Quit your What year is this anyway? bitchin' and listen up, young bucks and lionesses. It says here that Lamont Cranston is the best blues band because the blues is about stubborn stick-to-itiveness, grooves made outta ruts, and because Hayes and his compadres have been kicking the shit out of stages from coast to coast for 35 years as of 2004 (happy anniversary, fellas), and because you can ask any damn blues musician in town and they'll get all reverent and warm at the mention of the LC institution and Hayes, who was easily one of the coolest things about the recent reunion of the original players on Dylan's Blood on the Tracks at the Pantages Theatre. Long may he and his dark shades run.