Beginnings

On today's episode I talk to musician Mary Timony. Originally from Washington DC, Mary began playing in bands in the early '90s, first with Autoclave, and after they broke up, with Helium. Between 1992 and 1997, they released two full-length albums, three EPs and several singles on Matador Records. After Helium split up, she released a number of solo albums, as well as albums with two other bands...

On today's episode I talk to comics writer Si Spurrier. Raised just outside London, Si had a number of different jobs before he began writing for comics. He started with the British small press, after which, he created a number of series for the beloved UK cult comic 2000AD. This success led to work in the American mainstream, which includes runs on Hellblazer, X-Men: Legacy, X-Force, The Dreaming...

On today's episode I talk to writer Chris Hedges. Chris is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. In addition, he writes a weekly column for th...

On today's episode I talk to TV writer and showrunner Steve Conrad. Originally from Ft. Lauderdale, Steve has been writing screenplays for over two decades, with his notable films including The Weather Man, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Secret Life of Walter MItty and Wonder. In 2015, he started developing one of the first shows on Amazon Prime, Patriot. Though it only lasted two seasons, it is ea...

On today's episode I talk to musician Chad Clark. Originally from Harlem, Chad moved to DC as a teenager, where he eventually became part of the DC punk scene. He formed his first band Smart Went Crazy while still in high school, eventually releasing two albums on Dischord, the second of which - Con Art - was named by Pitchfork as one of the best albums of the 1990s. After Smart Went Crazy broke u...

On today's episode I talk to journalist David Sirota. In David's long career, he has done a great deal of work both inside politics and outside, reporting on politics. In the early aughts, he worked as a political strategist and campaign advisor on a number of progressive campaigns, soon after transitioning to journalism, which included everything from a nationally syndicated newspaper column to i...

On today's episode I talk to musician Diane Cluck. Originally from Lancaster, PA, Diane began playing music in grade school. She started to perform publicly in New York in the early 2000s, in the same LES folk scene that included Jeffrey Lewis, Regina Spektor and Kimya Dawson, and since then has recorded and released over a dozen albums and compilations. Her latest Common Wealth was just released...

On today's episode I talk to musician Thurston Moore. Originally from Coral Gables, Florida, Thurston eventually ended up in New York in the late-70s, just as a vibrant musical scene was exploding, which included post-punk, new wave, no wave, jazz and numerous other styles. After playing in a few different bands, he met Kim Gordon and they eventually formed Sonic Youth in 1981. Over the next three...

On today's episode I talk to writer and director Silas Howard. Silas is an award winning director and writer whose recent work includes executive producing and directing on FX's Emmy-nominated series Pose. Other TV credits include directing on multiple seasons of Amazon's Emmy award-winning Transparent, NBC's This Is Us, HBO's High Maintenance, Netflix's Tales of the City, Apple TV's Dickinson, as...

On today's episode I talk to musician Owen Pallett. Since the age of three, Owen has been playing violin, and as a young teenager, he composed his first piece. This started him on the path to making music for a living. On his own, he's written and recorded a number of great albums both as Final Fantasy and under his own name. Additionally, Owen's written for and toured with a number of great bands...

On today's episode I talk to musician Tim Smith. From 1999 to 2012, Tim was the singer, guitarist and principal songwriter for the indie rock band Midlake. During his tenure, the band recorded a number of EPs and three highly-regarded albums Bamnan and Slivercork, The Trials of Van Occupanther, and The Courage of Others. In 2012 though, Tim left the band to pursue his own projects, and since then...

On today's episode I talk to rapper Psalm One AKA Cristalle Bowen AKA Hologram Kizzie. Originally from the Southside of Chicago, Cristalle was set to be a chemist before creating a hip hop album for her junior Creative Writing project. That album led to some meetings, and eventually she signed with Minneapolis indie hip hop label Rhymesayers. They released her album The Death of Frequent Flyer in...

On today's episode I talk to TV writer Brian Gallivan. Originally from the Boston area, Brian was a middle school language arts teacher before taking a risk to perform and write for a living, starting first with Boston's Improv Asylum and then, after moving to Chicago, with Second City. Since moving to Los Angeles, Brian has written for a number of shows including Happy Endings, Future Man, Splitt...

On today's episode I talk to musician Shirley Collins MBE (Yes, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire!). Shirley is an English folk singer, song collector and perhaps the greatest living embodiment of the musical threads that connect England with its history. In 1959, she assisted Alan Lomax on his famous folk song collecting trip in the Southern US, and as a significant presenc...

On today's episode I talk to actor and musician Josh Radnor. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Josh got his start in New York theater before being cast as the lead in the wildly-successful CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother in 2005. He has written and/or directed two films, Happythankyoumoreplease and Liberal Arts, and starred in two series since How I Met Your Mother ended: Mercy Street and Rise, and...

On today's episode I talk to musician Mac McCaughan. Mac is a singer, songwriter and the co-founder of Merge Records, one of the most influential labels in indie rock. As a performer, he's the lead singer and guitarist of the genre-defining indie rock group Superchunk, who have released 11 albums since 1989, including the most recent 2018's What a Time to Be Alive. On his own, he's released numero...

On today's episode I talk to musician Sabrina Ellis. Originally from Houston, Sabrina has been a mainstay of Austin indie rock for years. In 2008, they formed the indie rock band A Giant Dog, and since then, the band has released five albums, including a full-length cover of Arcade Fire's Neon Bible. Sabrina also co-founded the bands Heart Bones, with Har Mar Superstar, and Sweet Spirit. Sweet Spi...

On today's episode I talk to musician Andrew Becker. Andrew began his musical career with the post-Faraquet Dischord Records band Medications, drumming on their first few records before moving to New York to form the band Screens. But it was with his move to Los Angeles that Andrew began recording mostly on his own under the moniker Human Potential. He's released four albums under this name. I'm G...

On today's episode I talk to musician Sam Prekop. Sam grew up in Chicago and while he went to art school, forming the band Shrimp Boat sent him off in a completely different direction. When the band broke up in the early '90s, he formed The Sea and Cake with Archer Prewitt of The Coctails and Tortoise's John McEntire, and over the last two and a half decades, they've released 11 albums, the most r...

On today's episode I talk to musician Jason Williamson. Originally from Grantham, Lincolnshire, Jason spent several years pursuing music unsuccessfully both with various groups and as a solo singer-songwriter and working as a session musician with a number of bands including Spiritualized. It was when Jason met Andrew Fearn though and they formed Sleaford Mods that things started to take off. Sinc...

On today's episode I talk to writer Dave Hill. Dave is originally from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he was raised in a family of carnies, gamblers, hell-raisers and story-tellers. He spent over a decade traveling the United States and Canada as a union organizer before settling down in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and three children. He was a regular contributor to Grantland and a writer for t...

On today's episode I talk to musician Shamir Bailey. Originally from North Las Vegas, Shamir's music career took off relatively quickly after signing to XL Recordings at the age of 19. The push and pull between what Shamir wanted to do and what the label wanted him to do though eventually ended with them dropping him a few years later. After a psychiatric hospitalization, Shamir began making the m...

On today's episode I talk to musician, producer, composer and founding member of Deerhoof, Greg Saunier. After graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1991, Greg formed the band Nitre Pit, which a few years later became Deerhoof, and in the last 25 years, the band has released 15 albums on labels like Kill Rock Stars and Joyful Noise. Outside of Deerhoof, Greg has played with many ban...

On today's episode I talk to cartoonist Ben Passmore. Originally from Massachusetts, Ben has been writing and illustrating comics since he was a child. He's created comics like Daygloayhole, the Eisner Award-nominated and Ignatz Award-winning comic collection Your Black Friend, and BTTM FDRS with Ezra Claytan Daniels, which was published by Fantagraphics last year. In addition, he is a regular con...

On today's episode I talk to writer and stand-up Dan Levy. Originally from Stamford, CT, Dan has been performing comedy since he was nine years old, and while in college, performed stand-up as much as possible. This lead to him winning "Funniest College Comedian in America" at the 2001 Aspen U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, which jumpstarted his career. He's hosted shows on MTV, has his own Comedy Centr...