Star billing for Mr Mariani in the band name these days is no surprise. He's been leading this diverse and floating crew for years and they've never failed to deliver on a promise of broadening the limited palette of traditional surf music. Putting Dom's moniker on the cover won't hurt sales and most of the playing is his own work.

Been on a Humble Pie trip for a bit around the I-94 Bar and it struck me that the less pastoral and more excessive they became, the better those guys got. This Mississippi-via-Memphis trio Dirty Streets is coming from the same place and despite their album's misnomer of a title (there's no sign of rolling fields and English countryside here) they purvey a fine line in swaggering rock.

Like what we all think of as ‘the '50s’, ‘the '60s’, as far as I can see, lasted from about 1963 to 1969. Unlike the preceeding decade, the breadth and scope of the musical landslide was so utterly extraordinary that bands are still borrowing and leaching off the period today.

There are certainties in life. You've heard about death and taxes. There are also the Nomads. Dependable, although never safe, they're the grand daddies of Scandi Rock and their latest is a compilation to walk over shards of glass for. 

Once upon a time, the mere mention of a new album by the Nomads would provoke howls of anticipation from anyone with the remotest appreciation for rock and roll. The praises of Sweden's Godfathers of Garage Rock were sung around the world - and justifiably.

"Come To My Party," intones Colter Langan on the severe and opening cut of the same name on the latest opus for Montana psychedelic collective Donovan's Brain and, although wrist-slashing is optional, he sure ain't breaking out the fairy bread and streamers.