Wet Socks (love the name) is the Savannah-based garage rock duo of Hunter Jayne (vocals, guitar) and John Zimmerman (drums) — one of a number of young local acts booked for this year’s festival.

Just a couple of hours ago, Wet Socks posted “In My Head” from the upcoming EP Dirty, Dirty.

There’s a great retro vibe, plus a willful distortion, an addictive beat, and some surprising shifts — all in 2 minutes.

Hunter is also the guitarist and a backing vocalist for Triathalon — click here for my Stopover preview. At first, I was describing Wet Socks as a “Triathalon side project,” but the duo’s work seems both more serious and and more exciting each time I’ve heard them.

Wet Socks will be performing at 10 p.m. on Thursday, March 7 at Taco Abajo.

Click here for the full Savannah Stopover schedule.

Click here for the Stopover page devoted to Wet Socks, which doesn’t have much on it.

In the days leading up to the Stopover, I’ve been posting quite a number of short previews like this. So far I’ve previewed Stop Light Observations, Mac DeMarco, Little Tybee, Eric Britt, Heyrocco, Roadkill Ghost Choir, this mountain, Triathalon, Field Report, Chelsea Light Moving, mumbledust, Delicate Steve, Henry Wagons, and of Montreal.

Click here for all my Savannah Stopover previews.

And here are a few pics I took of Wet Socks at a gig recently at The Sparetime, an appropriately spare room for the music. They have a look. And, yes, the vocals are going through a landline telephone . . .

I also spent a couple hours in the afternoon at Taco Abajo on Broughton Street, which recently expanded underneath Urban Outfitters and now features bands regularly. I don’t really like the way the space has been arranged for music, but the low-ceilinged basement worked out pretty well for the Hairy Chest Fest, which booked about 20 acts from noon onward — a pretty impressive organizational feat. (Btw, a few complaints about the name Hairy Chest Fest prompted one of the organizers to emphasize the relative randomness of it.)

Taco Abajo is one of the few all-ages venues available downtown, and the crowd on the 4th was very young when I was there. And that’s a good thing. A dark basement with lots of rock and roll seems like a perfect spot for “kids” 20 and under to hang out on a holiday afternoon.

Which brings me around once again to something I’ve written about before: the ways in which current ordinances have divided older music fans from younger ones. When Savannah used to allow 18-20 year olds to see music at venues that are primarily bars, young adults had more to do in supervised settings and had a chance to enjoy the city’s live music scene.

I guess I have about 2,000 Facebook contacts who live in the Savannah area, but only about 40 of them even got FB invites to Hairy Chest Fest. I try to keep pretty closely in touch with the local live music scene, as do a number of my friends. But most didn’t know about the music on the 4th because the younger and older crowds are so divided.

I’ve written about this problem when mentioning bands like Triathalon, which amassed hundreds of fans via house parties before more mainstream music fans like me had even heard of them.

Part of my reason for going to Hairy Chest Fest was actually to hear a couple of Triathalon side projects — Wet Socks (Hunter Jayne) and Sauna Heat (Michael Younker).

Here’s their sound:

I also made a point of being at Taco Abajo for Dead Yet?, a great punk/hardcore band. It was beautiful to see an established local band like that on hand for a show with a younger audience that probably never gets a chance to see their gigs. Here’s what Dead Yet? is up to:

And I took a few pics, although the lighting makes quality photography pretty tough.

Savannah-based General Oglethorpe and the Panhandlers:

Besides Daniel:

Click here for more on the relatively new Savannah band Lovely Locks.

This past Thursday (April 26th) was the first In So Many Words open mic night presented by Brandywine, the instrumental portion of KidSyc@Brandywine made up of Daniel Butler on guitar, Charles Hodge on bass, Lane Gardner on keys, and Derrick Larry on drums. KidSyc (Lloyd Harold) hosted.

My former student Eva Sadler belted out the national anthem, and a diverse group of rappers took to the stage afterward. Before the first break, KidSyc joined the rest of the band for a couple of songs. I left pretty early, before things got really rolling, but I’d say the first open mic Thursday was a big success. It’s not billed as a hip hop night and Brandywine is a wonderful, versatile combo of really talented musicians, but there will probably be more hip hop than not.

On Friday night, Charles and Derrick hastily put together a band — Good Time Charlie and the Brothers — to open for Boom Chick at Live Wire Music Hall. It turned into a rollicking funk and soul set with Live Wire’s Andrew Robertson joining on congas and a couple of audience members singing. I could easily imagine that project taking on a life of its own.

A few pics from In So Many Words at Taco Abajo: