Poet; artist; punk rocker; activist and mother. These are all words we use to describe the legendary Patti Smith.

The Cribs have a new album out entitled "Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever." While the trio of brothers, the older of which are twins, didn't elaborate on those needs, they did talk with Mary Lucia about recording their latest release with Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand at Bryan Adam's studios in Vancouver, Canada.

Singer/multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark said she came up with the name St. Vincent to put no limitations on what she could do. She said with a name like St. Vincent, the band could be "expandable and could include other people and really be a whole entity."

Ryan Adams gets a bad rap. It's been years since the well publicized "Summer of '69" on-stage meltdown and the famous voice mail rant. He's been referred to as "difficult" by many.

Fountains of Wayne tells stories with their songs. They can make the Tappan Zee Bridge seem romantic and the Department of Motor Vehicles worth chronicling. They regale us with more tales of ordinary slobs like you and me set to a perfect pop melodies.

Madeleine Peyroux has been recording for over a decade, but most people only got to know her when she released her second album "Careless Love" in 2004.

Albert Hammond Jr. was born in Los Angeles. As a member of the indie-rock band The Strokes, he plays lead and rhythm guitar. He released his solo record, "Yours To Keep" in the U.K.d in 2006 and in North America in 2007.

If you combined the Zombies with Galaxie 500, you'd have The Clientele. In fact, there was some discussion of Galaxie 500's frontman Dean Wareham during their visit.

The seed for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were planted back in 1995 when Robert Turner and Peter Hayes met while at high school in San Francisco. After playing in various bands, the duo finally started playing together and added the talents of drummer Nick Jago in 1998.

Brandi Carlile grew up in a musical family in a small town outside of Seattle. Her naturally wonderful singing voice must have made it easy to choose a career in music. She could have slid by using just those pipes, but she worked hard to teach herself piano, guitar, how to layer harmonies with other singers and to write songs.