GOOD LORT: Word has been spreading around town for a few weeks now about how good the new Uncle Goo album is. This week, you can find out for yourself, courtesy of everyone’s pals at Gypsy Farm. This is actually Uncle Goo’s second album this year, and it’s named Cattywampus!!!. Uncle Goo is a character inhabited by guitarist and vocalist Garrett Carpenter, who is joined by an all-star lineup of Matthew Garrison (Elf Power, The Humms), Matt “Pistol” Stoessel (Buffalo Hawk), John Bleech and Zeke Sayer (The Humms), Dave Kirslis (Cicada Rhythm, Kishi Bashi) and Cody Martin (Shoal Creek Stranglers). The six-song record is both a love song to and an exercise in classic American country music. Carpenter flexes his best storyteller muscle on nearly every track. From the twisted desert woe of “This Heat” to the Redneck GReece respect of “When I Die (Bury Me at the Waffle House)” to the laugh-to-keep-from-crying “I Hung Myself,” he’s amazing at getting right under the skin. Indeed, this is less a case of a songwriter having his finger on a pulse than one who has his whole hand wrapped around a heart. Find this immediately at gypsyfarmrecords.bandcamp.com.

TURN THE BEAT AROUND: Scholar, lecturer, DJ and musicologist Lynnée Denise will appear in conversation with Atlanta lecturer and scholar Harold Pride and also perform Thursday, Oct. 17 at Ciné. The event is presented as part of DJ Summits in the Global South, a grant-funded research project of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. Denise has written and studied extensively across a huge swath of subjects, including “underground cultural movements, the 1980s, migration studies, theories of escape and electronic music of the African diaspora.” She has presented all over the world at so many A-list institutions it would take a page by itself to list them all (e.g., Tate Modern, Goldsmiths). Thursday’s event is billed as "Let the Beat Hit ’em: Case Studies in DJ Scholarship,” and the talk begins at 6 p.m. Afterward, there’ll be a short break with a mixer beginning at 7:30 p.m., and Denise will perform a DJ set at 9 p.m. If you want to catch up on some mixes she’s got from a few years back, hit up soundcloud.com/dj-lynnee-denise. For everything else, see djlynneedenise.com.

SHAKE SOME ACTION: Jittery and genre-less indie act The Pierres will celebrate the release of their new album, The Tub, Thursday, Oct. 17 at Flicker Theatre and Bar. Joining them this night is Saint Syzygy, and coincidentally, this is the same day the record actually comes out. It runs a tasteful seven songs long, and while the first thing longtime music fans will notice is the unmissable Minutemen-style riffs, I’m way more partial to the smooth, mid-tempo tracks like “Bike Song.” The staccato piano of “Oh, Ryan” is catchy enough, but the arrangement winds up becoming way more complicated than necessary. Ambitious technique serves the band well on the Bowie-doom of “I’m In the Road,” though. Check this out at thepierres2.bandcamp.com.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: This is just a short line to say that if you attended Historic Athens Porchfest and had a great time and saw some great bands, I hope you’ve taken the time to thank an organizer. Sure, Tommy Valentine gets mad props for spearheading the whole thing, and he’s totally earned all he receives. But he had a whole crew of folks from the Athens Welcome Center and volunteers from Historic Athens—not to mention all the hosts and bands—helping out. So, if you see someone around you know had a hand in it, give ’em a "hell yeah" for a great job and a fun time.