Gotta love them early shows...especially when you're a music fan with a short attention span. Saturday night at 7 p.m. yielded a modest crowd at The Club @ Water Street for Jon Dee Graham and The Silos. The Silos were powerful as hell, riding the rail between barroom rock and atmospheric alt-country (damned if I don't come up with a new genre each week...). The atmosphere came from Graham, who joined the band mid-set to play lead guitar. By rolling up the volume on his guitar after striking the strings, the notes seemed to materialize outta nowhere before cascading into the canyon. Silos guitarist Walter Salas-Humara played a battered electrified acoustic that in its wooden hollowness sounded hungry and mean, the way guitars are supposed to sound.

Made my first trip to High Fidelity Saturday night to dig The Atomic Swindlers with new guitarist Mike Gladstone and Atomic prodigy Josh Netsky. The Swindlers swirled big and electric, exuding even more confidence and flexing more rock muscle with Gladstone at bat. Mistress of ceremonies April Laragy tested the limits of her range with mighty sex appeal in a Bowie t-shirt that was so tight, Dave looked like one of those heads on Easter Island. I mean, I wasn't staring or anything....much.

I'm quick to dismiss young and cute if that's all there is to it. But this Josh Netsky kid the Swindlers have taken under their wings and into the studio, is real, real good. (And yes, he's the son of City jazz critic Ron Netsky --- but that has nothing to do with it.) Netsky writes, sings, and plays in a well-thought-out pop plane that sparkles under Swindler-style production. His reedy voice is casual and sincere. Believe me, there is going to be a trail of broken hearts behind this young man before long.

Rounded out the night at the Dinosaur, where Joe Beard held court for a nut-to-butt crowd. Beard's as real as it gets. Dig this week's cover story, then go and dig you some Joe.