Rock Candy

Straddled between Marion and Memphis, singer-songwriter Bailey Bigger has released a slow-paced, sneakily wistful 70s jukebox throwback today called "Arkansas Is Nice."

“Little Fugitive” (1953) — a black-and-white movie about a 7-year-old boy who goes on the run to Coney Island after mistakenly thinking he’s killed his older brother — was so influential that Francois Truffaut claimed in a New Yorker interview that “our [French] New Wave would never have come into being” if directors Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and Raymond Abrashkin hadn’t brought it into existence.

There’s something about Easter and resurrection that brings even nonreligious people together. Last Sunday’s sold-out show, kicking off Arkansas native Nick Shoulders “Better Western” tour with his band, nicknamed the Okay Crawdad, was no exception. Everyone in the community seemed to be out, and whether it was just the allure of good old-fashioned Arkansas folk music, or to celebrate the lifesaving work of the Central Arkansas Harm Reduction Project, it was the place to be.

After a steady, years-long trickle of smaller releases, joan’s full-length debut, “superglue,” comes out on Wednesday, April 19, via Photo Finish Records. Their influences shine through confidently, whether it’s ‘80s synth-pop, mid-‘90s pop-rock or 2000s R&B, but any fan will instantly recognize the record as a product of joan.

In a New York Times story by Samantha Ege and Douglas Shadle, two musicologists who are working on a biography of Florence B. Price, new research about the Little Rock composer is revealed.

One part botany, two parts science fiction, three parts murder mystery and a generous splash of doo-wop. Did I miss anything? Perhaps a giant carnivorous plant with all the attitude and sass of your favorite drag performer? Mix well and you've got The Rep’s outstanding current production, the classic dark comedy musical "Little Shop Of Horrors," now playing through the end of April.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 22, the massive, long-shrinking digital countdown on the outside of the new, 133,000-square-foot Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts — a building so impressive as to be lauded by Architecture Digest — will finally hit zero. Following the requisite cutting of ribbon, the museum’s doors will open to the public, releasing anyone who’s reserved a free timed ticket to explore the facilities and brand new exhibits.

The Travelers open the 2023 season at Dickey-Stephens Park Tuesday night in the first of a six-game home series versus the Springfield Cardinals.

"The Devil I Know," Ashley McBryde's newest song, features snare smacks and stadium strums that rock harder than just about anything she's ever released.

Silas Carpenter, the 16-year-old nephew of Isaac Alexander, has released an album of quiet, Beatles-influenced pop delights called "Roy Boy." Though made at home by Carpenter alone, this lazily moving record is tastefully produced, the product of a kid who's clearly studied the classics.

Starting today and continuing through the weekend, the large SoMa-themed mural on the Rock Town Distillery building — which has been up since September of 2015 — is being repainted.

Sharon Olds, one of America’s greatest living poets and the author of 13 celebrated volumes of verse, uses “aggressive intimacy” — as The New York Times Magazine calls it — not for cheap gimmicks, but in pursuit of truth. Her reading at Hendrix College occurs on Thursday, April 13.

The lineup for the second annual FORMAT Festival in Bentonville has officially been released, with LCD Soundsystem, Alanis Morissette and Leon Bridges set to headline.

Alice Driver, a writer and journalist who grew up in the Ozark Mountains and now splits her time between Little Rock and Mexico City, will release "The Life and Death of the American Worker" in Spring 2024 and "Artists All Around" in Spring 2025.

A year after he released his acclaimed debut, "Don't Know Tough," Cranor has a new novel out today that's a must-read. It’s called “Ozark Dogs,” and like his first book, it’s a propulsive, gritty thriller that’s all Arkansas. If you like crime novels, or fiction that thoroughly inhabits places you know, Cranor is your man.

A little more tuneful and a little less abrasive than Modest Mouse, a little more edgy and a little less painfully sincere than Death Cab for Cutie, Built to Spill emerged out of Idaho in the early ’90s as a precursor to so many quintessential PNW indie rock bands. They play at The Hall on Tuesday, April 11.

It isn't out of the ordinary to find Arkansas/New Mexico singer-songwriter Jude Brothers singing alone with a lesser-known folk instrument as accompaniment, but one of the things that makes their new single, "practicing silence / looking for water," unique is that it's been stripped almost entirely of the reverb drenching their previous releases.

Nick Shoulders and Emily Fenton, some of the finest vocalists in the Arkansas folk scene, are joining forces at White Water Tavern to raise money for the Central Arkansas Harm Reduction Project on Sunday, April 9.

Fitting right in with other scene-dominating Arkansas bands like Tiny Towns and PETT who are exploring the darkness of everyday young adult angst, Conway's Salon Blonde has released a new tune called "Ding Song."

Holly Grove's Lucy Love and Armorel's Marybeth Byrd — two small-town Arkansans who impressed the "American Idol" judges enough to each receive "a golden ticket to Hollywood" during their televised auditions — will appear on the Sunday, April 2, episode of the show.