The night we were there, veteran session man Freebo played a two-hour set, interspersing songs by answering instant messages from all over the country flashed on an overhanging monitor, joined by a shifting group of musicians, including longtime local session guitarist Shane Fontayne, who has played with Marc Cohn, Bruce Springsteen, Shania Twain and Maria McKee, among others. With no admission charged, an actual bucket is passed around for suggested contributions, and the whole thing seems a hippie anachronism in these increasingly materialist, profit-driven times. Musicians making music just for the love of it... Imagine that.

T-Pain, "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)" (Jive)

The title of this Tallahassee (the T in T-Pain) native's recently gold-certified debut, Rappa Ternt Sanga, says it all. A 21-year-old veteran who got his start as a teen in the regional rap group Nappy Headz, T-Pain certainly utilizes hip-hop iconography in his image and sound, but his solo debut finds him more a traditional R&B crooner with a ladies' man touch that recalls the likes of Marvin Gaye.

Following up his first breakout hit, "I'm Sprung," an ode to his wife, with what's certain to be a pole-dancing perennial, the youngun' turns his romanticism to a most unlikely object of affection... or not, considering how many Urban hits are breaking out of strip clubs these days. It's pure fantasy, delivered with a straight face and a tongue firmly in, unh, cheeks, just another smash that has seemingly come from nowhere, but is soon to be everywhere. Go figger.

City Sleeps, Walker's Ridge (Maverick)

They don't call music biz vet Jim Del Balzo "Rocky" for nothing. He knows what Rock radio likes, and they're undoubtedly gonna like this Atlanta-based quintet, whose debut is slated for an August release, a lot. Led by vocalist Elliott Sharp and gun-slinging guitarist Adriel Garcia, the group is poised at the nexus of emo ("Ordinary High"), Police-style new wave world beat ("Just Another Day"), Queen prog-rock (the first single, "Prototype") and even Metallica-like grunge ("Bones"), with a dash of classic British Invasion pop ("I Can't Make You Love Me") thrown in for historical measure, all given stylistic congruity by producer John Feldmann of Goldfinger, who performed similar duties for Story of the Year and The Used and got the band signed to Maverick.

Think Loverboy meets Fall Out Boy, all big arena-rock gestures, angular guitars and muscular harmonies, with some cheeky lyrics to boot ("If looks could kill, you'd be a murderer" goes the refrain in "Andrea"). If Rock radio is to still be relevant, this band of Dixie dynamos should be right at home next to fellow southeasterners like Blue October, Big 10-4 and 10 Years.