Podcasts about Talkhouse

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we've got a pair of old friends who dive right in on some light-hearted topics like death and aging: Amy Millan and Kevin Drew. Both Amy and Kevin are deeply connected to the Canadian indie scene that took shape in the late 1990s around Broken Social Scene. That band was initially Kevin's baby, but a whole constellation seemed to spring from it, including Metric, Feist, and the band that Amy is most closely associated with, Stars. The impetus for today's conversation, though, is Millan's gorgeous new solo album, I Went to Find You. It's her first in 15 years, and as you'll hear in this conversation, was inspired by stirred-up feelings about the death of her father when she was just a little kid. Millan created the album with a musician she only met recently, Jay McCarrol, after a chance encounter with him that stirred up some dormant emotions about her childhood. It's a really beautiful and quietly triumphant record that's worth some time and attention in your headphones. Check out “Kiss That Summer” right here. Kevin Drew directed that great video for that song, and he's got bona fides when it comes to writing songs about difficult subjects, too: His latest solo album, Aging, came out in 2023, and you might be able to guess what it's about from that title. It's a topic that Kevin and Amy get into here as they get deep and sweet together—they were even a little worried they'd forget they were being recorded since they're such close friends. They talk about Amy's record but also, perhaps for the first time on Talkhouse, perimenopause. There's also memories of Hal Willner, a great name for Amy's tour that she didn't end up using, and living in your “who gives a fuck” years. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Amy Millan and Kevin Drew for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great stuff in the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the ⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠talkhouse.com⁠⁠⁠ to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠.

Music - Dylan Tupper Rupert & Talkhouse

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast's spin-off series, host Nick Dawson sits down with actors Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody, who have been married for 45 years and in the past few years have become one of the internet's favorite couples thanks to their delightful TikTok channel. To coincide with the premiere this week of the pilot of their episodic series Seasoned at the Tribeca Film Festival, they opened up in their typically ebullient and charming manner about subjects as diverse as their morning routines (and nocturnal movements!), whether or not to delete someone's contact info if they've died, the role a Joni Mitchell lyric played in their most recent disagreement, their son being unfairly overshadowed by Prince William, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. Find more illuminating podcasts on the ⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠talkhouse.com⁠⁠⁠ to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠.

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we've got a couple of guys who found huge followings—on the internet and elsewhere—in different ways, but with similar outlooks: Adam Met and Julian Shapiro-Barnum. Met is one-third of the brother band AJR, who've found massive pop hits over the past decade with cheeky but sometimes deceptively deep songs like “Bang” and “World's Smallest Violin.” Perhaps those more into the indie-adjacent world have heard their collaborations with Weezer. But for purposes of this conversation, Met is wearing one of his many other hats, which include Columbia professor, non-profit founder, and as of this week, published author. He just released his first book, AMPLIFY: How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World, As you may have guessed from the title, it's about action and advocacy, including in the area of the climate crisis, for which Met is an ardent activist. He casually mentions hanging out with Al Gore here, which may be a Talkhouse first. The book aims to provide strategies for folks who want to do their part, which is a noble cause if you ask me. It features pop-culture names like Ben Folds and Jim Gaffigan, in addition to folks more known in the activism world. It's out now. The other half of today's conversation is Met's pal, comedian and internet personality Julian Shapiro-Barnum. An inquisitive guy by nature, Shapiro-Barnum recorded a series of internet videos over the years that were largely conversations with regular people, and during the pandemic he hit on the idea of chatting with children about how they manage to stay positive when everything seems so crazy. That idea became the very popular series Recess Therapy, which is as charming as it sounds—and, it should be noted, launched the “corn kid” into internet fame. These two jump right into a lively conversation about how music and advocacy can go hand in hand, about Julian's various shows, including Recess Therapy and Celebrity Substitute, and lots more. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Julian Shapiro-Barnum and Adam Met for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and visit Talkhouse.com for lots of good stuff. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the ⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠talkhouse.com⁠⁠⁠ to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠.

This week's Talkhouse Podcast is kind of a dream episode for me, because I managed to wrangle two of my favorite songwriter/performer/lyricists ever into a conversation, Matt Berninger and Alan Sparhawk. Sparhawk first came to my attention way back in the early ‘90s with his band Low. Over the course of 30-ish years, he and his wife, Mimi Parker, created an almost indescribably stunning body of work. The early days were characterized by slow, spare, minimalist songs, but over the decades, Low blossomed in a hundred beautiful ways, from stark, almost confrontational music made with Steve Albini to some of the sweetest pop songs you'll ever hear to their final incarnation, in which they organically integrated some harsh electronics. It's hard to believe they went so long and stayed so true, but they did. It's a pretty perfect catalog. Then, in 2022, Parker died of cancer. Sparhawk worked through some of his grief by pushing right back into music, first with 2024's White Roses, My God, a dense, electronics-heavy album that sounds like confusion itself. Now, just months later, he's set to release another album, this one called With Trampled By Turtles. The title references the Duluth band that backed him on it, and the songs themselves offer a much more clear-eyed, straightforward look at where his head is at. They're very different but both really powerful. Check out the song “Not Broken,” which features Sparhawk and Parker's daughter Hollis on vocals. I think Matt Berninger, the other half of today's conversation, feels as strongly about Low and Alan's music as I do: He's been listening since before his band, The National, had even come together. Perhaps you're aware of their history, but just in case: The National has been making incredible records since 2001, finding pretty huge success with cathartic, arena-sized songs that are still always grounded by Berninger's intentional, literate words. Just as with Low, it's impossible for me to pick a favorite record, but today it's Alligator, from 2005. But Berninger, like Sparhawk, has had plenty of side projects over the years, and his second proper solo album is coming out this week as well. It's called Get Sunk, and it feels like a sort of deliberate step away from any semblance of gloom, with Berninger writing about childhood summers and more innocent times. Don't get me wrong, these songs aren't without their emotional perils, but they do feel different enough from his main gig that you'll notice. Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, it's really great. Check out “Bonnet of Pins” from Get Sunk right here. Sparhawk and Berninger don't waste much time with idle chit-chat in this episode. They've both been through the mental-health wringer over the years, and they explore those low-lows with the benefit, thankfully, of some hindsight. Matt has some really insightful things to say about Alan's recent solo records, and they dive into their religious backgrounds with perhaps the funniest, potentially deadliest interview question ever asked on Talkhouse: “What are your thoughts on God and religion? Go.” Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Alan Sparhawk and Matt Berninger 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! Find more illuminating podcasts on the ⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠talkhouse.com⁠⁠ to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Twitter (X)⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠.

We close out the 10th season of Transmissions with a special look under the good with Justin Gage, who founded Aquarium Drunkard 20 years ago in 2005. Initially envisioned as just a place to share cultural recommendations with this friends, Aquarium Drunkard blew up as the blog rush began. Suddenly, Gage found himself running a respected media outlet. 20 years later, he joins host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss how Aquarium Drunkard has stayed true to the maxim of only the good shit. In this frank back and forth, the two colleagues share how an ethos that puts music and deep engagement with it at the forefront feels like a counter-cultural endeavour in this day and age, and how they've managed to keep in touch with the love of art that initially inspired Aquarium Drunkard. We hope you have enjoyed the 10th season of this show. Up next from Aquarium Drunkard's podcast department? All One Song, in which host Tyler Wilcox (Prairiewolf, Doom and Gloom from the Tomb) sits down with a musician to discuss a single Neil Young song. The podcast will appear in this very feed later this summer. You can read a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stream a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

This week on the show, something different: an extra-sized Transmission that's been locked in the vault for years, a two-hour talk with singer/songwriter Damien Jurado.  Way back in 2022, host Jason P. Woodbury sat down with Jurado in the recording studio at Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles for a career spanning conversation, exploring the stories behind his oracular visions, his history, and his collaborators, including the late Richard Swift. The idea was that perhaps the talk would be chopped up for a mini-series, but the project never materialized—and instead this revealing talk was locked away on a hard drive, that is until now, as the time has come to share it via Transmissions. Woodbury been listening to Jurado's music for about 25 years; first encountering his 2000 Sub Pop release Ghost of David, a haunted album of lo-fi folk songs. Years later, Jurado's sound bloomed into psychedelia when he began collaborating with the late Richard Swift for 2010's Saint Bartlett, which was followed by the Maraqopa Trilogy, a series of psychedelic epics. Jurado has been on a tear since—sharing a string of self-produced recordings that include 2021's The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, 2022's Reggae Film Star, and three albums in 2023, Sometimes You Hurt the Ones You Hate, Motorcycle Madness, and Passing The Giraffes. Recently, he's expanded the view of these albums with a series of demo collections shared also by his own label, Maraqopa Records.   Jurado's songs are worlds meant to be lived in, full of strange characters in dream states, caught between the static on flickering TV channels, and with this episode, the penultimate, which is a fancy word for “second to last” of our 10th season, we explore those worlds with the man himself. You can read a ⁠⁠⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stream a ⁠⁠⁠⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠⁠⁠⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

Today's guest is writer/director Natalia Leite. This director is one of the bravest filmmakers I've ever met. Her work on the VICE documentary ‘Life as a Truck-Stop Stripper was breathtaking. Not only did she direct the piece but one of the subjects in the film as well. Take a look below at her amazing work.Everyone knows what charming places strip clubs can be, but perhaps there is no club so charming as one in Moriarty, New Mexico—a truck stop with taxidermy and the bras of former employees on the walls, a few poles, a shitload of black light, and plenty of titties. Never mind that The Ultimate Strip Club List website describes it as the place “where strippers go to die.” Natalia Leite and Alexandra Roxo go Gonzo as they pose as strippers and experience something that can be best described as a Marina Abramovic performance crossed with a bizarro episode of Wife Swap directed by David Lynch's daughters, set in the type of place where a one-eyed guy who shot himself in the head dispenses meditation advice to two naked women.Natalia Leiteis a Brazilian writer/director. Her work has been described as having “a bracing, assertive style” (Variety), “emotional intelligence and sensitivity” (LA Times), and as “cementing the reign over highly stylized, sexually progressive dramas” (Slant).Her feature film “M.F.A.”, a psychological thriller centered around rape crimes in a university, premiered at SXSW 2017 and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. The film stars Francesca Eastwood and was released in theaters October 2017. Her feature film debut, “Bare,” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015, starring Dianna Agron.The film was released by IFC Films and Paramount Pictures. Natalia has created original content for Vice Media, most notably the provocative Vice show “Every Woman” which has garnered over 11 million views. She co-created and starred in the series “Be Here Nowish,” and has directed and shot documentaries internationally.Natalia is a contributing writer for Talk House and has been a featured speaker for NY Women In Film & Television, Apple Store Talks, IFP Filmmaker Conference, and numerous Universities. She also directs branded content for Vans, The North Face, Nasty Gal, and other companies. She recently signed with bicoastal production company Humble, her first commercial representation, and directs branded content for Vans, The North Face, and other companies.Enjoy my conversation with Natalia Leite.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast's spin-off series, host Nick Dawson sits down with iconic actress Lili Taylor, who just published her first book, Turning to Birds, a series of thoughtful, beautifully written and deeply human essays about her consuming passion for birdwatching. In an engrossing conversation, the two discuss how recovery and birding intersect, her love of naps, how nature has shifted her relationship to death, Nick getting barked at by a coyote in the Bronx, braving the acting version of the bends after finishing a role, her amazing way of releasing resentment, facing the unknown, how she's finding resilience and playing the long game as this country plunges into crisis, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

On the cover of Deerhoof's new album, Noble and Godlike in Ruin, is an image of the band's lineup—Satomi Matsuzaki, Ed Rodriguez, John Dieterich, and Greg Saunier—collaged together into one strange visage. Given that the album's title is drawn directly from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this cobbled together assemblage makes sense, but it also doubles as a handy metaphor for Deerhoof's identity as a band. Together, they equal more than the sum of their parts; working together in radical co-operation, they become  one art rock organism.  By the time most bands reach their third decade, they've settled into a groove, but Deerhoof seems custom built to resist static stasis or aesthetic complacency. Noble and Godlike in Ruin pulls from free jazz, prog rock, noise, and j-pop, resulting in a sound that is at once recognizable as Deerhoof, but nonetheless surprising, even to the band's members themselves. Focusing in on sci-fi futurism and some of the most directly political songs of the band's vast discography, it's a triumphant work that illustrates what makes Deerhoof one of the most fascinating bands in all of indie rock.  This week on the show, Satomi Matsuzaki and Greg Saunier join Jason P. Woodbury for a winding discussion about the new album, the current political moment, haute cuisine, the function of art, and at the very end—some Star Trek discussion. You can read a ⁠⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠⁠⁠ Stream a ⁠⁠⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠⁠⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we've got two old friends who've contributed more than their fair share to the emo world and beyond and lived to tell the tale: Evan Weiss and Chris Carrabba. Carrabba is of course the main creative force behind Dashboard Confessional, whose early albums—specifically The Swiss Army Romance and The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most—basically invented the genre's confessional acoustic-based era. He could've made those records a dozen times over the past 20 years, but instead Carrabba filled out Dashboard's sound over the years, stretching out where the muse took him. Now an elder statesman, Carrabba returned to that simpler sound but brought years of wisdom with him for 2022's All the Truth That I Can Tell, which he talks about in this great chat. Dashboard will head out on a long summer tour with Goo Goo Dolls starting July 13, but not before playing a show with Weiss's band in Vegas the day before. Weiss's band would be Pet Symmetry, a trio he's been part of for the past decade or so, and which just released an excellent new album: Big Symmetry is a big, loveable, tuneful set of songs that all start with the word “big.” It's a joyful blast of pop-punk that feels like a deliberate antidote to tough times. It may also be a bit of a reaction to what fans would consider Weiss's main band, Into It. Over It., which flies that emo flag a bit higher. But whatever, those tags are pretty silly when we ought to be talking about songs. Speaking of, check out the song “Big Wish” from the album Big Symmetry right here. In this wide-ranging chat, Carrabba and Weiss talk about the holiness of punk community, the accidental origins of Dashboard Confessional plus that band's long hiatus and rebirth, and how the financial collapse of 2008 had opposite effects on their careers. It's true! Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Chris Carrabba and Evan Weiss for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the other great podcasts in our network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the ⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠. Visit ⁠talkhouse.com⁠ to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠Bluesky⁠, ⁠Twitter (X)⁠, ⁠Threads⁠, and ⁠Facebook⁠.

Do you ever connect with an old friend and find that, despite however many years it's been, you pick up right where you left off, as if no time has passed at all? That's sort of what happened between today's guest, Dean Wareham and producer Kramer in the making of Dean's new album, That's the Price of Loving Me. You know Dean from his work with Luna and Dean and Britta, his duo with his wife Britta Phillips, but when Kramer and Dean last teamed up, it was for the recording of Dean's old band Galaxie 500's final album, 1990's This Is Our Music.  Intro-ing his own interview with Dean for Aquarium Drunkard, writer Tyler Wilcox says, “All these decades later, Kramer's skill for elegant arrangements (not to mention his keyboard skills) bring something special to the proceedings, giving Dean's musings on politics, friendship, mortality, Gibson guitars and airborne toxic events a sparkling backdrop.” This week on Transmissions, Dean joins us for a spirited discussion about the new album, movie matinees, guitars, his work with director Noah Baumbach, the influence of Lou Reed—and Dean's experiences meeting him—and what happens when you, what happens when you embrace the magic of the un-intended.  You can read a ⁠⁠full transcript⁠⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. ⁠⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠⁠ Stream a ⁠⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

On the latest episode of this new Talkhouse Podcast spin-off series, host Nick Dawson sits down with visionary writer-director Michel Gondry, whose delightful new film, Maya, Give Me a Title – a hand-drawn 60-minute feature he originally made just for his young daughter – is currently on the festival circuit. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two talk about childhood, him learning a sense of play from cats, the pivotal moment when he decided to work only on his own terms, taking David Lynch's advice for his 2015 movie Microbe and Gasoline, watching that same movie alone a plane, why people's fixation on the Bermuda Triangle is nonsense, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

This week on the show, the great Yuka Honda. She's a New York musician. In the 1990s, she emerged from the fertile New York music underground with Cibo Matto alongside groups like the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, and Luscious Jackson. She's collaborated with an extensive roster of musicians, including John Zorn,David Byrne, Yoko Ono, Sean Ono Lennon, and her husband, guitarist Nels Cline.  Earlier this year, we taped the conversation you're about to hear. Some of it ran as text in the Across the Horizon zine that was available at Big Ears Music Fest. What is Across the Horizon? Well, it's a collaborative series from Bob Holmes of Suss and Northern Spy Records gathering together like-minded artists drawn “from the wide landscape of instrumental music” (including Luke Schneider, Marisa Anderson, William Tyler and more) to curate a series of digital releases that will culminate in a double LP compilation of stellar sonic explorations on August 13th.  Under her Eucademix banner, Yuka has explored experimental electronics via two semi recent Farm Psychedelia EPs and her Across The Horizon contribution “A Long Slow Blink Before The Answer.”  In this conversation, we get into food, art, language, and much more. You can read a ⁠full transcript⁠ of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. ⁠Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. ⁠ Stream a ⁠playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions⁠, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the ⁠Talkhouse Podcast Network⁠. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

This week, a return appearance from William Tyler. As a guitarist and sideman, William has worked with the Silver Jews, Lambchop, and other forward leaning acts, balancing a deep understanding of tradition with experimental energy. His own records have found him drifting from Takoma School style finger picking to a zone that hovers in-between krautrock and country; in recent years, he's expanded even further, with incredible beat driven collaborations with Four Tet and the fried psychedelia of his full band Secret Stratosphere project.  His latest work is called Time Indefinite, out this week via Psychic Hotline. It's a strange and meditative record, and it's a new high water mark for Tyler. On this episode of the show, we toss out the script in favor of following Tyler's thoughts; like the indefinite time his new album references, linearity isn't always the focus in this talk. And while we touch on more than a few heavy topics, including addiction, climate change, and the sad state of satirical art, this one is an entry in our "hangout episodes" series, the DAW rolling along just for good measure.  You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests.Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

On this week's episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, we've got a pair of fantastic songwriters and friends who travel in the same musical circles, and who've both released disarmingly charming records recently: Clairo and Hannah Cohen. Clairo has been making music since she was a teen, and her songs and sounds have a remarkable depth and breadth of influence, from ‘70s soft-rock to more worldly sounds. Her early viral success pointed to a pop-star trajectory, but Clairo always seems to choose a more interesting sonic path over the more obvious one. Her third album, Charm, came out last year, and it leans into a bit of slinky groove more than she had in the past. Check out the song "Juna" right here. The other half of today's conversation is Hannah Cohen, who tapped a bunch of cool guests—including Clairo—to help out on her new album. Earthstar Mountain is Cohen's first in more than five years, and you can hear the care she put into it: It's an understated but deeply considered ode to her surroundings, the Catskills—and it sounds like that area feels. She made the record with her partner Sam Evian—a Talkhouse alum himself—at their upstate New York studio, Flying Cloud. It doesn't sound rushed, which is a topic you'll hear in this chat. In addition to Clairo, it features a guest appearance from Sufjan Stevens. Check out the song “Rag” right here. These two friends get right into a delightful chat that covers Cohen's record, including the mushroom that inspired its title. They also chat about how working on music with your romantic partner can be its own form of therapy, and they get deep into soundtracks toward the end, tossing around the idea of making one, even without a movie to hang it on. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:02 – Start of the chat 2:30 – On mushrooms and 'Earthstar Mountain' 8:55 – Cohen on making music with her romantic partner, Sam Evian 12:30 – "Artists are so in tune with things on whole different level" 19:20 – On the song "Rag" 24:45 – "Take what you need from [my] songs; find your own meaning" 30:05 – On soundtracks Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hannah Cohen and Clairo for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com, and be sure to follow and rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

That's right, we've got The Dude hisself: Jeff Bridges. This week on Transmissions, he joins us to discuss his new archival record, Slow Magic, 1977-1978. Listening to the record sounds like eavesdropping on the coolest Hollywood party you've never been invited to: Bridges and co. sound like they are blowing off steam more than making a proper record, their wild music sound, as Bridges' frequent musical collaborator Keefus Ciancia put it, “like The Band playing at CBGB With The Exploding Plastic Inevitable.” There are members of Oingo Boingo on hand, and Burgess Meredith delivering some bewildering and beautiful spoken word. Sourced from an old cassette tape, it was released on Record Store Day by our friends at Light in the Attic, featuring a great set of liner notes by the fantastic writer Sam Sweet, and it's a blast.  Film, music, art, Buddhism—in this conversation, we cover it all and get into some fascinating countercultural tangents, touching on Buckminster Fuller, John Lilly, Ram Dass, Captain Beefheart, and more. It's a fascinating talk and Slow Magic is a tremendous listen, so press play and abide. You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests.Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

This week on Transmissions, a return guest, the great comedian, writer, actor, and podcaster Joe Pera. Joe first appeared here on Transmissions in 2020 alongside his friend and collaborator James Wallace aka Skyway Man, and we've wanted to have him back ever since. This talk is a blast, covering everything from the beauty of Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport to representations of Catholicism in science fiction to Joe's experience seeing the late Mitch Hedberg live. Pera's TV show, Joe Pera Talks With You, ran for three seasons on Adult Swim between 2018-2021. Quiet and restrained but deeply funny, the show's gentle slice of life stories and meditative pace made it an utterly unique project. Joe's latest work includes the 2023 stand up special Slow and Steady and Drifting Off With Joe Pera, a podcast designed specifically to help lull listeners to sleep. In addition to standard episodes covering topics like pre-bedtime drinks, wind, New York City ghosts, and soup, there are extended 8-hour versions of episodes as well, allowing for maximum slumbertime engagement. Close your eyes and settle in: here's an episode of Transmissions you might be able to doze off to.  You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests.Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.

I hope you've been enjoying the last few weeks of the Talkhouse feed as we've been throwing some new shows your way. If you haven't checked out Summer Album/Winter Album yet, please do, and look out for new episodes of Nobody's Ever Asked Me That, featuring my esteemed colleague Nick Dawson, in the coming months, too. Today's episode of the Talkhouse Podcast features a pair of incredible songwriters in a lovely chat about the thing they love to do the most: make music. We've got Benmont Tench and Taylor Goldsmith. Tench, in case you don't recognize the name, is a founding member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and a guy who helped shape rock music for decades with the distinctive sound and feel of his piano, organ, and much more. Tench made music with Petty from the time they were 11 years old until Petty's death in 2017, but he's also contributed to songs and albums by a dizzying array of other artists, too, from Roy Orbison to Fiona Apple to U2. As you'll hear in this conversation, Tench is always playing music because he loves it so damn much. He recently released his second-ever solo album, The Melancholy Season, and it includes some playing from his friend Taylor Goldsmith. Check out the title track from The Melancholy Season right here. Goldsmith is best known as the singer of the band Dawes, whose Laurel Canyon-inspired folk-rock has been caressing our ears for the past 15 years or so. Dawes has gone through some personnel changes in the past couple of years, paring back to Goldsmith and his brother Griffin and releasing a new album, the fittingly titled Oh Brother just last year. Both Goldsmith brothers were hit hard by the Los Angeles fires, losing their homes and the majority of their beloved instruments. But Goldsmith, as you'll hear, is taking it in stride. In this conversation, Tench and Goldsmith talk about, again, their love of music: Tench even recalls telling his daughter that he loves her more than he loves music—the highest compliment he can pay. Both of these guys are pretty recent fathers, too, which comes up. And of course they can't get around talking about the genius of Tom Petty—and the accidental genius of Heartbreakers' guitarist Mike Campbell's shirt. Listen and you'll understand. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:24 – Start of the chat Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Benmont Tench and Taylor Goldsmith for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and in the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

Welcome back to Transmissions and we're going to start this week's show with a reading from Jennifer Kelly's review of the new Mekons album, Horror.  “Things are very bad, but then again, they always have been. That's Horror's argument in a nutshell, the 26th album from the legendary Mekons, a Leeds-born gaggle of instigators of punk rock anarchists that has been doing business for half a century now. It's a bracing thesis, enough to make you pull the covers off your head and stop moaning for a minute, because however insane and stupid and evil life becomes, it's oddly comforting to think that it's been this way for centuries...Though exacting and sometimes specific, [Horror] runs absolutely free of footnotes. Instead, its tales of ambition, colonialism, murder and pillage come wrapped in a bumptious swagger of rock ‘n roll noise—dipping into dub, country, punk, new wave and desolate torch singing to make its point." This week on the show, Jon Langford and Sally Timms of Mekons. They join us for one of the most directly political talks we've taped here for this show, as well as how current events shaped Horror, the gee-whiz space race imagination of America in the mid century, Judge Dredd, and much more. You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 

On the latest episode of this new Talkhouse Podcast spin-off series, host Nick Dawson sits down with veteran actor, director, producer and writer Griffin Dunne, who is currently starring in the family drama Ex-Husbands. Deviating from the usual, well-trodden interview path, the two talk about uncertainty, mortality, the complex nature of grief, driving cross country at times of great change, that time Griffin scared the living daylights out of Neil Simon, Nick's idea for a secret eighth day of the week, how Chekhov changed the course of Dunne's life and career, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

In this bonus chat, Talkhouse host Josh Modell speaks with the guys behind the great new Summer Album/Winter Album podcast, Craig Finn and Jody Avirgan. After our conversation, stick around for an episode in which they vociferously debate whether Vampire Weekend's classic Modern Vampires of the City belongs to warm or chilly weather. Subscribe to Summer Album/Winter Album Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

Welcome back to Transmissions, your weekly conversational series from Aquarium Drunkard in partnership with the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This week on the show, a long awaited return visit from Lonnie Holley. The Atlanta artist joins us alongside his manager, Matt Arnett, son of William Arnett, the Southern art curator and collector who brought Holley to the attention of the art world in the 1980s.  In those days, Holley often worked directly with trash—taking discarded materials to forge his sculptures. Philip K. Dick has said “the symbols of the divine show up in our world initially at the trash stratum,” and in Lonnie's case, that truth is made evident.  His art draws from what's thrown out—a theme he returns to often—but also from personal tragedy: first artistic project was carving headstones for his sister's two children, who died in a house fire in Alabama in 1979. Since then, his found-object assemblages, paintings, and collages have endeared him to the fine art world—they have even been displayed in the Smithsonian and the White House—in part due to the patronage and care of Arnett's father.  But the younger Arnett helped Holley get on the path he walks know, as an oracular sculpture of sound. Lonnie and Matt join us ahead of the March 21st release of Holley's new album, Tonky. Crafted with Irish producer Jacknife Lee (R.E.M., U2, The Killers) and featuring guests like Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, harpist Mary Lattimore, rappers Billy Woods and Open Mike Eagle, spoken word from Saul Williams, and others, Tonky rattles with blues-punk-industrial art folk anthems. We discussed the new album, Holley's poetic metaphysics, and his work with kindred spirit Richard Swift.   You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 

This week's episode of the Talkhouse Podcast came together by way of my colleague and friend Keenan Kush, who jokingly referred to the music of today's guests as "Keenan-core." We've got a conversation between the duos Kit Sebastian and Pearl & The Oysters. Kit Sebastian came together in London, but their musical (and even geographical) pedigrees are spread much wider. Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, now based in Turkey and France, play music that reflects their locations. Tropicalia and psychedelic pop flirt with an array of other influences to create something that sounds almost out of time. Their latest album New Internationale came out last year on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, and it adds Azerbaijani and some funk to the mix. Check out the track “Faust” right here. Pearl & The Oysters is also a duo with international roots, having moved from France over a decade ago to Florida, but ending up in Los Angeles. Jazz and Tropicalia also inform their indie pop, and they also ended up on a hip label run by another musician: In this case, Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw. Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack—sometimes known as Juju and Jojo—put out a great album last year called Planet Pearl. Check out “Side Quest” from that album right here. In this wide-ranging conversation, these two duos talk about their geographic moves and sounds, analog vs. digital recording, favorite filmmakers, and how one cold email kickstarted Kit Sebastian. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 4:34 – Start of the chat 6:43 – On Influences 13:02 – On Creative Processes 19:27 – On Recording styles 29:09 – Why did Pearl & The Oysters leave France? 31:56 – The DIY scene in Gainsville, FL 36:51 – On Musical Communities 44:22 – The London scene 51:38 – How one cold email kickstarted Kit Sebastian 54:32 – On musical educators 59:21 – Finding your voice 1:03:34 – On cinema and their favorite filmmakers 1:12:28 – How to interact with your audience Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Pearl & The Oysters and Kit Sebastian for chatting. If you like what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and arranged by Keenan Kush, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

This week on Transmissions, we welcome the phenomenal writer Lucy Sante to the show to discuss her latest book, I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition. Poetic, slyly funny, and exceptionally moving, the book joins her other classics, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York and Maybe the People Would Be the Times, as a piece of art that straddles the line between memoir, arts criticism, and music writing. We discuss those works, as well as Sante's recently published Six Sermons for Bob Dylan, which collects sermons the non-religious Sante crafted for a Dylan project that found Michael Shannon taking her words to the pulpit. Plus, we check in on her thoughts about transition, Dylan, fashion, the early days of music journalism, The Velvet Underground, A Complete Unknown, New York, and much more. And we've got a bonus component too: Scott Bunn of Recliner Notes stops by to discuss Sante's work and a recent look at the "guitar sculptures" of Yo La Tengo. You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard. Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we've got a pair of songwriters with plenty in common, but who came up on opposite sides of the world: Sharon Van Etten and Nadia Reid. Sharon Van Etten will be very familiar to Talkhouse listeners; we've been huge fans of her music from the very beginning, and have followed her—as many of you have—through her early days of more spare guitar songs to the fully fleshed-out music she's been making in the past few years. Her latest album was Van Etten's first to be written and recorded with a band, and that band has a name that it shares with her latest album: Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory. Working out songs with her band has resulted in a looser, somewhat more experimental Sharon Van Etten, but it's still unmistakably her voice and vision, which is to say it's fantastic. Check out "Idiot Box" from Sharon and the Attachment Theory's new record. Today's other guest, as you'll hear, is a friend of Sharon's from New Zealand, Nadia Reid. Reid has been making music for about a decade, and her latest album, called Enter Now Brightness, came out about a month ago—on the same date as Van Etten's new record, as a matter of fact. Though Reid is from New Zealand, you might hear bits of what could be described as Americana on her records, which are overarchingly gentle, subdued, and deep. Enter Now Brightness was recorded while Reid was pregnant with her second child, and these two talk a fair bit about motherhood in today's episode. Check out Nadia Reid's “Changed/Unchained” from Enter Now Brightness right here. In this chat, Van Etten and Reid talk about parenthood, including bringing your kids on tour—and Van Etten's son makes a brief appearance as well. They also get into how your band is truly like family and who's given them great advice over the years. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 1:59 – Start of the chat 4:07 – "I feel like the cards are stacked against [musicians]" 5:40 – On bonding with your touring band 8:37 – The making of Nadia Reid's 'Enter Now Brightness' 11:00 – Sharon Van Etten on good and bad days in the studio 12:47 – On writing "Seventeen" 14:49 – On parenthood 19:05 – Balancing kids and careers 22:25 – Bringing your kids on tour 25:09 – A special guest 26:28 – Who did you look up to (bands who brought their kids on tour)? 29:10 – "You're one of my heroes" Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Sharon Van Etten and Nadia Reid for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and in the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

Welcome back to Transmissions with Jason Woodbury. This week, Steve Lillywhite, a producer who's had as pivotal a role in shaping your host's musical taste as anyone. In this conversation, Lillywhite opens up about working with artists like Dave Matthews Band, U2, Phish, XTC, The La's, Marshall Crenshaw, The Killers, and more. From The Joshua Tree to Billy Breathes, from Before These Crowded Streets to Field Day, Lillywhite speaks about it all, the influence of dub, his production approach, and more. Lillywhite is somebody we've wanted to have on this show very long time, and we were excited to ring him up. Big thanks to Grayson Haver Currin, the incredible critic and writer you are no doubt familiar with, for helping connect us to Steve. You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 

On today's Talkhouse Podcast we've got one of those episodes pairing an artist you've surely heard of, pun intended, with one you likely haven't, but will. It's Shirley Manson and Stephen McCall. Manson is of course the singer for the long-running, Grammy-nominated, chart-topping, Bond-theme-performing band Garbage, which hit it big right out of the gate in the mid-1990s. Manson and her bandmates have assembled a varied catalog since, including the biting 2021 album No Gods, No Masters. As you'll hear in this chat, Garbage is still going strong, working on a new record that goes in kind of a different direction than the last one. Manson has always been a great talker; she even hosted her own podcast for a few years called The Jump, on which she talked with other musicians about the song that provided their breakthrough. She's a huge fan of music, so it's no surprise that she was excited to chat with today's other guest, Stephen McCall. McCall, like Manson, is Scottish—that's hard to miss—though he hasn't been making music nearly as long. His debut album under the name Constant Follower came out in 2021 and was met with loads of critical acclaim in Scotland for his quiet, heartfelt, frequently intense songs—think Bon Iver or Low or even McCall's favorite, Talk Talk. This week sees the release of the second proper Constant Follower album, called The Smile You Send Out Returns To You, another intense set that covers some of McCall's intense personal journey, including addiction, fatherhood, and the violent attack he suffered that still affects his memory. Check out the song “Almost Time to Go” from The Smile You Send Out right here. In this lively but deep conversation, Manson and McCall talk about that awful attack and how it led, eventually, to Constant Follower. They also talk about longevity in the music business, the creative process—including The Artist's Way that's become a frequent topic in Talkhouse chats—and lots more, including the time that Rivers Cuomo laughed in Manson's face—in a helpful way. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:25 – Start of the chat Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Shirley Manson and Stephen McCall for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by The Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

This week on Transmissions: Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, the duo behind the label and concert series Jazz Is Dead. Founded in 2017, Jazz Is Dead began releasing new work by jazz artists frequently sampled in rap and hip-hop in 2020, including releases from legendary players like Roy Ayers, Azymuth, Gary Bartz, Lonnie Liston Smith, Tony Allen, and more. On January 31st, the duo released JID022, featuring new music from 88-year-old Ghanian highlife and afrobeat master Ebo Taylor, and on April 4th, they will release JID023, featuring Brazilian vocalist Hyldon. Recorded in analog at Linear Labs, the Jazz is Dead series does more than pair younger players with established elders; it showcases the powerful link that connects musicians across decades.  As producers, musicians, podcasters, and much more, both Ali and Adrian are heavy hitters. Muhammad is of course known for his work with A Tribe Called Quest, Lucy Pearl, and The Midnight Hour, a duo with Younge. And of course Adrian is an accomplished musical force too, check out his work with The Delfonics, Souls of Mischief, Ghostface Killah, and Kendrick Lamar.  We taped this conversation in January, in the hazy, strange weeks after the terrible fires that tore through the city of Los Angeles. That's where our conversation starts—reflecting on history lost, and what it takes to preserve it, and also, why they don't necessarily think of Jazz Is Dead as an archival or preservationist project in the first place. You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 

The long awaited episode...for nearly a year... Find out exactly how Erica really feels about the last installment of the Crescent City series by Sarah J Maas. The Betches read it, reviewed it, and have a whole heck of a lot to say about it! Follow us on Instagram for previews of next week's episode and more bookish content! @books_n_betchesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this new spin-off series of the Talkhouse Podcast, host Nick Dawson introduces a new conversation format by setting out to ask questions that his guests have never been asked before in an interview. On the inaugural episode, he talks with Vera Drew, the writer-director-editor-star of The People's Joker, one of the most acclaimed and talked-about films of 2024. In this wide-ranging chat, Vera and Nick talk about dreams, shoplifting, addiction, recovery, first love, self-love, self-care, polyamory, anxiety … as well as horny audiences, toxic yoga instructors and idyllic meetings with Elijah Wood and Lilly Wachowski. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

Welcome back to Transmissions from Aquarium Drunkard. We're kicking off our 10th season with host Jason Woodbury in conversation with Will Oldham, the man behind Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who appeared on the very first Transmissions interview back in 2016. This episode flips a gentle and honest bird to The Big Online Machine: "Some people I think are fully integrated and are just ready to, if not officially upload their souls to the Metaverse, more or less do that. And those are people with whom we just don't engage and won't engage with in the future. And that makes it a little bit easier because we are tribalizing into those who are Metaverse citizens versus those who are citizens of the tactile universe, the experienceable universe with your full five senses and beyond."  Oldham's latest album is called The Purple Bird, and it's as close to a country or Americana crossover album as he's ever made. Though he's far from a stranger to western sounds, this new one finds him working with songs that resulted from multi-songwriter sessions in Nashville, facilitated by the record's producer, David Ferguson. Not only is The Purple Bird one of the most collaborative records he's ever made—it's also perhaps his most topical. It's all in here: death, life, sex, fear, guns, and nods to the divisions and stresses that plague so many of us in these strange days. But it's a big hearted and hopeful listen, too. In this conversation, Woodbury asks Oldham how the album took shape, and digs into Will's suspicions about online culture, the influence of artists like Phil Ochs and Steve Albini, his experiences in the studio with Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin, and why—all things considered—he would've worked with the late Phil Spector. You can read a full transcript of this conversation at Aquarium Drunkard, where you'll find 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Stream a playlist of bumper music featured on Transmissions, as well as selections from our guests. Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 

If you're a regular Talkhouse Podcast listener you know that we most often feature musicians on the show, but we're always happy when creative people in other fields share a chat, too—especially when they've had the kind of interesting careers that today's two guests have. Haley Joel Osment made a permanent mark on pop culture when he uttered the words “I see dead people” in 1999's The Sixth Sense, made when he was just 10 years old. The line still reverberates today: Just listen to Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us." Osment was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a psychic kid, and he has had a fruitful, relatively low-key acting career since—no scandals, no blockbusters, just a bunch of really interesting work. As you'll hear in this podcast, he's fully down to earth about his unusual journey—even ready to find a tiny bit of positivity in the recent L.A. fires, which completely destroyed both his and his parents' house. He's chatting here with his actor-comedian friend Matt Walsh, who's probably best known for playing Mike McLintock opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on Veep. It was the perfect vehicle for Walsh, who made his name as an improv comedian in Chicago before his troupe, Upright Citizens Brigade, which also features Amy Poehler, took their show to New York. Walsh is one of those guys who brings the funny to every movie and TV part he's in: If you don't recognize his name, you'll certainly recognize his face. The reason these two came together today is that a movie they co-starred in is just coming out: It's called Not An Artist, and it's an ensemble comedy about a group of artists who gather at a mysterious retreat—organized by no less than The RZA—to decide whether they're actually cut out to be artists. It's available on demand now. These two chat not only about that funny film, but also about Osment's experience with the L.A. fires, about Walsh's Chicago background, weird Airbnbs, the magic of David Mamet's dialogue and lots more. It's a good one, enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Haley Joel Osment and Matt Walsh 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 on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

We're going a little bit country again this week on the Talkhouse Podcast—gotta keep you on your toes—with a pair of Nashville singer-songwriters who share a sensibility, some history, and sobriety, as you'll hear. One of them, Margo Price, you've hopefully heard on the podcast before; the other, Lilly Hiatt, is a first-timer, but you'd never know it. Price was a critical darling right out of the gate, and for good reason: Her debut album, released by Jack White's Third Man Records, kicked some new life into country by looking both backward and forward. Since then, Price has released a series of great records as well as a phenomenal memoir called Maybe We'll Make It. Last time she was on this podcast, Price was talking to former Tom Petty sideman Mike Campbell about a collaboration they did. That's just the tip of the iceberg, and as you'll hear in this chat, she's got new music cooking, though nothing has been officially announced yet. Lilly Hiatt has a famous last name in the music world—her dad is John Hiatt—but she's cut her own path through Nashville, too. She rides a more adventurous side of the musical line, getting almost alt-rocky at some points. She's opened for everyone from Drive-By Truckers to Hiss Golden Messenger to the Mountain Goats, which should tell you something right there. This week Hiatt is releasing a new album called Forever, which is the result of some serious self-reflection and a different, entirely scrapped set of songs. The album was mixed by Paul Kolderie, known for working on early Radiohead and Pixies records. Maybe that'll also tell you something. Check out “Kwik-E-Mart” right here. In this lively conversation, Price and Hiatt talk about getting back into the game, about working with their musician husbands—Jeremy Ivey and Coley Hinson, respectively—and they talk at length about getting and staying sober in a town where that's not always so easy. I had never heard Nashville described as a “drinking town with a music problem” before. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:13 – Start of the chat 3:34 – Trying to stay in good health 9:36 – Finding balance in your work life 11:20 – Being married to a musician 16:06 – A day in the life 21:26 – On Lilly Hiatt's new album, 'Forever' 23:36 – On Nashville 26:36 – Favorite songs on 'Forever' 30:40 – On Price's upcoming record 33:05 – On sobriety 43:50 – Everything else on the horizon Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Lilly Hiatt and Margo Price for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff in the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

I'm stating the extremely obvious here, but the music business has changed a bit since I started listening to and even writing about music—in some bad ways for sure, but also in some that are pretty fascinating and welcome. You can complain all you want about lowered attention spans, but social media has allowed a lot of talented voices to essentially skip past all the gatekeepers and get right to people's ears. Take today's Talkhouse Podcast guests, Bayker Blankenship and Waylon Wyatt. They're aspiring country stars from very small towns—Livingston, Tennessee and Hackett, Arkansas, respectively—who found fans—and each other—via TikTok. Both started out playing covers of big hits, but quickly pivoted to writing their own stuff, too. Blankenship has had viral hits with sweet, simple songs like “Tennessee Sunset” and “Maxed Out.” The two of them eventually met up in Nashville, convenient to both, and to the music world, and wrote a song called “Jailbreak,” which lit up social media. Check out that song right here. These guys are much younger than your average Talkhouse guest—much younger, really, than most musicians who've gotten as far as they have, and it's fun to hear them chat about their inspirations and their goals, which seem pretty modest at the moment: good tours, being able to meet fans, eventually getting a tour bus. I imagine they'll have all that and more soon enough. They also cover a funny topic that I think more seasoned musicians have already dealt with—what to do when you're on stage and nature calls. And they both talk about an abiding love for their mommas, which I'm sure their mommas will appreciate. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:05 – Start of the chat 4:38 – Upcoming 2025 gigs 8:40 – What to do when nature calls on stage 11:14 – Timing your sets 12:14 – Tour logistics 15:36 – Reflecting on finding success on TikTok 19:45 – Takeaways from 2024 Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Bayker Blankenship and Waylon Wyatt for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the other great shows in our ever-growing network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

So picture this: It's 1994. The Pixies had been music-world darlings for half a decade or so, releasing some incredible records before fizzling to a stop. Their enigmatic singer, Black Francis, changes his name (again—his parents named him Charles Thompson) to Frank Black and embarks on a solo career that feels a little vexing at the time. His self-titled debut felt deeply connected to his old band, but for the next one, he struck an even richer songwriting vein: The songs kept coming and they turned into the double album Teenager of the Year, recorded with a crack studio band that included Eric Drew Feldman of Pere Ubu both as a player and producer. Teenager of the Year wasn't particularly well received upon its release 30 years ago, but it has slowly been recognized as a high point in Black's career, celebrated as his masterpiece by those paying the closest attention. It may not get the widespread attention that Pixies' Doolittle does, but the love it gets might even run a little deeper, both from its creator and his biggest fans. It's meaningful enough that Black and the original band that created it have just embarked on an anniversary tour during which they'll play the whole record, and it's being re-released on gold vinyl, a gold record that should have been. You can find dates online, they'll be hitting major US cities throughout January, ending in New York February 1 before heading to Paris and London. As a high school student, Paul Banks came to the Pixies via a love of Nirvana, and eventually found his way to Teenager of the Year, an album that—as you'll hear in this conversation—was massively important to him. Banks would of course go on to form the band Interpol, for which he has been the singer and guitarist since 1997. Their latest is 2022's The Other Side of Make-Believe, but Interpol has also been revisiting a beloved album recently, touring on the anniversary of their classic second record, Antics. These two have a great chat about Teenager of the Year here, plus they talk about Black's kids and their musical ambitions, lyric writing in general, and the time Black was asked to audition for the part of a serial killer in a David Fincher movie. They also get into some specifics about Teenager of the Year songs, including a great story about album opener "Whatever Happened to Pong?" Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:28 – Start of the chat 8:30 – Paul Banks on 'Teenager of the Year' 13:52 – The making of 'Teenager of the Year' 15:51 – How Frank almost became the Zodiac Killer (on the big screen) 18:10 – On characters in music 21:10 – On writing lyrics 24:15 – Film and book recommendations 28:22 – The formation of Frank Black's solo band 33:00 – On "Pong" and Pong 38:30 – Paul Banks on when he decided to become a musician 44:15 - The freedom of releasing music Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Frank Black and Paul Banks for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great shows on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

This episode originally aired on September 7, 2023. On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we've got a pair of musicians who create with an air of mystery, but who have a fantastically straightforward chat here: Ethel Cain and Adam McIlwee. Ethel Cain is a character created by Hayden Anhedonia, though one that's been sort of all-consuming. Anhedonia began releasing music under the name in 2019, finding her sound and her vibe over the next couple of years before releasing the absolutely epic Preacher's Daughter in May of 2022. The album, a concept collection about the life and ultimate demise of Ethel Cain, skillfully moves through sounds from a sort of Gothic Americana to slowcore to ambient sounds to who knows what, exactly, other than it's thoroughly engaging. The album was pretty quickly hailed as a masterful debut, and Cain found herself not only the darling of the music world, but with some prominent modeling gigs as well. As you'll hear in this chat, though, the spotlight has gotten a little bit bright for her taste lately. She's currently on the European festival circuit, though she'll head back to the States in October for sold-out shows at really interesting venues. Check out “Crush” right here. Cain and today's other guest, Adam McIlwee, go way back. He was an early supporter of her music, and appears on her Inbred EP under his most prominent alias, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. Though he started his musical journey as part of the pop-punkish band Tigers Jaw, he's moved in a dozen other directions since. He founded the emo-rap collective GothBoiClique back in 2012, which briefly counted Lil Peep among its members. As Wicca Phase, though, McIlwee combines synth-pop with more acoustic sounds and more hammering beats, depending on the track. His latest release under the name is self-titled, and it just came out in June. It's well worth checking out. In fact, check out “Moving Without Movement” right here. Now for two people who've created such interesting mystiques, this is a refreshingly down-to-earth conversation in which they talk about trying to carve out space as middle-class musicians who don't expect to conquer the charts with their music—but who'd love to be able to make a decent living at it. They talk about what to do when you hit a touring wall—this chat took place not long after Cain fainted onstage in Australia—and how great Vicks Steam Inhalers are for singers. Hey Vicks, you might have a couple of spokespeople here if you play your cards right. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hayden Anhedonia aka. Ethel Cain and Adam McIlwee aka. Wicca Phase Springs Eternal for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the other podcasts in our ever-expanding network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! ------------------- Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

One of the pleasures of putting the Talkhouse Podcast together is that the guests often leave their promotional hats at home and just dig into conversations about life, and that's definitely what happened this week with Matty Matheson and Jennifer Castle. Matty Matheson you'll surely recognize either as a superstar chef and restaurateur who appeared on a bunch of VICE shows way back when—or if not that then as a star and consultant on the hit TV show The Bear, where he plays the sublimely ridiculous Neil Fak. Matheson has lived several lifetimes, building a reputation as a wild partier in his youth, which eventually led to a heart attack at just 29—that's touched on briefly in this conversation. He's also authored a bunch of super down-to-earth cookbooks, including the great new Soups, Salads, Sandwiches—you can guess what that one covers. Matheson's connection to singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle goes way, way back. They met working in Toronto restaurants and became good friends over the years: Castle sang at Matty's wedding and she was a doula at the birth of his first child, a topic that comes up in this chat. Castle has been making music for the past 20 or so years, first under the name Castlemusic but more recently under her own name. Don't let the gentleness of her indie-folk fool you; there's a lot that cuts deep in her songs. Speaking of those songs, one of the songs from her latest album Camelot was featured in season three of The Bear—a great way for Matheson to help get the word out on the person he calls the greatest Canadian singer-songwriter ever. Check out “Blowing Kisses” right here. In this lovely conversation, Castle and Matheson talk about how music and food can both bring people together, but they get really excited talking about two other natural pursuits: childbirth and farming. (Matheson co-owns a farm called Blue Goose that you'll hear a bit about.) Matheson talks a bit about his family and his current book tour, and Castle shows off a touching gift that Matheson gave her many years ago. Enjoy. 0:00 – Intro 2:09 – Conversation starts 2:59 – Matty's airport adventures 6:12 – “Eat little shrimps!” 8:10 – Matty loves Jennifer's music, as you'll see 12:10 – Matty gets melancholy about their shared Toronto past 21:25 – The birth of children and the birth of Blue Goose 36:58 – Living the creative life Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Matty Matheson and Jennifer Castle 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 Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we've got a pair of performers—and also friends—who recently collaborated on a great single: Suki Waterhouse and Ashe. Waterhouse came into the public eye as a model and later an actress, but she's always had a passion for music: As you'll hear in this chat, she started recording songs before she had any notion that they might end up out in the world. Her slightly subdued Sub Pop debut came out in 2022, after which she had a sort of unexpected viral hit with an older song called “Good Looking.” A second album, the more upbeat Memoir of a Sparklemuffin, came out just a few months ago, and she's been on tour behind it while also juggling new motherhood. In fact, she Zoomed into this conversation while visiting her movie-star dude in Boston before heading out to play more shows. (You can Google the boyfriend if you must know.) The other half of today's conversation is Ashe, a Nashville-based songwriter who had a pretty big hit with her 2019 song “Moral of the Story” and another a couple of years later with Finneas, “Till Forever Falls Apart.” But the grind of success forced Ashe to hit the brakes on her career for a bit in order to regroup and hang on to her sanity. But a collaboration with Waterhouse lit the spark for Ashe once again, and she came back this year with a great record called Willson—and retook the stage to perform their song, “Pushing Daisies” at the Greek Theater. Check out that song right here. In this lively chat, Waterhouse and Ashe talk about the intensity of performing live in front of thousands of people, about how Suki is having fun playing the more lively songs from her new record, and about the need to not overschedule yourself, even when the pressure is on. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Suki Waterhouse and Ashe 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 Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

Narrated by Luis Guzmán, Sound Influence: The Art and Soul of Puerto Rico pairs stories from some of the Island's most exciting musicians, including Los Rivera Destino, Pachyman, and Andrea Cruz, with major artists outside of music, such as Hollywood film director Miguel Arteta, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jose Rivera, author Jaquira Diaz, and legendary EGOT Rita Moreno. Listeners will get to know Puerto Rico's incredible towns, cities, beaches, rainforests, mountains, bars, and dance clubs that not only shaped their work but ultimately influenced global culture. Sound Influence: The Art and Soul of Puerto Rico is a production of Talkhouse and Atlas Obscura, presented by Discover Puerto Rico. Tap here to subscribe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast we've got two guys with more than a hundred years of music-making experience between them and the endless stories to match: Tucker Zimmerman and Tony Visconti. You'll be forgiven if you don't recognize Tucker Zimmerman's name: The songwriter existed on the fringes of the folk scene in the late 1960s but in spite of acclaim from fellow musicians—including David Bowie, as you'll hear—he never broke out. That may be because Zimmerman left America for Belgium, where he's continued to quietly create music and write for the past 40 years. But you can only keep a secret like Zimmerman for so long, and Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker happened to hear one of his records a couple of year ago and was inspired enough that one thing led to another and Big Thief ended up creating an entire record with Zimmerman called Dance of Love, which came out earlier this year. It's an odd, beautiful collaboration that's well worth checking out. In fact, check out  “Burial At Sea” from Dance of Love right here; it features Lenker and Zimmerman's voices together. The other half of today's conversation is a legendary musician and producer who also had a lot to do with bringing Tucker Zimmerman into the public consciousness. Tony Visconti is best known for his many, many collaborations with David Bowie, with whom he worked closely over Bowie's entire career. Visconti has also produced records for T. Rex, Morrissey, Sparks, and way more others than I have time to list here. But for purposes of this conversation, we need to note that he helped created Zimmerman's Ten Songs album back in 1968, which they get into in this chat. They've stayed in touch over the years, and you'll hear the affection in their voices. Speaking of voices, the third person who pops up briefly in this chat is Tucker's wife Marie Claire, who also appears on the cover of Dance of Love and contributes some vocals. Elsewhere in this conversation, Tucker and Tony talk about their early adventures together, include an acid trip facilitated by a guy named Dr. Sam. They chat about Bowie, of course, and Tucker gets a chance to thank Tony for helping him out over the years—and how he's glad Tony didn't agree to produce an ABBA record when he had the chance. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Tucker Zimmerman and Tony Visconti 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. 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

Narrated by Luis Guzmán, Sound Influence: The Art and Soul of Puerto Rico pairs stories from some of the Island's most exciting musicians, including Los Rivera Destino, Pachyman, and Andrea Cruz, with major artists outside of music, such as Hollywood film director Miguel Arteta, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jose Rivera, author Jaquira Diaz, and legendary EGOT Rita Moreno. Listeners will get to know Puerto Rico's incredible towns, cities, beaches, rainforests, mountains, bars, and dance clubs that not only shaped their work but ultimately influenced global culture. Sound Influence: The Art and Soul of Puerto Rico is a production of Talkhouse and Atlas Obscura, presented by Discover Puerto Rico. Tap here to subscribe.

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!

We've reached the end of the road for this season—season 9 concludes with this episode, a conversation with Matthew Houck, the leader of the avant-country band Phosphorescent. In April, Phosphorescent released Revelator, the band's ninth album. It's their debut for Verve Records, after a string of well-received albums on Dead Oceans. Joined by collaborators like Jim White of the Dirty Three—who you heard earlier this season—Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs, and his wife and songwriting partner Jo Schornikow, it finds Houck examining—what else?—the end of the world.  If one theme has run through the last few seasons of this show, it's that of “apocalypse," or revelation. The veil, no matter how hard we try and keep it pinned down, keeps slipping away. Revelator finds Houck facing uncertain future, but also, leveling up. In its mournful ballads and genuinely hilarious odes to bathroom graffiti, you hear the voice of a songwriter probing the void: “And we've ridden beyond where we could safely touch down And we're out in the void, past where we could've had turned around I tried my feet on the floor, tried to beat on the door But it didn't even make a sound Got my heart open wide But the city been shut down”  But Revelator is no dour screed; it is in fact filled with hope and good humor. In this episode, he joins us to extoll the glory of “unnecessary” art, his work on Paul Schrader's new film Oh, Canada; and the multiple apocalypses afoot. This year, we launched AD as a subscription service, and the support and generosity of our fans and listeners has been powerful to behold. Over at AD, you'll find nearly 20 years of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts.  Transmissions will return in 2025. Take care of yourself, take care of those around you, and keep on wondering. We'll be back—be well in the meantime. This season of Transmissions is concluded. 

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

Welcome to the penultimate episode of our ninth season, featuring Pat Irwin of Suss. You may remember him from last year's Suss talk, with his bandmates Jonathan Gregg and Bob Holmes, but he's back for a solo talk this time, which allowed us to dig into his wild life in music, from his time in the the late ‘70s New York No Wave scene with The Raybeats and 8-Eyed Spy, to his work with Southern freak icons The B-52s, and his long career crafting music for TV and animation, including shows like Rocko's Modern Life and Bored to Death.  Things have been very, very busy on the Suss front. This year, Irwin contributed guitars, keyboards, harmonium, and loops to Suss' fifth album, Birds & Beasts. On top of that, Suss' Bob Holmes, who also hosts the must-listen Ambient Country podcast, has launched Across the Horizon, a collaboration with Northern Spy Records that brings on board various like-minded artists drawn “from the wide landscape of instrumental music” (including Transmissions guests like Luke Schneider, Marisa Anderson, William Tyler and more) to curate a series of digital releases that will culminate next year in a double LP comp.  Aquarium Drunkard is supported by our subscribers. Head over and peruse our site, where you'll find nearly 20 years of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. Next week on Transmissions? Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent.

Welcome back to Transmissions, we're so glad to have you tuned into this show. This week, a talk taped earlier this summer with Martin Courtney of Real Estate.  Real Estate has been releasing great albums since the late 2000s. This year, they released their sixth LP, called Daniel. Produced in Nashville by Daniel Tashian, who produced Kacy Musgraves' breakthrough Golden Hour, it's a mellow, refined sound—deeply rooted in acoustic ‘90s rock textures and dappled with pedal steel. It's a record about growing up, and accepting all that comes with accumulated time spent here on earth.  Reviewing the album for Aquarium Drunkard, Ian Grant of our Talkhouse labelmates The Jokermen podcast notes, “While critics have made a habit of harping on the (perceived) consistency of Real Estate's sound, less acknowledged is Courtney's evolution as a lyricist…approaching forty and a father several times over, his focus as a writer has grown far beyond the green aisles of his youth. Daniel finds the man in a contemplative state, concerned about the world and his place in it, questing after whatever degree of contentment any of us can hope for in a future of diminished horizons.” Aquarium Drunkard is supported by our subscribers. Head over and peruse our site, where you'll find nearly 20 years of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. With your support, here's to another decade. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. Next week on Transmissions? Pat Irwin of ambient country band Suss.

This week on the show, a double-header. First, Rosali Middleman, and then, her bandmate, collaborator, and the leader of Mowed Sound, David Nance. Together, they both play on Rosali's fantastic 2024 album, Bite Down. Reviewing it for Aquarium Drunkard, Brent Sirota writes, “A great summer album needs hooks and choruses, big barroom rave-ups and bleary confessions of both love and doubt. Bite Down, with its weathered Americana, has all of this in spades. But more than that, a summer record must feel lived-in. There's someone there, but there's room for us as well. We feel the actual life of an artist overlapping with ours for a spell. Nobody today really does this better than Rosali Middleman. She makes intimate, confessional music feel communal. You can't help but sing along.”  It's true—and Bite Down, her second collaboration with Nance and the Mowed Sound crew, has proved to be more than just the album of the summer—apologies to Brat. It turns out it's a great autumn album too. Of course Nance and Mowed Sound also have their own 2024 barnburner to consider: David Nance & Mowed Sound, released in February on Third Man Records, which takes the barband power of previous outings and adds a dash of distinguished polish. These talks were taped months apart—the Nance one was taped in April, Rosali's installment was taped in September, but both are loose, riffy, and openhearted. Aquarium Drunkard is supported by our subscribers. Head over and peruse our site, where you'll find nearly 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 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/aquariumdrunkard

Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. This week on the show, one of our favorite return guests: Mitch Horowitz. As scholar and historian of the occult, he's established himself as one of the most literate voices in the New Age field. On previous episodes, Horowitz has discussed his books, like Uncertain Places and Daydream Believer—but he's finally taking the plunge with a podcast of his own. It's called Extraordinary Evidence | ESP Is Real, a “limited series on the history, struggles, and proofs of parapsychology and the science of studying the supernatural.” The first episode is out October 30th, a presentation of the Spectrevision Radio Network, the podcast division of Elijah Wood's Spectrevision production company. It features music by Dean Hurley, another former Transmissions guest, known for his musical and sound design projects with David Lynch.  The podcast comes on top of Mitch's recent work on your TV screen—this year, he starred alongside podcaster and UAP researcher Chrissy Newton in Discovery's Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction, and on October 27th, you can see him in MGM+'s Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown.  How do UFOs and ESP connect? How did Horowitz approach creating his own podcast? And what do we have to learn from the skeptics who scoff at the mere mention of these topics? Mitch explores these questions and more on this week's episode of Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. Aquarium Drunkard is supported by our subscribers. Head over and peruse our site, where you'll find nearly 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 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/aquariumdrunkard

Welcome back to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions, this week on the show, we're joined by three guests—though, not all at once.  In the first half of the show: Mark “Frosty” McNeill of dublab and the LA Phil to discuss a new compilation he helped produce, Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971​-​1996; in the second-half of the show, Estevan and Alejandro Gutierrez, better known as Hermanos Gutiérrez just us to discuss their latest album of spacey guitar instrumentals, Sonido Cosmico. Assembled by Light in the Attic Records in partnership with the Kyiv-based archival label, Shukai, Even the Forest Hums offers music rarely heard outside of its homeland—a genre diverse compilation of Ukrainian music recorded under the USSR's reign and in the aftermath of its collapse, from post-punk to folk, from jazz rock to early electronic music, from downtempo hip-hop to oddball pop.  “Music has always pulled Ukrainians out of the abyss,” writes Vitalii “Bard” Bardetskyi in the liner notes. “When there is no hope for the future, there is still music. At such moments, the whole nation resonates under a groove. Music, breaking through the concrete of various colonial systems, is an incredible, often illogical, way to preserve dignity.” Mark “Frosty” McNeill takes us behind the scenes. Brothers Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez grew up in two words, splitting time between their father's native Switzerland and Ecuador, where their mother's family hailed from. On past records, they've evoked the imaginal expanses of Spaghetti Westerns through a pan Latin/surf/psychedelic sound for guitar and lap steel.  Their latest is called Sonido Cósmico. Joined by producer Dan Auerbach, they flesh the surroundings out even more this go-round, dialing in a song that's as suited for the desert expanses of Mars or the moon as much as any Sergio Leone film.  Estevan and Alejandro joined us to discuss setting their sights on the stars, channeling feminine energy via their abuela, and the intent that fueled committing their earliest musical efforts to vinyl. Aquarium Drunkard is supported by our subscribers. Head over and peruse our site, where you'll find nearly 20 years worth of playlists, recommendations, reviews, interviews, podcasts, essays, and more. Subscribe at Aquarium Drunkard.  Transmissions is a part of the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit the Talkhouse for more interviews, fascinating reads, and podcasts. 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/aquariumdrunkard