There’s a lot to appreciate about Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, but beyond their musical ability, I always loved how weird the two were. Hendrix included little skits on his albums and seemed to vibrate at his own frequency. Vaughan was similarly odd, running around in a hat and kimono, like some kind of east-meets-west analogy come to life. And the weirdness actually translated to their playing, give it a boldness that allowed them to take risks and express themselves in ways that never felt self-conscious. But today’s musicians don’t always have the luxury of weirdness. Instead, there’s a pressure for them to seem serious and deep. Sparky Parker’s In the Dark is enjoyable and while the name is kind of unusual, I wish he had come up in an era when artists felt more license to let their freak flags fly. Because there’s a palpable undercurrent of weirdness that the album hints at but never truly unleashes.