Talkhouse Podcast

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got the guitarist-singer of a great young-ish band from Minneapolis in conversation with a hotshot guitarist who’s just starting to make a name for herself: Nathan Stocker of Hippo Campus and Yasmin Williams. Hippo Campus formed just under a decade ago, while Stocker and his bandmates were still in high school. They came out of the gate just as you might expect: eager and excited, releasing a series of EPs followed by a bang-bang pair of excellent albums and inspiring crowds at pretty much every festival you could think of. After touring behind 2018’s Bambi, Hippo Campus took some time to stretch their legs, with each member heading off into side projects of various sounds and sizes. But the band reconvened with fresh motivation and a clearer-eyed outlook last year, and they came up with a powerhouse of an album with the simple title of LP3. It’s slightly more mature in the best ways, but still incredibly catchy and true to their sound. There’s a lot of inward looking existential lyrics, but wrapped in fantastic hooks. It was Stocker’s idea to chat with guitarist Yasmin Williams, who he had recently come across via NPR’s long-running, always reliable Tiny Desk concert series. That performance was particularly captivating, because you’re not just hearing what Williams can do with an acoustic guitar, but you’re seeing it as well. She takes the foundation built by fingerstyle masters like John Fahey and Michael Hedges but brings a modern sensibility to it: In this conversation, she talks a lot about her love of metal and math-rock, bits of which you can almost hear in her beautiful playing. Williams has released two albums so far, and as you’ll also hear in this chat, she’s working on a third. The latest is Urban Driftwood. Williams and Stocker didn’t know each other at all prior to this chat, but it turned out that she’s a Hippo Campus fan. The two talk about gear nerd stuff, YouTube videos by Andy McKee, being in competition with yourself, and of course the inspiration for Williams’ interest in music to begin with: a little game called Guitar Hero 2. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, highly acclaimed actor Harry Melling and writer-director Amanda Kramer chat over Zoom from their respective homes in London and Los Angeles. The two recently collaborated as star and filmmaker on Kramer’s latest feature, Please Baby Please, which also stars Andrea Riseborough and Demi Moore and is the opening film at 2022 International Film Festival Rotterdam. In a wide-ranging conversation, Kramer and Melling touched on many subjects, from making Please Baby Please during COVID in Montana, to Harry’s love of dancing, why Amanda almost had a breakdown on set, actors’ misplaced obsession with playing real people, how Amanda expanded Harry’s love and knowledge of English cinema, 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.

This week’s Talkhouse conversation features a pair of indie musicians—one of whom is known a bit better for another career—who recently collaborated on a song, and who have lots to say about creativity and the current state of the music biz: Hrishikesh Hirway and Melina Duterte, aka. Jay Som. If you recognize Hirway’s name, chances are good it’s from one of his popular podcasts: The best known is probably Song Exploder, on which Hirway and a guest break down a single song, spending time to get at its component parts and to explore the creative process. (Perhaps it goes without saying that it shares some DNA with the Talkhouse Podcast.) Guests over the years have included Bjork, Spoon, St. Vincent—the list goes on and on. Song Exploder became a Netflix series in 2020, with Hirway acting host on the TV version as well. In addition to that, he’s behind some other great podcasts, including the fun pandemic-era food chat show Home Cooking, which he co-hosts with Samin Nusrat. With all of that on his plate, it’s easy to overlook that Hirway spent many years making gentle, melancholy indie music under the name The One AM Radio. That part of his life took a backseat to his other pursuits, but music called him back, and he spent some time over the pandemic recording some songs that he’s slowly releasing under his own name. The first was a collaboration with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and just this week came the second: a collaboration with today’s other guest, Melina Duterte, who’s better known by her project’s name, Jay Som. The two met because Duterte was a guest on Song Exploder, where she spoke about her song “Tenderness.” Though he didn’t actually host that episode, Hirway loved what he heard, and the two struck up a friendship that led to Duterte guesting on the touching song “Home.” If you like what you hear, the Jay Som catalog is thoroughly fantastic. Her last album under the name was 2019’s Anak Ko, but she’s spent time producing and collaborating with other folks over the past couple of years, including production duties for the latest album by Julia Shapiro of Chastity Belt—a recent guest on this very podcast. Jay Som’s music is often called “bedroom pop,” but after people hear this conversation, they may have to start calling it “attic pop,” since Duterte recently relocated to a private top floor of her own. Elsewhere in this conversation, she and Hirway talk about the hot mess that is the music industry, the software they sometimes use, and the alt-rock band that Duterte obsessed over as a pre-teen. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hrishikesh Hirway and Melina Duterte for chatting. Check out their collaborative song, “Home,” and be sure to follow them both—and Talkhouse!—on your favorite social media channels. See you next time!

For the first new Talkhouse Podcast episode of the new year, we’ve got an unlikely pairing—which is one of our favorite kinds of pairings. But it wasn’t exactly our idea to connect Michael Vincent Waller and Lex Luger, it was theirs. The contemporary classical composer and the extremely prolific hip-hop producer made a really cool record together that came out in 2021, called Classic$. Waller is not your typical classical composer, he’s a real musical searcher. His compositions range from avant-garde to minimalist to slightly more classic-sounding classical music. But over his career he hasn’t stayed in one place musically for very long. He made a record back in 2019 with electronic producer JLin, which you may have read about in an interview with the pair right on this very website. So maybe it’s no surprise at all that Waller didn’t let genre get in the way of his love for hip-hop when he reached out to Luger for an assist on Classic$—which I should note is credited to MVW, rather than Waller’s full name, in case you have trouble finding it on your favorite streaming service. The two collaborated on the music, as you’ll hear, and they brought in a bunch of voices to help flesh things out. Luger has had an incredible career in hip-hop. For the last decade-plus, he’s been a go-to producer for some huge names, starting with Waka Flocka Flame—who he connected with via MySpace—and Rick Ross, but running through tracks by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Snoop Dogg, among many, many others. He famously used to make hundreds of beats at a stretch: If you didn’t like one of his spooky trap sounds, he had a dozen others ready for you. I guess the place that Luger and Waller might intersect is that Luger’s beats often feature symphonic elements: They can sound, at times, like horror-movie scores. In this conversation, Luger and Waller talk about how working together affected them: It was more than just another job for Luger, who feels like he learned something valuable from Waller’s acoustic-first approach. They also talk about what music actually means to them, which is a very Talkhouse-friendly subject. They clearly want to work with one another again, which says something about the deep connection they made on Classic$. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Lex Luger and Michael Vincent Waller for chatting. Be sure to follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range.

This week we’re resurfacing a delightful episode that originally ran in April of 2020, and which features two of our favorite songwriters/performers: Matt Berninger of The National and Aimee Mann. Their chat was inspired by the release of an excellent documentary about Other Music, the revered New York record store that closed in 2016. The conversation veers into many other areas as well, including creativity during the pandemic. The challenges of the past couple of years were no match for these two: Berninger released a solo album called Serpentine Prison last year, and Mann just released Queens of the Summer Hotel, a set of new songs inspired by the book Girl, Interrupted. Enjoy, and we’ll be back with a brand new episode next week. —Josh Modell This week on the show, we celebrate the wonderful Other Music documentary with two Grammy-winning artists: singer-songwriter Aimee Mann and the National's Matt Berninger. The two discuss the iconic record store and the creative importance of having physical spaces dedicated to musical community, plus we hear how they're managing to work during the pandemic, and Matt reveals that he's both writing a musical and launching a label imprint. The Other Music doc features many wonderful artists that have appeared on our show — TV on the Radio, the Magnetic Fields, Superchunk, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jason Schwartzman, Animal Collective, William Basinski, Frankie Cosmos and more — this is truly a #talkhousecore film! Other Music is currently being screened via a "virtual theatrical release," with more than 200 independent record shops and movie theaters offering it to rent, and splitting the profits 50/50. This is a wonderful chance to support your local purveyor of brilliant art, and catch one of the must-see music films of the year. Click here to find your local favorite store or theater that's screening it! (Our producer Mark Yoshizumi rented it from his alma mater Reckless Records in Chicago; Talkhouse Film's Editor-in-Chief Nick Dawson supported Permanent Records in L.A., and I went with Record Grouch in Brooklyn, where I've spent many and many a happy hour amongst the hallowed racks.) Enjoy today's show, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast, including upcoming talks like Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) with the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, and Black Belt Eagle Scout with Sasami. —Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer This week’s show was recorded by Aimee Mann, Matt Berninger, Nick Dawson, and myself in our respective #stayhome studios. The Talkhouse Podcast's co-producer is Mark Yoshizumi. Our theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

We’ve hosted some incredible Talkhouse conversations in 2021, and for our final brand-new episode of the year, we’ve got two people responsible for some of the best records of this year: Julien Baker and Aaron Dessner. Baker released her third album, Little Oblivions, back in February, and it’s a doozy. Expanding her sonic palette massively, Baker delivered her powerful, vulnerable songs with much bigger sounds. That might have felt like a gamble, but it paid off massively—she produced it herself and pushed herself into new spaces. Dessner is of course a founding member of the National, with whom he’s played for the past 20+ years. While his main band slowed down over the past couple of years, Dessner has been operating at hyperspeed. He was one of the main co-writers and producers on Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums. He won an Album of the Year Grammy for the former, and was nominated for five more Grammys for the latter. He somehow also found time to release a new album with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon under the name Big Red Machine called How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? In addition to loads of guest singers, that record features Dessner on occasional lead vocals. These two have a fantastic conversation about creativity and, specifically, production: Aaron has done a lot of producing for other artists, and Julien is just getting into it. Julien talks about what it’s like to have a full live band backing her, rather than being a quote-unquote masochist and playing alone. They talk about what it was like to be deprived of live audiences for so long, and Aaron gets into how his studio setup has changed over the years. Also, they both know what it’s like when music can make you cry—that’s the kind of thing we love here at Talkhouse. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Julien Baker and Aaron Dessner for having such a wonderful chat. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service and social media channels--we’re everywhere. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan and Keenan Kush, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s Talkhouse episode features a pair of legends from the alt-country or country or No Depression or Americana worlds—you pick. It’s Jay Farrar of Son Volt along with singer-songwriter (and many other things) Steve Earle. Jay Farrar started his career as part of the seminal band Uncle Tupelo alongside another noted songwriter (and frequent Talkhouse guest) Jeff Tweedy. After their split, Tweedy went on to Wilco while Farrar formed the band Son Volt, which has since released an impressive catalog—their tenth and latest album was recorded during pandemic downtime, and you can hear it in the deliberateness of the songs. It’s called Electro Melodier. Steve Earle is one of those guys who makes you feel lazy. He’s not only an incredibly accomplished singer and songwriter with literally dozens of albums to his credit, he’s also a producer, an actor—most notably on The Wire—a novelist, a Sirius XM DJ, and as you’ll hear here, an aspiring TV show creator. His 2020 album Ghosts of West Virginia was spun off from an off-Broadway show he worked on, while this year’s J.T. is a tribute to his talented son, Justin Townes Earle, who passed away just last year. As you’ll hear, he’s got even more projects in the works, including a tribute to singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker. As you’ll hear, Steve Earle loves to chat, while Jay Farrar is a bit more subdued—a fact that these friends acknowledge right off the bat. But they get into a great conversation about their favorite subject: music—what they listened to growing up, the great shows that Earle saw as a kid, and even selling some weed to Leslie West of Mountain. Steve talks about missing the whole genesis of alt-country for good reason—he was in jail—but catching up with it, and with Son Volt in particular. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Jay Farrar and Steve Earle for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on all your favorite podcasting services and social media channels. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a lively conversation between some people whose relationship got off to kind of a rocky start, but who’ve since become friends: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and all three members of Mountain Man: Amelia Meath, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Molly Sarle. Now the occasion for this conversation is the recent reissue of the first Mountain Man record, 2010’s Made the Harbor, which features new liner notes written by Tweedy. This gorgeous, strange record was made back when these three women were just getting to know each other as college students in Vermont. Somehow, as if by magic—you’ll hear about that in this chat—their voices perfectly intertwined, and some of the very first songs that any of them wrote ended up becoming these timeless little gems. And then they went their separate ways for quite a long time: Meath ended up as half of Sylvan Esso, most notably. They’ve since regrouped for shows and more excellent music, most recently a live album called Look at Me, Don’t Look at Me. The members of Mountain Man first met Jeff Tweedy when they played Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival—and apparently snubbed Tweedy when he introduced himself. No offense was taken and a friendship was eventually formed, though as you’ll hear, Tweedy still finds himself a little intimidated in their presence. Tweedy’s latest entry in an incredibly prolific career is a deluxe edition of Love is the King, the album he recorded and released during the first part of the pandemic. It’s now getting a bonus disc called Live is the King, which as you may have guessed, features live renditions of these excellent songs. Tweedy and Mountain Man will meet again in person in January during Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky festival in Mexico. Presumably they will recognize him this time. In this funny, winding conversation, they begin by talking about seasonal depression, pivot quickly to a discussion of candy, and then move on to the serious business of creating music—and what that means to them. So we’ve got everything from Mountain Man’s magical discovery of their own voices—like a unicorn in the woods—to Jeff’s story about the time he thought he could lose weight by eating only Snickers. One minute, Amelia Meath is talking about sexy lumberjacks on TikTok, the next Jeff Tweedy is pining for an honorary Bachelor’s Degree. Won’t somebody give him one? We’re looking at you, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jeff Tweedy and Mountain Man for chatting. If you liked what you heard, follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and all relevant social channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

Hey Talkhouse friends, this week we’re re-surfacing an episode that originally ran in May of 2020. Unlike most Talkhouse Podcast episodes, which feature two or more creative folks in conversation, this one is mostly just one guy talking: Joe Talbot of the band IDLES. It was recorded in front of a live audience in Glasgow, just before the pandemic hit, and it’s a fascinating look at an incredible artist—Talbot is a guy who’s unafraid to put it all out there, in both interviews and in his music. Speaking of music, part of the reason we’re re-promoting this episode this week is that Idles just released another incredible album: Crawler is the British band’s fourth, and it’s unsurprisingly being met with pretty ecstatic reviews. Check out this fascinating chat with Joe and a live audience, and have a great Thanksgiving. —Josh Modell ---- This week's show is a bit different from usual Talkhouse Podcast episodes. While it's nominally hosted by the legendary Alan McGee of Creation Records — the man who signed The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and a lil ol' band called Oasis — it's not at all a two-person conversation. Instead, this episode features Joe Talbot, frontman of the incredible post-punk group IDLES, in one of the funniest, most viscerally honest live audience Q&A's I've ever witnessed. Both Joe and the attendees are willing to go to deep and often uncomfortable areas: Buckle up for a discussion of toxic masculinity, the role of violence in IDLES' music, and the difficult process of developing one’s own artistic language. We also hear about Joe collabing with Mike Skinner of The Streets, turning Sleaford Mods’ taunts into a song, putting human ashes into vinyl records, and... we even get an unexpected lesson on mindfulness. This Q&A was recorded at the wonderful Barras Art & Design in Glasgow. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast, including upcoming talks like Helado Negro with Buscabulla, Julien Baker and Katie Harkin (Harkin, Sleater-Kinney), Black Belt Eagle Scout with Sasami, and Scott Avett (The Avett Brothers) with Eef Barzelay (Clem Snide). — Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer Today’s show was recorded in Glasgow by Nadar Shahzad of Blue Audio (thx Nadar!). Our co-producer is Mark Yoshizumi. Thanks so much to Matt Sadowski of Alt Waves Records and to Barras Art & Design for allowing us to share this event. The Talkhouse Podcast’s theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a roundtable of old friends who are also, as it happens, all New York City legends: Cynthia Sley and Pat Place of Bush Tetras with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and director Jim Jarmusch. Cynthia and Pat — vocalist and guitarist, respectively — started the “groove-centric” post-punk band Bush Tetras in 1979 with Laura Kennedy on bass and Dee Pop on drums. They broke up just a few years later, but over the decades they’ve reunited periodically, and are back in action now — though, sadly, without Kennedy, who died in 2011, and Dee Pop, who passed away last month after the recording of this conversation. But as Cynthia told the New York Times, “Bush Tetras is a force that cannot be stopped.” Their pioneering work lives on, archived in a new box set called Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best of Bush Tetras, which came out on Wharf Cat last week and includes three LPs and a booklet featuring essays by Moore, Jarmusch, members of The Clash and Gang of Four, and many others. Thurston Moore was a founding member of Sonic Youth. Now based in London, he performs and records solo — his latest album is last year's By The Fire. Jim Jarmusch is the director of films like Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Coffee and Cigarettes, and so many more. He’s also a musician, and currently performs with the avant-rock band SQÜRL. As Cynthia says at the beginning of their conversation, they have about 40 years of friendship between the four them, but this is the first time all four of them have gotten to talk together. Their decades-in-the-making conversation covers a lot, including Pat’s influence on Thurston as a guitarist, Tier 3 and Mudd Club memories, and an era of New York when there were still chicken slaughterhouses on Prince Street. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Bush Tetras, Thurston Moore, and Jim Jarmusch for chatting. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, longtime friends and collaborators Rosario Dawson and Talia Lugacy sit down for a chat, on the occasion of the release of their latest film together, This is Not a War Story, the moving drama about combat trauma which Lugacy wrote, directed and stars in and Dawson executive produced. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two started off by talking about the recent tragic death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust and how it connects with persistent problems in both indie and studio filmmaking, and moved on to touch on everything from the human aspect of cinema, art as therapy and Rosario’s thoughts on directing, to their time as teenagers at the Lee Strasberg Institute with Scarlett Johansson and Hayden Christensen, the changing of the guard that is currently taking place in Hollywood, and the journey they have taken together, both creatively and personally. 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. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse Podcast theme music is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a little more focused conversation than usual, as Matthew Houck—the driving force behind the band Phosphorescent—chats with legendary songwriter Nick Lowe, largely about Lowe’s recently reissued 2001 album The Convincer. Even if Nick Lowe’s name isn’t super familiar to you, some of his songs almost certainly are. He’s had an incredible career that stretches back to the late 1960s, with his biggest mainstream moment coming via his dear friend Elvis Costello, who covered Lowe’s “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” and made it a hit. Lowe also produced Costello’s first five albums, as well as a bunch of other classic British records, in addition to his solo work and his time with the band Rockpile. Today’s conversation is focused largely on Lowe’s 2001 album The Convincer, which was something of an artistic rebirth for him. He wanted to age gracefully and continue to challenge himself, which he did with a trilogy of albums that ended with this one. It’s a beautifully written and performed set of songs that didn’t set the commercial world on fire, but which has quietly found its way into many people’s hearts over the past two decades. The song “I’m A Mess” is the reason for this conversation. Matthew Houck, who has been making incredible music of his own under the name Phosphorescent since the early aughts, is an obsessive fan of The Convincer, so much so that he’s been working on a cover of “I’m A Mess.” A mutual friend of Houck and Lowe’s sent Lowe a copy of the song, which isn’t available yet, and they chat about it here. The most recent Phosphorescent release is the BBC Sessions EP, and it strips a set of Houck’s songs down to their barest essentials—much of his studio material is far more gussied up, and this is a great chance to hear them naked. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Houck is a huge fan of Lowe’s, and specifically of The Convincer. They get into specifics about a bunch of the songs—and you’ll find out if Lowe agrees that this was indeed his finest hour. You’ll also hear about how The Bodyguard soundtrack changed Lowe’s fortunes forever, how his onetime girlfriend Margot Kidder made her way into a song, and how Wilco helped him win fans in Indianapolis. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Nick Lowe and Matthew Houck for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve put together a pair of tourmates—past and present—who are separated by decades but united by a deep respect of American music: Patterson Hood and Carl Nichols. Patterson Hood has been in rock bands since he was a pre-teen, and he’s been the co-leader of Drive-By Truckers since 1996. The band has explored the sounds and ideas of Southern rock—Hood is from Alabama—over the years, with sounds and lyrics that stretch the boundaries well beyond the world of Lynyrd Skynyrd. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Hood is a nuanced thinker and writer. You’ll also hear that, of course, on his records, both as a solo artist and a Drive-By Trucker. The band actually released two albums last year, The Unraveling back in January, and then its companion, The New OK, in October. Carl Nichols, aka Buffalo Nichols, toured with Drive-By Truckers in the past, and he’s in the midst of another touring opening for them now. Nichols, as you’ll hear, has an interesting musical history of his own—he’s been more of a genre jumper than his friend Patterson, playing in punk bands early on and then in the Milwaukee folk-ish duo Nickel and Rose. He just released his debut as Buffalo Nichols, and it takes a turn toward what Rolling Stone called “existential blues.” It’s just out on the venerated Fat Possum label. Nichols and Hood—that sounds like a great name for a duo, come to think of it—talk here about the protests in Portland, where Hood now lives; how Hood’s politics drove off a certain percentage of his audience; and a mutual love of Outkast. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Patterson Hood and Carl Nichols for chatting. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

This week’s Talkhouse conversation features a pair of performers who came up in the ‘90s, and who have followed each other’s careers since: Tim Burgess of the Charlatans, and Joan Wasser, aka. Joan as Police Woman. Tim Burgess has had a fascinatingly diverse career: He first came to prominence as singer of the Charlatans, who were part of the early '90s Madchester scene along with the likes of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. But unlike many of their contemporaries, the Charlatans have had a long and prosperous career, releasing more than a dozen albums in addition to Burgess’ solo output. This week sees the release of a massive Charlatans box set called A Head Full Of Ideas that spans their career and includes hits and rare tracks. In addition to the box set, a Charlatans tour that’s just about to start, and a solo album slated for next year, Burgess has kept himself busy through the pandemic with a fun concept he named Tim’s Twitter Listening Party. It’s simple enough: He coaxes other musicians to essentially live-tweet their own albums, and it’s resulted in literally hundreds of sessions with everyone from his UK contemporaries like Oasis and Blur to a session with Sir Paul McCartney himself. A hundred of those parties have now been gathered into a hardcover book, which also includes rare photos from the participants and lots more. One of those hundred is Joan Wasser, who also got her start in a ‘90s band—the Dambuilders—and subsequently launched an incredibly varied career. She was in Antony and the Johnsons for a bit, and she’s recorded a bunch of great records under the name Joan As Police Woman. The first of those, 2006’s Real Life, knocked Tim Burgess over when he first heard it—as you’ll hear in this conversation. Wasser is just about to release an incredible collaborative album that she made with Dave Okumu and Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen, not long before Allen’s death last year. It’s called The Solution is Restless, which is a pretty perfect title, and it’ll be out in November. These two have a great chat: Tim is super chill and loves to meditate; Joan is a total firecracker. They talk about how Joan’s album “knocked Tim for six,” the myth of Lou Reed—Tim met him as a fan, Joan toured with him—and how Tim, in addition to everything else, has a coffee business. Sort of. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Tim Burgess and Joan Wasser for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

For this week’s Talkhouse Podcast episode, we rounded up a pair of friends who deeply admire each other’s playing and songwriting—and who ultimately met because of a different episode of the Talkhouse Podcast: Kurt Vile and Julia Shapiro. Kurt Vile first came into music fans’ consciousness as part of The War On Drugs, though it wasn’t long before he decided to dedicate his time to his solo material. He’s released a string of incredible albums since, including 2013’s instant classic Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze and 2018’s Bottle It In. As you’ll hear in this conversation, he’s been hard at work, writing "too many" songs for a new album. In 2017, Vile collaborated with Australian singer Courtney Barnett on an album called Lotta Sea Lice, and it was Barnett who turned him onto Julia Shapiro and her band Chastity Belt. When Barnett and Shapiro chatted on this very podcast back in 2017, that sealed the deal for Vile, who became a huge Chastity Belt fan—and eventual friend of Shapiro’s. Now Chastity Belt, which started life about a decade ago in Washington State, has released four powerful albums over the years, most recently a self-titled set in 2019. But the occasion for this conversation is actually Shapiro’s second album as a solo artist. It’s called Zorked, a word that means kind of what you might think: extremely stoned, or maybe just completely out of it. That’s how Shapiro felt after moving to Los Angeles at the beginning of the pandemic, where her social circle was smaller and the world kind of closed in on her. The result is a weird, incredible set of songs Shapiro co-produced with her roommate Melina Duterte—aka Jay Som. That might sound a little serious, but Julia and Kurt have a fun chat here, talking about how they met, how Kurt mistook Chastity Belt for another band at first, how Julia once crowdsurfed at one of Kurt’s shows, and Julia’s love of TikTok. She even tries to convince Kurt to sign up. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Kurt Vile and Julia Shapiro for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcast and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters separated by a generation, but united by a serious dedication to the craft: Carl Newman and Liam Kazar. Carl Newman—aka. A.C. Newman—is best known as the gravitational center of The New Pornographers, the lark of a supergroup that he started back in 1997 but that quickly found great enough success that it became his main gig. As you perhaps already know, the band also features the prodigious talents of Neko Case and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, though Newman does the vast majority of the songwriting. The band’s latest album is 2019’s In The Morse Code of Brake Lights, but as you’ll hear—maybe for the first time?—in this conversation, they’ve spent part of the pandemic working on a new one. If that’s not enough, the band’s classic debut Mass Romantic has just been reissued on vinyl, and in November and December the New Pornographers will do a tour on which they perform both that album and 2005’s Twin Cinema in their entirety. Newman has also been spending some time on Twitter in the past couple of years, and that’s how he heard about Liam Kazar’s song “Shoes Too Tight.” Another Talkhouse guest from this year, Eric Slick, tweeted about the song, and Newman heartily endorsed it. It’s from Kazar’s debut solo album Due North, which came out earlier this year on Kevin Morby’s new label, Mare Records. And while it may be his first album as a solo artist, it’s far from the first thing Kazar has done: He was part of the Chicago collective Kids These Days, which also featured Vic Mensa, and he’s part of the band Tweedy with his pal Spencer Tweedy and Spencer’s famous dad, Jeff. But Due North is the first time that Kazar has been front and center as a songwriter, and he sounds like an old soul. Newman and Kazar talk a lot about songwriting on this podcast, and they also get into social media, Liam’s talented family, and lots more. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Carl Newman and Liam Kazar for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media channels. Today’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, Tiller Russell – the man behind both the doc series The Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer and real-life drama Silk Road – sits down with Oscar winner Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee’s screenwriting partner on BlacKkKlansman, Chiraq and Da 5 Bloods and a fine director in his own right om films such as C.S.A: Confederate States of America and The 24th. In a fascinating conversation, the two filmmakers discuss the parallels between their work, the theme of duality that runs through Willmott’s movies, making work that resonates in a post-January 6th world, how Errol Morris changed Tiller’s life, Kevin’s path to becoming Spike Lee’s collaborator, 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 this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a couple of friends who both happen to have new but very different projects out this month: Amber Tamblyn and Mac McCaughan. Tamblyn is an actor-writer-director-poet-activist with a wildly diverse resume. She may be best known for roles on Joan of Arcadia and Two and a Half Men, but that’s only the tip of a pretty incredible iceberg. She’s written well received books of poetry—including 2015’s Dark Sparkler. She directed the 2016 film Paint it Black, which features a score by today’s other guest. She’s one of the founders of the Time’s Up movement and the author of a book about feminism and activism called Era of Ignition. And now she’s starring the FX/Hulu adaptation of the comic book Y: The Last Man, in which every man on earth suddenly dies—except one. It’s pretty awesome so far, and she’s great in it. Mac McCaughan also wears many hats, chiefly as singer-guitarist of the long-running band Superchunk and co-owner of the righteously vaunted independent record label Merge. During the pandemic—after suffering a sort-of writer’s block—McCaughan wrote and recorded a solo album, though he didn’t exactly do it alone. The Sound of Yourself features a bunch of guests that Mac wrangled over the internet—one of the only good uses for that damn thing—including Mackenzie Scott of Torres, Michael Lerner of Telekinesis, and many more. It’s a quietly contemplative record that mixes McCaughan’s perfect pop with some more ambient instrumental passages—something he and Tamblyn talk about in this podcast. Elsewhere in this lively conversation, we get to hear about how Mac and Amber didn’t quite cross paths during the pandemic, when he graciously loaned his house to Amber, her husband David Cross, and their young daughter. They also chat about writer’s block, and whether that exists, what it was like for Tamblyn to play an ultra-conservative in Y The Last Man, and their other recent projects, which include the score for Amy Poehler’s movie Moxie (for Mac), and a bunch of new books (for Amber). They also connect about ambient music and the sheer power of Bob Mould. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a fabulous cross-generational conversation between two women separated by a good number of years but united by a punk spirit: Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s and Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz and Sad13. It’s no overstatement to say that Kathy Valentine has a massive place in music history as part of The Go-Go’s, who burst from the L.A. punk scene of the late ‘70s and into the musical mainstream in the early ‘80s. They were the first (and still only!) all-woman band who wrote and performed their own songs to top the Billboard charts, and their debut album Beauty And The Beat remains a classic to this day. It’s been an amazing career for Valentine and her band, some of which she recalls in her excellent memoir, called All I Ever Wanted, which came out last year. If you’re more of a viewer than a reader, there’s also a great Go-Go’s documentary on Showtime that covers the remarkable band’s career. This year—finally, after being eligible for 15 years—the Go-Go’s have been voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They’ll be inducted next month alongside Foo Fighters, Todd Rundgren, Jay-Z, Tina Turner, and Carole King. Good company. These days, Valentine lives in Austin, makes her own music when she’s not writing or doing charitable work, and occasionally gigs with The Go-Go’s. Sadie Dupuis lived in Austin very briefly—the two get into that—not long before she started the band that would launch her career, Speedy Ortiz, in Massachusetts. With Speedy, she’s released three albums—the latest is 2018’s Twerp Verse—and as Sad13, she’s released another two, including last year’s fully vibing Haunted Painting. She’s also released a book of poems called Mouthguard, and perhaps most importantly, she’s been dissecting every episode of the Gossip Girl reboot exclusively for the Talkhouse newsletter. Yes, you should subscribe. Valentine and Dupuis have a great conversation about everything from Sadie’s punk-rock parents—and her dad’s odd connection to the Rock Hall—to the Greenbrier alternative school to the soundtrack that Valentine created to go along with her book. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Kathy Valentine and Sadie Dupuis for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on all your favorite podcast providers and social media channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed by the Range. See you next time!

Comedian Joe Pera (Joe Pera Talks With You) and singer-songwriter David Bazan (Pedro The Lion) have elevated self-aware open-heartedness and detailed observation of humanity into, well, art. When David discovered Joe's show, he fell for it hard, and reached out to Talkhouse to see if we could arrange a convo. We loved the idea, and think you'll really enjoy the result. Joe and David discuss a lot, including: their granular writing techniques; appreciating the gentle joys of life, like wearing green hats on St. Patrick’s day; how some performers only achieve their maximum authenticity onstage; and why live performers must be doms. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a lively conversation between a pair of Nashville friends who also happen to be incredible songwriters and performers: Margo Price and Tristen. Price grew up in small town Illinois, but made her way to Music City and played in a couple of pop-leaning bands before giving into the allure of country music. (It can be hard not to, and she’s great at it.) After going solo, Price released a pair of albums on Jack White’s Nashville-based Third Man Records and built up a loyal fanbase with amazing songs and even better live shows. For album number three, she moved to a new label and engaged some incredible session musicians to help her out, including Benmont Tench, Matt Sweeny, Pino Palladino, and her old pal Sturgill Simpson, who co-produced. It’s called That’s How Rumors Get Started. Tristen also grew up in Illinois and made her way to Nashville, though her musical journey has taken her to more out of the way sounds than her friend Margo over the course of five albums. She’s one of those songwriters and performers absolutely beloved by other musicians, and for good reason. She’s a risk-taker in the studio, venturing out into unknown territory and pretty much always finding something at least interesting, and often incredible. Her latest album is this year’s Aquatic Flowers. Tristen and Margo get into it right away, talking about the financial realities of today’s music industry, how working with their significant others works, and “the trick of capitalism at its core.” That might sound heavy, and sometimes it is, but it’s also super informative and fun. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Margo and Tristen for chatting. If you liked what you heard, definitely check out their recent records—and of course check out Talkhouse on all your favorite social channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week on the Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got one of those fun conversations where the reverence is on full display from the get-go. When we asked singer-songwriter Beabadoobee who she’d be interested in speaking with for the podcast, she immediately responded Nina Persson of The Cardigans—one of her heroes, as you’ll hear. For those unfamiliar with Beabadoobee, she was born in the Philippines, raised in London, and found fame over the past couple of years via social media platforms like TikTok. Canadian rapper Powfu built his song “Death Bed” around Bea’s song “Coffee,” giving her a huge hit with what was essentially the first song she ever wrote. She followed that with a string of really strong EPs, and then dropped her proper debut album, called Fake It Flowers, in October of last year. It’s a fantastic set of fuzzy pop songs that clearly found a ton of inspiration in the music of the 1990s—bands like The Sundays, Pavement, Belly, and even Daniel Johnston have bandied about in reviews. Beabadoobee is hitting the road this year with her fantastic labelmates Blackstar Kids; you can see all the tour dates down below. And maybe if you’re listening closely you’ll hear a little bit of the Cardigans in there as well, another band that found fame in those alternative-nation days. The Swedish band had a huge hit in 1996 with the song “Lovefool,” whose chorus was imprinted on a generation, and released a string of excellent albums right up through 2005, when they went into a sort of semi-retirement, emerging occasionally to play shows. At the front of the band was charming lead singer Persson, who went on to form a band called A Camp, as well as release a solo album. She’s also, admiringly, enjoying not being all that busy. She plays the occasional show but also teaches and does pottery. Sounds nice. Bea and Nina had a really lively cross-generational conversation: You can hear the admiration in Bea’s voice, and the real interest from Nina about how things are different as a twentysomething woman in the music business now versus when she was topping the charts. They also talk about social media, Nina’s favorite moments from the Cardigans catalog, red pandas, and gross hotel rooms with shag carpet, sperm, and toenails. Yuck. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Nina and Bea for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platforms and social channels, and don’t forget to check out all the great written content at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s Talkhouse Podcast features a couple of names you almost certainly know, because each of these guys has had a pretty incredible career in music: Richard Marx and Jakob Dylan. Marx, of course, wrote and performed some of the most indelible pop hits of the late ’80s and early ’90s, including “Endless Summer Nights,” “Hold on to the Nights,” and the super smash “Right Here Waiting,” which comes up in this conversation. But even as the era of mullets and frosted jeans faded, Marx couldn’t be stopped—or rather Marx’s songs couldn’t be stopped. He’s continued releasing music over the years, and his influence can be felt deeply to this day: Just check out the audio and visual vibe of John Mayer’s latest album, which basically pays tribute. And it’s not just music: Marx recently released a funny, candid memoir called Stories To Tell, in which he details some of the incredible memories he’s made in the music business over the years. And that’s where Jakob Dylan enters the picture, as you’ll hear. Though the two didn’t know each other, Dylan went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to praise Marx’s book, and a friendship was born. Dylan is no slouch in the music department, either—you can’t be, with that family name. He’s been the main creative force behind the Wallflowers for the past 30 years, releasing seven Wallflowers albums, two solo sets, and criss-crossing the globe. The latest Wallflowers record, Exit Wounds, just came out, and its lyrics and vibe are reflective of the times we’re living in, which is to say it’s a bit harrowing but also incredibly catchy. A bunch of the songs feature Shelby Lynne on backing vocals as well, which is a great bonus. In this chat, the two songwriters talk about process, about how writing a book is different than writing a song, a special moment Marx recently dedicated to his ailing mother, and how Barbra Streisand has no regrets about not recording Marx’s biggest hit. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Richard Marx and Jakob Dylan for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service as well as all your favorite social media services. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a great conversation between two guys who don’t necessarily have a ton in common musically, but who approach creativity in similar ways—and who happen to be great fans of each other’s work: Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius, and composer-performer-multi-hyphenate Max Richter. Hadreas, whom you’ve hopefully heard on the Talkhouse Podcast in the past, has been recording and performing under the name Perfume Genius since 2008, and he’s one of those artists whose music just inexplicably gets better with each passing day—even when you think it couldn’t. His records are this incredible combination of fearlessness and joy, whether he’s singing about dealing with homophobia or just making bodies move. The latest Perfume Genius record, which came out right as Covid was entering the world’s consciousness, bears the fantastic title Set My Heart On Fire Immediately. Perfume Genius will start playing shows again next month; check out perfumegenius.org for dates. As for Max Richter, it would take far more than this limited space allows just going over his resume. From contributing to a classic Future Sound of London album back in the ‘90s through his incredible score for HBO’s The Leftovers to a dozen other things, the musician/composer has an incredibly full plate. He composed an eight-hour minimalist classical piece called Sleep, which was performed for audiences that were provided with beds and encouraged to, y’know, fall asleep. (It’s now an app, too!) His latest release, just out last week, is called Exiles, and it features a lengthy new track that he composed for a ballet alongside some reimaginings of pieces he’s composed over the years. In this conversation, Richter and Hadreas talk about how making music is about articulating what can’t otherwise be articulated, where to start when you’re working on a soundtrack, and the joys of being influenced by other music. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s episode of the Talkhouse Podcast began somewhere not particularly known for good or fruitful ideas: Twitter. That’s where the poet Maggie Smith dropped a funny notion, which songwriter John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats picked up and ran with. Smith, whose was in the process of splitting up with her husband, suggested a photo essay in which she’d take her old wedding dress on a tour of the country, Weekend at Bernie’s style, only the dead thing isn’t a guy—it’s her marriage. Never one to shy away from life’s darkest moments, Darnielle jokingly suggested—or at least it seemed like a joke—that there was a song in Smith’s idea, and he suggested calling it “Picture of My Dress.” And then, wouldn’t you know it, he went and wrote the song, releasing it on last year’s excellent album Getting Into Knives. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Darnielle came up with the song: He’s so prolific that it makes the average person—meaning me—really jealous. The Mountain Goats released two studio albums and a live album in 2020, and another new album this year, called Dark In Here. He’s also an accomplished novelist and served as a judge for the 2020 National Book Awards. Speaking of writers, Maggie Smith had the unusual distinction of being a poet who broke through to the wider world with a poem called “Good Bones” back in 2016. Last year, she released the well received essay collection Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity and Change, and just last month released a poetry collection called Goldenrod. All are well worth your time, and Smith is on a sort of virtual book tour at the moment: You can check out the details on that at her site, maggiesmithpoet.com. In this conversation, Darnielle and Smith talk about the unusual nature of their kinda-sorta collaboration, a delightful thing she calls “the cake sound,” John’s failed attempt at writing a song about NASCAR, and much more. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Maggie Smith and John Darnielle for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and/or your social media. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Jason Narducy is a Chicago guy, but he spends a ton of his time—or at least he used to—on tour, playing bass for both Bob Mould and Superchunk. In early 2020, a local theatre mounted a production of a musical called Verboten, which was based on Jason’s life—specifically his time as a pre-teen in a punk band. As a grown-up, in addition to providing the low end for those other great folks, he fronts his own band, Split Single. Under that moniker, Narducy writes the songs and recruits incredible musicians to record and play with him. For the excellent new Split Single album, Amplificado, Narducy once again asked Superchunk’s Jon Wurster to play drums, and he summoned the bassist from a certain famous Athens, Georgia band to play as well. That’d be R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, who fleshes out the Split Single sound with his bass and backing vocals on Amplificado, which the trio recorded here in Chicago before the pandemic ground everything to a halt. Mills has kept himself busy since R.E.M. split up about ten years ago, playing with the Baseball Project and playing golf, as you’ll hear. (He’s earned it, right?) In this conversation, he also talks about a long-gestating solo album, a project that incorporates classical music, and his rescue pooch. In case you missed it, Mills’ R.E.M. bandmate Michael Stipe was on the Talkhouse Podcast just six weeks ago—we’re two for four! Elsewhere in this conversation, Mills and Narducy talk about the pandemic, of course, as well as hope for the future, passing the baton to the next generation, and the majesty of working with excellent drummers—specifically Jon Wurster and Bill Berry. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. Thanks for checking it out!

Nick Murphy is best known for his downtempo electronic project Chet Faker, which is confusing because it also sounds like a guy’s name—but which released one of the best albums of 2014, Built On Glass. But as you’ll hear in this Talkhouse chat, Murphy put the Chet Faker name on a shelf at the height of its popularity in order to go in a more organic route under his own name. He subsequently released a pair of albums—including one initially through a meditation app, which is very 21st century and awesome. This year, he decided to bring the Chet Faker name and sound out of the attic, and he’s just released a killer new record called Hotel Surrender. And that’s where the Belgian musicians/DJs Stephen and David Dewaele come in. The two are the principal players in a band called Soulwax, but they’ve made a massive second career as a DJ duo called 2 Many DJ’s. Back in the early aughts, 2 Many DJ’s reignited the mash-up trend with a classic mix called As Heard on Radio Soulwax Part 2. That’s right, they incorporate the name of their band right in with their other lives as DJs. They also recently opened a studio called DeeWee. Oh, and did I mention that they’re super in-demand, Grammy-nominated remixers as well? They are. And they remixed a song from the new Chet Faker album called “Whatever Tomorrow," which is what brought them together for this chat. This intercontinental conversation—Murphy is Australian but lives in New York, the Dewaele brothers are from Belgium—gets into a lot of great stuff really quickly, including the confusing but smart way both acts can diversify, how Murphy initially found the whole idea of EDM distasteful, and a little something called “spacebar energy.” I won’t tell you what it is, but I’ll say that you probably want your songs to have it. 0:00 – Intro 2:23 – Start of the chat 5:20 – Live versions of dance music with drummers 11:28 – How Murphy initially found the whole idea of EDM distasteful 13:40 – "spacebar energy" and Chet vs. Nick 19:10 – "brick walls" 22:57 – How Soulwax work creatively 28:35 – Active vs. passive listening 34:38 – We're "naive romantics" 38:22 – "great people try and push you" Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Nick, Stephen, and David for chatting. Check out their various guises—you won’t be disappointed. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and special thanks to Keenan Kush for stepping in to record it. The Talkhouse theme song is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a pair of incredible young songwriter-performers whose music isn’t super similar, but who both embrace a sort of ultra-modern mish-mash of styles: Dorian Electra and Claud. Claud was the first performer signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ new label, Saddest Factory, after spending some time in a duo called Toast. Claud’s debut album, Super Monster, is most often described as “bedroom pop”—that term is brought up in this chat—but that’s only a small part of it. There are hints of all kinds of sounds here, from vaguely Latin-esque to pop-punkish on the delightful “That’s Mr. Bitch to You.” Dorian Electra has been at it a bit longer than Claud, having made a splash around ten years ago with playful, politically charged songs about money and gender fluidity, among many other things. Electra was featured on the Charli XCX track “Femmebot” a few years back, and in 2020 released their second album, My Agenda, which features everyone from Pussy Riot to Village People. Electra and Claud have a great conversation, tackling everything from the importance of Spotify playlists—which played a role in each of their success—to college to the complicated commercialization of Pride Month. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Liz Phair crashed into the indie-rock world in a huge way in the early ‘90s with her instant classic album Exile In Guyville, and she was already the talk of the town—in this case Chicago—before she had even performed publicly. It was an auspicious start to a fascinating career that went from indie-world stardom to Lilith Fair to composing for films and TV to a consciously pop-leaning album to a fantastic memoir called Horror Stories. And it comes full circle, sort of, with her new album Soberish, which she created with the help of producer Brad Wood, with whom she worked on her early albums, including Exile. Zella Day took a very different path in her music life, starting out very young—at age 15—trying to write songs and make it in Nashville. That led to a revelation that she’d rather perform herself, and eventually a record deal and 2015’s pop-centric album Kicker. She played Coachella and other huge festivals, but wasn’t fully satisfied with where she was artistically, as you’ll hear in this chat. After relocating to L.A., she fell in with a slightly more serious crowd, included pals like Lana Del Rey and Weyes Blood, and her music shifted a bit. She’s currently working on an album with producer Jay Joyce, and recently released a song with Natalie Mering of Weyes Blood called “Holocene.” Phair and Day hit it off right away in this conversation, diving right into a conversation about restarting their careers post-COVID—Phair’s dad is a retired infectious diseases expert, which gave her some unique insight—as well as the challenges of not giving too much of yourself during an album’s promotional cycle. They also tackle the meaning of the word “sober-ish,” which is pretty great. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Liz Phair and Zella Day for chatting. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week on the Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a special treat for the drummers and drum geeks out there: a conversation between Morgan Simpson of Black Midi and Bill Bruford of, as he says in their chat, about 101 bands. That number for Bruford isn’t too far from reality. Over a 40+ year career, he played with some incredible names in the world of progressive music, most notably Yes and King Crimson, but also his own projects, including Earthworks. He’s an astoundingly versatile and musical drummer, and we were delighted to hear that he’s still got his ear to the ground all these years later, as a fan of the relatively young band Black Midi. You can hear it in Morgan Simpson’s voice that he’s both pleased and excited to make Bruford’s acquaintance as part of the podcast—and it’s actually the first episode we’ve recorded in quite some time where the participants are in the same room with each other! Simpson pays Bruford the ultimate drummer compliment when he says that he can recognize his playing within a couple of seconds, and Bruford isn’t shy about his love for Black Midi. He even compares them—rightfully so—to King Crimson. Bruford himself actually retired from performing about 10 years ago, while Black Midi is just getting started. The band released their second album, Cavalcade, in May, and it’s a massively eclectic, fantastic collection of songs—a little more focused than their first, perhaps, but no less rangy and striking. They’ll hit the road for a huge tour this fall, kicking off with a slot at Pitchfork Fest in Chicago. Bruford and Simpson have a lot of fun, as you’ll hear, talking about other drummers—Phil Collins, Billy Cobham, etc—as well as the similarities in their own playing. If you’ve never realized that a snare drum could sound like you’re quote “being slapped around the head with a wet kipper,” then this conversation is for you. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks so much to Bill Bruford and Morgan Simpson for chatting. If you like what you heard, follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service, and all available social channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by the Range.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, former REM frontman Michael Stipe talks with veteran indie director Jim McKay about the production company they’ve run together since the late 1980s, C-Hundred Film Corp, and the amazing work that has come out of it. In a fascinating conversation, the two best friends not only walk us through the history of the company – its humble beginnings in Athens, GA, to creating PSAs with KRS-One and Natalie Merchant, and Michael making the *original* Orange is the New Black at the Sundance Film Festival back in the ’90s – but also touch on their latest projects (McKay’s new film, and the photography book which Stipe just published) and how the pandemic has affected them, both creatively and personally. 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 latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, director Edgar Wright chats with musicians Ron and Russell Mael of the beloved cult band Sparks, who are the subject of Wright’s deeply enjoyable new documentary, The Sparks Brothers. In a wide-ranging conversation, the friends and collaborators veer from gripping discussions about food to in-depth explorations of the Mael brothers’ longstanding love of their other creative passion, cinema, which finally resulted in Leos Carax directing their film Annette – which opens the Cannes Film Festival next month! They also discuss record-store hijinks, the genesis of past projects, compare notes on trailers, and much, much more. A veritable smorgasbord of an episode, it’s a real pleasure to listen to three people who so obviously relish each others company. 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. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

Meghan Trainor burst into the public consciousness with her 2014 hit “All About That Bass,” which was accompanied by a triple-platinum album and loads of subsequent success. Two more albums followed, as did judging roles on the British version of The Voice, and perhaps more important to this conversation, a singing competition called The Four, where she was on a panel with Sean Combs and DJ Khaled. That show is where Trainor first encountered the spectacular singing voice of VINCINT, who wowed her and the other judges with his incredible stylistic range, culminating in a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” that was all around the internet a couple of years ago. VINCINT has since released a bunch of songs, and he’s finally ready to drop a proper debut album: There Will Be Tears is packed with what sound like future hits, and includes guest spots from Tegan and Sara, Parson James, Qveen Herby, and more. You’ll be hearing a ton more from VINCINT this month and year: He’s going to be on the Today Show, as you’ll hear in the chat, and he’s headlining HBO Max’s Pride programming. Trainor is awfully busy herself, having recorded and released a holiday album during quarantine and, in bigger news, signed a huge cross-platform deal with NBCUniversal that will include a comedy series at NBC. But she was so psyched about VINCINT’s album that she made some time to chat about it with him, and about their favorite songwriters, mutual acquaintances, and advice on dealing with stardom. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by The Range.

Today’s Talkhouse podcast started with a little bit of serendipity in the form of album release dates: Both of our guests, Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast and producer/musician/former Vampire Weekend guy Rostam, have excellent records coming out on June 4. They’re also fans of each other’s work, so we figured it made plenty of sense to put them together. Zauner’s album, her third under the Japanese Breakfast name, is called Jubilee, and as you’ll hear in this conversation, it took a deliberate turn toward slightly happier themes than her first two. It comes hot on the heels of Zauner’s first book, a heartbreaking memoir called Crying In H Mart, that deals with her mother’s death—also a theme in her early music—and food, lots of food. It’s a really touching read, and an ideal companion to her musical catalog, which grew in really compelling ways with Jubilee. Rostam is best known as a founding member of Vampire Weekend, and even though he officially left the band a few years ago, he still contributes some songwriting and production work. He’s kept plenty busy otherwise, producing records and writing songs with an incredible array of other artists, from Hamilton Leithauser to HAIM to Clairo. His first proper solo album is the gentle, string-filled, fantastic Half-Light, which came out in 2017, and now he’s releasing Changephobia, which as you’ll hear ditches the string section and brings in a sax, among other things. These two jump right into a conversation that flits around from silly to deep: On one hand, they talk about childhood loves of chess and fencing and the importance of song five on an album. On the other, Zauner gets rightfully annoyed at interview questions she gets that other people don’t, and Rostam talks about being Persian in a band that was sometimes pegged as particularly white. It’s a funny, smart chat. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by The Range.

Chris Gethard is a comedian whose stories are often so serious and touching that they make people cry, and Jeff Rosenstock writes and sings heartfelt songs that are also witty and funny enough to make you laugh. So it’s no wonder that these two are friends and comrades in arms: From practically the moment they met, they could tell they were on the same page. Gethard has had a boundary-defying career that I’ll try and fail to quickly encapsulate here. He’s been a stand-up comedian, but perhaps more importantly the host of a public access show bearing his name that eventually ran for three seasons on a couple of different cable networks and was, to put it bluntly, kind of insane. He spun his stand-up into an off-Broadway show about depression, alcoholism, and suicide called Career Suicide, which later became an HBO special produced by Judd Apatow. Somewhere in there, he started several podcasts, the most popular of which is Beautiful/Anonymous, wherein he spends an hour with an anonymous stranger telling him their deepest secrets. I have yet to mention his books, his other podcasts, his appearances in movies and TV shows like Broad City and The Office, and more. The occasion for this conversation is the release of Gethard’s newest thing, called Half My Life, which is sort of a hybrid tour documentary and stand-up special that he recorded at ten venues around the country, including one with an audience of live alligators. It’s available on demand starting June 1. Jeff Rosenstock has been making music in various guises and with lots of people since the late 1990s, when he was in a ska-punk band called the Arrogant Sons of Bitches. He went on to greater renown in Bomb the Music Industry before launching a pretty incredible solo career, in which he combines super thoughtful, personal and political lyrics with catchy, genre-blending sounds. So maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise when, earlier this year, he released a song-for-song reworking of his 2020 album No Dream called Ska Dream, on which he re-recorded every track… but ska. He roped in amazing guests, too—from Angelo Moore of Fishbone to members of PUP and Deafheaven. In this conversation, Gethard and Rosenstock are, unsurprisingly, both funny and serious. They’ve got doubts about whether audiences will be there when they return from lockdown, but they’ve also got a relentless desire to create art and to do the right thing. It’s refreshing, and I hope you enjoy it. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme was written and performed by The Range.

Blake Mills has the kind of resume that might make the average person feel really lazy. Not only is he an active musician, but also a Grammy-winning producer (for Alabama Shakes’ 2015 album Sound and Color), a collaborator to the stars—including the likes of Fiona Apple and Bob Dylan—and most recently, one of the guys in charge of the legendary Sound City studio in L.A. Mills’ newest musical project is a collaboration with legendary bassist Pino Palladino called Notes With Attachments. Just prior to that, it was the Pitchfork Best New Music designee Mutable Set, from 2020. Nick Sanborn is half of Sylvan Esso, along with Amelia Meath. The duo recorded their third and latest album, the excellent Free Love, while they were constructing a brand new studio, called Betty’s, on their farm in North Carolina. The album came out in September of last year, which obviously meant touring was off the table, but Sanborn got plenty busy with production work, including helping to create the most recent Flock of Dimes record with recent Talkhouse guest Jenn Wasner. Since the album’s release, Nick and Amelia have kept busy, releasing videos, a killer remix of their song “Numb,” and a live album called WITH. And now they’ve rescheduled a big tour for this fall, kicking off at Bonaroo, where they’ll host the Super Jam. Check out sylvanesso.com for tour dates. Sanborn and Blake get right into it in this conversation, covering the intimate relationships that make for good records, the joy and trepidation about returning to public stages, and even how weird it is to do the Talkhouse Podcast. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse Podcast theme is composed and performed by the Range.

This week, we revisit a chat from last year, featuring Mac DeMarco and Dayglow's Sloan Struble. The second Dayglow album, Harmony House, comes out May 21. Check it out! ------------------- On this week’s show, a young gun picks a veteran’s brain. A youngish veteran, admittedly — Mac DeMarco’s only 30, but compared to 21 year old Spotify-wunderkind Sloan Struble, aka Dayglow, he’s already spent a lifetime in the music industry trenches. The two take in a lot in this conversation. We hear Mac’s origin story, and get a nice overview of his career. We get insight into what it’s like finding fast fame online in 2020, and the two dissect the term “DIY” and the changing definition of “indie.” Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. —Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer This week’s talk was originally produced by Mark Yoshizumi and Elia Einhorn. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse Podcast theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

The way that Mary Lattimore and Sarah Neufeld met is kind of a rock and roll dream. Lattimore went to see Neufeld’s band, Arcade Fire, before they were huge stars, and they got to talking. When Lattimore mentioned that she’d be moving to Philadelphia soon, Neufeld and her bandmates asked her to perform with them—so her first time playing on stage outside a more classical setting was in front of a huge Arcade Fire crowd, and it gave her the performing bug. Both Neufeld and Lattimore have released fantastic records recently: Lattimore’s Silver Ladders came out last year on the Ghostly International label, and it met with widespread acclaim. Sarah Neufeld’s brand new record, Detritus, was born via a collaboration with Canadian dancer Peggy Baker. Neufeld wrote the songs that would become this album to accompany Baker’s choreography, and she even went on the road to accompany the dance performances. She later went into the studio and, with help from her Arcade Fire bandmate Jeremy Gara, set to recording them. It’s an incredible collection that blends her primary instrument with ambient electronics, drums, and other sounds. In this conversation, Neufeld and Lattimore talk about the night they met and subsequent nights they don’t remember, a harp that lives in Prague, writing music to accompany dance, and how a harp might actually help induce labor in an expecting mother. Enjoy. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme was composed and performed by The Range.

It’s no secret that Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard deeply admires Norman Blake’s band, Teenage Fanclub. In fact, he’s called 1991’s masterpiece Bandwagonesque his favorite album of all time; he loves it so much that just a few years ago, he recorded and released a cover of the entire thing. With that album turning 30 this year, and with a fantastic new Teenage Fanclub album, Endless Arcade, out this week it seemed the perfect time to get the two together. For this conversation, the two old friends dive into what their pandemic lives have been like, which includes lots of songwriting and record collecting. They also talk about the joy that comes from being a lifer in the rock and roll business, how streaming has affected all of the above, and how deeply emotional a return to rocking is likely to be for both of them. Enjoy.

Merrill Garbus and Jenn Wasner released monumental records just a week apart this year: Tune-Yards fifth album—sixth if you count their score to Boots Riley’s film Sorry to Bother You—is called Sketchy, and it’s as puzzling and progressive as you’ve hopefully come to expect. Garbus and bassist Nate Brenner are never content to rest on their past glories: They’re always searching for new modes of thought and expression, and Garbus’ lyrics meld the personal and political into one fiery concoction. Jenn Wasner is best known for singing and playing guitar in Wye Oak, and she’s also released albums with Dungeonesse and solo style under the name Flock of Dimes, in addition to being a recent touring member of Bon Iver. It’s her Flock of Dimes project that’s garnering some incredible, well deserved attention this year, including a huge feature in the New York Times. It makes sense, considering that the album she’s promoting is so extraordinary: Head of Roses will be both familiar to her fans and unexpected, with new sounds, textures, and lyrical motivations. The story is that it’s an album about heartbreak, but it’s so much more. It's a great conversation between two great friends. Enjoy.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, we have two artists who recently became writer-directors after finding success in other creative fields: singer-songwriter Bonnie McKee and actor Carlson Young. McKee, a Grammy-nominated hit songwriter best known for her collaborations with Katy Perry, is now on the festival circuit with her powerful and very personal short April Kills the Vibe, while her friend Young, who broke through on the small-screen version of Scream in 2015, just made her feature debut with The Blazing World, which world premiered at Sundance this past January. In their compelling conversation, the two talk about their journeys behind the camera, their COVID experiences, making movies as a form of psychodrama, Bonnie’s upcoming music-inspired film project, Carlson’s recent nightmare experience with a moving scam, and much, 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.

It might feel like a lifetime ago, but it was just over a year ago in February of 2020 when we got new albums from both Tame Impala and Caribou. For Kevin Parker, The Slow Rush was his fourth full-length record following an extended break after Currents. Caribou fans had a slightly longer wait for Dan Snaith's tenth record, Suddenly. Now both artists have rereleases in 2021. Kevin Parker and company recently celebrated ten years since their debut record, Innerspeaker. There's a new behind-the-scenes short film chronicling the 2010 recording process, a box set, and an upcoming livestream performance later this month, April 21 (more info on tickets here), of the full album from the Wave House. Dan Snaith has also been in the news recently, releasing Suddenly Remixes, featuring reworked tracks by Toro y Moi, Four Tet, Floating Points, and others. This conversation, which originally aired in October of 2020, never has a dull moment and features the pair chatting about how and when they first met, having confidence as an artist, and their "de facto lockdown albums." Don't forget to subscribe to the Talkhouse Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. —Keenan Kush, Talkhouse Director of Operations This week's talk was originally produced by Mark Yoshizumi and Elia Einhorn. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse Podcast theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

Sharon van Etten and Jamie Stewart met a few years ago, when producer John Congleton recommended the Xiu Xiu frontman as a contributor to the singer-songwriter's 2019 album, Remind Me Tomorrow. Though their music isn't super similar sounding, each traffics in a kind of emotional honesty that's difficult to pull off but incredibly rewarding. Van Etten contributed vocals to the song "Sad Mezcalita" on Xiu Xiu's new all-duets album, OH NO, and the two chat about that collaboration here, along with the creative process, being open in their songwriting, and much more. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

In this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we hear from old friends Dan Deacon and the members of Future Islands. Both came up in the super fertile Baltimore scene, and both released new albums in 2020. Future Islands asked Deacon to remix their recent track "For Sure," and he took it to epic new heights, which they discuss on this chat—along with the reality of staying home during the pandemic, what their writing/road-testing/recording processes are like, and a brand new genre that they hope to create when this is all over. Sports Jazz! Enjoy. This episode was produced by Kevin O’Connell. The Talkhouse Podcast theme was composed and performed by The Range.

Two very funny people have a very funny conversation on this week's Talkhouse Podcast: Michael Ian Black and Jen Spyra. Black you probably know as part of the sketch-comedy troupe The State, or from his many podcasts—the latest is Obscure—or maybe one of his books, including last year's more serious A Better Man. Jen Spyra just released her first book, a collection of darkly hilarious short stories called Big Time. The two were fans of each other's work before their chat, but you can hear them get to know each other better. They talk about their writing processes, self-doubt, Michael's poker playing and Cameo birthday-ing, and lots more. Enjoy.

Andrew Bird and Jimbo Mathus have known each other for decades, going back to the beginning of Bird's solo career and Mathus' earliest days with Squirrel Nut Zippers. Most of their work together has been assistive—Bird would add his fiddle to the Zippers' records, and Mathus would return the favor with some horns. But a couple of years back, the old friends decided to write some songs together, and the result is These 13, a truly collaborative album featuring just their voices, guitar, and fiddle, for the most part. It's spare and surprising. In this Talkhouse conversation, they chat about the old days and the new, as well as a shared love of Charley Patton. Enjoy. —Josh Modell, Executive Editor This episode was produced by Kevin O'Connell. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

Todd Rundgren is a legendary musician and producer whose list of credits is impressive as the man himself is down to earth. He had his own string of pop hits—including the novelty song “Bang on the Drum All Day”—and experimental albums, both as a solo artist and with the Nazz. He produced Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, as well as New York Dolls’ self-titled debut, one of the most influential. This month, he’s been on the “Clearly Human” tour, which—due to obvious reasons—is all virtual. As a tech pioneer, he’s doing things a bit different, as you’ll hear in the podcast. Eric Slick is a fellow Philly boy and longtime fan of Rundgren’s who was excited to chat with him. Slick is best known as the drummer in the excellent Dr. Dog, and he’s also a frequent Talkhouse contributor. If that’s not enough, Slick recently released a magnificent solo record called Wiseacre. The two chat about making records, playing shows, and—of course—a certain former president. This episode was produced by Kevin O’Connell. The Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range.

Mike Ness and Ben Nichols both front bands that blur the already-blurry genre lines between punk, Americana, country, and more—so it's no surprise that the two get along. Nichols' band, Lucero, opened for Ness' band, Social Distortion, on a tour about a decade ago, and the two hit it off. Since then, Lucero returned the favor by taking out Jade Jackson's band—which features Ness' son Julian on guitar. The occasion for this Talkhouse conversation is the release of Lucero's newest album, When You Found Me. The two songwriters talk about their craft, their kids, and how to write a song that makes a statement without getting political. —Josh Modell, Executive Editor This episode was produced by Kevin O’Connell. The Talkhouse Podcast theme was composed and performed by The Range.

Tamara Lindeman and Julia Jacklin are spending the pandemic thousands of miles away from each other, but you’d never know if from the closeness of this Talkhouse chat. Lindeman, who’s based in Canada, just released her fifth album as The Weather Station—and Ignorance is already making waves. It got the coveted Best New Music designation from Pitchfork, as well as a five-star review in The Guardian, both well deserved. Jacklin, who’s from Australia, finished touring her last album, Crushing, not long before the lockdown hit. Here, they discuss the ins and outs of how much they share in their songs, what they’re looking forward to when normalcy returns, and Joni Mitchell. This episode was produced by Kevin O’Connell. The Talkhouse Podcast theme was composed and performed by The Range.

In the third episode of McIntosh's "for the love of music..." podcast series presented by Talkhouse, Elia Einhorn spoke with one of the most recognizable names in popular jazz and soul: Gregory Porter. Gregory has been using his powerful baritone on both Broadway and concert stages for decades. His smooth take on classic American pop forms has earned him critical accolades, and fans the world over. The multiple Grammy-winning singer-songwriter has long had an intense touring schedule, and while the pandemic has forced him off the road, he’s been staying very busy. Gregory has a podcast of his own—called The Hang—and recently released a new album of original music, All Rise, which was nominated for Best R&B Album at this year’s Grammys. In this episode, Gregory talks about writing songs in the sky, English accents in gospel music, recording in some of the coolest studios in the world, and much more.