Mike Love just doesn’t know when to quit. Any time his cousin, Brian Wilson, seems to find success, Love is there, lawsuit in hand. This time, Love has filed suit because he says Wilson promoted his remaking of Smile in a way that “shamelessly misappropriated Mike Love’s songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the Smile album itself,” according to Billboard by way of the AP. Never mind the fact that Love stopped supporting Wilson’s flights of creative fancy long before Smile’s implosion. Hasn’t Love wrung enough money from the Beach Boys and Wilson by now?

Actually, no. In between lawsuits, Love continues to tour with what he calls the Beach Boys Band, a travesty that features no Wilson brothers. Yes, this is the moral high ground on which Love stands. At issue in the suit is the creation and distribution of 2.6 million copies of a Beach Boys compilation given out with a British newspaper to promote Smile. Love’s suit claims that the disc undercut sales of Beach Boys music. Sure, and Mike Love backed by a bar band playing under the name only bolsters that marketability, right?

The discovery of the fantastic music blog Little Hits, which features mp3s from long gone power pop and garage rock bands (and long out-of-print, mostly vinyl releases) led to a bit of a link-to-link discovery of information about Erik Voeks. Little Hits featured an mp3 from Voeks’ fantastic debut (and lone long-playing release), Sandbox, “Oh My Darlin’,” and comments on the posting mentioned that Voeks now lives in Kansas, operates a record shop and has a new band. That band, the Octopus Frontier (that’s a Richard Brautigan reference), seems to be a knock-around group for guys with day jobs but who still want to rock now and again. From the mp3s available on the site, it would seem that Voeks is content to filter his pop smarts through more pedestrian bar band rock these days. A link on that site takes you to Voeks’ My Space page, where this self-described “chronic home recordist” offers four streaming tracks. They’re all fairly short, but fully fleshed out pop songs that seem to be more direct descendents of the great music he made a decade ago. It’s great to see Voeks still making music. Sandbox is one of the great gems of the ’90s, and it’s promising to know there may someday be a follow-up.

As for Little Hits, it’s a nice affirmation that there are more people out there who snapped up all of those old singles from Bus Stop, Summershine, Sarah and Parasol who lament the fact that the music they contained is locked within those hard-to-hear grooves. Here’s hoping that blogger Jon Harrison’s stated goal — to contribute to interest that will eventually lead to legitimate re-issue of the works of the artists represented, or wider recognition of already available releases — is realized.

Marah put on a heck of a show here in Iowa City last night. Most impressive was the fact that the band could clearly fill a theater or small arena with sound and connect with the last person in the place, and did so for about 25 people in a dank club on a weeknight. Perhaps most importantly, the band was having fun, ripping through a well-chosen and diverse cross section of its back catalog while giving the proper promotional support to its latest disc, If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry. That disc is worthy of the attention, offering the best music the band has made since it’s sophomore stab at the big time, Kids in Philly. Some in the crowd remarked that they’d lost track of the band after the over-produced flop that was Float Away with the Friday Night Gods. The band has recovered nicely and has even taken steps to rescue the music that most have chosen to ignore from that disc. Last night’s set featured a gorgeous, stripped-down sing along version of “Float Away,” and the band is hawking a self-released disc on tour called Float Away – Deconstructed. I didn’t pony up for it, but the tracklisting mixing demos, live acoustic tracks and alternate takes would seem to suggest that it offers an alternate look at the album that fits more seamlessly with the rest of the band’s back catalog.

That catalog is full of good discs and great songs that make me, on further reflection, realize they’re one the better bands we have these days. More to the point, last night’s show proved that on any given night, they may just be the best live band out there. With a mix of roots rock, Springsteen bombast, Philly Soul and punk spirit, they play music that sounds like a lot of different things while all still sounding like Marah.

Neil Young, who seems to have become a focus here of late, takes over the music slot on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” for the next four nights, starting tonight. Young follows in the footsteps of the Strokes, the White Stripes and U2, who all have held similar four-night stands on the show. Let’s hope Young follows the example of the White Stripes, who used the slot to both plug a new disc by performing the single and to dip into the corners of the back catalog to unearth some cool music (in their case it was their fiery cover of “Jolene”). Young surely will play “The Painter” tonight, followed by other tracks from Prairie Wind. But one can’t help but hope for an incendiary take of “Rockin’ in the Free World” or “Powderfinger” later in the week.

My review of the Clientele’s Strange Geometry disc is up at PopMatters. Anyone who frequents this blog will be familiar with my intro, which was adapted from a post here about that disc. It’s a good album from a good band that deserves more notice here in the States than it has received to date. Upcoming: reviews of the new EP from the Long Winters and the latest long-player from Pinetop Seven.

This warning comes months too late, but I wish I’d seen something like it before wasting time and money: Return to Sin City, the DVD of the concert tribute to Gram Parsons, is terrible. To clarify: the DVD itself is terrible. The performances over two nights at two California locations in July 2004 seem to be good, and any time someone commemorates the life and work of Parsons, it’s a treat. But somewhere along the line someone should have realized that the recordings were not up to standard and held back this DVD’s release. The sound, from front to back, is shameful. There is no middle to any of this, just highs and lows. The result is bootleg-quality audio that sounds as if a single microphone was hung over the audience to capture the performances. You hear the high end of the guitars and the thump of the bass drum and little else. The result, sadly, is that while the viewer is tempted by seeing Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Jim James, Jim Lauderdale and many others singing the songs of Gram Parsons (many while decked out in fitting Nudie suits), you can’t even hear enough to tell whether the performances are any good. Because the same backing band is used for most of the performances, the only stylistic variation is with the vocals, and that’s the one thing most difficult to hear. What a profound disappointment.

It’s a great season for jazz fans as three new releases capture a handful of giants at the peak of their powers in previously unissued live recordings. The two getting the most ink are Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall and One Up, One Down, from John Coltrane. A third, not quite on the mainstream radar but no less vital, is Town Hall New York City, June 22, 1945 from Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

Each has much to recommend it. The Monk release features a group previously thought unrecorded save for the interesting but sonically inferior Discovery! Live at the Five Spot disc that came out in 1997. Here, Coltrane is four months into his work with Monk’s group. Jazz lore reports that Trane was tentative at first in playing Monk’s odd compositions, but that is clearly not the case here as he blows with authority. This show, Nov. 29, 1957 at Carnegie Hall, is fantastic. This was the point at which Coltrane was starting to lead his own groups — his wonderful Blue Train was released earlier that year — and it is clear from this performance that he was more than ready.

The new disc under Coltrane’s name finds this saxophone colossus seven years and a lifetime later, performing with his classic quartet at a New York club. The group is near its end — A Love Supreme was already in stores and Coltrane was heading into uncharted territory that would find him leaving McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones behind. But for these two sets, these four men are playing as one, proving that on any given night, you just might wander into a place and see the best show of your life.

Less has been written about the Gillespie/Parker set, though there are a few reviews out there if you hunt around. You may have to hunt to find the disc itself, but it’s worth the trouble. Hearing it is like popping open a time capsule, releasing into the air the sound of one of the best jazz pairings in history. The sound isn’t as crisp as on the other two discs here, but that is a minor quibble. When the reliably late Parker strides onto the stage midway through the opening tune, “Bebop,” to take over for Don Byas, the electricity in the room is transferred through the speakers and doesn’t let up until the final note is blown.

Not to beat a dead (Crazy) horse, but Nude as the News has an interesting joint review of Neil Young’s Prairie Wind and Bruce Springsteen’s Devils and Dust up that expresses disappointment with both.

“It’s disappointing to listen to these albums as they make us wonder whether either artist can ever be vital again,” writes Ben French. As I’ve written here, I would agree with regard to Young. Springsteen, however, is another matter. When he fails, it feels as if he is trying too hard. When Young fails, it feels as if he isn’t trying hard enough.

With Devils and Dust, there is much to like. Where it bogs down are the points at which it seems like he’s trying to channel the dusty textures of Nebraska or even The Ghost of Tom Joad, rather than perform the songs in their best form and then worry about whether they fit the album as a whole. The same problem plagued The Rising to a certain extent, as weaker songs were given the full-blown USA treatment as Bruce sought to offer a balm for the nation.

Left with the task of simply recording an album of good songs without the need to soothe the soul of a country — or pat it on the back and say everything will be all right in about 3 1/2 years — I’m confident Springsteen can delivery another winner.

Young, on the other hand, just doesn’t seem capable. While Prairie Wind is growing on me still — I’m past what French writes about disappointing albums from favorite artists: “These are the albums you play a few times and don’t really enjoy, play a few more times hoping to find something to like, and then never play again to protest the disenchantment” — it doesn’t feel like things are going to get any better than this.