The J-Card Podcast

Natalie McCarty runs Gut Instinct Media, an indie publication with more than 50 writers around the world, and she joins me to talk about keeping it human without AI or brand deals, finding writers on TikTok, and how fronting a college band called Chiara’s Halo got her into PR. Her mixtape is the six most influential songs in her life, the ones she could talk about the longest, from Pearl Jam and J...

Canadian producer Ryan Hemsworth joins me to talk about Numbskull, his first solo album in eight years (out now on Topshelf Records), from making it late at night on headphones after long days with the kids to running it all through distortion pedals, with features from Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties, MSPAINT and Tegan and Sara. His mixtape is six songs that got him re-excited about the music...

Mike Hanford (The Birthday Boys, The Sloppy Boys, and the ghost of John Lennon on Comedy Bang! Bang!) joins me to talk about his very first stand-up special, Live in Toronto , from why he picked an intimate Toronto room in February to how a guy who threw up before every improv show ended up doing stand-up at all. The mixtape is six songs for walking around New York City in the fall, from the Rolli...

AC Mack, the Atlanta pro wrestler who became the first openly gay male world champion in pro wrestling history, joins me to talk about why wrestling is basically theater and what it was like to take on his own husband in his very last match. The mixtape is six songs AC would look back on from his deathbed, from Pastor Troy and André 3000 to Frank Ocean and Teezo Touchdown, all in chronological ord...

MK of mkay world is back to talk about the myth of the one-person billion-dollar company, why most video essays (and most vibe-coded apps) suck, and whether art is still not winning. The mixtape is six songs MK dances to at the gym, from Tiffany Day to 1010benja, so do a plank or something and enjoy my conversation with MK!MK on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mkay-world MK on Instagram: https:/...

Jeremy Shatan has been writing about music at AnEarful since 2009, and he’s also the guy who shot the Paul’s Boutique cover (no big deal). His mixtape is six underappreciated debut albums of the 2020s, all from artists with fewer than 500 monthly listeners, so dig in and enjoy my conversation with Jeremy Shatan! Jeremy’s linktree: https://linktr.ee/anearful The first ever AnEarful blog post: https...

Mark Whitby is a DJ on Dandelion Radio and FSK Hamburg, and honestly, the guy is a walking music encyclopedia. Dandelion Radio started right after John Peel died (they literally named it after Peel’s own record label from the 70s), and Mark’s been behind the mic there for almost 20 years now. He also wrote a book on Peel’s Festive 50 chart, which turns 50 this year, and he actually mailed a copy t...

Today’s guest is Will Schwartz. Will is a songwriter, novelist, and English professor, and he makes music as the male pattern. His new album, I Was Shot In The Heart! , is out September 25th, and a single off that album called “I’m a Soldier” is out now. Will and I went super in-depth on I Was Shot In The Heart! We talked about his approach to songwriting because as a novelist, obviously the writi...

Today’s guest is Joe Schaefer. Joe is a filmmaker, photographer, and video editor based in San Francisco, and someone I go way back with. We met working together at Complex in video production. Since then Joe has worked all over the world shooting and editing content about music, food, sports, and more. He’s also an accomplished photographer, and he even spent time working on Hot Ones. We get into...

Today’s guest is Rachel Cholst, editor of Rainbow Rodeo, a website, podcast, and physical zine dedicated primarily to queer country music. On today’s show, Rachel tells me about the origins of Rainbow Rodeo, the ups and downs of freelance music journalism over the last 15 years, and what it was like making the Country Pride show for SiriusXM. Of course, we also talked about her mixtape, which feat...

Cate Hukle makes darkgaze music in Portland, OR, under the name Kallai. Last year Cate released an album called We Are Forever, inspired by the aftermath of a tumultuous election and built around a mythic framework borrowed from a novel that gave the band its name. In our convo, we get into how that record came together and what the album’s title is actually referencing (hint: it has to do with a...

Bailey Blake is the founder and editor of Uptight Magazine, a digital music publication that reads like something out of a 90s newsstand. It features real profile writing, original photography, and a DIY ethos throughout. In this episode, we get into how Uptight came together, Bailey’s profile-writing process, and the highs and lows of running the whole operation. We also go through a mixtape that...

Arthur Alligood makes music as phoneswithchords, and his sixth full-length, High Up on the Wheel Well , is out now. This one’s a concept record built from childhood memories, which is a big concept to tackle, but we get into how that process actually worked. We also talked about how his mixer/mastering partner Nick Weber pushed him to slow down and take the longest he’s ever taken on a record. Art...

Rose Lewis’s multiple disciplines (visual art, music, radio, DJing, zine publishing, and more) are all tentacles of the same punk-infused, DIY jellyfish. In this episode we get into her band Love In Hell, her mostly-undocumented hardcore side project Pumping Iron, her print zine Scorpio Mind, and the DIY logistics of booking benefit shows in Portland. We also go through her mixtape, which is built...

Dylan Gamez has been recording as bedbug for a decade, and this conversation catches him at a pivot point. Part of that pivot is his new, more collaborative project, sit stay, which gave him a break from being “bedbug” for a while. Another part of the pivot is a conscious choice to start moving away from the cassette sound that’s defined past records. Those types of changes are only natural after...

(leave) nelson b joins The J-Card Podcast to talk sampling ethics, Lonely Ghost Records, and a mixtape full of deep cuts. Nelson has been part of the Lonely Ghost Records family almost since the label started, first as a solo artist, then through his ongoing collaboration with Superdestroyer ( Nelson Comes to Visit , Negative Thoughts About Myself and People I Love Dearly ). In this episode we get...

It’s the Season 4 Finale, featuring the one and only KaterFM! Kater is a Twitch streamer, playlist obsessive, and self-described “washed radio DJ” who accidentally built a music community by mishearing a Joyce Manor lyric. In our convo, Kater walked me through how she went from her college radio station to building a thriving, interactive music community across Twitch and IG. We talk about how Twi...

At its core, Josaleigh Pollett’s upcoming album If I Let It Quiet is all about distance. A process that largely revolved around immediacy and spending hours together ruminating over tunes was flipped on its head when Josaleigh’s producer, co-writer, and best friend Jordan Watko moved to Japan. They had to figure out what their creative partnership looked like with 8,000 miles and 14 time zones bet...

Darren Hayman has been making music since the early ‘90s, first as the frontman of Hefner, then through a sprawling catalog of projects including The French, New Starts, Hayman Watkins Trout and Lee, and Darren Hayman and The Long Parliament. In our conversation we covered his traversal through all those bands, and much more, including seeing Elliott Smith before he was the Elliott Smith. Darren’s...

Rob Feulner is the Marketing Coordinator at Duplication.com, the cassette and CD duplication company that’s been a cornerstone of underground music culture since 1989. In this conversation, Rob takes us inside the world of cassette duplication, from the massive tape-loading machines, to the team of artists and technicians who keep the operation running. We talk about the Montreal underground scene...

Jeff Jakobs is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter who put out his beautiful album Lorem Ipsum last fall. We missed the first wave of press, but Jeff was kind enough to join us to talk about how he assembled an incredibly talented group of players for the album (including folks who’ve worked with Big Thief, Andrew Bird, and more), how the recording experiences compared to his earlier work, The Milk...

Theatre people and music people have more in common than you might think, and Erin Davis is living proof. Erin is a Boston-based playwright, dramaturg, and theater administrator who grew up in Georgia, and has spent the last few years developing their play Honey Hole , a story about a young queer beauty queen in rural Georgia that started as a loose adaptation of the Myth of Icarus and became some...

Vince Alvarado is a NYC-based videographer and documentary filmmaker who left agency life to pursue filmmaking full-time. In this episode, Vince talks about the leap from advertising strategy to freelance filmmaking, the highs and lows of freelancing, and how sometimes gigs can come when you least expect them. Vince also shares a six-song mixtape that traces the music that shaped him, from alterna...

Since you’re a paid subscriber, you’re getting the full mixtape from our latest podcast episode. This mixtape is from Andrew Bennett (Jezus Factory Records) and Rudy Trouvé (Heaven Hotel), and you can find the tracklist below. Enjoy! 00:17 - “A Greater Loss Than Pain” by Kiss My Jazz 04:02 - “Leona” by Plano Remoto 08:00 - “Second Hand Clothes” by Pasmans 11:51 - “Torch” by Rudy Trouvé 13:43 - “No...

Belgium doesn’t always come up when people talk about underground music scenes, but maybe it should. In this episode, we sit down with Andrew Bennett, founder of Jezus Factory Records, and Rudy Trouvé, Belgian singer-songwriter and founder of Heaven Hotel, to dig into a world of music that’s been quietly thriving in Antwerp for decades. We also talk about the current state of music criticism, why...