For this band who self-identifies as “Coincidence Pop” (the frontman once explained his music as “really just a combination of fuck-ups that coincidentally sounds pleasant”), things are coming together.   

Over the Rhine — the Cincinnati musical duo of husband-and-wife Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist — has a lot for which to thank the Cowboy Junkies. Hopefully they’ll get a chance to thank the Junkies when the latter is in town for a Tuesday night gig at 20th Century Theatre. The Junkies are here to celebrate the completion of an unusual project, The Nomad Series, four albums in 18 months. The final one, Wilderness — a sensitive look at the needs and impulses that drive a person’s life — came out last month.  

 Sleepy Sun has evolved from precocious northern California Psychedelic upstarts to seasoned veterans in the time it takes some bands to inhale a single bong hit. Coalescing in 2008, the Santa Cruz, Calif., crew moved to their genre of choice’s creative and spiritual birthplace, San Francisco, and quickly dropped a pair of well-received albums.
  

 One need not be a fan of Bluegrass to enjoy the music of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. They make music for anyone who squirms giddily at the symphony or geeks out over complicated arrangements and often ignored time signatures. The Flecktones are now touring in support of their newest album, Life in Eleven, the first album to be recorded by the original lineup since the ’90s.  

During the past decade and a half, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Tim Kasher has served as the reeling ringmaster for the dark, wonderfully dysfunctional circus known as Cursive. A constantly fluctuating membership has resulted in Cursive’s fascinatingly malleable sound, from the Indie Rock gravity of 1997’s Such Blinding Stars for Starving Eyes to the denser and more conceptual Early Summer: Semantics of Song in 1998 to the string-driven Burst and Bloom and The Ugly Organ in the new millennium.   

 Ric Hordinski’s name on any project or event is the musical version of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. So it is with Joel Henderson’s release gig at Hordinski’s Monastery studio in Walnut Hills as he introduces his new release, Locked Doors & Pretty Fences.  

 Since releasing his Nick Lowe-produced classic debut, Howling Wind, back in 1976, Graham Parker keeps delivering his vintage brand of spiked lyricism and jangly Pop Rock in potent doses. Thirty-plus years into his dynamic, underrated career, Parker still stands tall among his more commercially successful peers.
  

The phrase “living legend” gets thrown around a bit too liberally but there’s no better description for Merle Haggard. Far removed from the big-hat twang Pop dominating Country music today, Haggard was among the ’60s artists who helped popularize and transform the genre beyond its regional hillbilly appeal and teeing up its mainstream success. Haggard didn’t play the role of Country bad boy, he lived it.
  

To say that Blue October has taken a rocky road to stardom would be a bit of an understatement. Inarguably Blue’s most notable song, “Hate Me,” was written as an apology for the hardships lead singer Justin Furstenfeld put his mother through while addicted to drugs. Blue October’s two latest albums were both spawned by Furstenfeld’s nasty divorce and subsequent custody battle. There is no simple life, though, which is perhaps what draws so many people to Blue’s music.  

Few Death Metal bands have aroused as much fan passion or public outcry as Cannibal Corpse. Cannibal Corpse has long defended the murder and mayhem in its lyrics as nothing more than graphically gory short stories, fictional exaggerations of real life’s more brutal aspects. The band’s fans clearly understand the distinction and will turn out in droves to feel Cannibal Corpse’s self-described “anger music” in their unspilled entrails.  

Remember when every single song played on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy suddenly became a hit? That’s how nearly everyone (stateside, at least) became infatuated with Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars.”
The Irish/Scottish band might have formed 12 years earlier, but it took “Chasing Cars” to earn them some well-deserved hype in the U.S. Pop/Rock scene. Since finding their niche, they’ve received numerous accolades, including a slew of Meteor Music Awards.   

In four short years, Dom Kennedy has gone from Rap dabbler to influential figure in the West Coast Hip Hop scene. In 2008, Kennedy and his film student cousin Jason Madison collaborated on Kennedy’s debut mixtape, 25th Hour, which became an underground sensation. Kennedy’s biggest break yet could be his sophomore studio effort, the upcoming Yellow Album, which he’s described as “more mature and forward thinking.” Dom Kennedy’s Westside love is ready for its global close-up.   

 What would you call a rotating collection of Punk superstars who assemble for an annual acoustic front porch hootenanny that crisscrosses the country to the ecstatic response of thousands of their biggest fans? Chuck Ragan calls it The Revival Tour, while the Phoenix New Times dubbed it “Punk Rock’s answer to the Traveling Wilburys.”    

Consider this sound and vision advice. Canadian singer/songwriter Leslie Feist (better known as simply Feist) is coming to the Contemporary Arts Center Monday, but not to sing. Feist will join filmmaker Martin De Thurah to discuss the creative process behind the cinematic and artful “The Bad in Each Other” music video for the single taken from Feist’s Metals album.   

 Rebelution’s infectious blend of Reggae and Pop underscores their socially conscious lyrics, creating a positive vibration that has proven to be engaging and wildly popular.