Good Touch Bad Touch was formed when two of their former collaborators quit and the remaining three members decided to drink themselves to death while gathering weekly to cover "Pinkerton" and "The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society".
Since then, things have been going surprisingly well. A record is being made, and is in fact almost finished, though delayed by periodic infighting and bicycle trouble. The members' mutual love of the movie Dragnet has sustained them through times both good and bad; there is no breach of trust that cannot be smoothed over by the thought of Tom Hanks and Dan Akroyd in goat leggings.
Their live shows have acquired a near-legendary status, as their carefully calibrated audience-baiting and verbatim recreations of hoary Catskills comedy routines involving existential despair and ventriloquism grow ever more finely honed. So sit back. Have ten or twelve beers. Take a listen.

Check out The Sights here.

Check out Casual Encounters here.

Paul Marotta formed The Styrenes in 1975 in Cleveland. Marotta, had been a member of Mirrors, working as their interim bass player at first and then on keyboards and violin while playing guitar in The Electric Eels.
Strange names that never really got around – except that of another Cleveland band, Pere Ubu, Mirrors, The Electric Eels and The Styrenes, plus a few others, are reckoned as germ cells of the Cleveland scene and proto punk, a post-industrial music from years before industrial music and other things that changed the perception of pop music were “discovered”. For listeners who walk those musical territories on a regular basis, these groups are certified legends. Their broken-down, powerful, sometimes hostile, and emotionally shattering music that completely defied technical evaluation has no equivalent in the history of time. A case in point that substance, innovation and authenticity do not necessarily lead to popularity. Especially when the name of the band is steadily in flux.
By the time of the Styrenes’ debut single “Drano In Your Veins” in 1975, the band was operating under the name Poli Styrene Jass Band. Then came The George Money Band, The Styrene-Money Band, the Styrene Band, and finally The Styrenes. The first band consisted of Marotta, guitarist Jamie Klimek who was also leader of Mirrors, bass player Jim Jones (to become Ubu’s guitar player during the Eighties), drummer Anton Fier (subsequently in the Feelies and Golden Palominos mastermind later on) and Michael Antle (later Michael Gene of Buzz and the Flyers). The combo played the Cleveland clubs and released self-produced idiosyncratic punk/new wave. „We were a pretty anti-social band“, Marotta says, „only the Electric Eels were worse. If someone from the audience would jump onto the stage during a show it was more likely for the guitarist to kick him back down again than just let him dance and have a good time. A typical artiste thing.“
In 1980 Marotta and Klimek moved to New York where they set up a new Styrenes line-up working exclusively at their own expense. Not by choice, as Marotta recalls: „Many of the other Cleveland bands had secured recording contracts when the recording industry had found out about the area – but that passed us by. So we recorded our stuff when we happened to have some money to book a studio. We would record two or three things, a few weeks or months later the next two or three and so on, with constantly changing personnel.”
Recordings were released sporadically. Girl Crazy, the debut album, came out in 1982, a now-out-of-print 3-track 7”-EP in 1983, and Marotta’s solo LP Agit-Prop Piano in 1984. The follow-up Styrenes LP came seven years after the first. A Monster And A Devil (re-released in 1998 with additional tracks as All The Wrong People Are Dying), lyrically a downright shattering experience, was a spoken-word-in-rock-record with Mike Hudson, ex-vocalist of the Pagans, another Cleveland legend. 1991 saw the release of It’s Artastic (re-released in 2002 with bonus tracks as It’s Still Artastic), 1994 a new Mirrors album named Another Nail In The Coffin. And again The Styrenes disappeared into obscurity.
When they re-emerged in 1998, they started exactly from where they had stopped. The new record We Care So You Don’t Have To presented a rattling, rough and tumble rock band with punk in it’s veins and art in it’s brains that obviously didn’t have anything in common with today’s cleanly corporate punk. Guitarist Klimek, psychically burnt out, had thrown in the towel and was replaced by UK Rattay.

Walter Trout's career began on the Jersey coast scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He then decided to relocate to Los Angeles where he became a sideman for Percy Mayfield and Deacon Jones. He also worked in the bands of John Lee Hooker and Joe Tex.
In 1981 be became the guitarist for Canned Heat. This led to an invitation to play in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers where he shared the stage with fellow guitarist Coco Montoya. He left the Bluesbreakers in 1989 and formed the 'Walter Trout Band' which developed a successful following in Europe.
In 1994 the official Walter Trout Fan Club for the Netherlands and Belgium was founded, followed in 1996 by the official International Fan Club who has members in 14 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. In 2006 the official International Fan club celebrated its tenth anniversary by giving fan club members an exclusive live CD recorded in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was the last performance of the late bassist, Jimmy Trapp, who died in 2005.
In 1998 Trout released his self-titled US debut album and renamed his band 'Walter Trout and the Free Radicals' (later renamed 'Walter Trout and the Radicals' and currently simply 'Walter Trout'). Since that time Trout has been recording and touring in North America, Europe and India.
In 2002, he was featured on the Bo Diddley tribute album, Hey Bo Diddley - A Tribute!, performing the song "Road Runner" and many more guest appearances on other recordings.
The 2006 release Full Circle, meant that Trout realized his dream of creating an album with some of his most admired musicians, including John Mayall, Coco Montoya, and Joe Bonamassa, among others.

Backyard Tire Fire return with their new studio album, The Places We Lived, on August 26, 2008. It’s the first long-player by the Bloomington, Illinois-based band to be released on independent label Hyena Records. Distinguished by a rare combination of workingman authenticity and indie-rock eccentricity, The Places We Lived is defiantly contemporary in the face of its deep Midwestern roots. It’s an approach that led Daytrotter.com to recently rave: “Backyard Tire Fire are the choice we make when the extremes always sound too extreme, the bright lights feel too foreign, the money’s not important, the beer’s on ice and the clothes we like most are the ones that we’ve had on our bodies for decades and we know what made all of the holes and rough patches in them.”
The Places We Lived follows Backyard Tire Fire’s 2007 studio effort, Vagabonds and Hooligans, a breakthrough release that found the group popping up on numerous tastemaker blogs and year-end “best of” lists. They’d go on to play over 200 dates last year, including opening slots and co-bills with Jason Isbell, Clutch, Lynyrd Skynyrd and William Elliott Whitmore among others. Consequently, their fan-base swelled, resulting in sold-out, headline dates all over the Midwest.
Seizing on the momentum, Backyard Tire Fire came off the road and went straight into the studio to record The Places We Lived. Cut over two weeks at co-producer Tony Sanfilippo's analog-only Oxide Lounge Studios in Bloomington, IL, it’s unquestionably the band’s most focused collection of songs to date.
“The idea of ‘home’ is at the core of this record. The places we’ve called home, leaving home, being away and returning home.  And the importance of family and friends and the people we love, ” states Backyard Tire Fire’s principle songwriter Ed Anderson. “My objective in the songwriting process is to be honest. I want folks to feel like the tune was written for them and identify with what the song is about.”
The signature Backyard Tire Fire sound is in fine form, represented on tracks like “The Places We Lived,” “How In The Hell Did You Get Back Here?” and “Welcome To The Factory”—all husky, guitar-driven rockers wearing their hearts proudly on their sleeves.
Ultimately what emerges on Backyard Tire Fire's The Places We Lived is a roughhewn, road-ready vision of substantive pop music for folks with dirt under their nails; tough and playful, poignant and bracing, a sandpaper snapshot of the world most of us live in, but rarely sing about with such poetic grace. Only five years into their journey, Backyard Tire Fire reveal themselves as a band deeply in love with the full American musical spectrum, pulling lustily from folk, country, blues and dyed-in-the-wool originals like Howlin' Wolf, Randy Newman, Alejandro Escovedo and The Band. They are musical lifers with a proverbial heart of gold, hammering this hard life into the kinds of notes and melodies that stick around for the long run.

Kaki King was born August 24, 1979 in Atlanta, Georgia. While King was still a small child, her father encouraged her interest in music. She was introduced to the guitar first, but when she learned to perform on the drums, they became her first serious instrument. King played in bands in high school with classmate Morgan Jahnig, who would later become the acoustic bassist of Old Crow Medicine Show. Upon graduating from The Westminster Schools in Atlanta in 1998, the two friends made their way to New York University. During her time there, King picked up the guitar again after years of neglect, and the 5'1" musician played a few occasional gigs and busked in the New York subways.

In February 2006, King was named as a “Guitar God” by Rolling Stone Magazine, becoming the first ever female to make this list in the history of the publication.

On December 13, 2007, King was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for the music she played in the film Into the Wild. She was nominated for the award along with Eddie Vedder and Michael Brook, who also contributed music to the film.
King's style combines fret-tapping with slap bass techniques, using the guitar for percussive beats, as well as sound layering and looping, which creates a complex sound. Her playing style evokes Michael Hedges and Preston Reed,[12] the latter of whom she explicitly cites as an influence.[13] Although she shares both similar playing techniques and a last name with guitarist Justin King, the two are not related.

An Horse is a two-person indie pop band from Brisbane, Australia, comprising Kate Cooper of Iron On on vocals and guitar and Damon Cox of Intercooler on drums. In 2008 they toured the United States as an opening act for Tegan and Sara, prior to the release of their first album. In August 2008, they opened for Death Cab for Cutie for their Australian tour.

To date An Horse has completed an EP, Not Really Scared, and an album, Rearrange Beds. Both were produced by ARIA award-winning Australian producer Magoo (Midnight Oil, Regurgitator), at Applewood studios in Queensland. Rearrange Beds was available on iTunes as of December 8, 2008, and is due to be released in stores on March 17, 2009. Currently on their 2009 North American tour, An Horse will continue to play as a supporting act for Tegan and Sara in Canada in 2010.

John McCauley, the man behind the Deer Tick moniker, was born and grew up in Providence, RI. He's wanted to be a crooner, entertainer, songwriter and performer for as long as he can remember and is selftaught on drums, guitar, piano, and pedal steel. He also took electric bass lessons in his teens. He started recording his own compositions while still in high school, making his own CDs and selling them at gigs. He also began touring during his high school years and since graduation he's built up a sizeable following in the Northwestern states performing solo, as a duo with drummer Dennis Ryan and with a small band. McCauley's music fits loosely into the singer/songwriter/folk category, but the pop, rock, blues and country influences he brings to his music add complexity and depth to his tunes. His first CD, War Elephant, came out in September of 2007 on Jana Hunter's Feow label and has won him comparisons to Townes Van Zandt, Neil Young, Gram Parsons and Richie Valens.McCauley taught himself bass and drums with the idea of starting a band, but could never find a guitar player he liked. He finally picked up a guitar and learned some basic music theory from a Beatles fake book, learning chords and voicings as he worked his way through the hefty volume. He started writing songs and was soon performing them at any venue that would have him. Even while he was in high school he was traveling throughout the Northwest, singing and playing, often without amplification, belting out the tunes with just his voice and guitar. The experience gave his vocals an inimitable raw power that comes across even on record, an elemental yelp that really gets under a listener's skin. He's also something of a joker, amusing audiences with his comical between song patter, but as he said in a recent interview: "I've seen so many people play with virtually no stage presence and it's a bummer. I don't want to watch that. Besides, my songs are too sad to sing one after the other and not tell a few jokes." Since graduating in 2004, McCauley's been a full time touring musician, handling most of his booking and promotion on his own. McCauley also got into recording and producing his own songs as a young age. He produced Jukebox Whore, 11 songs recorded at his apartment and in his parents' basement when he was 17 and 18 in 2005. He recorded split, a collaborative album with New Hampshire bass player Nat Baldwin in his parents' living room that same year for a small tape only tape label out of Providence called Tabel. Later that year he put out a three disc Complete Recordings package that included everything he'd recorded using the Deer Tick name. Next came Greatest Hits a prototype of War Elephant that he put together to sell during his fall tour of 2006. Last year, McCauley took the plunge and recorded War Elephant financing it himself and coproducing with Wax and Wane's Ari Schenck. The tracks alternate between songs on which McCauley played everything and songs with Nat Baldwin's band The Bohemians Baldwin on bass, James Falzone on Wurlitzer electric piano, Sine Jensen, violin and Brian McOmber drums and percussion. The album's dark, disconsolate vibe, a product of McCauley's distressed vocals and the sparse backing tracks, puts it in a hard to pigeonhole category all its own, although it loosely fits into the eccentric Americana style pioneered by Devendra Banhart and Vetiver. Jana Hunter, another songwriting maverick, met McCauley a few years back. When she heard the finished tapes, she offered him a deal with her new Feow logo.

TONY LEVIN CHAPMAN STICK / VOCALS
Tony Levin has recorded with John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Yes, Alice Cooper, and many more, and he has released 5 solo cd's and three books over his career. His website, tonylevin.com (having over 3 million hits) features one of the web's first road diaries, and behind-the-scenes photos of many tours he has done. In addition to embarking on recording and touring with Stick Men, he is currently a member of King Crimson and of the Peter Gabriel Band.

PAT MASTELOTTO DRUMS & DIGITAL DIGITS
Very rarely does a drummer go on to forge the most successful career on demise of their former hit band. Phil Collins and Don Henley have managed it, so too has Pat Mastelotto, a self taught drummer, who has also been involved with pushing the envelope of electronic drumming. Pat has spent a lifetime jumping genres from pop, to prog,to electronica to world music with, among others, Mr. Mister, XTC, David Sylvian, The Rembrandts, Kimmo Pohjonen and for the last 15 years with King Crimson. Visit his website... patmastelotto.com

MICHAEL BERNIER CHAPMAN STICK / DRUMS / VOCALS
Multi~instrumentalist Michael Bernier is considered to be one of the world's best Chapman Stick players. He is credited in Tony Levin's 'STICKMAN' album for "Advanced Stick Techniques". You can always find Michael inventing new and exciting playing approaches to the Stick.Michael also brings the added element of another drummer to the Stick Men mix.

Check out Stick Men here.

Singer/songwriter Todd Snider first garnered attention for his timely alt-rock satire "Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues," a folk-rock song that struck a chord with younger people fed up with angry alternative rock bands, and at the same time, appealed to aging rockers who grew up with the folk revival of the 1960s. Snider was born in Portland, OR, and grew up in Santa Rosa, Austin, Houston, and Atlanta. After moving to Memphis in the mid-'80s and establishing residency at a local club named The Daily Planet, he was discovered by singer/songwriter Keith Sykes, a member of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. Sykes began to work with Snider to help advance his career, and after passing on demo tapes of Snider to Buffett, he was signed to the star's Margaritaville Records. Snider's debut album, Songs for the Daily Planet was released in the fall of 1994; "Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues" was added to the album as an afterthought only after intense lobbying by a Canadian music critic, and ultimately became a minor hit. On his second effort, 1996's Step Right Up, Snider and his band, the Nervous Wrecks (comprised of lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Will Kimbrough, bassist Joe Mariencheck, drummer Joe McLeary, and keyboardist David Zollo), continued blending bluegrass, blues, folk-rock, and country-rock to forge their own distinctive sound. On his third album, 1998's Viva Satellite, Snider took a Tom Petty approach, replacing much of his acoustic setup with twang-drenched electric guitar. In 2000, he signed to John Prine's Oh Boy label and returned to his singer/songwriter roots with Happy to Be Here. He recorded three more records for the label, 2002's New Connection, 2003's Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, and 2004's East Nashville Skyline. That Was Me: The Best of Todd Snider 1994-1998 was released on Hip-O in 2005, and the next year Snider's eighth album, Devil You Know, came out. In 2008 Snider released the politically charged Peace Queer, an eight-song collection of antiwar songs as filtered through Snider's signature wit and amiable pathos. The Excitement Plan appeared from Yep Roc Records in 2009. Richard Skelly, All Music Guide

The Reverend Horton Heat is perhaps the most popular psychobilly artist of all time, his recognition only rivaled only by the esteem generated by the genre's founders, the Cramps. The Reverend (as both the three-man band and its guitar-playing frontman were known) built a strong cult following during the '90s through constant touring, manic showmanship, and a twisted sense of humor. The latter was nothing new in the world of psychobilly, of course, and Heat's music certainly kept the trashy aesthetic of his spiritual forebears. The Reverend's true innovation was updating the psychobilly sound for the alternative rock era. In his hands, it was something more than retro-obsessed kitsch -- it had roaring distorted guitars, it rocked as hard as any punk band, and it didn't look exclusively to pop culture of the past for its style or subject matter. Most of the Reverend's lyrics were gonzo celebrations of sex, drugs, booze, and cars, and true to his name, his concerts often featured mock sermons in the style of a rural revivalist preacher. The band's initial recordings were released by that bastion of indie credibility, Sub Pop, at the height of the grunge craze; after a spell on the major label Interscope, the Reverend Horton Heat returned to the independent world, still a highly profitable draw on the concert circuit. Reverend Horton Heat -- the man, not the band -- was born James C. Heath in Corpus Christi, TX. Growing up, he played in local rock cover bands around the area but was more influenced by Sun Records' rockabilly, electric Chicago blues, and country mavericks like Junior Brown, Willie Nelson, and Merle Travis. According to legend, he spent several years in a juvenile correction facility, and at 17 was supporting himself as a street musician and pool shark (according to the Reverend, however, the story was fabricated by Sub Pop to add color to his greaser image). Heath eventually moved to Dallas, where he found work at a club in Deep Ellum. There, he gave his first performance in 1985 as Reverend Horton Heat, christened as such by the club's owner. Heat played the city's blues-club circuit for a while, performing mostly for polite crowds and swing-dancing enthusiasts. Craving the excitement of a rock & roll show, and seeking a more financially rewarding avenue to help with his child support payments, Heat revamped his sound and moved into rock and punk venues. In 1989, he added bassist Jimbo Wallace to his band, and drummer Patrick "Taz" Bentley soon completed the lineup. Reverend Horton Heat were a big hit around the area, and soon began touring extensively all around the country.

Cracker, the group that veritably introduced brash irreverence and irony into alt-rock, are back and in top form on their 429 Records debut, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey.
This rich new trove of sharp-witted songs showcases a bristling, late 70’s – early 80’s power pop punk aesthetic which hits as hard as it did at the band’s formation 17 years ago. Eight albums (one platinum and three gold) and a barrel full of anthemic hit songs later, Cracker endures, using their ability to weave decades of influences into an album that is seamlessly riveting.

Check out Split Lip Rayfield here.

The most memorable American roots music -- be it western, country, folk, rock or the blues -- is always informed by a simple fact of life: you live and you learn. Just ask Katy Moffatt. Or better yet, listen to her sing, be it a song from her own prolific pen or a choice cut from a favorite songwriter. It's clear that Katy sings and writes with the voice of hard-won authority. As BAM observes, "She doesn't just hit the notes and get the words right, Moffatt evokes the emotions behind the tunes and meaning between the lines."

According to Katy, her new record Cowboy Girl, is "a dream I'd had for many years." When in July 2000, a Colorado Springs gig and visit with Scott O'Malley of Western Jubilee coincided with a Cowboy Celtic gig in the area, Katy was reunited with her old friend and musical cohort, David Wilkie. As she says, "I suddenly knew that there could not be a more perfect producer or record company for this album. The dream was within reach." Everyone agreed, and Cowboy Girl became the first female addition to the exclusive Western Jubilee roster.

Things really got rolling for Katy after a move to California in 1979 landed her within a burgeoning community of like-minded country rockers, and after recording another unreleased album (whose three single releases earned her the ACM nomination), Moffatt appeared on the groundbreaking A Town South of Bakersfield compilation amid kindred spirits such as Dwight Yoakum and Rosie Flores. Three new film offers had her cast as a singing performer in Hard Country (with Michael Martin Murphey), Honeymoon in Vegas, and Peter Bogdanovitch’s The Thing Called Love. Sessions with Steve Berlin of Los Lobos yielded the album Child Bride, whose European release spurred Moffatt’s growing popularity on the Continent. After meeting Tom Russell and his guitar playing sidekick Andrew Hardin at the Kerrville Music Festival in Texas, she began an ongoing songwriting relationship with Russell, and recorded Walkin' On The Moon with Hardin, her first US album release in over a decade (on Rounder in 1989), and hailed as "substantive in both its emotions and its ideas" by the San Jose Mercury News. Rounder followed it with the Stateside issue of Child Bride ("American songs delivered with full-throttled passion," noted The Washington Post) in 1990; The Greatest Show on Earth in 1993 ("One 'Greatest Show' well worth catching," said The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) prompted legal action by the Ringling Brothers circus, predicating a name change to The Evangeline Hotel, but by now Moffatt had reclaimed her place as one of America’s most honest and affecting singer-songrwriters. As the Detroit News and Free Press notes of Moffatt's songs, they "provide stirring, poignant and incisive glimpses into the lives of the long-suffering everyman and woman who once populated Springsteen's scenarios -- except with a dusty Southwest spirit."

In recent years, Moffatt has been able to enjoy a career that's become as broad as her varied interests. In early 1996, Rounder issued Sleepless Nights, her collaboration with fellow singer-songwriter Kate Brislin, and later that year she was heard duetting with the late Country Dick Montana on his posthumous solo album, The Devil Lied To Me. She also contributed a track to the acclaimed songwriters' tribute to Merle Haggard, Tulare Dust; did time in The Pleasure Barons with Montana, Dave Alvin, Mojo Nixon, and John Doe; and in 1992 released Dance Me Outside, a duet with her brother, Nashville songwriter Hugh Moffatt.

Thus, Katy continues her unique path, cutting through to a place where the honesty, power, and purity of her sound reside and flourish like a wild rose.