The picture of a radiant Amy Speace that graces the cover of her equally radiant new CD, Songs for Bright Street, captures the Jersey City-based singer/songwriter in a candid moment, laughing broadly, her right hand either doffing or trying on a straw hat of the vaguely urban cowgirl variety.

"What is this?" The answer to this question which is always asked when I play the record at the renown New York City jazz bar, the 55 Bar, will soon be known in North America. Other parts of the world - France, Japan, South America, particularly Brazil - have already caught onto this exciting, powerful guitar voice which has wowed guitarists and musical civilians alike. Kiko Loureiro has excelled in the musical realms of rock, Brazilian metal and instrumental guitar-based music. He even has DVD's of guitar lessons and other musical instruction. And with his latest recording Universo Inverso, he is poised to break out in America and other places where his guitar virtuosity has yet to be known.

Band To Donate Royalty to BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse) and St. Jude's Children's Hospital

Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of Elvis' death, Texas' #1 Biker Rally Band, Mean Gene Kelton & The Die Hards have recorded a new Jambone Records CD, "Going Back To Memphis: A Biker Band Tribute To Elvis" at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee.

Musicians who create in the realm of electronica or whatever one calls sampled, processed, or electronically generated music, almost always emphasize the genre's machine-like-qualities of Hans and Frans Germanic crunching juggernaut rhythms, and bloops and bleeps that resemble the conversations of robots. The composer, performer and soundscaper Polarity/1, however, creates music that has one foot firmly in electronica and the rest of the body in an organic musical universe that includes pop, folk-rock, various schools of jazz, Latin, funk and modernist music from the classical tradition. He mixes these genres into well-blended songs to create a sound that is like the Six Million Dollar Man: part man, part machine but at heart totally human.

Tokyo-based Aboriginal Canadian artist Rose Beach announced that she has been admitted as a member in the National Aboriginal Recording Industry Association. NARIA is a national Aboriginal association of professional Aboriginal music artists, associated music business people, and service providers.