Online Exclusives

Let me start off by saying that I am not a gun nut. But really, is it wrong to be nuts about guns? And can you tell if I have a gun in my pants right now? Because maybe I do, maybe I don’t. This is my right, as an American, to put or not put things in my pants.

Ah, New Orleans in early May. You might think 90 degrees, fly-trap stickiness, magnolias, and post-Mardi Gras contrition. At this year's Jazz and Heritage Festival, you'd be half right.

There I was, combing through unmarked boxes of 45s at Euclid Records in New Orleans, when I came across a pristine 1968 Arthur Conley single on Atco: “Otis Sleep On” appears on one side and is backed by a cover of the Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” Producer Tom Dowd, who cut it at Rick Hall’s Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, slowed down the groove from the Beatles original to a ska pulse built around David Hood’s bass line. When Conley hits the bridge, an amazing ten-note guitar lick reimagines the melody with an against-the-grain rhythmic twist, almost as if Thelonious Monk were interpreting the figure.

Steve Eiden’s project Looking Toward Ft. Sumter examines the modern landscape and residents of Civil War sites throughout the North and South.

When you're a 34-year-old screenwriter and director, chances are you're doing something right when Sam Shephard says you've written one of the best scripts he's seen "in a long, long time." Join us as we talk to filmmaker Jeff Nichols and go behind the scenes of his new film 'Mud.'