TOMORROW ON OUTQ: ARE YOU READY FOR THE COUNTRY

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, every Wednesday morning at 9 am ET I go on the SIRIUS XM channel OutQ. I am a weekly contributor to The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick. This week I will be talking about country music.

At the risk of sounding like I'm pimping the company I work for, I should mention that most of this music is stuff that you can hear on the SIRIUS XM channel Outlaw Country, which was one of the reasons why I subscribed in the first place (before I even worked there!).

Elizabeth Cook, in fact, is a DJ on the channel. She's a great reason to wake up in the morning: she is so entertaining to listen to. Add that to her music, and she's a star in the making. So listen to her now, so you can brag to your friends when she's a big star next year! Really, though, her music is great. She reminds me of Loretta Lynn or maybe Dolly Parton. She's able to do total ass-kicking songs that are funny ("Sometimes It Takes Balls To Be A Woman") and then heartfelt ballads that really hit you ("Heroin Addict Sister"). Her new album, Welder, comes out next week.

Reckless Kelly is a band who, like The Drive-By Truckers, I would not have gotten into without Outlaw Country. Great, great southern rock band. Their new album, Somewhere In Time, is a tribute to a songwriter named Pinto Bennett -- all the songs were written by him. There are just so many great songs on the album. They are so catchy, you can almost hear them on a mainstream country format (but not quite).

Willie Nelson's new album is called Country Music, and was produced by T-Bone Burnett. My opinion? It's another great (or maybe classic) Willie album. But you know I love Willie. By the way, while you can hear him on Outlaw Country, you can also hear him on his own channel, Willie's Place. Tomorrow night, Willie's Place will broadcast - live - Willie's concert from the Manhattan Center. At this show, and this show only, he'll be backed up by T-Bone's guys, who played on Country Music, as opposed to Willie's usual "band of gypsies."

I'm not sure what else we'll get to.  I have one track from Merle Haggard's new album I Am What I Am (I gotta be careful after the Johnny Cash American VI album didn't go over well a few weeks ago). A couple of tracks by Dallas Wayne, another Outlaw Country DJ who is also a singer/songwriter, The Court Yard Hounds (sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire of The Dixie Chicks), and The Drive-By Truckers again: what can I say, The Big To-Do is my favorite album of 2010 so far.

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: U2's NO LINE ON THE HORIZON

It's all about U2. I love them, I've been a fan for about twenty-five years now, pretty much since the War album. I'm excited about their new album, No Line On The Horizon. I don't love it yet, but it is growing on me. True, I don't give most albums numerous spins, but most albums aren't released by U2.

No Line was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, after the band started working with Rick Rubin and scrapped those sessions. I wonder what those songs were like, and if the band would have been better off sticking with Rubin's approach of, you need great songs before you even go into the studio (not traditionally how U2 works).

I'm also going to bring up U2's recent controversy: they've moved their base of business operations to Holland because Holland has more lenient tax laws than Ireland, and as a result people are protesting the band, and saying that Bono is a hypocrite. Does this kind of thing matter to you when you are listening to an artist? Or does an artist's work outside of the band (or outside of music) distract you from enjoying the band?

If there's time, I'll talk about My Chemical Romance's cover of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" which they recorded for the Watchmen film (which I can hardly wait to see), and new music by Buddy & Julie Miller (get well soon, Buddy!), Justin Townes Earle (son of the great Steve, but take him as his own man) and Outlaw Country/Willie's Place DJ Dallas Wayne.

Next week: the long-overdue and somewhat controversial new album by Chris Cornell, and also Kelly Clarkson's new album. Yes, that one.