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The Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival hosts Brooklyn alt-country band The Defibulators on their final stop of a southeast Alaska tour.

The six-piece started playing in New York’s punk bars which inspired their rowdy, high-energy sound. “You know, nothing too delicate,” banjo and guitarist Bug Jennings said.

Expect to  hear lots of fiddle, twangy telecaster guitar, country shuffles and lyrics you wouldn’t expect from classic country.

Jennings says the band attempts to bring a barn dance feel to their more absurd take on classic forms. Their song “Working Class” is about “drinking away a a college education right on into a big pile a student loan debt.”

“We figured there weren’t a lot of songs about student loan debt, so we figured we’d write one up,” Jennings said.

See them Friday, May 12, at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center for their dance party set at 7:30 p.m. as part of the 31st Annual Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival.

Irish folk music duo The Murphy Beds of New York, are this year’s Guest Artist for the 43^rd annual Alaska Folk Festival. Jefferson Hamer and Eamon O’Leary  are known for their close harmonies and dynamic arrangements featuring guitar, bouzouki  and Mandolin. Together they reinvent traditional folk songs with a repertoire from Scotland, England, America, and write original tunes.

The Murphy Beds’ first set is Thursday at 8 p.m. They’ll also be leading workshops throughout the weekend, host a dance at the JACC, and will close the festival at 9 p.m. Sunday.

Kidney failure, Obamacare, and sounds of hospital rooms all inspired Playboy Spaceman’s latest releases.

Playboy Spaceman’s latest recordings veer away from the guitar solos of their past, entering the ethereal. The song “Get Me Out of Here” teases with electronics reminiscent of medical devices. Songwriter and front man George Kuhar’s vocals are hazy and echo, grounded only by gritty drum machine fills.

He says song was recorded while  visiting a kidney specialist last year.

“It was a solo journey and I had some health concerns. I spent a few days in Seattle doing some blood work, tests and things.”

The lyrics came to him throughout the day. That night, he finished it from his Travelodge hotel room where he laid the electronic beats and vocals that would become its framework.

The song closes out their new EP, which complements Playboy Spaceman’s second full-length album that went live for download last week. Kuhar named the album “And His Father,” in honor of dad who passed away unexpectedly this spring.

The album was recorded at Peabody’s Monster, a South Franklin cooperative music space, where many of Juneau’s rock musicians can be heard practicing at night.

“It definitely has the feeling of a place where a lot of music has been played,” says Kuhar. “There’s cigarette stains in the carpet, posters all over the place and other profanities. ”

Band members Bridget Kuhar, Jason Messing, Nick Wagner and Simon Taylor all took a week off to record in their rehearsal space. But Kuhar says, the vocals just sounded wrong, “I wanted to be like a samurai and be like, swoosh swoosh — you know and done, let’s put it out there. I had to learn how to sing all over again.”

Kuhar’s experiences with the health care industry are a central theme on the album and inform his songwriting. In 2008 he received a kidney transplant from his now wife and collaborator Bridget, who plays keyboards in the band. Because of the Affordable Care Act, Kuhar was able to treat his pre-existing conditions, allowing him to take time off from his job at the hospital to finish the album.

He says he was inspired by the human perseverance he observed working in surgical services at Bartlett Regional Hospital, patients making hard decisions to overcome their medical issues, and how things become complicated with the business of medicine.

“I have a lot of frustration with the way money plays into health care. Profiting off someone’s ailment,” says Kuhar. “That part’s hard to swallow. And how we do we make that right? I don’t know.”

For now, Playboy Spaceman is taking their music north. They’re playing at the 49th State Brewing Co.’s locations in Anchorage on Friday and Healy on Saturday.

The Atlanta-based Vega String Quartet kicked off the Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival‘s Brown Bag Concert series Monday. The 30th annual festival runs through May 21 in venues all over town.

Nearly 200 Juneau students attended the free performance in the State Office Building atrium, including eight classes from Harbor View, Glacier Valley, Montessori Borealis and Riverbend elementary schools. The quartet has a residency at Emory University and shared a program of classical and contemporary string arrangements.

Here’s their performance of part of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”

See the entire Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival schedule at jazzandclassics.org.

The quartet’s concert was sponsored by Hecla Greens Creek and Princess Tours, which bused more then 150 students to the State Office Building.

Full Disclosure: Annie Bartholomew is a member of the Juneau Jazz & Classics Board of Directors.

The only U.S.-born driver to win the Formula One international championship, Phil Hill, quiet and introspective, was born on this day in 1927. Gavin and Wyatt seem to believe that Formula One is a herding, rather than a driving event. John does not drive a cool Ferrari coupe on the street though he will play hot carburetor boogie music on the radio and you are invited to celebrate Phil Hill’s birthday on Crosscurrents, 4/20 at 8 a.m.

Drafting the Declaration of Independence, election as US President, and founding the University of Virginia are all part of resume of Thomas Jefferson born on this date in 1743. Gavin and Wyatt take a walk with Mr. Jefferson on the grounds of his estate. You do not need an estate, just tune in a radio, for the Thomas Jefferson birthday on Crosscurrents, 4/13 at 8 a.m.