TOMORROW ON OUTQ: NEW ALBUMS BY ROBERT PLANT, JAMEY JOHNSON AND MORE

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, every Wednesday morning at about 9 am ET(ish), I can be heard on the SIRIUS XM OutQ channel show The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick, co-hosted by comedian Keith Price. Every week I go on the show and talk about music, and this week I have some great records to discuss.

First off is the new Robert Plant album, Band Of Joy. I recently saw Robert Plant with his new group (also called Band Of Joy, featuring Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin) and was blown away. The album, which is sort of a continuation of his Alison Krauss collab Raising Sand... only without Alison and without producer T-Bone Burnett. And it is a little more rocking. I love the album, I don't know if I love it as much as Raising Sand yet.

Jamey Johnson is one of the best country artists out there today. It's too easy to say he's more "authentic" (or something) than the big Nashville stars. He gets played on many of the same stations, and the first single from his double(!) album, The Guitar Song, "Macon," features members of Little Big Town. Still, dude is a badass, and this is a great album, although it's a lot of sad songs.

Richard Thompson is a great artist who I should write about more. His music is more like wine than beer, if you know what I mean. At first it may taste weird, but after a while, you grow to love it. There's a reason why so many people cover him - Los Lobos, X, Bonnie Raitt, The Neville Brothers and even Robert Plant on his new album. Thompson's new album Dream Attic was recorded live in concert, but it's all new songs. He's a great songwriter and a great guitarist (although he probably cringes at the term "guitar hero") and this album shows that off. "A Brother Slips Away" is just so sad and will probably be used at funerals of NPR listeners for decades to come. I don't even mean that as a joke, it's just that not many people know who Richard Thompson is!

JP, Chrissie & The Fairground Boys is Chrissie Hynde's first non-Pretenders band. She's a company woman, so to speak, but she's taken a holiday from the day job to work with a younger dude who compliments her quite well. I dig the album.

Finally, I gotta represent for the Jeerz. Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes have a new album, Pills and Ammo. Southside is really underrated, (I guess being the *second* biggest artist from the '70s Asbury Park scene is a tough burden) but he is a great singer. "Lead Me On" is one of the best songs I've heard this year. Someone who is more marketable could have a big hit with this one. Of course, *you* don't need to be marketed to, that's why you're here. Check the song out on iTunes, and maybe pick up the whole album!

RAY DAVIES: REUNITING WITH DAVE? AND CHRISSIE???

The UK's News Of The World has a pretty cool inteview with Ray Davies who talks about, as usual, reuniting with his brother Dave Davies in The Kinks. He says that Dave is planning to return to music next year, and Ray wants to maybe do some "low-key" Kinks shows to see if they can do it. I'm not sure how one of the greatest bands of all time, who haven't played together in 14 years, could possibly do a "low-key" show, but that's what he said.

What could be more suprirsing than Ray reuniting with Dave? Ray reuniting with his ex-, Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde? He says they actually recorded a duet together, "Postcard From London," available on the special edition of his latest release, The Kinks Choral Collection (but not on iTunes anyone know where I can hear this song?).

He is also working on a stage show about The Kinks (as opposed to his one man Storyteller shows from a few years ago, where he told the story of his and his brother's lives that led up to The Kinks), and of course he talked a bit about the Kinks biopic that is being directed by Julien Temple.  He also said that he'll have a duets album out next year - and that "Bruce Springsteen has expressed an interest." Awesome! Who else would you like to hear Ray duet with? Comment away!

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: THE PRETENDERS, OASIS, THE CURE, LABELLE AND "QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS"

Tomorrow on OutQ, I'll be discussing new albums by some classic bands. The only one I really like, though, is The Pretenders' Break Up The Concrete. It's sort of a '50s rock and roll inspiried album. For some reason, it doesn't feature drummer Martin
Chambers - instead, Chrissie Hynde uses session legend Jim Keltner (who was in Neil Young's band when The Pretenders opened for Neil). But, The Pretenders are whoever Chrissie says is in the band.

There are also new albums by Oasis and The Cure. Neither moved me much, I'm sorry to say. Funk/disco/rock band LaBelle released their first album in 32 years, the stuff I heard sounds nice, but it didn't floor me. I'm actually most familiar with the least famous lady in the trio: Sarah Dash. I saw her in Keith Richards' backing band. She sang lead on "Time Is On My Side" and tore that s*** up.

Finally, there's the album by "Queen + Paul Rodgers." I'm more of a "greatest hits" guy when it comes to Queen than a die hard fan, so I don't take the album as personally as some die hard fans might, but it's really not good, and borders on the embarassing. I think Brian May, Roger Taylor and Paul should have come up with a different band name.