Episodes
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On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got two of what I’m going to call alt-rock lifers, guys with vast catalogs and the stories to match, who’ve ridden the highs and lows over the years and continue to make fantastic music for dedicated fanbases: John Flansburgh and Matthew Caws.
Flansburgh is half the core of They Might Be Giants, one of the two Johns—along with Linnell—who started making quirky pop records about 40 years ago. They’ve released nearly two dozen albums, wriggling their way into the mainstream on occasion, from “Birdhouse in Your Soul” to the Malcolm in the Middle theme to popular albums aimed at kids. It’s been a remarkable ride that shows no signs of stopping; They MIght Be Giants is still on tour, still making new music, and still seeming to have as much fun as they ever did. Their latest record is called Book—it’s available in many formats including, you guessed it, a giant book—and there are some sparklers on it, including one in particular that the guys talk about in today’s episode. Check out “Brontosaurus.”
The other half of today’s conversation is Matthew Caws, singer and guitarist of the fellow New York band Nada Surf. Nada Surf had a really odd start to what’s turned into a long and fruitful existence. Their first album featured the song “Popular,” which turned into something of a novelty hit / summer anthem back in 1996. It wasn’t particularly representative of the band’s smart, layered pop—which is no knock on “Popular” itself—which confused their record label, Elektra. But after a bit of a slow period, Nada Surf found their way into indie-rock hearts with 2002’s Let Go, and they’ve earned a place in those hearts ever since. The tenth Nada Surf album came out earlier this year, and it’s among their best. It also features a surprisingly high number of more uptempo songs, as Flansburgh mentions in this chat. Check out “Second Skin” from Nada Surf’s newest album Moon Mirror.
In this chat Flansburgh and Caws take a deep dive into the genesis of “Popular,” which Caws had no idea would be a hit but is happy to still play. They also chat about Flansburgh’s love of the new Nada Surf record, both of their time on the same major label in the 1990s, and whether it’s appropriate for a band to take a group bow at the end of a good show. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:42 – Start of the chat
2:58 – Welcome to Fresh Air
9:45 – The unusual origins of "Popular'
17:45 – Nada Surf's ignoble split with Elektra Records
22:40 – John's theory on Matthew's doubled vocals
32:21 – The ups and downs of sharing your political point of view as a musician
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to John Flansburgh and Matthew Caws for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a timely conversation recorded just hours after the presidential election was called, and yes, it was on their minds. It’s frequent Talkhouse alum Julien Baker and her old friend Nick Carpenter, aka. Medium Build.
Baker is a powerhouse singer and songwriter who’s best known these days as one third of the supergroup Boygenius—you’ll hear her refer in this chat to Lucy and Phoebe, her bandmates Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers. But we’ve been fans here since way before that; her amazing debut Sprained Ankle will be 10 years old next year, and she’s built herself an incredible catalog—and fanbase—since. Baker’s last solo album was 2021’s Little Oblivions, and I imagine there’s some new music coming in the not-terribly-distant future. She has loaned her powerful voice to other artists since, though, including her old friend Nick Carpenter’s project Medium Build—his new EP Marietta, out tomorrow, features a duet with Baker called “Yoke,” check out that song right here.
Carpenter, who’s based in Alaska, has made five full-lengths as Medium Build, and his deeply personal songs strike a chord in the same way that Baker’s do: They have similar backgrounds, having grown up queer in religious households in the South. As you’ll hear in this chat, Carpenter explores his background in his music, and his honesty tends to melt audiences that let him in.
I’ll be truthful: I thought these two were going to bail on chatting the morning after the election, and I wouldn’t have blamed them one bit. It doesn’t seem like the cheeriest time in America to be a proud member of a marginalized population. But I was so cheered up by listening to them talk: They’re not psyched, naturally, but they remain undeterred and committed to spreading honesty and love. Sure, there’s some earned cynicism about commercialism and the less pleasant parts of their jobs, but mostly it’s the joy of homies, sincerity, and consensual hugs with your local barista. Enjoy.
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Julien Baker and Nick Carpenter for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
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On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a special episode recorded live just last weekend in New York featuring two artists that appear on an amazingly ambitious new conceptual compilation album called TRANSA, Asher White and MIZU. The album comes from our friends at the Red Hot organization, was conceptualized largely by Dust Reid and Massima Bell, and features more than 100 artists honoring trans and non-binary artists. There are huge names like Sade, Sam Smith, Andre 3000, indie heroes like Julien Baker and Laura Jane Grace, and incredible up-and-comers like today’s two guests, who worked on separate tracks. The whole thing comes out November 22, and you can pre-order it now. I won’t say much more because former Talkhouse producer Mark Yoshizumi was on hand to introduce Asher and MIZU at the event. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
1:39 – Producer Mark Yoshizumi Intro
5:01 – Start of the chat
12:20 – MIZU and Asher's differing musical backgrounds
20:00 – Ad break
22:20 – "The music that I made is aesthetically different than the music I consume"
25:15 – Musical processes
31:37 – The origins of MIZU and Asher's songs on the TRANSA comp
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to MIZU, Asher White, Mark Yoshizumi, and Honey Moon Coffee in Ridgewood. Also thanks to Urosh Jovanovich, who recorded the event, and Myron Kaplan, who produced this episode. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
A preview of the new season of Santigold's podcast, Noble Champions. Subscribe now.
Episode 1 with John Jennings and Terence Nance dives into Afrofuturism and the power of human imagination in shaping our future. In a time of global uncertainty, art that envisions a better world is essential. Santi sits down with acclaimed graphic novelist, comic book author, illustrator, and professor John Jennings, alongside artist, filmmaker, and musician Terence Nance (creator of HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness) for a rich discussion. Together, they explore the tools of imagination, the role of rituals, the concept of deindustrializing oneself, nonlinear time, and much more. -
Note: This episode originally aired on June 20, 2019.
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, two good friends, actor-writer-director Lake Bell and singer Santigold, sit down for a long-awaited chat together. The pair are both very busy performers – Bell is hard at work on the second season of her new show Bless This Mess and can be heard in the new animated feature The Secret Life of Pets 2, and Santi recently dropped I Don't Want: The Gold Fire Sessions and just came back from a U.S. tour – but are also highly involved mothers, and a large focus of their talk is on the challenges of balancing family life with creative work. They discuss how you can’t in fact do it all or have it all, how the making art changes after you have kids, how filmmaking and parenting are (kind of) the same thing, plus Santi’s social media struggles, where the roots of Lake’s comedy lie, what Lake is doing to address the current political situation, Santi’s move into directing, and much, much more. For more filmmakers musicians in conversation, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.
Episode recorded by Gideon Brower, and recorded and co-produced by Mark Yoshizumi at Hook & Fade Studios in Brooklyn.
The Talkhouse Podcast's theme song was composed and performed by The Range.
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week's Talkhouse episode we’ve got a pair of talented musicians in a chummy chat about making songs and making a life while making songs. It’s Melina Duterte, aka. Jay Som, and Pascal Stevenson, aka. Fashion Club.
Stevenson just released the second Fashion Club album, A Love You Cannot Shake, but it’s different enough than the first that it almost feels like a debut. That surely has something to do with the fact that it’s the first Fashion Club music since Stevenson’s gender transition; there’s a genre freedom that wasn’t as evident on the first one, which felt a bit closer to Stevenson’s indie-leaning band Moaning. A Love You Cannot Shake clearly honors big pop music but it frequently swerves before giving into any obvious trappings. She found some fantastic guests to add to the sideways fun, too, including Talkhouse Podcast alumni Perfume Genius and Julie Byrne as well as the other half of today’s conversation, Jay Som.
Now Jay Som made a splash with her first couple of bedroom-pop albums in 2015 and 2016, and though she hasn’t released a new album since 2019’s fantastic Anak Ko, she’s been busy nonetheless, both starting some new projects, producing for other musicians, and playing bass for the indie-rock supergroup Boygenius. She’s been working on new material of her own as well, and she had a song on the soundtrack to the critically acclaimed movie I Saw the TV Glow alongside like-minded artists like Caroline Polachek and The Weather Station. And of course there’s her contribution to the Fashion Club record, “Ghost.” Check out that song right here.
In this lively conversation, Stevenson and Duterte chat about songwriting, including Stevenson’s tendency to start with the biggest parts and Duterte’s opinion on what constitutes a “treat” while you’re producing. They tell each other toward the end of the conversation which pop star they’d most like to write for, and we learn that Stevenson’s specialty is what she calls “fucked-up ballads.” Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:20 – Start of the chat
4:45 – On Fashion Club's album, A Love You Cannot Shake
9:20 – Melina loves Pascal's record
13:30 – Contrasting approaches to songwriting
16:36 – "Everyone's a little different when it comes to what I call 'treats'"
31:36 – "Do you think it's easier now to become a producer?"
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Pascal Stevenson and Melina Duterte for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
I’m gonna call this week’s Talkhouse Podcast a very special episode, since it’s focused on a specific topic and also offers a call to action and hopefully some inspiration for you, the listener. It certainly did that for me, the host guy.
Our guests today are frequent Talkhousers Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath, better known as Sylvan Esso, along with fellow North Carolina musician Libby Rodenbough, who’s played with a bunch of bands, most notably Mipso. These three share a home state, North Carolina, which as you know was hit hard by Hurricane Helene just a couple of weeks ago. The devastation that hit the western part of the state didn’t seem to get a ton of national media attention, perhaps because Helene was followed so quickly by Hurricane Milton. But as you’ll hear at the beginning of this conversation, parts of North Carolina have been affected in ways that will take years to bounce back from.
Just days after the storm, Rodenbough—along with David Walker and Grayson Haver Currin and lots of others—conceived of a fundraising effort to feature musician friends, many of whom have deep ties to the area. The idea quickly ballooned into a 135-song compilation called Cardinals at the Window, available on Bandcamp and featuring previously unreleased music from huge names like R.E.M., Phish, Jason Isbell, and Sylvan Esso along with tons of other folks, both native to the area and from well beyond. In just over a week, the compilation has raised over $300,000 to provide direct relief to people whose lives have been turned upside-down by the storm. The area will need lots more than that, of course, to get back on its feet, but it’s a heartening reminder that when given the chance to help, people still do, even when folks seem hopelessly divided.
That’s part of the focus of this chat: Meath, Sanborn, and Rodenbough have been out there helping people over the past couple of weeks, and while they’re crushed by the indescribable devastation that towns like Marshall, North Carolina have seen, they’re also heartened by the notion that its people have been quick to lend a hand to their neighbors. I found their actions and this conversation inspiring, and I hope you do, too. You can buy the compilation on Bandcamp or check out cardinalsatthewindow.org and lend a hand that way if you can.
0:00 – Intro
2:17 – Start of the chat
4:21 – For all you listeners out there, here's a summary of what's up.
10:23 – How being a touring musician inspires empathy
20:38 – "I've got a generator, and I've got room."
26:24 – Anarchy, anthropology, and helping each other
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Libby Rodenbough, Amelia Meath, and Nick Sanborn for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and definitely search Cardinals at the Window to see how you can help the people of North Carolina. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
We’ve had legends on the Talkhouse Podcast before, but perhaps none quite as legendary as Pete Townshend, who’s in conversation on today’s episode with a younger band he recently worked with, The Wild Things.
It seems a bit silly to offer a short bio of Townshend—after all, you have chosen to listen to a podcast about music, so you’re probably familiar—but here goes: Pete Townshend is the guitarist and primary songwriter of The Who, a band that cracked open the world of rock and roll in the early 1960s and inarguably changed the direction of popular music forever. He’s often credited as the first guitarist to treat feedback as an essential part of his sound, influencing the likes of Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix, among many others. And that was all 50 years ago: Townshend has built on the legacy of The Who since, continuing to make music with the only other surviving member, Roger Daltrey, as well as writing books, musicals, and opera. He also keeps his eyes and ears out for new music, even at age 79, which is where the other half of today’s chat comes in.
Two members of the UK band The Wild Things, Sydney Rae White and Rob Kendrick, met Townshend when they were cast in the musical stage production of The Who’s rock opera Quadrophenia. Though she’s spent much of her career acting—you may have seen her in the Netflix series Uncle or the Michael Keaton movie American Assassin—White’s passion seems to be focused at the moment on the band, which also includes her brother Cameron White and drummer Pete Wheeler. When it came time to record new Wild Things music, Townshend offered his help both as a musical ear and a man with a studio, which resulted in the new album Afterglow. Fittingly for a man with Townshend’s history, Afterglow is something of a concept album, which is a big topic of discussion here. Check out “My Heart is in New York” from Afterglow, which features a guest vocal from Townshend.
Townshend and the Wild Things talk about telling stories through your music, about concept albums, about working together to make Afterglow, about trying to connect with people in an overwhelming media world, and much, much more. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:32 – Start of the chat/the concept behind Afterglow
6:55 – Why Pete wanted to work with The Wild Things
16:06 – "You know, this is a real fucking Rick Rubin conversation!"
21:58 – The advantages to being able to experiment in the studio
29:15 – "The thing about Sid is that she can do fucking anything."
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Pete Townshend and all of the Wild Things for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a great chat between two guys who’d never met before: Steve Marion, aka Delicate Steve, and the one and only Reggie Watts.
Delicate Steve is one of those monikers that describes both a person and a band, though Steve Marion has been the only constant member over the past 15 years or so. His music is largely instrumental, but you don’t miss the singing since his intricate, emotional guitar lines tend to do the work that a vocalist might otherwise do. His latest album is cheekily titled Delicate Steve Sings, and it’s a nod to records like Willie Nelson’s Stardust, mixing original compositions with covers and putting Delicate Steve’s inimitable guitar tone atop them all. Check out “I’ll Be There” from Delicate Steve Sings.
The career of today’s other guest, Reggie Watts, can be tough to describe. He’s part musician, part comedian, I guess, but that doesn’t begin to describe what it’s like to see his performances, which can include jokes, beatboxing, a variety of sampled sounds, and lots of improvisation. You may have seen Watts in his most mainstream role over the past decade as the announcer/bandleader for The Late Late Show With James Corden, where he was able to inject some spontaneity and weirdness into the late-night talk-show genre. His latest special is called Never Mind, and it seeks to warp the comedic spacetime continuum. I won’t spoil it by saying any more than that.
This chat starts with Delicate Steve talking about a mindblowing Reggie Watts performance that he saw recently, and heads into conversation about busting out of genre constraints, finding the brilliance in even the most popular pop, the Kanye West/Delicate Steve collaboration that was then wasn’t, and how there’s no substitute for sincerity. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:22 – "You are like Jimi Hendrix to me."
12:09 – The dance-music festival that Reggie thinks is the ideal.
17:05 – The Kanye/Delicate Steve collab that wasn't.
29:20 – Art meeting capitalism keeps sincere stuff extra cool
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Steve Marion and Reggie Watts for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please give us a review on your favorite podcasting platform and make sure you check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a couple of guys who are big parts of hardcore’s current wave: Julian Cashwan Pratt of Show Me The Body and Graham Sayle of High Vis.
Show Me The Body was conceived when Pratt was still in high school in New York City, enamored of the town’s history of aggressive punk—and that music’s propensity for political lyrics. But Show Me The Body, like other current hardcore bands making waves in the past few years, doesn’t stick with the genre’s typical signifiers. For one, Pratt’s primary instrument is banjo, and it’s attached to sounds that draw not only from hardcore’s past, but also electronic blasts of noise and even some hip-hop. Show Me The Body’s latest album is called Trouble The Water, and it’s both tense and intense. It’s a hell of a listen, though the band needs to be seen live to fully experience it.
The other half of today’s conversation is Graham Sayle, whose band High Vis formed in London around 2016, and whose version of hardcore dials in a healthy dose of British post-punk. They’ve been described as a mix of Factory Records and Cro-Mags—that’d be the legendary label that spawned Joy Division and New Order plus the legendary New York hardcore band—which is sort of perfect. There are elements of goth in there as well, but with a smart, sneering energy that’s tough to deny. Show Me The Body and High Vis just started a US tour together, and they collaborated on a song and accompanying video that was just released on an EP called Corpus II EP II. You can find tour dates at showmethebody.com, and check out a little bit of their collaborative track, called “Stomach,” right here.
As hardcore dudes often do, these guys chatted about what hardcore means to them, including that sense of community you can’t get anywhere else. They also talk about how having a child has changed Pratt’s outlook a bit, but how he’s still fired up politically and ready to put it all out there on the stage. Enjoy.
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Julian Cashwan Pratt and Graham Sayle for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please give the Talkhouse Podcast a review on your favorite platform, and don’t forget to check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of fantastic songwriters in a sweet conversation about craft and life in general: Sima Cunningham and Roberto Lange.
Lange has been making fascinating, lovely music under the name Helado Negro since 2009, mixing breezy indie-rock with electronic sounds, frequently with more than a passing nod to his Ecuadorian roots. His sonic world is always inviting, even as it’s sort of otherworldly, and he often matches those sounds with cool visuals—which is no wonder considering his background in computer art. Earlier this year, Lange released the eighth Helado Negro album; it’s called Phasor, and it’s among his best, mixing tranquil sounds with his searching spirit. You might be lulled and puzzled at the same time, which is a great feeling. Check out the song “Colores del Mar” right here.
The other half of today’s conversation, Sima Cunningham, is best known as half the core of Chicago band Finom, originally known as OHMME. Finom released its Not God earlier this year, and it’s full of unexpected pop turns tied together by the harmony between Cunningham and her longtime musical partner Macie Stewart. But the occasion for today’s conversation is actually Cunningham’s second solo album, just out on Ruination Records. It’s called High Roller, and it explores a more personal side to her songwriter. For example, there’s a great song written for Cunningham’s brother Liam Kazar, himself a musician and one-time Talkhouse Podcast guest as well. Check out “For Liam” right here.
In addition to that song, which Lange points out as a favorite on High Roller, these two chat about Cunningham’s adventures in Ireland, what it’s like to create an on-stage persona and interact with your audience, and how Cunningham’s new album was a 10-year journey that was worth the wait. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:40 – Start of the chat
5:56 – Sima’s mom is the most punk-rock person in their musical family
14:58 – Roberto on getting to a certain age in music
15:39 – Finding new ways to have a love affair with your audience
22:39 – Sima on figuring out how to be honest and vulnerable with her solo material
29:59 – Sima on playing new Finom songs and trying to figure out where to play solo
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Sima Cunningham and Roberto Lange for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and be sure to check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got an absolute legend of a singer-songwriter in conversation with a guy who’s no slouch himself: Lucinda Williams and M. Ward.
Williams has been writing and recording incredible songs since the late 1970s, though she didn’t really break through in a huge way until 1998’s stone classic Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which garnered her the Best Contemporary Folk Album Grammy—her second Grammy—but also some of the most well-deserved critical accolades of that year. She certainly didn’t rest on those laurels, having released close to a dozen more revered albums since, many of which found themselves also at the Grammy and Americana awards ceremonies—as well as in the hearts of listeners and other songwriters. Last year, Williams released a fantastic memoir about her journey from small-town Louisiana to the music business and beyond. It’s a lovely look at a life well lived called Don’t Tell Anyone the Secrets I Told You.
The other half of today’s conversation is M. Ward, another literate singer-songwriter with a varied career whose music can’t be easily pinned down—he’s been called folk, Americana, and indie-rock, none of which quite do his songs justice. Ward has been making records for 25 years now, and his discography includes not only thoughtful, beautiful solo records, but an entire catalog of albums made with actress Zooey Deschanel under the name She & Him. Ward’s latest is last year’s Supernatural Thing, another set of songs that feel like they exist out of time. Check out “Too Young to Die” from that album right here.
In this conversation, Ward and Williams talk about the time they worked together, when Williams contributed vocals to an M. Ward record back in 2009. Then they get into Williams’ memoir and just scratch the surface on her incredible life and career before the conversation turns to their literary influences and more. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:33 – Start of the chat
4:30 – Williams on the hard part of writing a memoir
8:13 – Ward reads his favorite passage from Williams' book
12:58 – Williams recalls meeting famous writers as a child
23:50 – "I want to be James Joyce!"
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Lucinda Williams and M. Ward for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two women from different parts of the planet who share a common heritage and creative outlook: Serra Petale and Gaye Su Akyol.
Petale is the guitarist for the multinational band Los Bitchos, which has been creating tough-to-pigeonhole instrumental music for the past seven years. The band’s membership and sound are both truly worldly: Petale is from Western Australia, and her bandmates are from Uruguay, Sweden, and the UK. As you’ll hear, they came together in London after Petale chased her musical dreams there, and they’ve made some incredibly fun music since, mixing sounds from Argentina, Turkey, and a sort of psychedelic surf-rock. Their first album, produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, came with the incredible title Let The Festivities Begin!, and they just followed it with another album, the fully delightful Talkie Talkie. Check out that album’s “La Bomba” right here.
The other half of today’s conversation joins us from her home base in Turkey. Gaye Su Akyol has been making music—not to mention painting—for the past decade, gaining a worldwide following for records that take the flavors of her country and expand them in a dozen directions. She’s been politically and artistically outspoken throughout her time in the spotlight, and you can tell that won’t be changing anytime soon. The title of her latest album translates to Anatolian Dragon, and here’s a song whose title I won’t butcher, but that translates roughly to, “I want to, but there’s no hurry.” Even if you don’t understand the words, it’s easy to catch its groove.
I mentioned that these two share a background: Gaye grew up in Turkey, as did Serra’s grandparents—as it turns out pretty close to each other. So they chat a bit about that, and occasionally drop in some Turkish words as well. They chat about how women need to go the extra mile to get their art into the world, and about manifesting your dreams rather than waiting around. If that sounds a little rah-rah, Gaye actually says, jokingly, that they sound like a Nike commercial at one point. I found it fun and inspiring, and I hope you do too. Enjoy.
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Serra Petale and Gaye Su Akyol for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a legend of ‘90s-era punk in deep conversation with a songwriter you might be hearing of for the first time: Kathleen Hanna and Jim Andralis.
Hanna, of course, was a founding member of Bikini Kill, the band credited with starting the riot grrrl movement and inspiring an incredible number of young women to pick up guitars and claim their place in the rock universe. After Bikini Kill’s initial split, Hanna went on to perform in both The Julie Ruin and Le Tigre, though recent years have found her spitting fire with Bikini Kill yet again—they’re actually on tour now through September. Hanna also released an excellent memoir this year called Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, which is absolutely worth a read or an audiobook listen—Hanna reads it herself, and it’s awesome.
Hanna’s people approached us about having her chat with songwriter Jim Andralis because, as you’ll hear in this chat, she might be his biggest fan. Andralis is a New Yorker whose day job is as a trauma-focused psychotherapist, but who’s been writing songs for the past 20 or so years. Considering Hanna’s fandom, it might surprise you to learn that Andralis doesn’t come out of the punk tradition at all: He’s a songwriter in the classic sense, meaning it’s tough to pin him into a genre box—Kathleen tries a little bit here, but doesn’t come to any conclusions. Andralis recently released his fifth album, Ghosts, check out a song they chat about toward the end of this episode, it’s called “Carnival.”
Hanna and Andralis jump right into their chat here, and you can tell they’re old friends. As you’ll hear at the top, Hanna and her band were recently honored by Olympia, Washington with Bikini Kill Day, celebrating a lifetime of achievements. After that, Hanna gets straight to picking Andralis’ brain about his lyrics and songwriting. She interprets one song in particular that turns out to be… not quite right, but also exactly right? You’ll see. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:48 – Happy Bikini Kill Day!
9:26 – Kathleen tries to figure out what genre Jim's songs belong in
21:07 – Jim's song about political depression
32:48 – An appreciation of Jamey Johnson
39:05 – "What a dick, if I had written the song that way!"
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Kathleen Hanna and Jim Andralis for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a reunion of sorts, in celebration of a new release of old music: It’s David Pajo, Cassie Berman, and Tim Furnish.
These three met in the fertile Louisville scene of the early 1990s. Pajo played guitar in the wildly influential band Slint and went on to play with Tortoise, Royal Trux, Stereolab, and Interpol at various times over the years—he’s currently a member of Gang Of Four. But the subject of this conversation is Pajo’s sorta-solo career, which went through various M-names, from just M to Papa M and Aerial M. As Aerial M, Pajo brought on some friends for a brief time to tour Europe, where they recorded a Peel Session—more on that in a minute.
The friends that Pajo recruited to play in the Aerial M live band were Tim Furnish, whose legendary Louisville band Crain had broken up recently—and who has since recorded experimental rock with the band Parlour—as well as Cassie Berman and Tony Bailey. Berman had been kicking around in Louisville bands, too, and she would go on to join Silver Jews, the band fronted by her husband, David Berman. Drummer Tony Bailey, as you’ll hear, played in about a million bands in the area—he died, sadly, in 2009.
The reason for today’s reunion of the lineup that burned bright but quick is the release of Aerial M’s new Peel Sessions album. In case you’re unfamiliar, BBC DJ John Peel used to invite the coolest bands of his day—from the ‘70s into the 2000s—to record a few songs specifically for his show, many of which were later released with the same striking artwork. In 1998, Aerial M stopped by and recorded three songs that would turn out quite different to the versions Pajo crafted in the studio, and would really be the only evidence that this lineup left of its existence. Pajo was recently reminded of this session, so he set about tracking down the tapes, sprucing them up, and handing them over to Drag City for a proper release—including an amazing replica of those original John Peel Sessions sleeves. Check out the song “Vivea” right here.
I don’t think these three had sat down for a chat in a while, so it’s like sitting in on a reunion with three people who have a lot of fond memories. They talk about their '98 tour, including the recording of this record, plus they get into fond remembrances of Tony Bailey, racing Stereolab to the record store, and even what they’re up to now: Just a few days before this recording, Cassie Berman participated in a tribute to David Berman on the anniversary of his untimely passing, and Furnish has been working on some cool-sounding visual art for other bands. Enjoy.
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to David Pajo, Cassie Berman, and Tim Furnish for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and be sure to check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and in our wider podcasting network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
Hello Talkhouse listeners! Instead of new episode this week, we've revisiting a great chat from several years back between artist/musician/many other things Laurie Anderson and filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Black Swan, The Whale, etc.). The reason? Anderson has a new album out in a couple of weeks called Amelia, and it's all about famed aviator Amelia Earhart. If that sounds odd, it probably is, and in the best ways: Anything Anderson touches is worth your time. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Enjoy!
Note: This episode originally aired on January 26, 2016.
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, in a special conversation recorded after a screening of Laurie Anderson's documentary Heart of a Dog, the acclaimed musician, artist, and filmmaker talks onstage with fellow New York director Darren Aronofsky, best known for his films Pi, Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan. The pair discuss Anderson's new film, which ponders questions of love, death, and language, and touch on such other diverse subjects as Herman Melville's discussions with his editor about Moby Dick and the problems that can come from putting batteries in one's mouth.
Episode engineered and edited by Elia Einhorn. Additional editing by Myron Kaplan.
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
If you had told 15-year-old me I’d be doing a podcast with today’s two Talkhouse guests, I would have asked you what the hell a podcast was before getting truly excited: It’s Perry Farrell and Daniel Ash.
Perry Farrell almost certainly needs to introduction, but here goes: He first found fame as the singer for Jane’s Addiction, a band that bridged the gap between glammy metal and some burgeoning genre called alternative rock, and is pretty largely responsible the latter becoming a thing. The end of Jane’s Addiction in the early 1990s was the beginning of Farrell’s other big creation, the Lollapalooza festival, which continues to this day—the U.S. version was just this past weekend in Chicago, as a matter of fact. Farrell has played with other people over the years, and the legendary Jane’s Addiction has reformed in various incarnations over the years. But the big news for 2024 is that the band’s original lineup has reformed both to play shows and even to record some new music. Check out the band’s brand new song, “Imminent Redemption.”
This week, Jane’s Addiction will embark on a U.S. tour with the band of today’s other guest, Daniel Ash. Love and Rockets formed from the ashes of the legendary goth band Bauhaus, and features three of that band’s four members. The original Love and Rockets run, from 1985 until 1998, resulted in a legendary string of albums that was influential on an entire generation of tough-to-define bands, a list that definitely includes Jane’s Addiction. Love and Rockets has reformed a couple of times over the years, the latest being a successful run last year that marked their first shows in 15 years. It doesn’t seem like there’s any brand new music on the horizon for Love and Rockets, though last year’s My Dark Twin gathered some hard-to-find tracks. For now, why not refamiliarize yourself with their biggest hit, 1989’s “So Alive.”
In advance of their co-headlining tour, Farrell and Ash talked about how they keep fit enough to rock this hard all these years later, which includes taking a day off between each show and utilizing superfoods instead of hard drugs. Ash talks about how three of the biggest songs of his career were written and recorded in one day each, as well as how Ziggy Stardust changed his life forever. They also chat about the joy of collaboration and the potential up and downsides of AI. Enjoy.
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Perry Farrell and Daniel Ash for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
We’ve got a bit of a strange one for you on this week's Talkhouse Podcast. Back during the darkest days of the pandemic, we hosted an Instagram live chat between Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips and actor/musician Joe Keery, who at the time was best known as part of the cast of Stranger Things.
Keery is also a musician, having released music with his band Post Animal, and he was just starting to release music under the name Djo. Keery had a pretty big viral hit with a Djo song this year: You may have heard “End Of Beginning.” If you haven’t, check it out right here.
Anyway, we figured that a lot of folks may have missed that conversation, so now would be the perfect time to resurface it in slightly edited podcast form. These two had never met, but they jump into a great chat about songwriting, Miley Cyrus’s house—which is where Coyne was dialing in from—and lots more, including how Coyne and his Flaming Lips bandmate Steven Drozd are like french fries and salt, about how listening is equally vital in music and acting, and much more. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
1:40 – "This is Wayne Flaming Lip" getting himself connected
6:25 – Joe's thoughts on the Flaming Lips' live show, which Wayne thinks isn't really about the band
10:57 – Wayne asks Joe how making music is different than being directed
22:52 – "You have to listen to your own music!"
29:41 – Making music and creating art shouldn’t be a sacrifice
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Wayne Coyne and Joe Keery for time traveling from 2020 for this episode. It was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a fantastic chat featuring three boundary-pushing musicians that turns into a lovefest: It’s Daniel Lopatin, better known as Oneohtrix Point Never, along with David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke, who were known together as Gastr del Sol.
Lopatin has created an incredible body of experimental records over the past 20 or so years. His woozy, sample-heavy early material had him pegged as the inventor of vaporwave, but he never stays in the same musical place very long. He broke through to a different audience with soundtracks for the Safdie brothers’ movies Good Time and Uncut Gems, and Lopatin is also heavily responsible for the sound of The Weeknd’s records, where he’s credited as an executive producer. The tenth Oneohtrix Point Never album, called Again, came out late last year, and once again it found Lopatin utilizing a new set of inspirations, one of which was the post-rock movement of the 1990s, which figures heavily into today’s conversation. More on that in a minute, but first check out “Again,” the title track from the latest Oneohtrix Point Never album.
Featured on that track was none other than Jim O’Rourke, an experimental musician and producer perhaps best known to the pop-music world for working on Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. But O’Rourke’s cv is far too vast to dive into here, and the focus of this conversation is his 1990s collaboration with fellow musician David Grubbs in a band called Gastr del Sol. That duo burned bright for a few years, amassing a catalog that’s difficult to pin down, ranging as it does from arch orchestral pop to more rangy, experimental songs. They disbanded in 1998, leaving the world on a high note with their poppiest yet perhaps weirdest set of songs, Camofleur. Gastr del Sol’s legend has only grown in the meantime, and they finally got around to releasing some new-old material just this year, in the form of a combination live album/rarities set called We Have Dozens of Titles. True to their ethos, it’s neither a standard odds and ends package or a greatest hits, but rather combines an excellent live recording—of what turned out to be their final concert—and songs that had been previously orphaned on various compilations. Check out “The Seasons Reverse” here, which is referenced in this chat.
Speaking of this chat… Talkhouse conversations are usually more two-way streets than this one, but it turns out that Daniel Lopatin is a huge Gastr del Sol geek, so he ends up asking most of the questions. He’s got deep-seated opinions and interesting theories on their music: They chat about getting into music, about specific passages in Gastr songs, about the idea of indie-rock as a genre, and about the time Gastr del Sol was asked to license a song for a tentacle porn movie. Oh, and Daniel calls Gastr del Sol’s music trashy. Enjoy.
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Daniel Lopatin, Jim O’Rourke, and David Grubbs for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse -
On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got what might seem like an unlikely pairing, but one that makes sense when you dive into it: Rick Mitarotonda from Goose and M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger.
If you’re not into the jam-band world, Goose might not be super familiar to you yet, but in that world, the Connecticut band is absolutely massive, moving from clubs to amphitheaters over the past few years. And while jam bands themselves are pretty common—the barrier to entry isn’t super high—very few have reached these heights, and after a decade Goose already find themselves in the vaunted company of bands like Phish and Dead and Company. It’s kind of obvious why: They are fantastic players, and their songs offer more than just extended noodling. It makes sense that they’re not influenced just by their jam forebears, but by jam-adjacent indie kingpins like Radiohead. And they’ve even got the stamp of approval of Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, who asked them to cover his band’s song “2021”—and to stretch it out to 20 minutes and 21 seconds. The latest Goose album is Dripfield from 2022, but as you’ll hear in this chat, they’ve got a couple more in the works. Check out their song “Give It Time” right here.
As the primary creative force behind Hiss Golden Messenger, M.C. Taylor has amassed an incredible catalog over the past 15 or so years. He was initially lumped in with the alt-country scene and later with the likes of Will Oldham and Bill Callahan, Hiss records kind of defy categorization, though I should mention that 2019’s Terms Of Surrender was nominated for the Best Americana Album Grammy. Taylor’s latest album as Hiss Golden Messenger is called Jump For Joy, and the title is reflective of what’s inside: It’s looser and more playful and even groove-oriented at moments, a new move but not an unwelcome one for sure. Check out “Sanctuary” right here.
In this chat, Rick and M.C. chat about making studio records versus playing live, and they get into the fundamental question of how songs are written. Answer: It’s different for everybody. They both reflect, oddly, on the Hare Krishna world, and Rick decides that Goose is more like a sitcom or a sports team than a band. Enjoy.
0:00 – Intro
2:48 – Start of the chat
4:04 – What are you listening to right now?
12:05 – Rick’s musical awakening
19:01 – Long songs versus short ones. “It’d be sick to have some short bangers.”
24:36 – Goose’s recent lineup change and how that might affect things.
36:16 – The difficulty of writing new songs while on tour.
Thanks for listening, and thanks to Rick and M.C. for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse - Show more
