Day 2 of the first annual Exit 111 Festival in Manchester Tennessee turned bright and sunny after a chilly drizzly morning. By the time the music began just before 1 pm, warm sunshine had begun to bathe the venue, offering a comfortable backdrop to the longest day of the three-day event. The sports bar had been open since 9 am and was filled with passionate alcohol-infused fans cheering on their various teams.

San Francisco singer-songwriter Graham Norwood releases the first single from his debut album Out Of The Sea, “Greenfield.” “Awash in soaring strings and folk-centric melancholy, Norwood evokes the likes of Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens with double-tracked vocals and acoustic fingerpicking.” [Mother Church Pew]

Distinguished by a sense of songwriting craft, Thomas Guttman creates music which hovers above genres. Born and raised in New York City, Finding Thomas performs regularly at the downtown clubs like The Standard, The Bitter End, and Bowery Electric. With deep roots in the past and a sensibility finely to the present, Finding Thomas’ upcoming EP is cohesive and complex, with each track showcasing a different side of the band.

To celebrate their ‘long strange trip’ together, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and the Grateful Dead release a third iteration of American Beauty, American Beauty Hazy Ripple IPA, brought together by Warner Music Artist Services. American Beauty Hazy Ripple IPA is an unfiltered IPA brewed with spelt, an ancient heirloom grain that contributes earthy notes and a natural haze, and dosed with a special yeast variety designed to liberate hop aromatics.

Throughout the '70s and '80s, the iconoclastic composer Frank Zappa put on a series of spectacular, now legendary, shows around Halloween each year to celebrate his favorite holiday. Before settling on New York in 1974 to host his annual costume-clad festivities, which would continue until he retired the tradition in 1984, Zappa, fronting an exciting new band, performed two rousing back-to-back Halloween concerts the year prior at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago.

The Wood Brothers have announced the release of their next studio album 'Kingdom In My Mind' due January 24 via Honey Jar/Thirty Tigers. The 11-song collection is the band's most spontaneous and experimental work yet. Recorded over a series of freewheeling, improvised sessions, the album is a reckoning with circumstance, mortality, and human nature.

Dirtwire, the genre-bending, world-instrument-wielding trio of Californian musicians announce their new album Electric River out now! (order here).

Portland-based roots-rockers Fruition have just announced the release of Wild As The Night, a 7-song collection of new music showcasing their honest song-crafting skills and individual musical talents in a blend that could only be forged from years of playing together. Available everywhere November 8th, Fruition’s Wild As The Night conveys the emotions of our darkest, and sometimes weakest, moments. 

Music City Hit Factory Groundbreaking Block Party – a fun free community event for musicians and music-lovers co-presented by The Lower Polk Community Benefit District. Founder Rudy Colombini and Ben Fong-Torres will introduce the Hit Factory's dazzling new amenities and facilities scheduled to open in 2020. Enjoy Bands and Community Speakers plus food and beverage vendors.

The first Exit 111 Festival debuted on a muggy Friday, October 11. T-shirt weather prevailed as the doors opened just after 1 pm and music fans began to stream in to find spots close to the three stages before the 3 pm start times. The festival took advantage of the Bonnaroo Festival infrastructure, utilizing the two main stages, renaming them the Heaven and Hell stages. One of the tent stages became the third stage at Exit 111.