Before The Stream

Swedish singer/songwriter Peter Morén ( Peter, Bjorn, and John ) joins the podcast to talk about Elvis Costello's 1989 album  Spike and Peter's new SunYears album The Song Forlorn .  Jason and Peter talk about how Peter got started with Elvis Costello and Spike , making albums, lyrics, collaboration, how ambitious albums can remain coherent, and much more.  The talk transitions to Peter's career a...

Soul Asylum again? And their new album from 2024? When Jason and Rob Collier saw that the title of Soul Asylum's new album quoted the movie  Airplane! they knew they had to follow up on their previous episodes about Grave Dancer's Union and Let Your Dim Light Shine .  Do you have to have heard the album to enjoy this talk? Definitely not. And don't call me Shirley. Rob and Jason play the Dave Pirn...

Al Melchior of You, Me and An Album joins the show to talk about U2 and their 1983 album War. Al saw U2 in concert around the time that War came out and it made a huge impression on him.  Jason and Al discuss memories of U2, the evolution of their fandom as the band continued on, the performances on War, what makes albums cohesive, and a lot more. Jason was recently a guest on You, Me and An Album...

Just a quick little update to let you know that Jason talked about Radiohead's album Kid A  on the podcast "You, Me and An Album" with Al Melchior.  You can listen to the episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts. Al has had a ton of great guests and discussed a lot of great albums if you don't know the podcast.  Al and Jason also talked a bit about Jason's album The Grand Routine and the hi...

A Safe Place is out. It's the 3rd single from Jason's forthcoming new album The Grand Routine.   Great friend of the show Rob Collier joins again to talk about the song, how it was written, songwriting, production, Andrew Carlson's bass playing, music marketing, etc etc.  The two friends also try to define what type of music Jason's music is, what Soft Rock is, if lyrics matter at all, and more. ...

The 2nd single from Jason 's forthcoming LP is out now.  Singer-songwriter/drummer/multi-instrumentalist/producer Anthony LaMarca of The Building and The War on Drugs joined Jason to talk about the song and the album.  The two friends and longtime cohorts discussed production, tracking at Peppermint Studios in Youngstown, OH, tempos, Anthony's sweet guitar solo on this song, the definition of the...

The 1st single from Jason's forthcoming 2nd LP is out!  The song is called In the Quiet Golden Hour,  and Jason talked all about it with Andrew Carlson , who played bass and guitar and sang on the track.  The two friends talk about recording at Peppermint Studios in Youngstown, OH, with Anthony LaMarca and Gary Rhamy. They talk about all the other people that worked on the song and album. They ana...

We are back!  The grand return of Before the Stream features Jason and Natasha Alexandra talking about Tori Amos' 1994 classic album  Under the Pink. Jason tries to guess Natasha's defining 3 songs from this record before the two friends and musical colleagues dive into the full album, whether spirits help with songwriting, storytelling vs. marketing, 30-year anniversaries, the 90s, production, an...

Rob Collier made his first appearance on the show back in episode 4 to talk about Soul Asylum. Now he's back to talk about their 1995 album, Let Your Dim Light Shine. It's impossible not to talk about Dave Pirner's lyrics. But Rob and Jason also talked a lot about music production (Butch Vig produced this record), songwriting, arrangement, and much more, going song by song while interspersing game...

Jason and Brian Kantor continue and conclude their conversation about The Cardigans' 1996 album First Band on the Moon .  The two friends analyze each song on the record while sharing thoughts on production, arrangement, creativity, Black Sabbath, and more. They even dramatically read a couple of bizarre reviews for this album.  Brian then shares what he's been up to at The Soundry , and with  Sou...

Nina Persson of the Cardigans is interviewed in this episode!  Brian Kantor returns to talk about The Cardigans' 1996 album First Band On The Moon.  Brian is friends and erstwhile bandmates with Nina, so they recorded a conversation about the album that we listen to on this episode.  Jason and Brian talk about drum sounds, bass note choices, dark lyrics wrapped in happy-sounding songs, if "Happy M...

We're talking about Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York  song by song. Host Jason Bemis Lawrence did this one by himself.  It gave Jason a chance to ruminate on the song Something in the Way , play some guitar, sing a little, address some of the common topics about the song and the differences between the Unplugged performance and the version on Nevermind, lyrics, and a lot more.  Subscribe , rate...

Chris Towers of CBS joins the podcast to count down our rankings of the full-length albums by the band The National in anticipation of a new National album in April.  Jason Bemis Lawrence is the host and once had his parody song played on Chris' podcast, as Jason mentions. You can hear Chris and his colleagues listening to it and commenting here at 39:50 into the podcast. (It's a Spotify link, but...

D. James Goodwin is back on the show.  We're taking a break from the Nirvana series to ask Dan some questions about his process of learning and engaging with the world via social media, technology, etc, before getting into R.E.M's 1992 album Automatic For The People . Dan had mentioned his deep emotional connection to the album on his previous appearance so we decided to dig further into it. As us...

Before the Stream is currently talking about Nirvana's  MTV Unplugged In New York  one song at a time. Travis Smith returns to the pod to discuss  On A Plain  and reminisce about Nirvana. Jason and Travis talk about album sequencing, "great little pop songs" vs "great songs", poignant lyrics vs throwaway lyrics, what stands out about this song in this performance and on Nevermind , and more. Subsc...

Before the Stream is currently talking about Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York  one song at a time. We finally had to go out of song order for this one, but you'll be glad to get it sooner. Singer/Songwriter/cellist/multi-instrumentalist Heather Woods Broderick joins Jason to talk about the penultimate song of the performance  All Apologies. The two friends and sometimes bandmates discuss Heathe...

Before the Stream is currently talking about Nirvana's  MTV Unplugged In New York  one song at a time. Chris Buckridge joined Jason to share his deeply personal connection to this song and to Nirvana.  The two friends and erstwhile/forever bandmates discuss music theory, mental health, cognitive dissonance and of course, Nirvana.  Subscribe , rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email:...

Before the Stream is currently talking about Nirvana's  MTV Unplugged In New York  one song at a time. Rob Collier returns to the show to talk about Pennyroyal Tea , the 5th song on the album.  We explore why Rob didn't get into Nirvana in the 90s as much as he did the other major grunge bands, what makes this song and Kurt's performance of it on Unplugged so compelling, a little bit of music theo...

Dean Wareham (Luna, Galaxie 500, Dean & Britta, etc) is on the show!  Before the Stream is currently talking about Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York  one song at a time. Dean's band Luna was making major label rock albums at the same time Nirvana was, so he has an interesting perspective on the time period.  Dean and Jason talk about the aesthetics of "Unplugged", vocals, covers, and more.  Subs...

We're talking about Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York song by song. John Whitaker joins Jason to talk about Nirvana's cover of The Vaselines'  Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam .  The two old friends and bandmates discuss John's teenage perspective on Nirvana in the 90s, everything that Dave Grohl adds to this performance, what it's like to have lived a song, the gift that Nirvana gave so many...

We're talking about Nirvana's  MTV Unplugged In New York  song by song. Our guest for Come As You Are,  the 2nd song of the show, was born the same year Nirvana Unplugged was performed. Guitarist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Louis Cohen joins Jason to discuss his connection to Nirvana, musical plagarism, 90s guitar sounds and fashion, Judee Sill, and a lot more.  Subscribe , rate and review...

We're talking about Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York  song by song and we start at the beginning with David Nagler Jason and David discuss the song  About a Girl  along with David's first impressions of MTV's Unplugged series, the time David saw Nirvana in concert, guitar playing, and much more.  Subscribe , rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: beforethestreampodcast@gmail. c...

We're back!  We're going to go through Nirvana: MTV Unplugged in New York song by song with different guests over the next couple months.  Jason introduces the 1993/94 TV performance and album, and talks a bit about what's been going on the last few months. Subscribe , rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: beforethestreampodcast@gmail. com Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: befo...

Jason is joined for the 2nd time by one of his oldest and dearest friends Travis Smith, this time to discuss Nirvana's 1989 full length debut Bleach . Jason and Travis try to remember if the performance of "About a Girl" on MTV Unplugged really was their introduction to this album, they discuss what aspects of the songwriter Kurt Cobain would become were already present on this album, the progress...

Guitarist, composer, multi-instrumentalist Michael Quoma joins Jason to talk about Primus' 1990 debut studio album Frizzle Fry . What is up with this band? How unique are they? Are they a jam band? How much depth is behind their quirky surface?  Jason and Mike discuss all these questions, plus their memories of the album and Primus, thoughts on composition and band dynamics, and much more. Subscri...