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Conor Oberst has never shied away from the apocalyptic, but on the new Bright Eyes album Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was he sings about the end of the world like an eye witness reporter. “I think we all, to some degree, are dreaming the same dreams and we’re fighting the same internal battles in our minds and hearts.”

23-year-old Wyatt Waddell wrote, performed and recorded “FIGHT!” in 24 hours after witnessing the protests sparked by the brutal killing of George Floyd. That urgency presents itself both lyrically; “There’s already so much pain / And there ain’t nothin else we can do / But to fight,“ and musically; sparse church rhythms keep a fierce pace as the Chicago native’s gritty tenor transforms into a sea of otherworldly voices. Wonderful funk breakdowns help release (or it increase?) the tension, while Waddell’s vocals climb higher and grow more exasperated with each passing verse. By the end of the track, he’s levitating above the masses that he’s instructing. This is a distinctively inspiring voice that we would all be wise to follow.

A new collection from Real Gone Music, “Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: The Bizarre Years,” plucks selections from his albums for the imprint, confirming that right up until the very end, Hawkins was interested in theatrical provocation, gross-out humor, and wild antics.

Experimental pop producer Tōth joins us to examine a few of the items in his emotional and mental toolkit, and his observations reveal that his album’s title—Practice Magic And Seek Professional Help When Necessary—is more than a clever comment on the self-care movement we all find ourselves considering, but rather, a code of openness and directness that finds careful application in his life and creative work.

Listening to Jay Bolotin’s mysterious songs, it’s easy to hear why people like Mickey Newbury, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, and other Music City luminaries lauded the Kentucky native’s work.

Like his occasional collaborator, Alan Bishop’s Sun City Girls, Egyptian composer Maurice Louca synthesizes sounds from all across the globe: the American and British rock he internationalized as a youth, electronic music, free jazz, avant-garde, and shaabi, or “of the people” Egyptian pop music.

This past week we lost one of the most prolific and influential French film composers, Francis Lai. Best known for his collaborations with director Claude Lelouch, as well as his Academy Award winning score for Love Story (1970), Lai scored over 130 films in his lifetime — between 1966 and 2015.

Straight out of Virginia Beach, Bill Deal & The Rhondels 1970 cover of Lennon/McCartney’s “Hey Bulldog”. The fabs…this is not. Bill Deal & The Rhondels :: Hey Bulldog

Just over ten years ago, in the spring of 2004, two recent college graduates drove to Asheville, NC, to look into opening a record store there. Neither Matt Schnable nor […]

2013 has already offered up an embarrassment of riches for fans of the guitar soli world, from necessary reissues of Lena Hughes and Don Bikoff to fresh masterpieces by Chuck Johnson, Glenn Jones and others . […]

– Over the weekend I donned my correspondent cap for FOK and hit up the Arts & Leisure closing party event at Space 15 twenty in Hollywood. My findings are now online . – […]