TOMORROW ON OUTQ: PETER GABRIEL'S "SCRATCH MY BACK"

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. We talk about - surprise! - music.

Tomorrow the main topic will be Peter Gabriel's new album, Scratch My Back. It is an orchestral album of covers.  I am a huge, huge Peter Gabriel fan, but I have to say, so far I don't like it. What I like better - so far - is the companion piece he has been curating, I'll Scratch Yours, where the bands that he covers on the album return the favor. iTunes has Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields' cover of "Not One Of Us" (recorded right after California voted down gay marraige), and also Paul Simon's cover of "Biko." I hate to be negative about Peter Gabriel, but I can't help it, I don't like this album. It may actually be the first thing he ever did that I don't like. But I'm also kind of annoyed at him: I can't believe that he won't even show up at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction as a member of Genesis. I bet he wouldn't miss it if he was being inducted as a solo artist.

I suggested lots of other songs, I don't know what Larry will pick: there's a long out-of-print Bill Withers album 'Justments, which just was reissued, a song from Peter Wolf's next album, songs from a new live album by The Pretenders, Live in London, a song from Ringo Starr's new album and stuff from Santana's Supernatural.

PETER WOLF DUETS WITH SHELBY LYNNE ON NEW ALBUM

Former J. Geils Band singer Peter Wolf returns with a new album, Midnight Souvenirs, in April. Dude gets insanely great reviews in Rolling Stone magazine, but somehow he is still kind of underrated. I dig some of his old J. Geils stuff, but what I really dig is his last solo album, 2002's Sleepless. It has this amazing song with Mick Jagger, called "Nothing But The Wheel," and Mick really sounds like he means it when he's singing. Another song features Keith Richards, "Too Close Together." I mean the fact that he can get Mick and Keith on an album, come on! Peter is a great frontman, a great singer and has great taste.

Anyway, this new album has a duet with Shelby Lynne, "Tragedy," which is on iTunes, and it's another great song.  There are also duets with Neko Case and Merle Haggard, so I guess it's an Outlaw Country kind of vibe.