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Georgia Today: Sen. Ossoff investigating incarcerations; the future of bats; Record Store Day
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On the Friday April 21 edition of Georgia Today: Senator Jon Ossoff is investigating incarcerations; the future of bats may lie here in Georgia; tomorrow is Record Store Day
Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Friday, April 21st. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, Senator Jon Ossoff is launching an investigation into prison conditions following a series of deaths here in Georgia. Could the fate of the country's bat population lie here in Georgia? And tomorrow is a big day for vinyl record fans. We'll have the details. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.
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Peter Biello: The family of a man who died in a bedbug infested cell in a Georgia jail psychiatric wing is calling for a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the facility. Lashawn Thompson died in September, three months after being booked into the Fulton County Jail. During a news conference and rally yesterday. Lawyers for Thompson's family called for those responsible for his death to be held accountable. Separately, Senator Jon Ossoff announced yesterday that he is launching a new inquiry into conditions of incarceration in Georgia and across the country.
Story 2
Peter Biello: Governor Brian Kemp is again pushing Congress to increase the number of electric vehicle manufacturers eligible for tax credits under federal legislation passed last year. In a letter yesterday, the Republican governor urged the state's two Democratic U.S. senators to work with legislative colleagues and the Biden administration to expand eligibility. The law's Made in America requirement currently leaves out Hyundai until the company's southeast Georgia plant is open in two years. U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock introduced a bill last year to delay the requirement, but it failed to move before Congress adjourned. Warnock says he continues to press the issue with Senate leadership.
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Peter Biello: Also in EV news, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and the CEO of car rental giant Hertz announced a partnership to expand electric vehicle use in Atlanta. Hertz plans to bring up 4000 electric vehicle rentals to the city and install up to eight charging stations near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Peter Biello: The world's largest cold food storage company, officially unveiled a new logistics facility yesterday outside Savannah in the city of Port Wentworth. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.
Benjamin Payne: About one and a half million pounds of produce will be able to pass each day through the facility built by Lineage Logistics. Jim Henderson is the company's vice president of Global Sales and Business Development.
Jim Henderson: When you walk into the grocery store and you see citrus, the oranges clementines, that's not grown year round here in the U.S. before that had to come through. A different gateway came either through Philadelphia or one of the Northeast markets and then had to be truck down to this market. So now it comes directly into Savannah, can come directly into the stores so the produce is fresher, the product gets here faster.
Benjamin Payne: Henderson says Lineage chose this location in part because of its close proximity to the port of Savannah. The company says its new facility has created 65 direct jobs. For GPB News, I'm Benjamin Payne in Port Wentworth.
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Peter Biello: A federal lawsuit seeks to remove the wild horses from Georgia's Cumberland Island National Seashore. About 150 feral horses live on the remote island and figure prominently in the island's history and promotion. Plaintiffs argue the National Park Service has allowed them to live in inhumane conditions and damage the island and its native species. The agency has 60 days to respond to the complaint in an Atlanta federal court.
Peter Biello: A new report compiled by a global coalition of government and nonprofit researchers on the state of North America's bats says more than half of the continent's 200 species are under pressure, mostly from a fungus. But as GPB's Grant Blankenship explains, Georgia offers hope for bats.
Grant Blankenship: White nose syndrome is the fungus. It kills bats in caves, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. It means two bat species, while not driven to extinction, are no longer living in the state. DNR biologist Katrina Moore says while the cave populations of another species, the tri color bat, have decreased by 90%, they are doing well in most of Georgia, where there are no caves and roosts are free of white nose syndrome.
Katrina Morris: Georgia could be a really important state for these species in the future because they've mostly disappeared from the northern portion of their range.
Grant Blankenship: Making much of Georgia and important that refuge until white nose syndrome is under control. For GPB News and Grant Blankenship in Macon.
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Peter Biello: Tomorrow is Record Store Day, a day devoted to the celebration of the culture of independent record stores. It's about buying records, yes, but it's also about discovering new music and about being among people who love to get their fingers dusty as they search through bins of vinyl. The new book Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History, explores the influence these stores have had over the past half century. Author Chad Radford joins me now. So what made you want to do a book on Atlanta record stores?
Chad Radford: So I'd been kicking around like several book ideas, and I've been kind of a record store....I don't know if I want to say junky, but definitely a regular since Ronald Reagan was still president. You know, I started buying records at the tail end of the 80s as a result of skateboarding and watching a lot of skateboard videos and going to a place in Omaha called Drastic Plastic, which was mostly a record store. But they also sold skateboards [and] kind of pushed me off on the music. And as soon as I found out about this whole world of underground music that existed, that was not The Rolling Stones and was not my parents' music, and it was something that could be mine. Even most of my schoolmates didn't know this whole world of music existed. It sort of became like a fascination with me.
Peter Biello: Record stores for you then seemed to be a place where you could discover new music and also create an identity separate from your parents.
Chad Radford: Yes, absolutely. And not only from my parents, from just everybody. You know, I grew up in a very rural Midwestern environment and knew I didn't fit in from a very young age and finding a lot of punk rock and indie rock and hip hop and even like, the more kind of out-there classical music and jazz at a young age really kind of helped me have the confidence to be myself. And that's all from going to record stores. So there's that. But there's also a big historical repository kind of element to going to a record store. You get like a very singular take on a city's history when you're standing inside the record store.
Peter Biello: Well, can I ask you about that? Let's focus on Wax 'N' Facts, one just among the many that you've mentioned here in this book. What can you learn about the city of Atlanta by walking into Wax 'N' Facts?
Chad Radford: Well, you can learn an awful lot about the city by walking into Wax 'N' Facts. That's one of the shops that has been in Atlanta for coming up on 50 years. And it kind of looks exactly the same as it did when it opened. It's expanded a little bit over the years. I think they opened up into another space that was next door, but just filled up that space with more of what they have. But those guys, like the owner, Danny Beard, Harry DeMille and even Sean Bourne, who has worked for them since pretty much the very beginning, have all been right there for almost 50 years. And you got to think like, how much has the world changed in 50 years? And these guys were there the entire time on the cutting-edge of pop culture, where people came to get music. RuPaul, who is sort of a global icon, got started in Atlanta as a musician and used to hang out at Wax 'N' Facts. If you go to Wax 'N' Facts and ask them about RuPaul, they'll hand you a record by the Cocktail Girls and say, This was RuPaul's backing band. And, there's like a level of history there that you just can't get anywhere else. It's not really preserved anywhere else.
Peter Biello: Worth mentioning, since tomorrow is Record Store Day, that Record Store Day has at least some roots in Atlanta.
Chad Radford: Yes. Eric Levin, who owns Criminal Records, is one of the co-founders of Record Store Day.
Peter Biello: A national thing now.
Chad Radford: Yeah, it's even a global thing now.
Peter Biello: So when people go to a record store tomorrow in honor of Record Store Day, how should they take in the experience? I imagine it's about more than just buying stuff.
Chad Radford: Well, patience is important because the thing about Record Store Day is lots of people come out of the woodwork. There's a certain contingency of of people out there who are angry at Record Store Day or they don't like Record Store Day because it's sort of like tourist season.
Peter Biello: Like the people who are in there all the time are like, "Oh, these people who are just here for this one day. Get out of my way."
Chad Radford: Exactly. It's like the tourists have come to the beach.
Peter Biello: Hmm. Okay.
Chad Radford: But that said, it truly is, like, a great fun thing. A lot of the releases are super limited, so you'll see people lining up at midnight camping out. Like it's the seventies and they're trying to buy concert tickets to see Aerosmith or Pink Floyd or something. It's generally done in the spirit of having a great time buying records.
Peter Biello: So on Record Store Day, are you going to be making the rounds to your favorite ones?
Chad Radford: Yes. Yes, for sure.
Peter Biello: Where are you going?
Chad Radford: Well, I'll probably start Wax 'N' Facts. It's people have asked me,"What's your favorite record store?" And I've got like five.
Peter Biello: Gonna try to hit all five, maybe?
Chad Radford: Yeah, I'll hit at least three of them. Wax 'N' Facts for sure. I love those guys. And at noon, I'm going to be doing a book signing over at Criminal [Records]. And then later in the day, if there's time, I'll probably head over to Wuxtry. That's another one of my favorites.
Peter Biello: Well, Chad, thank you so much for coming in and speaking about your book. Really appreciate it.
Chad Radford: Thank you for having me.
Peter Biello: And there are a few places outside Atlanta that you can celebrate Record Store Day. Consider, for example, The Vinyl Frontier in Carrollton, Fresh Produce Records in Macon, Comeback Vinyl in Alpharetta, Wuxtry in Athens, Jeff's Musicology in Dublin, Graveface Records in Savannah, and Rock n Shop in Cartersville. And if you're intrigued by Record Store Day, you will probably love our new music podcast here at GPB, the Peach Jam Podcast. It features songs and stories from a variety of incredibly talented and diverse bands and artists who call the Peach State home.
This week's episode highlights a band from Atlanta that as part of the 2023 Shaky Knees lineup, Gringo Star.
And that's all we've got for today's edition of Georgia Today. We hope you have a great weekend. If you'd like to learn more about these stories, visit GPB.org/News. And we hope that you will subscribe to this podcast as well. We will be back with you with all the latest news from the Peach State on Monday. If you've got feedback, we'd love to hear it. Email us at GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. And if you like this podcast, leave a review that'll help other people find us. I'm Peter Biello. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday.
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