John Davis & The Cicadas / Peter Peter Hughes / Bat Radar

John Davis co founded The Folk Implosion in Boston with Lou Barlow in 1993 and spent thirteen years teaching upper elementary school and organizing workers in the Durham Public Schools before moving to Brooklyn in 2026. His forthcoming record I Saw Sonora Hypnotized is the second album from John Davis & The Cicadas, his project with a rotating and expansive list of backing musicians. Like their 2017 release El Pulpo, Sonora deals with American Empire in ways that come out of his experiences teaching social studies through an anti-imperialist lens to young people. He currently teaches 5th graders in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. https://johnhdavis.com/

After more than two decades playing bass with North Carolina indie stalwarts the Mountain Goats, Peter Hughes stepped away in 2024 to devote more time to attending niche motorsports events and tracking the decline of US empire through his own songs. In early 2025 he traveled to Australia for the legendary Bathurst 12 Hour sports car race and, while there, recorded an album with his favorite band of the previous ten years, Melbourne’s Pop Filter (né The Ocean Party). The result was Half-Staff Blues, released later that year under his nom de rock Peter Peter Hughes and newly available in vinyl LP form.
https://peterpeterhughes.bandcamp.com/