This year of 2020 has seen a stream of COVID-19 related memes and posts asking if the year can get any worse. In the middle of it all, Decatur-based singer-songwriter Mike Killeen offers up a positive answer, his recent single “Turn Out Fine.”

Mike Killeen’s latest album ‘Ghost’ is filled with nine fresh, heartfelt, instantly-likeable songs. There is no haunting specter lurking here. Mike says “The title is not directly linked to the songs, even though many of them are about memories. ‘Ghost’ just seemed like an interesting word. I certainly thought of it as looking forward, not backwards – like something that always will be, not simply something that used to be.”

DISCLAIMER: At AMGV we have not done any true record reviews. Good, objective record reviewing is a rare skill, not unlike that of a spirits reviewer who can tell me there are hints of crème brulee, bacon bits, and peach cobbler with a peppercorn finish when all I taste is bourbon that I either like or do not like so much.

However, we like to make readers aware of new art from the fine folks we have featured in the Grapevine, and if we cannot offer up donnish descriptors or grandiose expositions, we can at least give you some of our impressions.

In August, we profiled Papa Jack Couch as he was preparing a listening party for his new album Witness Tree (click here for story). The album is out now, and the record release party is October 12 at 8:30 P.M. at The Alamo, 19 W Court Square, in Newnan.

“The Real Thing” a new single by My Rebel Episode is available today, March 22, on all streaming platforms. There is also a lyric video for it here. It is a fresh, catchy song straightforwardly structured with an infectious “doot doo doo doot” punctuating punchy verses, then a bridge, a quick instrumental break, some more “doot’s” and then out – all of it packed into a compact one minute and forty seconds. It is all good rock and roll and no filler. Guitarist, lead vocalist, and primary songwriter Johnny Powell remarks, “I put three verses into it, and I can’t believe it was still so short!”

Fans of the prominent Atlanta-based band, The Bitteroots, will have the opportunity today to listen to fresh new studio material. The new EP, Derailer, is the band’s first recorded material since 2014’s Under the Big Sky and promises to present the sound evolution of a band soon celebrating its 11^th birthday.