While everyone else is scuttling about over football games and fall fashions, music fans are readying for brisk winds and falling leaves with record shopping, iPod updates and concert tickets. Here’s a quick list of notables among this season’s music releases and local live music events:

Albums

September 19:

Sloan

Never Hear the End of It

(Maple Music)

We got a smattering of Sloan’s new material last month with their tremendous Thursday at the Square set and it has only whet our appetite for the full plate of latest from Canada’s supercharged powerpop superstars.

The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant)

October 2:

The Hold Steady

Boys and Girls in America

(Vagrant)

The Hold Steady’s third album is more than just a comedown from the “Killer Parties,” “Banging Camps” and 5:30 folk masses that Craig Finn and company have been to over their two previous full-lengths. It finds the Brooklyn band expanding on the territory they’ve laid out while showing off the kind of growth that is pushing them to the forefront of indie rockdom. Coming out within a calendar year of the epic Separation Sunday (AV’s album of the year in 2005), the Hold Steady’s third is a fully realized, muscular clutch of Springsteenian epics haunted by luckless oustsiders trying to sneak their way in. John Agnello (Son Volt, Sonic Youth) produces, adding his gift for great arrangements and perfect guitar tone, while Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner guests.

October 17:

Badly Drawn Boy

Born in the UK

(Astralwerks)

Damon Gough’s one-man-band brand has yielded some of the most satisfying music of the last decade. Gough’s gift for putting heartfelt honesty and straight-ahead sentiments to melodic hooks is unmatched. Born in the UK’s birth was uneasy as Gough scrapped sessions with esteemed producer Stephen Street to later hook up with Lemon Jelly maestro Nick Franglen. The result is the kind of honest but experimental pop for which Badly Drawn Boy has become acclaimed. While Gough’s goal has never been attaining commercial success, he recently admitted he’s aiming high with Born in the UK, saying, “This is the period in my life where I’m gonna see how far I can take it. See how many number one hits I can have, for a laugh.”

Tom Waits: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (Anti-)

October 23:

The Who

Endless Wire

(Universal)

Okay, the prospect of new Who might seem a bit dicey, particularly as all that remains of what is one of the greatest bands in the history of rock-and-roll bands is the guitarist/songwriter and the mic-swinging singer. So skeptics can deride Townshend and Daltrey reconvening as the Who on record for the first time in 25 years as much as they’d like. Ultimately, however, it’s best to let the music be the decider. The recent taste via the multi-suite mini-opera single “Wire and Glass” finds them sounding an awful lot like Quadrophenia-era Who with Daltrey’s voice as powerful as it’s ever been.

November 21

Tom Waits

Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards

(Anti-)

What else was he building in there? Here’s a three-disc set with 54 new songs and a couple dozen rare cuts that shows the songs that got left behind or slipped through the cracks in Waits’ creaky, dark workshop.

Shows

Saturday, September 23:

Rakim with Kid Capri

Town Ballroom

There should be no debate: He is the greatest MC in hip-hop’s short history. (Biggie what? Jay Z who?) He turned phrasing and delivery into an art form, and while so many others have imitated, none have equaled the power of Rakim. Along with DJ/producer Eric B. he cut some of rap music’s high-water marks, and after all these years he’s finally coming to Buffalo. Of equally legendary status, famed NYC DJ Kid Capri supports.

Click to watch

Lisa Germano performs "Simply Tony"

Wednesday, October 11:

Lisa Germano

Mohawk Place

The surprise of the season might well be the booking of Lisa Germano for what is bound to be a mesmerizing evening at Mohawk Place. The violin-playing singer/songwriter has had an astounding and acclaimed career, from her series of groundbreaking albums on the 4AD imprint—1994’s Geek the Girl was named one of the greatest albums of the 1990s by Spin magazine—to her work with David Bowie and Eels.

Click to watch

George Jones performs "He Stopped Loving Her Today"

Thursday, November 16:

George Jones

UB’s Center for the Arts

How could you possibly miss the greatest living voice in country music? George Glenn Jones can count 143 Top 40 country hits and enough awards (Grammys, CMAs and the like) to fill up a gaudy mansion in Nashville. His days of boozing, drugging “No Show” Jones not only nearly derailed him as a live act but also came within inches of killing the singer also known as “Possum.” He survived it all, cleaned up and at 76 years old still has his mythical honky-tonk voice intact. Loved by figures as disparate as Frank Sinatra and Keith Richards, Elvis Costello said of Jones, “Who else compares?”