It has been five months now since the announcement was made that founding member Bill Nershi would be leaving the String

There is a new trend in the music industry today, bands which have been broken up for decades reforming suddenly in order to cash in on the pocketbooks and prosperity of their baby-boomer generation fans.

For a weekday during spring break, the North Star Bar in Philadelphia was vacant, but the musicians came to play anyway.  Starting with the opening band, a new local jam band named Mogel's Brew, all of the musicians played with emotion and soul. It was really nice to see and hear a band that I would classify as a young jam band.

The North Mississippi Allstars decided to play a very unique acoustic tour. It wasn't the usual Mississippi foot stomping rockin' blues, but a mellow country blues that told a story and a history about a time and place much different from here and now. I saw the March 23rd show at the World Café Live in Philadelphia.

Kyle Hollingsworth  (The String Cheese Incident) steps out with his latest collaboration – soleside – which features Kyle, Speech (of Arrested Development) and DJ Logic. Backed by a full band, these three creative souls, seemingly worlds apart, will smash jazz/funk, hiphop and turntables into an explosive new music that defies categorization.

Normally I am a little skeptical of artists who release albums that are dubbed "B-sides" or "leftover recording material", because it usually is a feeble attempt to cash in on material that truly is b-grade.  However, this is not the case with the release of Umphreys McGee's The Bottom Half, which happens to boast some beautifully written and energetically recorded tracks from the Chicago-based rock outfit.