What’s in a name? For a band, a lot. A band’s name often gives a descriptor to their image, something that can vaguely sum up what the band is all about. The Beach Boys wrote songs about being on the beach. The Allman Brothers were a band made up of brothers named Allman. Aerosmith...I’ll get back to you on that. But my point remains. Band names are like the tagline to their music. It’s what people see first and remember the most.

A true pioneer takes great risks, stepping out of the social norm to create something revolutionary and different. They visualize a new way of doing things by bringing a fresh perspective that could potentially change the game forever. These types of people are becoming few and far between, and in a music industry that running dry of inspirational ideas, we need these revolutionaries now more than ever.

The Ballroom Thieves. Maybe you haven’t heard of this band – I hadn’t until I received the album. But that’s okay…this band is going to be around for a while so you’ll get your chance. If you go to your local record store, chances are you might find an album, but it’s unlikely. The band has only put out two EPs since they formed in 2011. Their first EP, The Devil & The Deep released in 2012. The band’s latest, and second, EP released October 4, 2013.

You’re listening to Threace, and you’re smoking a hand-rolled tobacco joint and drinking mescal from a vintage mason jar and proclaiming it the True Agave Spirit of the South; your record player was bought used and old, you tell anyone who’ll listen; you’re bemoaning the death of the open road in modern times while you sit in circles amongst the likeminded in your New Amsterdam meatpacking district loft.

What was once an anomaly is now a standard. Many lovers of classic Bay Area rock, blues, bluegrass, and beyond are investing in live archival releases above studio albums. Thanks to accessibility through vault discoveries and painstaking restoration, live recordings that are forty-plus years old are being heard by the band and fans alike for the first time. Artists such as Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Hot Tuna are releasing performances that haven’t been heard by audiences since the date of original performance.

The Onion’s AV Club has a long-running series named “Undercover,” where a visiting artist covers a song from a list of 25 staff-selected favorites. These songs range wildly from Kanye West to Tom Waits, so bands often have to stretch far out of their comfort zone to make the cover work.

While Colorado-based string rebels Yonder Mountain String Band never seem to stop touring, the boys recently managed to fit some well-rehearsed studio time into their seemingly endless schedule to record their self-produced album YMSB EP ’13, which is due out October 8^th on the band’s own Frog Pad Records. Recorded entirely from the road, the four-track EP features one song written by each member of YMSB.

Let's call a spade a spade—this is the Hipster Sound in its purest form, for better or worse. Arp’s More is British Invasion presented by The Strokes, with a touch of “Penny Lane” derivative on keys. You with me so far? Bueno.Now, the man behind the creation, Alexis Georgopolos, and his people will remind you this is a very New York album—(of course it is)—and they’re quite right.

I have walked so far, so far...I’ll concede, I suppose it’s easy to get a little jaded to old-hand refinement these days, what with the driving influx of fresh bubblegum content fit for chewing in three-minute stretches. For those artists—including our own Susanna and her most recent partner Ensemble neoN—who dive into deep cuts as a rule and not an exception, the present state of the union can be suffocating.

No other performer in bluegrass, living or dead, has shown more devoted revere for their specific roots than Del McCoury. When I interviewed Del for Grateful Web last year he explained that though he is thrilled that bluegrass is bigger today than it was back in the 40s and 50s, that nothing could replace that 50,000 watt clear channel radio station that aired performances from the Grand Ole’ Opry.