"Well, I’m not having the best of Sundays,” admitted Railroad Earth violinist/vocalist Tim Carbone when we caught up to him on Nov. 8. “My Giants just got beat 21-20 by the Chargers.” Ouch. Fourth loss in a row, and at the hands of that brat Philip Rivers. Darkness descends over the Tri-State area, and there’s not much joy either in the Broncos’ rickety perch atop the AFC West, here on the Front Range.

Give us a minute while we dab some yolk off our face. A little Internet landmine caught us unawares when we were preparing to chat with Odessa Jorgensen the other day. See, Ms. Jorgensen, fiddler and singer/songwriter formerly of the California-based Biscuit Burners, is now the lead singer and one of two fiddle players for the Alaska-formed, mostly Nashville-based Americana quintet Bearfoot, and she’s actually the new kid on the block, having joined the outfit in September of last year.

It ain't the fall that gets you; its the landing. If the apparent demise last year of Arizona-based indie-pop heroes Format gave singer Nate Ruess a case of the vertigo spins, the reception awarded this summer to Aim and Ignite, the debut CD from his new band, fun., provided ample reassurance that his feet were still more or less beneath him.

Summoning imagery from real American mythology, especially the mythology of the Old West, is the kind of legerdemain usually out of reach for most popular music franchises. And it should probably stay that way. Still, put it in the hands of someone like the subdudes and let it fly with the kind of ragged elegance that has kept the band such a compelling enigma for two decades, and maybe the dog’ll hunt.

Billy Nershi was on the road when we caught up with him last week, winding his way through the fall colors of eastern Pennsylvania. Fall's nice back East, but Nershi was hoping to catch a little autumn blaze in the high country back home.

You see a lot of unexpected buzz-band hyperbole in this business. Most of it is little more than well-meaning thesaurus-clutching publicists trying to earn their keep, but when you read the Wall Street Journal hyping up a band as bearers of the best set at this year’s Bonnaroo (yes, that Wall Street Journal, and that Bonnaroo)… well, okay, there’s something slightly surreal afoot. Apart from the Wall Street Journal actually being at Bonnaroo...

The opening tune from Danny Shafer's new solo album, One Morning, is a bittersweet little thing called "Letting Summer Go," about the flowers turning brown and the air growing chill and the sweet fruit of summer disappearing to wherever it goes.