Recorded in the green room at the 40 Watt during AthFest, this episode of Dive Bar Music Club features members of Slightly Famous Somebodies and special guests sharing the albums, artists, and songs inspiring them right now. The conversation explores everything from Renaissance, Elf Power, PM Dawn, Nick Drake, and Mike Keneally to The Spinners, Frank Zappa, Sam Cooke, R.E.M., and The Allman Brothers Band, while diving into songwriting, rock operas, family musical legacies, podcasting, and Athens, Georgia's vibrant music community. If you love discovering overlooked artists, classic albums, progressive rock, soul, jazz, indie music, and behind-the-scenes festival conversations, this episode is packed with recommendations and stories for passionate music fans. True Athens fans know about JB, the Sausage Man with the Comeback Sauce.

Pin Our Tastemaker Playlists

• Apple Music
• Tidal

Musicians Mentioned in this Episode

• Al Green
• Aretha Franklin
• Boney James
• Brian Culbertson
• Christian Cordes (filmmaker)
• Elf Power
• Flournoy Holmes (artist)
• Frank Zappa
• Jonathan Spencer
• Kevn Kinney/Drivin n Cryin
• Laura Wiggins
• Mike Keneally
• Nick Drake
• NRBQ (New Rhythm and Blues Quartet)
• Paul Taylor
• PM Dawn
• R.E.M.
• Renaissance
• Sam Cooke
• Slightly Famous Somebodies
• Soul Occasion
• Steve Vai
• Stevie Wonder
• The Allman Brothers Band
• The Spinners
• Vaylor Trucks

The Regulars

• Sloane Spencer

Chapters

• 00:06 - Introducing the Dive Bar Music Club Podcast
• 01:04 - Introduction to Slightly Famous Somebodies
• 05:23 - Vaylor Trucks' New Podcast Season
• 07:15 - Green Room Antics
• 09:42 - Introducing JB the Sausage Man with the Comeback Sauce and His Personalities
• 11:01 - Introducing the Slightly Famous Somebodies

Recommended If You Like

Dive Bar Music Club, music podcast, 90s alt rock, emerging songwriters, indie music scene, alt rock bands, music recommendations, cult bands, music playlists, album reviews, music discussions, live music events, 70s R&B, British prog rock, soundcheck stories, music nerd culture, Slightly Famous Somebodies, Athens music scene, singer-songwriter interviews, music obsession, Jonathan Spencer, Laura Slade Wiggins, Vaylor Trucks, Sloane Spencer, sausage man with the comeback sauce, 40 watt club, athens, georgia, athens ga, allman brothers, Dive Bar Music Club, Slightly Famous Somebodies, AFF Fest, 40 Watt Club, Athens Georgia music, backstage podcast, music discovery, indie music podcast, progressive rock, psychedelic music, Renaissance band, Elf Power, Kevn Kinney, PM Dawn, Nick Drake, Pink Moon, Mike Keneally, Frank Zappa, The Spinners, soul music, R&B music, jazz recommendations, Boney James, Paul Taylor, Brian Culbertson, R.E.M., NRBQ, The Allman Brothers Band, Butch Trucks, Steve Vai, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, songwriting, rock opera, album recommendations, music interviews, festival podcast, live music, record collecting, alternative music, classic rock

We never reveal that in the multimedia we go.

And we never actually say that we're related, but we are indeed.

Welcome to the Dive Bar Music Club podcast, where the guest hosts drop in and out, but the opinions are always passionate and the playlists loud.

It's like cheers if everyone at the bar had a strong take on 90s alt rock or a suspicious number of burned CDs.

Around our table, you'll find an emerging touring songwriter, a former cult band favorite whose work since then is even more interesting, a portrait photographer with a not so secret metal penchant, a record store owner who learned about Swifties the hard way, a retired folk singer who regrets nothing, and a zine maker with more cool music projects than we can count.

We're all just here to share what we're currently obsessed with and maybe convince someone that, yes, that weird Icelandic synth folk band is worth a listen.

Okay, that last one's probably me, Sloane Spencer.

It's Dive Bar Music Club.

Low key, high taste happy hour for music nerds.

Hey, y', all, Sloan Spencer here, hanging out backstage here at 40 watt in the green room.

While we're got sound check going on during AFF Fest here, I've got several members of the band Slightly Famous, Somebodies and some fun special guests with us as well.

Just stopping in and asking our important question every time.

What have y' all been listening to lately?

Tell us who you are and what you've been up to.

Hey, I'm Jonathan Spencer with Slightly Famous Somebody.

That would be my brother, y'.

All.

Yes, that's right.

We never reveal that in the multimedia.

We've been going for years and we never actually say that we're related, but we are indeed.

Yeah.

Right now I'm listening to Soundcheck from Elf Power.

He's going to be playing with Kevin Kinney and ourselves, Slightly Famous Somebody tonight.

So you're listening to the drums in the background for Alfour sound checking doors at 9 and show at 10.

Who I unfortunately didn't know about until about four years ago.

And I'm totally obsessed with everything I do now because Laura and I have been working on a little mini rock opera.

Laura Slave liggets My left hair, lead singer and songwriter and all that creative partner and stuff.

And so, yeah, so I'm kind of like the Prague psychedelic Saturday morning cartoon element of the writing, and Laura kind of stitches the beautiful melodies and lyrics and choruses and all that fun stuff.

And we work on each other's stuff and make it.

Make the magic.

So it's kind of like rockhopper research.

But I don't really have classical training, so I'm kind of doing like the Saturday morning cartoon version of a rock opera.

It works, but it seems to be.

Working for the reason I know Barbara Saville.

So, I mean, come on.

Absolutely.

So.

And sure, all of those cartoons in the 80s were all like, fun classical.

So we have a lot of.

So, yeah.

Renaissance.

I would start with.

Ashes Are Burning is a great epic.

Can you understand?

Good.

If you want a pop song.

Carpet of the Sun.

I might be working that up for another show in July.

Cool.

So, yeah.

Cool.

Hi, I'm Laura Wiggins.

I sing and play little guitar songwriting with Jonathan Spencer and Slightly Famous Somebody's.

I have been listening to PM Dawn.

Yes.

Every single record after record.

You think it's an R and B group, then it's a pop group, then it's a psychedelic funk group.

Spiritually cleansing group.

Yeah.

No bad words, no bad things about women in it.

Absolutely adore him.

Cool.

A lot of inspiration and revelation.

I'm just kidding.

I love also doing a Christmas movie with his son, Christian Cordis, coming out in December.

Oh, yay.

That's awesome.

I didn't know that.

Fantastic.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Valor Trucks with Slightly Famous Somebody.

I have the unfortunate curse of having songs running in my head pretty much 24 7.

I have the same.

And the one that's been stuck in my head for about two months now that keeps popping up, so much so that I just find myself playing it on repeat is Games People Play by the Spinners.

I tend to really like 70s R.

B. I dig all that.

But I also like a bunch of other things.

The other.

The album that I had most recently played from beginning to end was Pink Moon by Nick Drake.

My kid, who is 24 years old and manages the bar at the Dark Arts Distillery in the Bourbon Distillery in Lexington, Kentucky.

Kentucky.

Well, they.

They put a video up on their feed the other day that had Pink Moon as the background music.

I said, well, that put me in a mood.

And so I. I've been listening to that and.

And the other before that.

The album I listened to all the way through most recently is Wooden Smoke by Mike Keneally.

Oh, I don't know that.

If you don't know that.

Mike Keneally was Frank Zappa's guitarist.

And he's.

He's a fabulous songwriter.

Singer.

Yeah, he took the spot that Steve Vai had created in Zappa's band.

That makes sense.

So Spinners and Stevie and Aretha and Al Green and all that.

And then a bunch of Prague and singer, songwriter, British guitar folks.

Very fun.

Do you still have your podcast?

It's going to be starting soon.

Sweet.

Tell us about it.

The.

The podcast is called the Albums I have Missed, which is just me listening to the albums I should have heard by now.

This is the sixth season, and this season I'm going back and listening to another album from 25 of the artists I've already listened to.

Nice.

So the first album I'll be listening to for this next season is at Yankee Stadium by nrbq.

So the new Rhythm and Blues Quartet.

Perfect.

Perfect.

But that's not going to happen until I finish my album, so.

Okay, okay.

All right.

Drop the lead here.

Yeah.

Oh, well, no, it's.

It's an album I've been working on for three years now, and I finally got artwork done by Flournoy Holmes, who was one of the artists who did the Eat a peach mural in the middle.

What's that?

The Holman Brothers.

Allman Brothers.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

So if you.

If you recognize the name Trucks.

My father was the drummer of the Allman Brothers.

Really cute kid from an album cover.

Yeah.

Brake Train, Butch Trucks.

His.

Yeah.

Which, you know, I'm sharing stage with with food royalty back here and.

Right.

The Allman Brothers would have died if not for Mama Louise Hill and Inez Hudson at the H and H Soul Food restaurant in Macon, Georgia.

They kept us fed when I was but a young thing, so.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Music feeds more than your belly.

Every book bio of every band was south there.

There's at least a third of the thing about some restaurant or something that they.

On the road where that place was kind of famous.

Thank you.

Megan was right in between Adam's and my grandma's house.

And Dawson, they always get to make food.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What have you been listening to lately?

And tell us who you are, because this is.

This is super fun.

Well, I'm.

I'm JB's nephew.

I'm the weird cookie in the bunch.

I listen to a variety of things.

I've been kind of.

Due to the fact I'm going through a second divorce and I'm transitioning, trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

I get that look like I'm getting.

Ready to be JB's nephew at full Blast.

I've been listening to a lot of jazz Boney James, Paul Taylor.

I'm a big fan of Bryan Culberson.

He know how to get down.

Paul Taylor.

I do like 70s R&D, old school.

I grew up listening to everything.

My dad, my family, they kind of had little clubs, juke joints, cafes.

I've heard a little bit of everything under the sun.

That's cool.

Growing up as a kid, and I actually went to school with REM And I was kind of a nerd.

And I don't want to say they was nerds, but they blew up.

So I've heard a little bit of everything.

I just like a variety of music.

And right now I'm trying to just work with getting jb.

We've been going to open mic at Hinder Shots on Wednesday night.

The second Wednesday, jb, he got multiple personalities, right?

One is Big Daddy Tip Bucket out of Control.

That's the comedic side of jb.

He also.

They had my uncles, had my coolest uncle, Uncle Ali B.

Everybody knew him as O.B.

He had a band back in his 70s, okay?

I had, like, around here.

I had like, 13 uncles and three aunts growing up.

And then I had another four uncles that I never knew and an aunt, right?

And my Uncle Ob had a band back in the 70s called His Soul Occasion.

Nice.

Soul Occasion.

Soul Occasion.

They were so cool.

Uncle jb, I used to kind of mess with him a little bit.

So he got tired of me bothering me.

He started trying to show me how to play the organs, showed me how to play the guitar a little bit.

I started playing saxophone in middle school, Kind of got out of it, kind of got into sports.

But I've been a big music fan.

And no two days, when you come from a big family ever, like.

So uncle jb, he also have another personality called JB Smooth, okay?

And there's another comedian named JB Smooth.

So he.

He has some personalities that I want to introduce to the Athens.

So.

So that's the best introduction ever.

And we're gonna hear from him.

That is amazing.

This is the hype man on the record.

And we got the stuff that goes in between the songs.

I know how this works.

Wait, are we ready for jb?

I don't know if we are.

I don't know if we.

I don't know if we're ready for something.

I don't know.

Okay, please, please tell us who you are and what you've been listening to.

My name jb.

Better knowing the Saucy Dog man.

That's right.

With the comeback Soft.

Most famous person in Athens Georgia, Ever.

Since I've been off my wagon been shut down, I've been trying to sing a little bit.

I like that R and B. Yeah, yeah.

I heard you did dock in the.

Bay in the studios with I'm down with somebody like Sam Cook.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I'm here for that.

I know you gonna leave me but.

I refuse to let you go?

If I had to be beg and plead for your sympathy I don't mind?

Cause you mean that much to me Ain't too proud to beg Let me shut up for y'.

All Tell me to get your ass outta here.

If that's not the best rap ever.

Thanks, all y'.

All.

I really appreciate your time.

Slightly famous Somebodies.

They're playing here at the 40 watt tonight for AF Fest, and they've got a cool recording going on.

Where's the best place to find y', all, social media wise?

Oh, on Instagram.

We are Slightly famous Somebodies.

It's all in a ring.

And you can find Laura on Instagram at lswiggins.

Yep.

And those are probably the best two to start with.

We're on Facebook, but you know cool.

You gotta know us Valor.

Do you want to be found?

If you can spell valor Y, L, O, R, you can find me.

Your phone will try to correct it.

To Baylor.

And how about to you?

And Also, I appreciate Ms. Wiggin for inviting me now.

I'm looking forward to get on the stage with Calvin Kenner.

We got a big one, y'.

All.

Look for those videos.

Thanks so much, y'.

All.

I appreciate your time.

That's last call at Dive Bar music club.

If you like the hang, follow the show, leave a review and tell your algorithm.

Gosh darn it, we're worth it.

Better yet, share your favorite episode with a friend who actually stayed for the whole set.

See y' all next time for the low key, high taste happy hour for music nerds.