moe. L Fatboy Records Confronted by this new live album from one of the jam scene's premier bands, I wondered to myself, Why don't jam bands make live albums every time out? They are, after all, primarily live performers. Phish, Widespread Panic, the Dave Matthews Band, even the Dead have had hard times making studio recordings good enough to capture the magic of their gigs, while their live albums have enjoyed greater acceptance.

Upstate New York's moe. subscribes to that theory with its quizzically titled L. The band's last studio effort, Tin Cans and Car Tires, proved a mixed bag-a hodgepodge of hard rock, country rock, blues, tie-dyed pop, and progressive meandering. Only one song from that album, "Plane Crash," earned a place on L, which presents a fine, 12-song assortment covering the high points of moe.'s catalog.

Like all jam bands, moe. heeds no one but its fans, a demanding throng that favors innovation and exploration over concise playing and melodicism. Fans won't be disappointed by L, a two-and-a-third-hour recording made at several clubs, including the Fillmore in San Francisco and the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. It's bright and crisply recorded, with a wide-angle focus on Al Schnier's and Chuck Garvey's guitars and the group's intuitive jamming. Deep sonic explorations like the 11-minute "Buster" and the funky, 15-minute band standard "Yodelittle" showcase a supremely talented improvisational outfit. The rest of the album makes wide, sweeping style swings, from Gentle Giant-flavored prog-rock to Outlaws-style country jams.

Such swings aren't for the faint of heart, but courageous newcomers will find moe. likable and unafraid to take its listeners on protracted journeys. And longtime fans will undoubtedly cherish L as a definitive moe. performance.-Bob Gulla

Rating (out of 5): 4

The Byrds The Byrds: Live at the Fillmore-February 1969 Sony/Legacy The band that entered 1969 as the Byrds bore little resemblance to the hit-making quintet that just four years earlier had scored a pair of no. 1s ("Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn! Turn! Turn!"). Roger McGuinn, the only remaining member of the original lineup, was already on his second batch of Byrds by the time Columbia Records hauled out the mobile gear to capture this show. Alongside McGuinn in this Byrds incarnation were new bassist John York, drummer Gene Parsons, and Parson's guitar mate from the band Nashville West, Clarence White, whose Kentucky Colonels riffing had already made him a star on the nascent country-rock scene.

Ironically, Columbia originally only intended to record the headline act-a threesome featuring guitarist Mike Bloomfield. (Their set was later issued as Super Jam.) Fortunately, engineer David Diller let the tapes roll while the Byrds warmed up the crowd at Bill Graham's Fillmore West Auditorium. Recently pulled from the CBS tape archive, The Byrds: Live at the Fillmore-February 1969 (with production assistance from McGuinn himself) indisputably proves that this particular incarnation of the Byrds was one of the finest live acts of its time.

The vocal performance of the '69 combo is a far cry from the ethereal three-part perfection that marked the Byrds' first era. Then again, McGuinn's mid-'60s group didn't have a player like White. Though McGuinn's presence dominates (he's in fine voice throughout), Live at the Fillmore is, in many respects, a forum for White's mind-blowing (and string-bending) work. Placed against McGuinn's Rickenbacker rhythms, White, on the opposite channel, has the audience in tow from the moment he slurs into the opening riff of "Nashville West" until the final strains of Dylan's protest paean "Chimes of Freedom." In between, the band displays its country roots like never before, hitting on Merle Haggard ("Sing Me Back Home") and Buck Owens ("Buckaroo," another White jaw-dropper) with just the right ragged looseness.

It's too bad the Byrds' onstage prowess remained such a big secret to the world at large, something McGuinn himself alludes to in the album's liner notes. But looking back today at the cavalcade of bands that followed in the Byrds' footsteps-from a suddenly countrified Grateful Dead to the Eagles and beyond-we now know who was listening.-David Simons

Rating (out of 5): 3.5

moe. L www.moe.org The official moe. Web site.

The Byrds The Byrds: Live at the Fillmore-February 1969 www.sonymusic.com/artists/TheByrds Sony Music's Byrds page.