guerilla warfare out there, it really is."

Keeping his head low so as not to get it shot off is not Atkins' way, however. A veteran of punk's bloody, gob-covered past, Atkins, a godfather of industrial-rock, has witnessed and experienced just about everything the road can throw at a musician. And now, he's collected all of his sage advice — and it is "sage" in that if you fail to follow it your band might end up in a Tijuana jail — in a hefty tome called "Tour: Smart."

For $29.95, you get a wealth of advice and hilarious anecdotes — and when I say "hilarious" I don't mean it in that "Elks Lodge speech way" that gets only forced, polite laughter from the robots that go to such things.

To put it simply, if you are in a band, or are a musician of any sort, you need this book. It is essential reading for those about to go on tour or in the early stages of planning one. Call it the bible of touring. Call it the Holy Grail of knowledge. Whatever hyperbole you want to throw at it, the book lives up to all of it. Put it this way: Spinal Tap wouldn't have had little people dancing around a foot-high replica of Stonehenge had they read this.

It is chock full of the kind of advice you wish your father would have told you, that is if he'd been Iggy Pop and you were just going out on the road for the first time. A brilliant summation of life experience Atkins has gathered from 30 years as a touring musician, "Tour: Smart" reveal every pitfalls, every travail, every problem that could possibly arise, from dealing with the police to promotion to sex on the road to ... jesus, who knows what else.

One iron-clad rule Atkins has as a performer is, if somebody, anybody, shows up to see you play, you better damn well give them a show. That's something he would teach in his "The Business of Touring" class at Columbia College Chicago.

"There were times with Killing Joke where I was just so frustrated by the band's stubborn refusal to play an extra hour for the audience," says Atkins. "I remember a rainy night in Philadelphia, we expected 800 kids. There were about 400. It was a horrible, rainy night, and everybody in the band said, 'That's it. We've done an hour.'" Atkins, on the other hand, proposed going out and playing 10 more songs.

Commercially speaking, the biggest project of Atkins' career involved Nine Inch Nails. It was he who worked with samples and drums on "Wish," the first single off the NIN guitar-centric EP Broken which earned Trent Reznor a Grammy for Best Heavy Metal Performance. The drums reminded Atkins of Sweet's "Ball Room Blitz."

"We laid down a beat to a click loop so we could do what we wanted later on," says Atkins, who also owns the Invisible Records label and Mattress Factory Studios in Chicago. "It was great working with Flood (the post-punk/alt. rock producer)."

Up next for Atkins are compilations of avant-garde, underground Chinese music he recorded in Beijing last year. Atkins signed several a number of bands while there, in addition to shooting 80 hours of video and live shows at the D-22.

One is called Look Directly Into the Sun, which features 18 Beijing pop, punk and rock bands. Among them are Snapline, China MC Brothers and Carsick Cars, a band that is opening for Sonic Youth on the punk legends' performances in Vienna, Prague and London. The Scoff, PK-14 and Joyside, three other Atkins' discoveries, will open for NIN at the Beijing Pop Festival this year.

The other is Atkins' own China Dub Soundsystem's Made In China, a tornado of wild experimentation, post-punk, dub and traditional instrumentation that's about as original and fresh as anything out there right now.

To find out more about the book, available through IPG Distribution, visit www.tstouring.com.

Hey all, sorry I've been incommunicado this past week. My computer decided to completely go haywire, and I've basically been done (Man down! Man down!) for about a week. But, I'm back up now and ready to give you some incredible news.

Goldmine is now podcasting. You heard right. If you want to read some fascinating interviews from the past related to the Beatles and Elvis, go to www.goldminemag.com to hear 'em.

In the coming weeks, we'll be throwing more podcasts up on the site featuring interviews with some of your favorite artists. So, keep checking back. When we have more information about them, we'll let you know what interviews are coming down the pike. So, stay tuned everybody!

Mean as a rattlesnake and loaded with twice as much venom, Heavy Trash's Going Way Out With Heavy Trash is, hands down, the best rockabilly album in ages. The product of the diseased imaginations of Jon Spencer, he of Blues Explosion and Pussy Galore fame, and Speedball Baby guitar demon Matt Verta-Ray, Heavy Trash (photo at right by Ali Smith) explodes out of the speakers with a ferocious, red-hot, vintage '50s-inspired rock 'n' roll swagger on its latest album.

"We Were Kings" is a fuzz-toned rave-up of Biblical proportions, while "Crazy Pritty Baby" and "Kissy Baby" are ripped straight from the jukeboxes of your parents' malt shop. And there's enough sweaty garage-rock rebellion in tracks like the rootsy "Outside Chance" and "I Want Oblivion" to start a riot. If you like Link Wray and other '50s rock 'n' rollers such as Charlie Feathers, you should get to know Heavy Trash.

In a recent e-mail chat with Verta-Ray (the full version of which will soon be posted at www.goldminemag.com) he talked about some of his '50s rock 'n' roll heroes. When asked if he thought Heavy Trash's deconstruction of vintage rock 'n' roll tropes was honoring past masters, Verta-Ray said, "I think Link Wray is my absolute favorite guitarist and Sun Records is my favorite studio/legacy, so it's not surprising that those things are in every cell of our makeup. I'm not conscious of honoring them, but sometimes putting oneself in the kind of head that those might have been operating in can give clues and 'messages' from the past while work is going on."

Verta-Ray's enthusiasm for vintage rock 'n' roll is contagious. He, and Spencer, believe acts like Charlie Feathers and Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll trio got a raw deal as far as public acclaim is concerned. And Verta-Ray is excited about how rockabilly is taking off in, of all places, Italy. Read www.goldminemag.com for more on this fantastic combo.

For more on Heavy Trash, visit www.yeproc.com or www.heavytrash.net/.

On the plane on the way to Goldmine's National Record Show at the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame a few weeks back, I struck up a conversation about music with an interesting woman who was on her way to Cleveland to go to some sort of Yiddish Festival (I'm not making that up).
I told her about the magazine, and we talked about all the great rock and folk acts of the '60s. She was really into Carole King and the Mamas and the Papas and other artists of that era. And then, our talk turned to the music of today, which she basically dismissed as crap.
Though I'm the editor of a magazine that is classified as a "classic rock" publication, I enjoy modern stuff just as much, and so, I disagreed, as I always do in such matters, because I don't buy that line of thinking (Every era has its great music; this one's will be recognized someday). And yet, when put on the spot, I couldn't really come up with a really convincing rebuttal.
Now, I'm not here to tell you that the music industry is in great shape, because it's not. But, I'm not ready to give it last rites either.
Having had time to think since that day, I've come up with five groups who continue to push the envelope with challenging, original music that has all it takes to stand the test of time and still has something new to offer. Here goes nothing:

Wilco
Not a whole lot of alt.-country acts have really done anything incredibly original with their careers. That's not to say they haven't produced memorable music, it's just that experimentation is something the genre avoids like the plague. Wilco is the exception.
With each release, Jeff Tweedy and company take alt.-country to places nobody ever thought it would ever dare to go. The double album Being There, released in 1996, hinted at genius. The '60s pop infused Summerteeth confirmed it, and then came 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Undoubtedly the decade's finest album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot runs the gamut of sunny pop-rock ("Heavy Metal Drummer" and "I'm the Man Who Loves You"), moody meditations ("Ashes of American Flags" and "Poor Places") and exquisite songcraft ("Jesus, Etc.," "War on War" and "Kamera"). It's strange and unique, yet for all of its experimental tendencies, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is also timeless, heartbreaking and a real, honest-to-gooddness work of art.
Radio, as it's done for years, ignored it, but Internet buzz created a groundswell of support just as Wilco's record label was dropping the band. Big mistake. Subsequent releases A Ghost Is Born, which features some stellar guitar soloing from Tweedy, and the band's latest, Sky Blue Sky, have garnered critical acclaim from all points and strong sales in time when nobody's buying records.

The Flaming Lips
Hands down, the Flaming Lips have the best live show on earth. I went to see them at a festival last summer and the experience was incredibly surreal, life-affirming and fun. On one side of the stage were girls, plucked from the festival grounds during the day evidently, dressed up as martians; on the other were guys in Santa Claus outfits. And that's not all.
Under a torrential downpour of colorful streamers and balloons, frontman Wayne Coyne walked out into the crowd in a bubble as what seemed like hundreds of exercise balls were bouncing through the air.
Lest you think that the Lips are all showmanship and no substance, put on their headphone masterpieces Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and The Soft Bulletin. Mind-blowing psychedelia, electronica and lush pop pour out in a flood of colors. Coyne's lyrics are a celebration of life, but he's no Pollyanna. He's somehow able to straddle the line between the dark and the light and go off to examine deeply either territory without completely succumbing to whatever dangers are hidden in the blackness. Meaningful and intelligent, this is party music for aliens, and human beings who haven't been cowed into accepting the futility of modern living. There's never been another band like this, and in all likelihood, there never will be.

Sigur Ros
Impossible to place in any sort of genre ghetto, Iceland's Sigur Ros combines the soaring complexity of classical music, the devastating weight of heavy metal, the noisy crescendos of shoegazer rock and ethereal soundscapes — not to mention the aural Northern Lights emitted by lead singer Jonsi's  gorgeous falsetto — to create the most emotionally powerful music of our age.
Cinematic in its scope, with a built-in sense of mystery — due to the band members' publicity-shy stance and an album simply titled (  ) —  Sigur Ros is not just a musical entity; it's an audio-visual experience. With little if no dialog, a Sigur Ros video is able to convey stories of lost youth, child-like innocence, undefinable menace and unabashed joy with beautiful, breathtaking imagery, the unscripted actions of its actors — usually Icelandic children or the elderly — and artful camera work.
It's been said of a lot of bands that they will change your life. With most, it's pure hyperbole, but Sigur Ros is that band.

White Stripes
Forget the confusion over Jack and Meg's actual relationship (most of us already have). Forget their crazy color schemes. Jack White is an insanely talented guitar player and the way they mesh vintage, hellhound blues, garage-rock and punk into a sweaty, minimalist fury of rock that erupts in tracks like "Seven Nation Army," "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" and "Ball and Biscuit." And then there's the Stripes' softer, child-like side that emerges in "We're Going to be Friends."
There's raunchiness and unspoiled innocence rubbing up against each other in every White Stripes album, and there's pure violence in White's playing, mixed with gentle finger-picking where appropriate. Able to swing from hot-wired rock to traditional song forms in the blink of an eye, Jack and Meg are a dynamic duo that seem to have preternatural musical instincts. Or at least Jack does. It's hard to tell what's going on with Meg, besides providing a solid beat for Jack's guitar tantrums.
And the White Stripes don't just suck up to their heroes; they set fire to their effigies. As respectful as they are to what's come before them, and they are, the White Stripes certainly aren't content to simply mimic them like some bar band playing covers for beer-addled apes.
Not only that but Jack White did the world a huge favor and helped revive the career of one Loretta Lynn. Their collaboration resulted in one of the best albums of the decade. And that ought to count for something.

Ryan Adams
"Prolific" is one word used to describe Ryan Adams. "Petulant" is another. But, there is no denying the man's ability to craft a song.
Whether he's immersing himself in sepia-toned country with Whiskeytown (his former alt.-country project) or honky-tonking with his latest backing band, the Cardinals, or selling you slick pop-rock candy from that five-and-dime store head of his, Adams' tremendous knack for penning angst-ridden, heartbreaking, memorable songs that stick in your mind forever.
Weaned on the country of George Jones, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn, Adams has shuffled off the alt-.country tag a time or two, just to prove he's more than just some yokel from the sticks. But he always returns to his roots, and when the prodigal son does, he seems to come back more determined than ever to make something lasting and eternal.
He released three albums in 2005 alone, and all of them were stellar. How many songwriters are able to do that? Plus, he has the blessing of Elton John. Enough said.

Anybody familiar with the codeine-laced, slo-core noise of Medicine should recognize the name Brad Laner. His first solo album, Neighbor Singing, is coming out Nov. 6 on the Hometapes label, one of the best indies around.

Media types were given access to the wistful new track "June Gloom," and it somehow manages to marry Beach Boys' California pop with the spacey, effects-laden mayhem of My Bloody Valentine and the lush, electronic, bedroom-recording intimacy of much of the Hometapes roster.

Produced by Laner (photo at right by Ye Rin Mok) and Thom Monahan (Lavender Diamond, Brightblack Morning Light), Neighbor Singing should help people forget that Laner once was shanghi-ed into playing bass for the Captain and Tennille in the '70s. There's a clip on YouTube, much to Laner's chagrin. At the time, Laner was playing in punk bands like Debt of Nature, and in the '80s, he played drums for Savage Republic, before forming Medicine in the early '90s and signing to Rick Rubin's Def American label.

In 1995, Laner got together with members of Tool, The Replicants and Failure to make Lusk, and the band released one album and quickly disbanded. Later, he resurfaced with Electric Company, a project that was more of an electronic affair than his previous output. Incredibly prolific, he released 10 albums under that name in ten years.

In a recent press release, Laner said of his latest effort, "I wanted to shamelessly utilize all of the different skills that I've built up over a lifetime of musical experiences. It's not a reflection of my record collection but rather the first examples of a new approach to pop music that feels to me to be almost biologically my own."

Having already seen the world and its rich pageant, Laner is now ensconced in domestic bliss, living in his self-restored 1964 Joseph Eichler home near Los Angeles. Music still holds an allure for Brad, who began working long distance with the likes of Brian Eno, Vetiver, and Caribou a while back. After a rare live show in 2005 at Arthur Fest in L.A., he and Monahan drew up the blueprints for what would become Neighbor Singing.

"This record was made in a 'catch as catch can' sort of situation in that nowadays I'm constantly balancing between raising my son and finding the time to be a properly self-indulgent artiste," writes Brad. "I think this dual reality kept me from traveling too far up my own ass and allowed for a (slightly) more objective perspective — i.e. lots of time to step away from it and lose the muscle memory of putting down the individual parts."

Get your Neighbor Singing track list here.
 
1. Find Out 
2. Out Cold 
3. Lovely World 
4. Vecino 
5. Arlie 
6. Alambres
7. June Gloom
8. April Bossa 
9. Sure 
10. Falling TIme 
11. From Inside 
12. Circumscribe
 
To learn more, visit www.bradlaner.com, or www.myspace.com/bradlaner.