The Rant

Jeff Popka, CEO of Indie on Air Records and organizer of the upcoming Wampus Cat Music Festival, shares details on the May 13-15 event that will include acts like Everclear, Lit, Sister Hazel, Thompson Square, the Swon Brothers, J.R. Richards (Dishwalla) and more than 90 acts. 

Dr. Raj Swamy of Central Carolina Hospital joins the Friends of The Rant podcast to talk about heart month and the remarkable cardiac procedures available to patients in Sanford and Lee County. Swamy is the head of cardiology at CCH in Sanford. He received his undergrad degree at Duke University and his medical degree from the University of Chicago-Pritzker. He specializes in cardiology, coronary intervention, echocardiography, arterial and venous ultrasound, vascular medicine, peripheral vascular intervention, stress testing, cardiac rhythm evaluation and management.

Jimmy Randolph is CEO of the Sanford Area Growth Alliance, but he joins us today wearing another hat — organizer for the Sanford Pottery Exhibition & Marketplace, a reboot of sorts of the old Sanford Pottery Festival which took place here for several years and is set to return on April 30 and May 1 at the Dennis Wicker Civic Center.

Lee County Sheriff Tracy Carter will end 30-plus years in law enforcement when he officially retires on Jan. 1. He took some time to talk about his career and not only his future, but the future of the sheriff's office, on our Friends of The Rant podcast. 

Government reporter and political science authority Richard Sullins joins the podcast to talk about his experience writing for The Rant and his first impressions of local government in Lee County. 

Dr. David Watson, a humanities instructor at Central Carolina Community College, is author of “Truth to Post-Truth in American Detective Fiction.”

The book, Sanford native Watson’s first, is described by its publisher as examining “questions of truth and relativism, turning to detectives, both real and imagined, from Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin to Robert Mueller, to establish an oblique history of the path from a world where not believing in truth was unthinkable to the present, where it is common to believe that objective truth is a remnant of a simpler, more naïve time.”

The Friends of the Rant podcast returns with hosts Gordon Anderson and Billy Liggett talking about Squid Games, Many Saints of Newark, last month's Carolina Indie Fest and other local news stories of interest to your listening ears. 

Carolina Indie Fest headliner Paleface talks with The Rant about his upcoming performance — his first live performance since the beginning of the pandemic — and the musicians who have influenced him in his storied career. 

Full podcast this week as we interview Carolina Indie Fest band HaHa Charade and talk to Beth List about this Saturday's POP!-Con at the Lee County Library. 

A self-styled “astral-pop” and “soul rock” artist from Delaware who has been singing her whole life, Nitro Nitra began a career in music in 2019 after having a “mystical, spiritual awakening” she says freed her from “repetitive loops of mental bondage.”

Nitra’s goal as a musician is to create a shared experience by lifting her fans up to a place where they can open their minds to new levels of existence and awakenings of their own. Her voice has been compared to Amy Winehouse, Erykah Badu, Tina Turner and Diana Ross.