Raw Meat Diet cover artwork by Marcelo Radulovich

“I’m real happy with how it turned out,” says Marcelo Radulovich of his new League of Assholes album, Raw Meat Diet. “It’s more of the unique blend of collaborative, third-mind art punk music we’ve been exploring these past 20 months, over four albums so far.” The heavily layered, Pink Floydian production features aural FX such as "A rabid dog on the left channel an angry gorilla on the right, the listener stuck in the middle of a confrontation...a spirited album performed by a virtual band, it explores the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual state of 'us and them' in the summer of 2018. Some 30 jagged minutes of obliquely constructed musical vignettes, held together by intention, sound and invention." Guests include fellow Trummerflora Collective vets Marcos Fernandes and Hans Fjellestad, as well as bassist David Ybarra and drummer Spud Davenport. Keyboardist James Call plays a vintage electronic theremin, with other experimental instruments such as a "guitarbage can" played by Randy Chiurazzi and a "strange partscaster guitar" strummed by Chet Harrison.

Also new this week are two EPs from hip-hop MC Michael May, aka Meidai, one called I Scare Myself and the other titled Professionally Unprofessional 2. "My hip-hop alias Meidai, pronounced Mayday, means a very strong individual in Greek," he tells the Reader. "It's also a three-headed horse ram dragon."

A.J. Croce’s cover of his dad Jim Croce's song “I Got a Name,” currently featured in national Goodyear commercial with Dale Earnhardt Jr, is now available as a digital single. The sleeve artwork pays tribute to the classic photo of his dad smoking a giant cigar.

“I haven’t released an album in six years,” says blues singer Whitney Shay, who just dropped a ten-song full-length A Woman Rules the World. “I’ve heard tell from many sources that this will be the year of the woman, so I think it’s high time that we learn to own that and stand empowered together.” Featuring guest players such as pianist-organist Jim Pugh (who spent years touring with Etta James and Robert Cray), the release caps off a year that included a song in a Tyler Perry film (A Madea Family Funeral), her fifth South American tour, and her second consecutive San Diego Music Award for Best Blues Artist.

Riston Diggs will be backed by his band 3 Hot Heads when he debuts Supreme Confidence, a new collaborative album recorded with Sly Beats, at Navajo Live on September 20. A video for “U I Need” is streaming online, and the show includes Tennessee Tina and the John January & Linda Berry Band.

Sister Speak’s new EP The Stand debuts September 26 at the Belly Up. Slabratory has a CD release party at Soda Bar on September 29, topping a bill that also features Bossfight, Skipjack, and Ignite.

Crooner Jonathan Karrant, who grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas, debuts a new live album, recorded at the Smith Center in Las Vegas, at Martinis Above Fourth on October 18. Among his influences, he cites Little Jimmy Scott, an American jazz singer known for his high contralto voice.

During Blue Largo’s CD release party for Before the Devil Steals Your Soul at Tio Leo’s on October 19, “We’re gonna have an eight piece band, no cover charge, and a complimentary Mexican buffet,” according to the band.

Cattle Decapitation’s upcoming album will feature the recorded debut of two new members, guitarist Belisario Dimuzio (Eukaryst) and bassist Olivier Pinard (Cryptopsy), but first they'll spend October 21 through November 17 touring with Suffocation.

Finally, the first single from occasional Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy’s upcoming solo album View to a Thrill, “I’m a Ratt,” is streaming online, promoted with a press release that mentions the word “Ratt” a dozen times (not counting the song title).