And Introducing

Oops! We podded again. We are ever so slightly back with a fresh episode on…Britney Spears’ ‘The Woman In Me’! Along with Black Bubblegum Podcast’s Jasmine Danielle, we get into Brit’s chaotic Southern Gothic childhood, her ‘cosmic consciousness’ and paranormal experiences, her misguidedly Method acting for Crossroads, and the conservatorship that almost took her down. Listen to Black Bubblegum Po...

And Introducing film correspondent, Blank Check pod & the Atlantic’s David Sims returns for two more recent musician biopics: James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown & Michael Gracey’s Better Man. Two very different movies about very different musicians that nonetheless explore similar themes on the nature of fame, talent & musicianship. We talk Timmy, Bobby, Robbie & more, and see if there’s still jui...

Welcome to the Willenium, baby! We’re joined by YouTube’s Todd in the Shadows to look at the musical career of Will Smith. From growing up under the influence of his demanding father, to discovering his performing (and lying) abilities in school, clicking with Jazzy Jeff, indulging in “chicken wings,” his super-star turn to acting & extremely self-conscious return to hip-hop, we track Will’s music...

And introducing…on lead vocals, it’s Serj Tankian! We delve into the life of turn of the millennium metal icons System of a Down’s frontman Serj Tankian. Repping Armenia via Glendale, Serj’s life covers everything from founding software companies to composing whale-themed orchestras. We look into his politics, nu-metal in general, a passion for espresso, his signature growls and yelps, and revolut...

It's part 2 of our excavation of Phil Collins' memoir Not Dead Yet: The Memoir. We've reached the mid-1980s and the boy is absolutely everywhere...can he sustain the breakneck pace of being one of the most celebrated (and oversaturated) Brits in pop music history? We cover his stressful transcontinental Live Aid experience, his Disneyfied '90s, his vibrant but turbulent romantic life, his big band...

I can feel it coming ON the air tonight...a podcast about Phil Collins. Well, the first part of a podcast about Phil Collins. We're talking about his child actor youth, his mod adolescence, his rock 'n' roll grindset that got him a slot in Genesis, his scoot from the drumset to the front of the stage after Peter Gabriel's departure, and the hella divorced energy beginnings of his epic solo career....

Welcome to another And Introducing, Also Interviewing, where today we are talking to Nick Thorburn! You might also known Nick Thorburn as Nick Diamonds. He's been a consistently joyous and joyously consistent presence on the "indie rock" circuit for over twenty years. He fronts the band Islands (and previously The Unicorns) and they have a new album out called What Occurs. We had Nick on the pod t...

It's another And Introducing, Also Interviewing, and we're talking to Nick Llobet from the NYC-based band Youbet! They put out an album called Compare & Despair in 2020 and are back with a fresh new album out called Way To Be (which came out on Hardly Art on May 10th). We talked to Nick about a bunch of things: breaking out of a creative funk by learning folk songs, writing with a Bandcamp songwri...

Another 'And Introducing, Also Interviewing' up on deck. This time we're talking to bad tuner, an electronic musician in Brooklyn—he just put out an EP called look at me but through me, whose single "24 hours" f*cked our sh*t up but utterly when it arrived on our ears' doorstep. We had a great chat with bad tuner about the current club culture in NYC, how to find the samples no one else is using,...

And Introducing, back again, and featuring an interview with an artist that we think you just might love...A Beacon School! A Beacon School is Patrick J. Smith, a musician in New York City whose pleasing indie pop compositions are gaining big-time steam for listeners worldwide—we're talking millions of streams, TV show syncs, and a multi-city tour coming up later this month. We talked to Patrick a...

And Introducing is back and we're talking to another musician we like today. Actually two musicians! Emily Ash and Kayla Asbell play in the truly excellent NYC rock and roll band 95 Bulls—Emily on vocals, Kayla on keys—and we caught them in the middle of writing their next album, which will follow 2022's face-ripper Go Home. We talked about the power of Benihana, cranky sound guys, and much much m...

We're joined by musician Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Divine Fits, Handsome Furs, Operators, Arcade Fire) to chat about his life and career in music. We touch on everything from terrible tour stews, leveling up to arena shows, burning CD-Rs in hotel rooms, telemarketing, too much fog machine and more. We also spend a good deal of time on the constantly shifting landscape of online and digital music...

We're going back, Jack, and we're doing it again with another angle on the Steely Dan story. Last time we were listening to Donald Fagen complain about hotel pools with Matthew Perpetua; this time we're talking about the freaky characters of Steely Dan's lyrical universe with writer Alex Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay, who together created the book 'Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, an...

Bono part deux — for a relaxing time, make it governance time. We hit the second half or so of Bono's book Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story and get into his advocacy, his lobbying, his product-launch mindset, his south of France hedonism, his relationship with God and his overall reflective vibes. Unos dos tres catorce bitches! Listen to Black Bubblegum podcast: https://blackbubblegumpod.libsyn.com/...

Yeah I'm thinking we're back. Back with a big one. Back with Bono. He wrote a memoir called Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story and we're podcasting all about it. Well, not all about it, but about half of it, because Bono's book is so meaty that it requires a two-part podcast. We dig into Bono's early life in bubblin' Dublin, the crucial single week where he asked out his wife and joined U2, his politi...

Wow, a new episode of And Introducing - this one featuring legendary music producer and musician Gordon Raphael, whose musical ear, intuition, tech savvy and patience all played a huge role in helping craft the indelible sound of The Strokes' first two albums, Is This It and Room On Fire. His book The World Is Going To Love This: Up From The Basement With the Strokes delightfully details these rec...

And introducing…King of the hill…A#1……KING OF THE HILL: it’s Frank Sinatra! Yes we’re ring-a-ding-dinging in the New Year with one of the greatest recording artists of all time AND one of the greatest pieces of Words About Music of all time in one go. We’re covering Ol’ Blue Eyes from Gay Talese’s celebrated, wildly influential 1966 profile for Esquire magazine, “Frank Sinatra Has A Cold.” Looking...

A fresh new episode of And Introducing! On it, we talk to Ryan Dusick, Maroon 5's founding drummer, about his new book Harder To Breathe: A Memoir of Making Maroon 5, Losing It All, and Finding Recovery. Ryan's story is extremely wild: an impossibly long pre-stardom grind as part of Maroon 5 leading up to their smash (sort of) debut album Songs About Jane, overwhelming "overnight" success, and a s...

This week (month...summer...) we are talking about none other than FLEA. One of the world's funkiest living bassists, Flea has kept it thick on the low end for the Red Hot Chili Peppers for almost forty years. His 2019 memoir Acid For The Children enthusiastically details his life from conception to right as the Peps formed. It's a tale of Dickensian proportions: street rapscallion lifestyles, dir...

And introducing…the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley! We welcome Atlantic movie critic and co-host of the Blank Check podcast David Sims back to the pod to discuss Baz Lurhmann’s new biopic ELVIS. We talk about the King’s legacy, Baz’s filmography, Tom Hanks going sicko mode, whether the music biopic genre can be transcended (or if it’s been fully murdered by Walk Hard), and all the pop-cultur...

On this episode of And Introducing, we meet a new type of guy: human vampire, Polish legend, gentle giant, Parks Department tree-hugger, Slim-Fast guzzler, melodramatic romantic, Brooklyn baby, cat dad, and overall agent provocateur Peter Steele. Most famously of the 1990s gothic metal band Type O Negative, Peter achieved a long list of accomplishments in his short lifetime, and we don't just mean...

On a very special episode of And Introducing, we bring back Matthew Perpetua for his third pod appearance to talk about something a little more personal than Donald Fagen or Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas: Fluxblog, Matthew's mp3 blog that has now reached its landmark 20th year of existence. Gird your loins for a rich and digressive conversation that covers topics such as poptimism, the rude and g...

And Introducing…we are taking a brief but fertile trip to Key West to visit a friend of quite a few folks: that's right, it's Jimmy Buffett. A son of a son of a sailor, a blender-drink connoisseur, a schooner crooner, a Conch Train stowaway, a vacation virtuoso, and an escape artist on the level of Houdini, Jimmy Buffett's life and career are truly one of one, and we learned all about it via his 2...

And introducing, a guy who nobody knows at all, someone who has released music that literally not a soul cares about...it's Bob Dylan! Just kidding, we are aware he's very popular. And he had a very popular...memoir? autobiography? autofiction? book to prove it. On this episode, we discuss Bob's 2004 "tome" Chronicles, Vol 1 with two guys who certainly know their Empire Burlesque from their Blood...

And introducing, from TikTok to chart top, it's GAYLE! We discuss the recent abecedarian pop hit "abcdefu" by up-and-coming singer-songwriter GAYLE. A Twitter thread by music TikTok trendspotter Alice Ophelia detailed the song's precipitous rise to the charts via a commenter making a song request. But things aren't always what they seem.... (suspenseful enough for you?? oh yeah babe) An episode ab...