Beginnings

On today's episode, I talk to musician David Longstreth. Originally from Southbury, CT, David recorded his first album The Graceful Fallen Mango after dropping out of college. After returning to finish his degree, he began recording under the name Dirty Projectors, and in 2003, Western Vinyl released their first album The Glad Fact. They continued to record albums and slowly built a name for thems...

On today's episode, I talk to musician Krisitin Hersh. Originally from Atlanta, Kristin's family moved to Newport, RI when she was six. Here she met Tanya Donelly, and they formed Throwing Muses when they were teenagers. After moving to Boston years later, they quickly became part of the burgeoning scene that produced everyone from the Pixies to the Lemonheads, and the band similarly found success...

On today's episode, I talk to musician Tina Halladay. Originally from Long Island, Tina met Matt Palmer, and Kyle and Hart Seely in college, and formed Sheer Mag in 2014 after they had all moved to Philly. From 2015 to 2016, the band released three EPs - titled I, II and III - and then performed at Coachella and on Seth Meyers, and since then, they've steadily built a following. Their next two alb...

On today's episode, I talk to musician John Davis. Growing up in Cambridge, MA, John formed The Folk Implosion with Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr.'s Lou Barlow in the early 1990s. Their first album 1994's Take a Look Inside was a brilliant lo-fi pop record, and then a year later, a song of theirs on the Kids soundtrack blew up, and in the diverse atmosphere that had been created in Nirvana's wake, the b...

On today's episode, I talk to cartoonist Anders Nilsen. Growing up between Minneapolis and the mountains of Northern New Hampshire, Anders is the artist and author of ten books including Big Questions, The End, and Poetry is Useless. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Kramer's Ergot, Pitchfork, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His comics have been translated widely ove...

On today's episode, I talk to comics creator Daniel Warren Johnson. Originally from Massachusetts, Daniel started in the world of cartooning with his web-comic Space Mullet, which ran from 2012 to 2017. This led to work at Dark Horse, and eventually Image published his comic Extremity, which netted him an Eisner Award nomination (he would go on to win four for other things). Since then, he's creat...

On today's episode, I talk to musician and cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis. Originally from the Lower East Side, Jeffrey has bounced back and forth between his two loves comics and music for most of his professional life. As a cartoonist, Jeffrey's longest project was Fuff, which he wrote and drew from 2004 to 2020. He also created Revelations in the Wink of an Eye (My Insane Musings on Watchmen, from Co...

On today's episode, I talk to Emmy Award-winning writer Jack Pendarvis. Originally from Mobile, Alabama, Jack has been writing books, articles and TV for decades. HIs first book of short stories The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure was published in 2005 by MacAdam/Cage, and since then he's written eight other collections, novels and books of poetry including Awesome, Your Body is Changin...

On today's episode, I talk to musician Bob Mould. Originally from Malone, New York, Bob attended college in Saint Paul, Minnesota where he formed Hüsker Dü in 1979 with Grant Hart and Greg Norton. One of the most well-known bands of the hardcore punk era, Hüsker Dü released six albums, mostly on SST and then on Warner Bros. before breaking up in 1988. After this, Bob began performing under his own...

On today's episode, I talk to artist Jamie McKelvie. Born in London, Jamie came to prominence in the world of comics through his collaborations with Kieron Gillen. In 2003, the two started a comic strip in PlayStation Magazine that lasted for three years. This led to their book Phonogram in 2006, and its subsequent sequels, as well as Young Avengers and The Wicked + The Divine. He's also illustrat...

On today's episode, I talk to TV writer Josh Zetumer. Originally from San Diego, Josh broke into screenwriting on the back of a script that got on the Black List. This led to working on Quantum of Solace, which led to the 2014 RoboCop reboot and the Peter Berg-directed Patriots Day in 2016. Most recently, Josh adapted and showran the FX show about the Irish Troubles, Say Nothing, which was easily...

On today's episode, I talk to musician Tim Midyett. Originally from Havre, Montana, Tim started the band Ein Heit in 1985 with his friends, and two years later, they changed their name to Silkworm. In the 20 years the band was together, they released over two dozen albums, EPs and singles on a variety of labels including C/Z, Matador and Touch and Go. In 2005, Silkworm stopped performing after the...

On today's episode, I talk to writer and podcaster Dave Holmes. Born in New Jersey, but raised in St. Louis, Dave came to national prominence when he lost the inaugural MTV Wanna Be a VJ contest in 1998. Although very soon after, he was hired by the video channel to host a number of shows including 120 Minutes and TRL. Since then, Dave has led an incredibly varied career, acting in things like the...

On today's episode, I talk to director Guy Maddin. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Guy did not set out to be a filmmaker, but after working odd job after odd job, he eventually started taking film classes in his later 20s and became part of the Winnipeg Film Group. After making some short films and a surreal cable access show, he wrote and directed his debut feature, Tales from the Gimli Hospi...

On today's episode, I talk to comedian and actor David Cross. Originally from Roswell, GA, David started as a stand-up at the age of seventeen, first in Boston and then in New York in the '90s. David's television career began with a writing job on the The Ben Stiller Show. It was around this time that he met Bob Odenkirk, and they started performing together, eventually creating the brilliant sket...

On today's episode, I talk to director Seth Gordon. Originally on the path to be an architect, Seth's life took a detour into documentary filmmaking when he picked up a camera while teaching abroad in Kenya. After working in different positions in filming and editing, he eventually made his acclaimed doc The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, about rivals in the world of competitive Donkey Kong...

On today's episode, I talk to Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones of Sunroof. Daniel and Gareth have had long, varied careers for decades - as musicians, music producers and more. Daniel is the founder of Mute Records, which has released albums from numerous groups including Depeche Mode, New Order, Wire, Nick Cave and many others. And as a producer, Gareth has worked with many of those same bands and...

On today's episode, I talk to illustrator and comics creator Brian Blomerth. Brian grew up in Newport News, Virginia, and in college started to move towards making art for a living. Some of his early work was for Vice, as well as making tour posters for bands like Phish or album artwork for musicians like Ryley Walker. Since 2019, he's been working on a series of books about 20th century psychonau...

On today's episode, I talk to comics writer Jason Aaron. Originally from Piney Woods, Alabama, Jason started writing comics professionally after winning a Marvel Comics talent search contest in 2001. This opened the door for him, and soon after in 2006, Vertigo published his first major work The Other Side, which netted him an Eisner Award. Since then, Jason has written acclaimed runs on both main...

On today's episode, I talk to TV writer Ed Herro. Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Ed fell in love with improv in middle school. He started doing comedy in college and moved to New York where he performed on house teams in the early days of UCB. Eventually realizing that one couldn't make a living yes and-ing, he became a touring stand-up and then a TV writer, writing on shows like Jeff & Some...

On today's episode, I talk to rapper and musician Brian Ennals and Tariq Ravelomanana AKA Infinity Knives. Originally from Annapolis, Maryland and Tanzania respectively, Brian and Tariq made music separately for years, and after reading about Brian in the Baltimore Sun, Tariq reached out to him and eventually asked Brian to feature on his album Dear, Sudan. This led to their debut Rhino XXL in 202...

On today's episode, I talk to musician Fred Thomas. Originally from Ypsilanti, Michigan, Fred started playing music as a teenager, and in 1994 founded the math rock band Chore. The band broke up two years later, and he joined the brilliant His Name Is Alive, and in 1999 started the well-known indie rock band Saturday Looks Good to Me. They would release eight albums, mostly on Polyvinyl, before Fr...

On today's episode, I talk to musician Jake Xerxes Fussell. Originally from Columbus, Georgia, Jake is the son of folklorist Fred Fussell, and as a teenager began playing and studying with elder musicians in the Chattahoochee Valley, apprenticing with Piedmont blues legend Precious Bryant, with whom he toured and recorded. In 2015, Jake released his debut self-titled album composed entirely of ada...

On today's episode, I talk to cartoonist John Pham. Born in Saigon, John's family immigrated to the US towards the end of the Vietnam War. In the year 2000, John received a self publishing grant from the Xeric Foundation for his comic Epoxy, and later in the aughts, Fantagraphics published his books Sublife vol. 1 and 2, the latter of which was nominated for multiple Ignatz Awards. In between book...

On today's episode, I talk to musicians Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson of the band Tsunami. Tsunami formed in Arlington, VA in late 1990, when Jenny and Kristin were housemates at Arlington, Virginia's legendary punk-activist Positive Force house. Over the next seven years, Tsunami wrote and recorded prolifically, releasing three full-length albums (Deep End, The Heart's Tremolo and A Brilliant...