Welcome to the New York Times PopCask, your fantastic voyage of music news and criticism.

I am your New York City smoke show, John Caremonica.

Oh, friend, it's been a while, I ain't spoke to you in years, and oftentimes,

boys from this town will pull wheels down and disappear.

Sometimes I'm out on the road or I'm not in contact with people and people like, where,

where's John? Where are you? What are you doing? How come we haven't heard from you in a couple days?

And the answer is I am in Richmond, Virginia. I am in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I am in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Chasing the Zach Bryan story, which is what I was doing for a not

insignificant portion of this summer. Zach Bryan, who you may know, has an album that came out a few

months ago called American Heartbreak that debuted in the top of the Billboard chart.

It's been hovering in the top 20 ever since. Also had a subsequent EP called Summertime Blues.

That is very good. At the beginning of the episode, what we were listening to is Oklahoma City,

which one of several really great songs on American Heartbreak. Zach Bryan is a . . . . Country adjacent,

folk adjacent, rock adjacent performer. He's a Navy veteran, incredible songwriter,

really, really beautiful, rough edged singer, and has been building an incredible audience online

while he was still in the Navy and kind of came out of the Navy last year and arrived almost fully

formed into playing to 3, 4, 5,000 people a night. And now that number is crawling upwards. It is

an interesting case study in number one, how fandom is created on the internet. It's an interesting

case study for the boundaries of country and what we think country is and what it actually is.

It's also fascinating to be at these shows and see, frankly, young men singing along top volume

versus and choruses. And not just in the front rows. I'm talking all the way in the cheek seats.

A real thing is happening with Zach Bryan and it's something that's not really on the radar. I think

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