I had an odd bit of Leatherwoods-related synchronicity today. TIRBD reader Josh wrote to let me know that Todd Newman is now a guitarist for the Minneapolis pop band the Hang-ups. Then, an e-mail from Lost Highway Records reports that the solo debut from Newman's Leatherwoods bandmate (and Jayhawks drummer) Tim O'Reagan will be released June 27.

I did some checking and found that Newman now has a Myspace page, and was mentioned as being a member of the Hang-ups as early as 2003 (he's featured in this profile of the band in the Twin Cities paper Pulse that came out around the time of that band's last, self-titled disc.) According to the Myspace page, Newman reports that he's "currently working on a solo cd, and working on a cd with long-time pal Lori Wray. I'm also available if any popsters out there need a guitar player!"

I wrote last year about a then-futile search for info about Newman. It's nice to see he's still making music. While Newman was the dominant figure in the Leatherwoods, O'Reagan's songs on that band's lone disc, Topeka Oratorio proved he was no slouch. His contribution to his first Jayhawks disc (Sound of Lies), "Bottomless Cup," was the best thing on the record, and while his contributions to the Jayhawks' Rainy Day Music disc were less compelling, they showed he still had plenty of chops. If the song clips on his own Myspace page are any indication, his solo disc is going to be quite something.

It took a while to get through all three, but the new Robert Pollard/Fading Captain discs have now been fully digested. And, surprising no one, they vary in quality depending on the origin of the songs within.

The best of the three is Blues and Boogie Shoes by the Keene Brothers. It's the latest of Pollard's pairings in which he takes backing tracks recorded by someone and then creates lyrics and melodies to sing over top. In this case, he takes instrumental tracks written and performed by Tommy Keene and finishes them with his contributions. The result is a record that sounds like, well, a Tommy Keene record with his vocals erased and new ones recorded over them by Pollard. Before you post a comment saying "no duh," hear me out. Previous installments found the artists involved trying new things. Mac from Superchunk offered some decidedly un-Superchunkian tunes for Pollard, with the result sounding unlike either man's day job. Pollard's work with former Guided by Voices guitarist Tobin Sprout on two similar discs under the name Airport 5 sounded like early GBV. Similarly, the Circus Devils and Lifeguards projects (with Todd Tobias and Doug Gillard, respectively) sounded more collaborative as well.

The Keene Brothers disc, sounds more like Pollard's work with Phantom Tollbooth on the disc Beard of Lightning. On that project, Pollard took that band's disc Power Toy, erased the vocals and, with the band's permission, recorded new vocals with entirely new lyrics, often in different spots than the original lyrics had appeared. The result was a re-imagining of an existing record. While the songs on the Keene Brothers disc were never released by Keene, anyone familiar with his work can recognize them as his songs. These aren't off the wall experiments; these are songs he simply didn't finish. As such, it sounds odd to hear Pollard shoehorn his vocals into the songs, knowing intuitively how differently Keene would have approached it. That's good and bad, depending, of course, on the execution. Pollard finds ways to mesh well with Keene's tracks on about half the tracks, and feels a bit out-of-sorts on the rest. It's an interesting experiment that still finds this Tommy Keene fan wishing he would have finished these songs himself. His latest disc, Crashing the Ether, is good, but might have been better with a few of these tracks.

The next disc in terms of quality is Turn to Red from the Takeovers. Here, Pollard finishes tracks by Chris Slusarenko, who was the end-days bass player in GBV. Slusarenko offers Pollard some garage-y tunes, and the Fading Captain delivers. At its best, this is the most raw, energetic thing Pollard has done in years. At its worst, it's like the low points on every disc he's ever cut, with half-baked ideas offering ample reasons to hit the skip button. Tracks like "Insane/Cool It" make this worthwhile, however.

The last disc is All That is Holy from Psycho and the Birds. It's the flip side of Pollard's typical collaborations. He found some old tapes of himself on vocals and acoustic guitar on some unreleased tracks, and decided to send them to Todd Tobias to see what he could do. Tobias then recorded tracks around Pollard's basic songs to create more fleshed out work. It's the opposite of the way the two work on Circus Devils projects, but mimics the way they created Pollard's masterful solo album, From a Compound Eye. Pollard obviously sent Tobias some of the chaff stripped away from the wheat that was FaCE, but at its best, the results are at least interesting. One complaint: there is plenty of room on the disc to have included Pollard's original recordings for comparison. Of course, knowing the way Pollard is able to monetize his art, watch for that as a limited-edition vinyl release at some point. Either way, this is more interesting than good, which, given that it represents one-third of Pollard's output this month, is as expected.

By now, any music fan who has paid any attention has at least a cursory knowledge of the way the industry works. Bands get signed to labels, they get advances against which any and all expenses related to their careers are counted, and they usually end up making a fraction of what their efforts actually earned, if they make anything at all. From Steve Albini's oft-circulated Baffler piece "The Problem with Music," to the myriad stories from bands like the Jayhawks who saw huge recording and promotional budgets ensure that they'd never see a dime from their recordings, it's a wonder anybody still tries to make it big.

Jen Trynin took a shot at the big time in the early 1990s, deciding she was tired of playing the Sunday to Wednesday night female singer-songwriter circuit, she toughened up her sound, formed a band, and found herself the subject of a major-label bidding war. Warner Brothers won, showering her with the kind of contract most artists only dream of, and re-released her self-release disc, Cockamamie. They smelled a hit in the catchy slacker anthem "Better Than Nothing," but when that failed to catch fire -- and Trynin seemed incapable or unwilling to properly play the game -- their interest waned. The follow-up, Gun Shy Trigger Happy, earned rave reviews, but it too sank and she was dropped.

That would be the end of the story for most, but for Trynin, it is only the beginning. Or rather, the story in its entirety, told in her fantastic new book, All That I'm Cracked Up to Be. It's a fascinating look at the music business from the inside, a warts and all tale that leaves no one unscathed, least of all its author. Trynin is viciously self-critical, pointing out infidelities, missed opportunities and the many times she was given the choice of doing something to further her career and decided otherwise. Ever wonder why the cost of music is so high, or why seemingly successful bands get off the tour bus and go back to work at McDonalds? You won't after reading this.

What makes this such a compelling read -- beyond Trynin's obvious gift with words and her unerring ear for dialogue and detail -- is that this comes not from a success who is recounting the early, lean years, but from someone who tried, failed and moved on. It's a rare vantage point from which to see the industry, a rare glimpse behind the curtain in a way that rounds out what we know about how major labels operate.

The key line comes about a quarter of the way in, when a A&R person from Maverick Records tells Trynin that they probably won't make an offer because they just signed another rock chick, and the market being what it is, it would be hard to promote two at the same time. That other rock chick, of course, is Alanis Morissette, and she is like a shadow star of the book, her success seemingly dogging Trynin's every step. Veruca Salt, Liz Phair and Aimee Mann (who suffered her own major label woes but persevered long enough to triumph) also offer interesting points of comparison throughout.

I'm not alone in seeking out Trynin's music after reading the book, and while it does suffer at times from that mid-90s angry young woman syndrome -- odd, in this case, because the 30something Trynin recorded this on her own and claims to not have listened to popular music -- it holds up remarkably well. At one point during the tour in support of Cockamamie, she writes, she called her brother to say she wasn't having fun anymore, an obvious reason behind her decision a few years later to quit the business. While promoting the book she has begun to play her own material for the first time in years. Here's hoping things have changed and that she's having fun again. If nothing else, frightening though it is at times, her book is a blast, and highly recommended for anyone wanting to know about how things really are in the music business.

Very sad news out of Australia today. Grant McLennan from the Go-Betweens died at home in his sleep on Saturday. Official word comes from the Go-Betweens' web site. No other details were available.

I've long been a big fan of McLennan's work. I was mostly unaware of the Go-Betweens during the band's initial run, coming to McLennan's work instead through his first solo record under the name G.W. McLennan. I went back and picked up a greatest hits from the Go-Betweens, and found myself drawn to McLennan's work. His co-leader, Robert Forster, is no slouch, but I much prefered McLennan's breezy, pop songs to Forster's darker tunes. I kept up with McLennan's solo career during the Go-Between's hiatus, and jumped right back on board when they resumed recording together a few years ago.

Their latest, Oceans Apart, was on my best-of list for 2005, and while I haven't yet picked up the live set That Striped Sunlight Sound, every indication is that it is excellent as well.

It's rare that an artist can leave a band situation and continue to grow creatively as a solo artist, and rarer still for that initial band to reform and be better than ever. Given that McLennan made both seem so easy, it's safe to say that he will be missed.

I'll preface this by saying that I have a clear bias toward Neil Young's loud, ragged rock when compared to his quiet, acoustic folk. That said, his new disc, Living With War, is everything I have wanted from his last few discs.

While Young has made a career of defying expectations and following his own path regardless of the desires of critics and fans, he really seemed to go off the rails in the late '90s and never got back on track. Things came to a head on the ironically titled Are You Passionate? which found Young pounding out tired riffs and offering jingoistic pap like "Let's Roll." Where one hoped the Sept. 11 attacks would fuel Young's music, they instead seemed to sap his energy.

His latest studio disc, Prairie Wind, was another missed opportunity. Though it has grown on me since its release, I still find it oddly stiff and lifeless given the mortal issues Young faced during its writing and recording.

Given that prelude, it seemed too much to hope that Living With War would offer anything notable, let alone remarkable. But remarkable it is. The disc, written, recorded and released on his web site in a matter of weeks, is a fiery blast of targeted vitriol. But it's more than that: it also is the most rocking, raggedly right disc in Young's catalog since Ragged Glory. The songs are lyrically biting and musically invigorating.

Young has made better music, and likely will again, but he hasn't made a disc so infused with passion in years, and that elevates this material and makes this something greater than its parts. It's not a great disc, but it's the right disc for the times, and for Young. Will it weather better than similar discs from Steve Earle (The Revolutions Starts... Now), Dan Bern (My Country II) and others that were issued in the lead up to the 2004 elections? Probably not. All, thanks to their topicality are likely to be seen more as relics than essential parts of the artists' bodies of work. Living With War feels like something that will hold up to repeat listens for the forseeable future, however, perhaps because, unlike the election which came and went in a day, it's topic doesn't seem headed toward resolution any time soon.