Fans have anticipated the Posies true return for years, and now, after a hiatus during which the band release more product than it did when it was a going concern, it returns with its first new studio disc in seven years. That disc, Every Kind of Light is a good but not great addition to the band's catalog, and a sure sign that, despite numerous tries in the intervening years, Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow work best together. While the band released two live discs, a four-CD rarities box set and an EP during their so-called absence, Every Kind of Light is clearly the first thing either musician has been involved with since their last good disc together, Frosting on the Beater, worth hearing. From Stringfellow's uneven solo discs and occasionally engaging stints with the Humble Orange Band and White Flag, to Auer's own intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying solo work, nothing captivates the way the best moments here do.

So, what does the band's label do with this return? It steals its thunder almost immediately. Auer and Stringfellow have helped to round out Big Star for about a decade, and that cult favorite will return to the CD racks in September with its first studio disc in more than 30 years. In Space, to be released Sept. 27, will come just three months after the Posies own return from exile hit store shelves. Gee, I wonder which release people will notice? It would be nice to see Ryko take steps to help the Posies piggyback on the Big Star disc, but so far that hasn't happened. If the lame boogie of "Hot Thing," the lone new track on 2003's compilation The Big Star Story is any indication, the Big Star disc is going to be a disappointing dud. All the more reason to delay this a few more months and let the Posies take a real crack at rekindling the flames.

I have been working harder than usual to get into Laura Cantrell's latest disc, Humming by the Flowered Vine. I do so with good reason; the disc is receiving phenomenal reviews, so it is clear there is something of value to be had within its grooves. Try as I might, however, I find little to like. Cantrell has a pretty voice, and her choice of covers is impeccable. But the performances are so stilted, and her delivery is so pristine as to be lifeless. Perhaps it's not fair, but she sounds like what she is: an investment banker with a sweet voice who is dabbling in country music. I'd wonder why Matador Records, of all places, saw fit to release her disc, but because I'm clearly in the minority here it actually seems like a pretty safe choice as the label tries to diversify.

I can thank Cantrell for bringing the band the Blood Oranges back to mind, however. I cued up her recent performance on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" this morning, and was pleasantly surprised to see former Blood Orange bandmates Jimmy Ryan and Mark Spencer playing mandolin and guitar, respectively, in Cantrell's band. The band put out two great country-rock-bluegrass discs in the early '90s, including its swan song, The Crying Tree, which was as good an alt-country disc as was released back in the heyday of the form. These two, along with singing bassist Cheri Knight (who put out two great solo discs of her own in the late '90s) and drummer Ron Ward were a quartet ahead of its time. All were great players, but the mix of hot bluegrass playing and alt-country rock textures predated the "Oh Brother" movement by too big a stretch and the band split up. Ryan has appeared as a sideman on a few recordings in the intervening decade and with the spin-off bluegrass group the Beacon Hillbillies, while Spencer has been busy adding his tasteful guitar leads to the music of Kelly Willis, Freedy Johnston and Jay Farrar, among many others.

It's nice to see Ryan and Spencer still playing together. There isn't much out there about the band (though unlike most come-and-gone groups from that era, their out-of-print discs aren't exactly cheap online), so it's good any time they can get some notice. For Cantrell's sake, one hopes Ryan and Spencer can help her to create music that has a bit more feeling and passion. If they're looking to back a talented female singer, perhaps they should continue the renewed partnership with Knight that yielded the song "Gathering Flowers for the Master's Bouquet" for the Slaughter Rule soundtrack in 2003.

After being off of my radar for a few months, Richard Buckner was suddenly front and center last week. First came word of his new disc with Waco Brother/Mekon Jon Langford, then came Buckner himself, performing in Iowa City. These two things together helped to solidify my thought that Bucker is better – or at least more enjoyable – when working in a band context than as a solo artist. That runs counter to critical opinion, of course, as his early, more bare-bones work is seen as being better than later, more fleshed-out work. But one listen to the opening track of the disc with Langford, a rowdy, full-band tune with more energy than anything Buckner has done since his 1997 disc Since, makes clear that the kick in the pants provided by others is a benefit.

While a solo acoustic show can be constraining, Buckner continues to play with the form to the betterment of his show. As in the recent past, he did interesting things on this night with samples and loops with which he created multi-layered songbeds from short guitar lines that served as outros to one song and the intro to the next to form one long, continuous set. That said, I’ve heard every song Buckner has released (to my knowledge) and listened to his latest, Dents and Shells, just the day before, and still only recognized two or three songs in a 15- to 20-song set. Without the variation of tempo and dynamics afforded by a band, his set seemed to be one long, occasionally interesting song (the droning bumpers notwithstanding).

An opening set from Anders Parker was similar; his acoustic guitar-driven solo set was nice, but no match for his work with Varnaline or the band approach of his recent solo album and EP. He fared better than Buckner in spots because he does a better job of using his powerful voice to bring dynamics to his set.

Hearing the new disc from their fellow alt-country escapee Jay Farrar helps to further illustrate the point. After three solo discs of increasingly obtuse and quiet music (two solo records and the soundtrack to the indie film “The Slaughter Rule”), Farrar is back with a version of his band Son Volt. While each of those solo forays yielded interesting results, neither had the immediacy or energy of this new Son Volt disc, Okemah and the Melody of Riot. Farrar is a prodigiously talented songwriter, but those talents lie not as much in experimental songcraft or obtuse solo excursions as in writing for a full-on rock band. He’ll likely never equal the beauty, grace and verve of Son Volt’s debut, Trace, but still it’s nice to have him back to doing what he does best. The hooks are plentiful here, and the spitting anger of topical tracks like “Jet Pilot” and “Bandages and Scars” makes this the most visceral music he has made since Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne.

Over at the Reading Experience blog, a healthy debate has sprung up in part over the tendency of critics to write not about a book so much as about the book they wish the author had written. I seem to fall into the same trap here, saying Farrar and Buckner should stick to full-band work. But I’ll draw the distinction, however fuzzy, that when comparing two different kinds of work (books, CDs or anything else) it’s quite reasonable to divine a preference. The more experimental, solo works that I find to fall short of their more accessible counterparts still have their merits and should be judged accordingly. I’m happy to see both Buckner and Farrar explore the outer reaches of their art as long as they don’t do so to the exclusion of what they do best. If anything, I'm swimming against the critical tide for preferring more pedestrian, straight-ahead rock over more challenging material. Oh well. I'd rather enjoy James Lee Burke or George Pelecanos than slog through Joyce. So sue me.

It was bad enough when Fantasy Records sold “Fortunate Son” out from under John Fogerty for use in a Wrangler Jeans ad, but what are we to make of Steve Earle selling himself out to the man? To quote the title of Fogerty’s latest disc, it’s déjà vu all over again, as a scathing political tune is sold for use in a TV ad selling a good old American commodity. Instead of blue jeans, this time it’s a truck. Earle’s song "The Revolution Starts Now," the title track of his 2004 disc, is the soundtrack for a new Chevy ad in its “The American Revolution” campaign. You couldn’t find a better song for it, with its rumbling guitars, propulsive beat and snarling call-to-arms chorus… if only all of that wasn’t originally meant as a rallying cry for the left to unseat President Bush. The song now means nothing, but Steve’s bank account surely saw a nice boost. I’d never begrudge anyone wanting to make a living from their work, but this song from this artist actually meant something, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a principled stand that doesn’t involve selling it to an auto maker six months after your guy didn’t get elected to office.

In the liner notes to his disc, Earle waxes poetic about the Constitution, calling it a “revolutionary document” and saying that “as long as we are willing to put in the work required to defend and nurture this remarkable invention of our forefathers, then I believe with all my heart that it will continue to thrive for generations to come.” Oh, and we might get free trucks, too, right Steve? Talk about something ringing hollow.

Then again, what value does the song have now anyway? As I’ve said here before, listening to that disc (or Dan Bern’s superior My Country II EP) now is like watching a ballgame on video tape when you already know your team is going to lose. The specific sentiments made the songs that much more powerful at the time, but they sure shorten their shelf life. I mean, “Ohio” these ain’t.

Does Chevy even know who Earle is? Neither the artist nor the automaker has a word about this unholy alliance on their web sites, and I can’t imagine Chevy pimping this balding, pasty ex-junkie the way Ford does it’s pocket rebel Toby Keith. The most recent news Earle made was in Alaska, where residents were pissed that he was scheduled to bring his “anti-American, communistic" (their words) music to the fair. They clearly don’t get that Earle’s songs, which point out failings in our system, are more American than all the hat acts you could cram into an Eagle-clad tour bus combined. But he certainly hasn’t helped matters with this move, which, to grossly over-simplify, involved selling his song to the people who make the vehicles driven by the people who re-elected the guy his revolution was supposed to overthrow. It was never a stretch to think that Earle could be the next voice of the American revolution, I just never imaged that it would be “The American Revolution, brought to you by Chevy Trucks.”

Still more reissue/reunion fodder, this time from Dinosaur Jr. I couldn't have been more into a band as I was about the time Bug came out. It hit at just the right time, as the freedoms of college were taking hold and the realization that things that required some work might actually be more rewarding than things that came easily. That didn't apply to my studies, of course, but it did mean that listening to a glorious swirl of sludgy noise like "Post" from Bug until it actually made sense seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

The band is back after an acrimonious break up (the story of the band's show at Iowa City's Gabe's Oasis, complete with coin throwing by the angry crowd, is still legend) and a decade of decreasingly satisfying records from guitarist J Mascis and increasingly (and then decreasingly, as if following a perfect bell curve) records from bassist Lou Barlow. I caught them on the Craig Ferguson show just as this current tour was starting, and their run through "The Lung" was ragged and even less tuneful than the original. It didn't bode well for a successful reunion, yet reviews have been favorable.

An interview with the band in the latest Village Voice reminded me of something I'd been thinking about a couple of weeks ago when listening to the entire Minutemen discography in the car as I drove back and forth to work for a week or so. Bands don't sound like that any more. Even the most underground, indie band sounds absolutely polished when compared to the Minutemen or Dinosaur Jr. or even the early efforts of the Replacements, Husker Du and R.E.M. Bands aren't afforded the opportunity to go into a basement studio to cut an EP, put it out, play some shows, cut another EP six months later and continue the process as they build a fan base and get progressively better. Now, they sound totally processed right from the get-go. Look at hot alternative bands now (and ignore groups like the Killers et al who shouldn't even count as alternative) like Arcade Fire. They won't make it onto Hot 100 playlists any time soon, but they're light years ahead of the muddy offerings of Dinosaur's first three discs.

In the Voice interview, Barlow talks about the fact that the band had a lot of creative ambition, but no other ambition. "With Dinosaur, we weren't really afraid of letting things totally fall apart. I don't really see that now; you don't really see things that are emotional and sort of unaffected. It would be nice to see a band that really didn't have any idea what they were doing."

Amen. There is a lot to be said for music that is ragged but right. And perhaps the raft of attention being paid to these old bands will help to show young groups that it's OK to do some growing up in public.

The '80s reunion train keeps rolling, and we're headed back toward the caboose when it comes to the commercial success of the artists in question. Today comes word (via Pitchfork) that the dB's are getting back together and are working on a new disc. The band has a detailed web site that seems to have been around for quite some time. It includes voluminous information about the band's history, discography and future plans. The dB's were always one of those groups that seemed to be more liked than loved, but they did make three of the better albums to come out of the '80s college rock (the precursor to alternative and all subsequent buzz words) scene in Stands for Decibels, Repercussion and Like This. Songwriters Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple went on to post-dB's careers of varying success -- Stamey put out two discs last year, including the tuneful Travels in the South, while Holsapple is better known as an R.E.M. and Hootie and the Blowfish sideman than for his own work. Gene Holder and Will Rigby, the bassist and drummer, respectively, had varied careers themselves. Rigby has been drumming for Steve Earle for several years, while Holder has produced and/or engineered for several good bands, including Luna and Yo La Tengo.

One thing revealed by all of this is that Collector's Choice reissued the band's first two albums on one disc a couple of years back. Like most fans, I have the twofer from Line Records that just never sounded very good. Word has it this version is remastered and sounds much better. I'll be ordering that as soon as I'm done here. Amazon has helpful "if you like this, you might also like" links to the Guadalcanal Diary and Let's Active twofers also put out recently by Collector's Choice. If that's not a three-pack from the time capsule, I'm not sure what is.

On a stranger note, the RZA serves as guest editor for Bold Type online magazine this month, helming its Spirituality issue. What once was a content-heavy, interesting in-house read from Random House has strangely devolved to be a content-light, independent endeavor. Still, anytime you can check in with the RZA, it's worth your time. The Wu Tang Clan leader weighs in on his early reading and studying habits -- his cousin, GZA, turned him onto "supreme mathematics" and "the nation of gods and earth" when they were 11. At about that same time, I was lucky if my cousin, Mike, would let me try out his skateboard -- and sits for a short interview in which he reveals that he he started practicing kung fu in 1995, that he loves sugar and sex but that neither controls him and that he is going to start directing films. Oh, and he also has a book out, The Wu-Tang Manual, which is of course the real reason for his guest editor spot.

I know I'm a few months behind the big-city hipsters on this one, but I watched the DVD of Dig! this weekend. It was a captivating film that I fully intended to watch in a couple of bursts amid other tasks but which kept me glued to the TV from beginning to end. That said, I can't imagine non-indie rock fans finding much to like here, because those involved are so insufferably self-centered without reason that it was an unpleasant film that kept me hooked only for the behind-the-scenes look into a world I usually see from the outside that it provided.

The story is that of two bands, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols. Each is fronted by a self-important songwriter -- BJM's Anton Newcombe, who talks of making music so good it will spark a revolution, and the Dandy's Courtney Taylor, who says in the film that when he sneezes, hits come out (he must be allergic to nothing if that's the case) -- and each is on the cusp of, well, something. For BJM it is a long, strange journey toward continued mainstream irrelevance and blindered fanboy fawning, and for the Dandys its mild commercial success. They start in roughly the same place and are friendly, but as one follows the money and the other does everything to sabotage ever finding success, it becomes by default a commentary on the terribly flawed music industry. The problem is, as Richard Harrington so succinctly puts it in his review of the film in the Washington Post, the bands "simply don't matter as much as (the filmmaker) thinks they do." Further, Harrington says, the film "never makes a convincing argument for Newcombe's musical genius." Some of the music in the film sounds great, while much of it seems like the out-of-tune ramblings of the stoner guy in every college town who is this close to putting together a kick ass band. It would be one thing if Newcombe weren't so prolific, but it's hard to imagine being sufficiently rewarded with good songs when one is faced with the prospect of taking a dip into the dozen or so CDs in his back catalog.

At least he makes it easy for you. On the band's web site, one can download nearly the group's entire recorded output. It's in the uncommonly used Ogg Vorbis format (why is that not a surprise, coming from Newcombe?), but it does give you a chance to really dive in without taking a blind leap at your local indie record mart (where, one assumes, the clerks are much too cool to be bothered actually helping you find the band's best disc). No matter the hassle, this is what is truly at the heart of all of this: Is the music any good? Yes, the band is entertaining thanks to its drugged-out, mutton-chopped, self-proclaimed genius front man who fights with the Cousin Oliver-looking "real musician" in the band, the goofball tambourine player whose most obvious talent is preening beneath a pair of ridiculous looking sunglasses and the rest of the Royal Trux reject-looking musicians who wander in and out over the years. But it's the music that determines whether there is any need to pay attention to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and on that one, it's not looking good. Genius? Hardly. I'll take the prodigious output of fellow self-proclaimed top dog and lovable functioning alcoholic Robert Pollard over the wheezing, hazy strumming of the burnout Newcombe any day. And as for the Dandy Warhols? They are exactly where they ought to be, landing the occasional TV show theme song or European commercial as they count down the days until they've been out of the spotlight long enough to qualify for a nostalgic best-of (not, mind you "greatest hits") from Rhino and a spot on the small-town summer festival circuit. Spin Doctors of the aughts, anyone?

Newcombe has come out against the film, saying the footage was "reduced at best to a series of punch-ups and mishaps taken out of context." This from a guy who sabotaged an industry showcase by firing a band member on stage and then fighting the rest of the band as the set came to an early, crashing close. Still, Newcombe might have a point. The film does pare down 1,500 hours of footage into a story that makes him look like an addled ass and Taylor look like a more successful, slightly more clued-in ass. I'd love to see a version of this film as edited by Newcombe. Let him find a way to spin it so that he is the principled hero and Taylor is the sell-out. I'm sure it's in there somewhere, right next to the part on the cutting room floor that make both look like geniuses.

Who knew that the arguments I used to have with newspaper copy editors, if written down and fleshed out a bit, could have landed me in the pages of the New York Times? OK, it probably would have taken more than that, but John Rosenthal's meditation on the word "record" as in "record album," hits many of the same points I once made when butting heads with those editing my CD reviews. I would refer to any collection of music as a "record" or an "album," when they were expecting to see "CD" throughout. I used those other terms for variety's sake, of course, but also because they are accurate. A record is simply a recording, whether it is reproduced on a piece of vinyl, a cassette, a CD or even an 8-track or reel-to-reel. An album, in its purest sense, is a collection of things; you have a photo album, I have a record album.

The term is seen by most as synonymous with vinyl, so when they hear "record" they think "outdated piece of black plastic." The problem is that terminology hasn't kept up with technology. Or rather, the terms have changed, but the catch-all words like "record" were applied to the same thing for so long that they came to mean only that one thing. In those arguments with copy editors I would usually back down because the thought of arguing about such a thing made my head hurt. I would sprinkle my copy with enough "CDs" to make them happy and then move on. Rosenthal ran into his disagreement at a stranger place: Tower Records. It's one thing for a teenaged clerk who was born after CDs became the gold standard (But before mp3 trading seemed to make even this relative newcomer seem obsolete) to argue semantics, but wouldn't a store with the word "records" in its name perhaps train its staff a bit better?

The otherwise awful "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" only has so many slots for indie rock in a given week, so the more industrious among our non-major label favorites have begun to truly harness the power of the Internet to self-promote. Sure, anyone can create a web site featuring publicity stills and a couple of mp3s, but how about podcasting, or better yet, creating your own TV show?

The latter is the ingenious idea of Joe Pernice, he of the Pernice Brothers. The band's web site long has been home to some quirky video shot by Pernice on tour, but recently he has posted two episodes of what he first called (and then, when wiser, more legal-minded counsel suggested he stop, refrained from calling) "MTV2 Cribs." Let the bling-happy rappers who populate the real MTV "Cribs" have their fun there, Pernice thought, while indie rockers could show off their more modest homes on the network's lesser sister station. He has yet to come up with a new name, though something like, "Hey Kids, Think All Rock Musicians Are Loaded? Guess Again" might be in order. In the first episode, Pernice offers a tour of his new house in Toronto, while in the second, he films himself on the phone with an insurance agent as he bends the truth in search of better rates for insuring his band's equipment before they hit the road.

Absolutely Kosher Records, home to The Wrens, Franklin Bruno and others, is four episodes deep into its own multimedia project with a series of podcasts that feature new music from label releases. It's a great idea, and a perfect way for the label to get word out about its products and for listeners to try out some music before buying. The most recent podcast, no. 4, features some nice music from Bottom of the Hudson, a band I'd not known of previously. I'll definitely be checking them out now.

At the other end of the spectrum is Brian Eno. Few who stumble across this site will need an introduction, but because Eno's output has been so eclectic, one could use a hint at what his latest disc is like. Another Day on Earth is being called his return to song-based music, a departure from the more electronic, ambient (a form he created, by the way) music he has made since his early rock forays (most notably on Another Green World) as a solo artist after leaving Roxy Music in 1973. His new label, Rykodisc, offers its first podcast to re-introduce Eno with an interview in which he talks about this new record and how it fits into his career. It's a bit long, but unless Eno is featured on NPR anytime soon, how else will you hear anything from this record otherwise?