Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

David Byrne! The one and only. The founder of the Talking Heads talks with Jesse about his latest project American Utopia, a nd his return to playing live music. He also shares some of the music he's been listening to lately and tells us about where he learned his iconic dance moves. Plus, he'll tell us why his very different brain powers his art. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our coll...

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have been working together for 40 years, producing some of the biggest R&B records of all time. In their four decades of working together, the fedora-wearing giants of R&B music have written and produced over 40 top-ten hits. They've worked with Prince, Babyface, Usher, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and more — the list goes on and on. All that producing hadn't left them a l...

The Song That Changed My Life is a segment that gives us the chance to talk with some of our favorite artists about the music that made them who they are today. This time around we're joined by singer songwriter Rostam. He got his start as a member of Vampire Weekend. He produced the band's first three records, including some of their biggest hits. He's since left the band but keeps busy producing...

Hannah Waddingham stars alongsie Jason Sudekis in Ted Lasso. She plays team owner Rebecca Welton in the series. Hannah joins guest host Linda Holmes of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour to chat about her role in Ted Lasso . Plus, she talks about her years of performing in theater, her iconic part on Game of Thrones, *and* what it's like to perform in an award-winning musical when a mouse is stuck in yo...

Uzo Aduba first rose to fame playing a character known as Crazy Eyes. It was on Orange Is the New Black, a part of the first class of original TV shows on Netflix. Crazy Eyes, whose real name is Suzanne, was one of the many prisoners in the women's correctional facility the show focused on. Aduba won two Emmys for her portrayal of Suzanne, one for comedy and the other for drama. Since Orange is th...

Zumbi, born Steve Gaines, made up half of the Oakland duo Zion I, who were stalwarts of the Bay Area hip-hop scene for decades. Zumbi died at 49 and what follows is an appreciation of his art and music. Jesse shares some words about Zumbi and we play a clip from Zion I's 2009 live performance at SF Sketchfest. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sp...

On the latest episode we welcome back Sam Richardson! His breakthrough role came in HBO's Veep . The political satire starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus where everyone is terrible, mean, incompetent, and they all hate each other. Everyone, except Sam's character, the cheerful, incorruptible Richard Splett. Sam is also a writer. With the help of Saturday NIght Live alum Tim Robinson, they co-created and...

Odds are, you probably know Aidy Bryant from Saturday Night Live . She's been on the cast now for almost a decade. She's been on the cast now for almost a decade. On the show she's done killer impressions, sang on a handful of memorable SNL songs, and starred in numerous skits. For the last few years, Bryant has also starred in and written for her own show: Shrill . The show follows her character...

Jonathan Majors has been acting professionally for just under five years now. He's done theater, TV, and starred in movies. In that short amount of time, he's become one of the most captivating performers in Hollywood. He was in two of our recent favorites: Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods and Joe Talbot's The Last Black Man In San Francisco . On screen, he's charismatic and charming when the role calls fo...

50 years ago, in Berkeley, Calif., a restaurant called Chez Panisse opened its doors. It wasn't super buzzy at the time. The chef, Alice Waters, hadn't opened a restaurant before. The night they opened, they had a lot of friends helping out, but were short on silverware. They served a four-course menu that cost just under $4. Chez Panisse eventually became known as one of the finest restaurants in...

We're revisiting our conversation with Kamasi Washington, one of the greatest living saxophone players. In the studio, he's played saxophone and arranged for hitmakers like Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, Run The Jewels, Snoop Dogg – and that's just naming a handful. On his own, he's a visionary bandleader with over half a dozen solo records to his name. He broke through in 2015, with his three hour...

Busy Phillipps has well amassed over 60 credits on the big and small screen. Her first big break came when she was just 20 years old on the acclaimed and influential TV show Freaks & Geeks . She followed that up with an appearance on Dawson's Creek and went on to star in several more TV shows and films. Her latest project is Girls5Eva, which was created by Meredith Scardino and is executively prod...

For over 20 years, Tom Scharpling has hosted The Best Show . It aired on the New York public radio station WFMU until around 2013, and now it's a podcast. Tom's also a comedy writer who's worked on shows like Monk , What We Do in the Shadows and HBO's Divorce . As a voice actor, he's appeared on the Cartoon Network shows Steven Universe and Adventure Time . On the latest episode, we talk with Tom...

The Brat Pack, as you might know, is a term for a group of 8 or so actors who starred in about a dozen movies in the 1980s. There's Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, a bunch of others — and Andrew McCarthy. But McCarthy always kind of pushed back on the label of being a Brat Pack actor — he wasn't really into the whole nostalgia thing. Eventually, though, something changed. He...

Look at just about any "greatest albums of all time" list and you'll usually see Liz Phair's 1993 record Exile in Guyville . The album put her on the map as a singer-songwriter. The production was no frills, and the songwriting was personal at times and tongue-in-cheek at others. It inspired a bunch of bands and artists such as Courtney Barnett, Foo Fighters, and even Olivia Rodrigo. She followed...

We're remembering the life of rapper Gift of Gab, who died last month at just 50 years old. Gab was the co-founder and MC for the legendary Northern California hip-hop group Blackalicious. If you're a serious hip-hop head, you know them; If you're not, you might recognize him for the tongue-twisting track Alphabet Aerobics. He could go toe-to-toe with anyone, and he knew it. Sometimes you wonder h...

Melissa McCarthy has played some unforgettable parts, like in Bridesmaids , The Heat and Spy . She met her husband, Ben Falcone, when they were members of the Groundlings theater in Los Angeles and have been performing together on stage and screen for almost 20 years now. Together the two have made five movies now. Their latest collaboration is the Netflix film Thunder Force , a superhero comedy w...

Content Warning: this segment contains some graphic descriptions of torture, sex and violence. It's an interview with John Waters for a segment we do called I Wish I'd Made That . In this episode, the director behind Hairspray , Crybaby , and Pink Flamingos . He stops by the show to talk about the 1975 film Salò , or t he 120 Days of Sodom which is directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The release of S...

Patton Oswalt and Meredith Salenger keep busy with various projects in show business. They're parents, too. The celebrity couple don't get much one-on-one time together. In their podcast Did You Get My Text with Meredith and Patton they take a break from their busy lives as actors to talk about all the text messages, memes and random stuff they sent each other each day. Along the way, they get int...

We're dedicating this week's show to music duo Wendy and Lisa. Together they recorded some stone cold classics with Prince's band The Revolution: Purple Rain , Raspberry Beret , Kiss , When Doves Cry and more. These days, they're known for their work composing scores for TV and movies: Heroes , Dangerous Minds , Crossing Jordan , and Nurse Jackie . Their latest composing credits can be heard on Cr...

Canonball is a segment on Bullseye that gives us a chance to take a closer look at albums that should be considered classics, to find out what makes them great. This time, the writer Aaron Carnes tells us why Crab Rangoon by MU330 deserves to join the canon of great pop records. Aaron is a music journalist who just wrote In Defense of Ska , which, well, does what it says on the tin: It champions n...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest basketball players of all time: an NBA Hall of Famer, six-time MVP, 19-time All-Star and, of course, the master of the skyhook shot. He excelled at basketball in high school, went on to play college ball at UCLA and was drafted first overall in the NBA, where he played for 21 seasons. Since retiring from basketball, he has written books and columns, and h...

If you know Will Forte from one thing, it's probably Saturday Night Live. He was a cast member for eight years, playing characters like MacGruber. He also starred in and created the hit TV show Last Man on Earth, and had parts on 30 Rock and a bunch of other comedies. Plus there was the Academy Award-nominated Nebraska, in which he starred alongside Bruce Dern. When we talked to Forte last year, h...

Award-winning actor Antonio Banderas is probably one of the most versatile, charming and handsome actors out there today. You've probably seen him in "Zorro," "Philadelphia," "Desperado," or maybe heard him in "Shrek" – he played the voice of Puss in Boots. His latest project is "The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard," which comes out in theaters this week. When we last spoke with him, he had just starred...

Content warning: This interview contains some explicit language and graphic, frank talk about sex that some listeners might be sensitive to. Ryan O'Connell is the creator and star of the Netflix show Special . It's a semi-autobiographical sitcom about Ryan's own life – his experience as a gay man, and coming to terms with his identity as a disabled person. Ryan has cerebral palsy. It's a congenita...