Jackie Greene "Shaken"

Sacramento's Jackie Greene does a stripped down version of the lead-off song on his new album, "Giving Up the Ghost"...beautiful. From KFOG March 31, 2008.

Counting Crows "Cowboys" live

I haven't heard all of the Counting Crows' first new album in six years, hailed as a comeback of sorts, but they've always been pretty great. The first two albums were the best, of course, the next two tread water, but often beautifully and energetically and sincerely. And that's doubly true of "Cowboys" from the new "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings."

Here's a good clip, though the sound is low. Turn it up. But you can really hear all the instruments so clearly, they work so well together, and drive so hard, it's impressive. And they give the too-often-mocked Adam Duritz room to act out lines like "This is a list of what I should have been/But I'm not..." and "Look at me/Or I am not anything" - that's pretty raw stuff, whether you like his faux-dreads or not.

Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson Live 1975

I found this clip of the short-lived Ian Hunter/Mick Ronson band from 1975, during their one tour after their one album. Coming after Hunter's Mott the Hoople and Ronson's work with Bowie, Lou Reed and Mott themselves, this sorta paled by comparison, but in retrospect, "Once Bitten Twice Shy" is one of the most true-to-their-roots exercises either of them ever did. Rock and roll.



And Ronson's guitar work - an elegant blend of Jeff Beck's flair and virtuosity and George Harrison's structural melodicism - is kinda workaday on this performance.

Still: Hunter gets a hell of a good head of steam on rhythm guitar, and the whole thing rides a very spare and intense opening and goes to a crashing rock creshendo. Fantastic. Nuff said.