Released to critical acclaim, Hand Built By Robots, the debut album by Newton Faulkner, is available now on Aware/Columbia Records.

Hailing from Athens, DEAD CONFEDERATE's psychedelic-meets-grunge sound created quite the buzz at this year's SXSW and Sasquatch festival with a number of well-attended shows, including a much-coveted opening slot for R.E.M.

The Northwest's premier acoustic music festival returns for its seventh year to beautiful Horning's Hideout in North Plains, Oregon, on July 18-20.  The event boasts three days of nearly all-acoustic music, culminating each night with main stage performances from musical hosts Yonder Mountain String Band, this year joined by special guest fiddler Darol Anger (David Grisman Quintet, Psychograss) and banjo/guitar virtuoso Danny Barnes (Bad Livers, Tim O'Brien Band).  Yonder

Bands evolve. Some for the better, and some not. South Dakota's Indigenous blues band has certainly moved into new, fresher territory with their new band lineup. The story of that band is quite unique.

Indigenous burst on the musical stage as youngsters, three siblings and a cousin. They were all members of the Nakota Nation and living on the Yanton Indian Reservation, located in the southeastern portion of South Dakota, along the Missouri River, close to Nebraska. (Those ethnic and geographic roots are important, so keep that location in mind)

Their father, Greg Zephier, a spokesperson for Native American rights had been a musician in the 60s and '70s, and he wanted to pass the legacy of classic rock artists that he admired and had learned from to his children. "Yeah, my dad was really into music," said Mato Nanji, the oldest of the siblings and the guitarist. "That was pretty much where I heard everything: the R&B, the blues, the rock. There was just all kinds of music. He and two of his brothers and a nephew used to have a band called the Vanishing Americans. They used to play all of the old rock stars, Santana, everything. That's kind of where I got my start. They were actually broke up before I was born. I found his guitars and his records."

Ptcecha, Mato's sister, took up the bass, and Wanbdi found drums to his liking. Their cousin, Horse, added percussion. First they learned a lot of blues and rock covers. Mato's strong voice was able to carry the weight of a Hendrix tune or an Eric Clapton song. Then Mato began to write originals.

"My dad always said from the start, 'You need to write your own songs,'" Mato remembered. "I've always tried to do that from the start. I think one of the first songs that I wrote was 'Things We Do.' We recorded it for a CD the Indigo Girls put together, a compilation of different artists. [Honor the Earth (1996)]."

At first, Zephier toured with them as a family, until the youngsters were discovered by the wider world.

When their debut album, Things We Do, (Pachyderm Records) in 1998, it hit Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, something that no Native American bands had ever done. Soon, they came to the notice of Bonnie Raitt and BB King. They had become another young blues phenomenon out of the Plains, like Fargo's Johnny Lang. BB King was so impressed with these young talents he invited them to join his Blues Festival Tour. A year later their father passed, but he had lived to see his children's success.

Indigenous continued to tour widely and record. But the siblings were growing up, having families, and some even growing away from the music of their youth. They recorded their last record together, Long Way Home, in 2005. "It was a lot of hard work over the years, touring non-stop, pretty much," Mato said. "I think everybody kind of sat back after the last record and just wanted to pursue different things, I guess. ....My sister hasn't really been playing that much. My brother wanted to start his own band.... Now, they're doing different styles of music than what I do....I just wanted to keep going and keep the name because it's always been about the music, and it always will be."

A year later, Mato decided to release a solo album. That record, Chasing the Sun, became a way to break out on his own while still maintaining amicable relations with his siblings. "My brother played bass on the last record," Mato said. "There were a couple of songs my sister wrote, and I think a couple of them ended up on the record. I kind of co-wrote some songs with her."

For the next year, though, Mato looked for a band to tour with to support this new album and to continue as a band entity known as Indigenous. Oddly enough, the band he found, the extremely talented Kris Lager Band from Lincoln, Nebraska, was one he came to know when Indigenous was first discovered. "I think we met probably in the late 90s. Off and on, we played together at shows." Then in the spring of 2007, the Kris Lager Band and Mato ended up getting together and doing a jam. "A mutual friend got us together, and we did an acoustic thing," Mato explained. "It was a little private show right in the studio there in Omaha. That was the first time we actually played together as a band. We did an acoustic set, and we came out and jammed together. I felt really good. I have always wanted to try having a full band with me, another guitar player and a keyboard player, as well as drums and bass. We have just been jamming together ever since."

The addition of keyboards was something the original Indigenous didn't have. "I think on each record we did, that's what you hear anyways. There are some keys on there and some other guitars. I've always wanted to take that, tour with that as a full band," he said.

But the Kris Lager band wasn't immediately folded into Indigenous. It was all part of the unique evolution of the band. "I've had different band members off and on for the past year, since the record came out. They were really good players, too."  But the Kris Lager Band had been opening for Indigenous. "I think after I saw these guys play, I really, really liked them and liked the music so I thought maybe we can kind of get together."

Kris Lager adds another strong lead guitar that many other blues guitarists would not have wanted. But Mato doesn't consider him competition, but assistance. "One of the big influences starting out at the beginning was still a lot of guitar playing," Mato said, "and I think that's what a lot of people were drawn to. A lot of guitar playing was part of the history of the band." And, Mato is amazing. He has been heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix in his attack on the guitar. Now, with Kris Lager taking the lead sometimes, Mato can concentrate on vocal delivery that is heavily influenced by Sam Cooke and other early R&B singers.

Mato and the Kris Lager band had been playing for only three months as Indigenous when I saw them last August at the Last Ride Bluesfest in Thief River Falls, MN. They were incredible together. Then, I saw them this past March at the Jackpot Junction Blues Fest, and they blew everybody off the map! "I think there was a pretty cool connection," Mato says. "It is at a point where it's kind of unexplainable when you play together as a band."

Phenomenal is more like it. The blues is still there, but there is a life in the music that comes from the vocals and the driving guitars. And Mato is extremely generous on stage with his bandmates. Everyone has a chance to shine. Though the songs are his, the vocal duties are mainly his, and most of the blazing guitar work is his, the band is exceptionally Indigenous, with each member sharing the burden and the glory on stage.

Though you try not to compare artists on the same bill, you do. At Jackpot Junction Blues Fest, I saw many other blues players. Some were old legends; some were young legends. But one thing was clear, though I saw a lot of flash and power noodling, especially among the younger players, none of that could compare with the technical skill and heart of the new Indigenous band. This was one blues band that made you feel so good after you heard them and, especially, when you saw the delighted interplay among the musicians. They were having a bang-up good time and the audience did, too.

Mato parted with Vanguard, his past label, in 2007 and is now looking to record a new CD with the exciting new Indigenous incarnation later this year. I can't wait!

To some purists, hearing Arlo Guthrie's, In Times Like These, released last summer, they might figure the live album was overproduced because of the symphony orchestra that backs up Guthrie's acoustic guitar and piano work. The result, however, is a recording that showcases Guthrie's singular storytelling voice and the nakedness of his instruments, while providing a theatrical swell behind his songs. As a listener, you almost anticipate seeing a movie unfold with the next note.

Folksinger, master storyteller, and all-round genuine human being, Arlo Guthrie has been entertaining for over four decades. In 2006, I had an opportunity to interview this folk legend while he was on the Alice's Restaurant 40th Anniversary Massacre Tour, where he recreated the insanely-funny 18-minute monologue that made him famous. My husband and I shared that experience with our twenty-something son at a local university concert that Guthrie did here in North Dakota.  It was our pleasure to pass along the humor and social consciousness renderings that Guthrie was know for.

When I interviewed Guthrie that year, he had just come from Lexington, KY, where he had recorded this album with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of John Nardolillo. "We've done shows with about thirty different orchestras, over the last five years," he said two years ago. "This is, I think, the first time we're working with a young orchestra. It's really great, working with young people."  The orchestra did slip in thirteen guest artists who were friends of the university, of which five were faculty. But still the large orchestra was composed of university music students. Nardolillo has the infamous distinction of breaking into Guthrie's dressing room at the Lincoln Center during a performance. He did manage to make a plea for doing work with orchestras before he was hauled off by security!

This experiment with making music with orchestras is not just using a symphony to back whatever Guthrie does up front on stage. Instead, it is creating something new and fresh that is crossing genres. "The trick," Guthrie said, "is to try to do something that is not just something you could do with a synthesizer, but to create orchestral arrangements in the symphonic tradition rather than make them sit there playing chords." He insisted that he wanted to use the talent that was present in the orchestra. "We've done that, I think," he continued. "We've got some great charts that were written by a friend of mine who is new to the kind of music I play."

What has happened and is very present in this new CD is a synthesis of musical traditions. "There's a great classical tradition that most people are probably not as familiar with as they could be," Guthrie added. "It's a situation where our audience will probably come to see us even if we're playing with a herd of elephants. And there are a lot of symphony people who would go to hear the orchestra, regardless of who is playing with them. So you get a wonderfully mixed audience of people for whom the whole thing is new."

While at UK, Guthrie also taught his first university course. "There is a lot of interest in the part that music plays in different aspects of the culture, certainly for somebody from the sixties when music was really important, when music was the only vehicle for popular dissent,' he said. "And so it can play an important part in creating the soundtrack for social change. That's one aspect they're looking at.

"Others may be looking at more technical takes on this:  how do you make a record or those kinds of things," he says. "Everything from the simplest mechanical information to the business of doing music within and without the entertainment industry."

In 1983, Arlo left a major record company and started his own label, Rising Son Records, and quickly advised young musicians to go the do-it- yourself route. "I've done both. I've worked 15 years with Warners and then the last 20 years, we've done it on our own. We were really one of the first people to strike out from the stable of the major labels and do it ourselves. 'Course a lot of people are doing it now."

Certainly, a lot of independent bands are doing that and even some bands that were signed are becoming independent mainly because of the nature of control. What people forget is that you may get a big advance, but you've got to pay it back. Guthrie added, "Not only that. They have the best creative accounting in the world. Even for purely financial reasons, it really doesn't make sense to sell yourself to a corporation that is basically owned by a different corporation, as they are both own by another corporation. By the time that you get done looking at the big picture, the music part of the company you're working with is a very small part of a large company that has a lot of different interests. So, their interest in you as a single artist becomes minuscule compared to what they are doing.

"If you do it yourself and you're actually interested in yourself, not only do you have no one looking over your shoulder, but you stand to make a living, which I guarantee that you will not do when you are the minuscule focus of some global network."

Unfortunately, musicians still believe in the magic of a record deal.  "The reality has not flowed to the general public," Guthrie said. "You would have to have worked in it for a little while before you realize that not only will you not be somebody, but you will be poor. There are all kinds of drawbacks of getting caught up in the entertainment industry."

Rising Son Records not only produces Guthrie's music but his children's recordings and some by other artists. "We're beginning to branch out," he said. "For me, this was not an easy thing to do. The only thing we had was the ability to make music. I didn't know anything about the business of it so it took many years to get to the point where we actually knew what we were doing.... But the bottom line is that when we make a record and somebody likes it and purchases it, we do the accounting. We know how it works. We know that we can actually make a living doing this."

Guthrie continues to make his own kind of music. In Times Like These proves that he can still make a significant mark on the music scene. Of special note is Guthrie's arrangement of "St. James Infirmary." With careful addition of horns, Klezmer clarinet, and stride piano, the simple folk classic takes on a significant musical reawakening. The orchestra also breathes life into his tender "If You Would Just Drop By," which was one of my all-time favorites. This version is fresh and will be eye-opening to old folkies like me, as well attract new fans. Though some of Guthrie's songs become pop songs. Others retain their folk roots and the orchestra just supports that effort. "In Times Like These," the title cut, is left as a solo voice and guitar piece.

Even Steve Goodman's song, "City of New Orleans," that Guthrie made famous is enhanced by the orchestra. It is always a crowd favorite. But there are unexpected touches, such as horns and drums that peek out from the strings.

Also, included in the mix are three other songs that Guthrie didn't write.  Glen Anthony's ballad, "You Are the Song," may have been a bit of a stretch for Guthrie vocally, but it works, and will appeal to the symphony/pop crowd. Huddie Ledbetter's "Good Night Irene," unfortunately, is treated as a theatrical musical number. There is no way to make it less so with an orchestra. In contrast, Luigi Creatore's "Can't Help Falling in Love" does work both for the orchestra and for Guthrie.

All in all, In Times Like These is a bold melding of the folk experience and symphony structure. I can understand why Guthrie keeps working with orchestras, encouraging new talent, and drawing new fans. Check it out.