AE Feature

The Chores on connecting with audiences, recording with Jason Tedford and what they did during summer vacation.

Emily Fenton, Dazzmin Murry, Bonnie Montgomery, Jessie Ott, Nick Flora, Nick Shoulders and Jonah Thornton left Arkansas for greener musical pastures. Now, they've returned with new music, new perspectives and a renewed love for their native state.

Along with songwriting co-conspirators like Spooner Oldham, Penn became one of the bright lights of the Muscle Shoals and Memphis music machines of the 1960s, and was the writer behind such epic soul classics as “Do Right Woman,” “I’m Your Puppet,” “Dark End of the Street,” “Out of Left Field,” “It Tears Me Up” and “You Left the Water Running.” He plays at the White Water Tavern Sunday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. sharp.

Gov't Mule's Warren Haynes on playing Juanita's, Larry McCray and the future of the blues.

Connor, Cuinn and Ryan Brogan of the band Modeling — influenced by movie soundtracks like “Blade Runner,” “The Terminator” and “Braveheart” — share their creative process behind their "lockdown" album and their plans for new music in 2023.

If you’ve strolled through the St. Joseph Farm Stand or a pop-up market in Central Arkansas in recent months, you may have seen colorful displays of stickers, prints, and wood carvings paying tribute to all things squishy, squirmy and sweet under the banner of SLUGKNIVES.

Chad Bradford, the stunning performer behind The Rep's production of "Every Brilliant Thing," careens between a boy’s reckless enthusiasm to a teenager’s angst to an adult’s worry about his own potential depression and does it in a way that masterfully raises and lowers the energy in the room.

Rural War Room plays nothing from a digital database. For their weekly radio show, they bring in hard copies of the music, mostly weird stuff on vinyl, and keep record players at the ready in large suitcases.

After a decades-long career as a curator, Brad Cushman is taking a breath.

The shop will do a soft opening this month and a grand opening on Friday, Sept. 2, in conjunction with Hot Springs' monthly First Friday Gallery Walk.

Little Rock’s Ayana Gray weaves a love of history and power struggles into pan-African young adult fiction. We talk with Gray about man-eating lions, book sales during a pandemic, her dog Dolly, and the exotic land that is Arkansas, perpetually mystifying America at large.

“I think solitary confinement, perhaps outside of the death penalty, is the worst thing that we can do to another human being,” Zachary Crow, Executive Director at DecARcerate said. “It's recognized by the United Nations and other human rights groups as a form of torture. And this is happening in really extreme ways right here in Arkansas, but it's largely hidden from public view.”

Hill Records' mission, Jacob Hertzog told us, "is threefold; give the students as much hands-on experience in the music industry as possible, help content creators navigate the complex digital revolution, and provide promotional services to the label artists. The ultimate goal is to offer music business for-credit classes, but until then the volunteer students will receive top quality guidance for their fledgling record label. There is a board of advisors consisting of faculty, music industry representatives, legal experts, and others, but the label itself is run by the students.”

CT on fatherhood, building the ever-broadening Mutants of the Monster Festival, and what Pentecostal preachers have to do with heavy metal.

Since 2019, Chad Fowler has been quietly releasing albums from jazz luminaries on his Hot Springs Village-based label, Mahakala Music.

Pitts' film "Salad Days" premiered to a sold-out crowd this week, and is available to stream starting today. Here's how to watch it.

Nicknamed "The Wes Anderson of TikTok," artist Ashlyn Gulbranson documents life in the Arkansas Ozarks for her 60,000 followers.

Block's a one-man Arkansas music institution, equally likely to show up on stage in front of a packed house at the White Water Tavern as he is a black-tie fundraiser, sometimes on the same day.

We talk with Suzanne Underwood Rhodes, the state's new Poet Laureate.

"Often we get stuck in thinking patterns and we relive over and over a situation or a problem; that’s the left side of the brain at work," DePoyster said. "When we create we use the right side that sees shapes, lines, colors and allow the thinking side of the brain time to rest and energize."