Fun 2 Know Podcast

On today's show, the saxophonist, vocalist and composer Maria Grand. Originally from Geneva, Switzerland, Maria came to New York to pursue a career in music while still in her late teens. She has been releasing her own music since 2017, recordings that feature her enthralling tenor saxophone playing and vocals in service of exploratory, melodic compositions. She's performed and recorded with Vijay...

03-23-26 Jazz w Dan Buskirk hour two with Kevin Diehl by Fun 2 Know Podcast

On today's show: drummer, percussionist, composer Chad Taylor. I first became aware of Chad's name around the turn of the 21st century, as the players in Chicago's post-rock scene, most famously including the instrumental band Tortoise, began to collaborate with players from Chicago's rich modern jazz world, where the famous creative musician's collective, the AACM was still active. Chad's playing...

On today's show, Sun Ra Arkestra guitarist DM Hotep. Philadelphia-born DM Hotep has been a part of the Sun Ra Arkestra for over 25 years. The musical group was originally formed in the 1950s by the keyboardist known as Sun Ra. Ra's all-encompassing imagination claimed his origins were from the planet Saturn, and with light shows, flamboyant costumes and group chants and a musical palette elaborate...

On today's show, the pianist and composer, Digba Ogunbiyi. Digba is originally from Lagos, Nigeria and came to the states to pursue his dream of a career playing jazz piano. His diligence has earned him a doctorate in musical studies and a position at Syracuse University as an instructor of jazz piano. Digba currently resides in Philadelphia, where a chance meeting at a neighborhood cafe led to ou...

On today's show, the saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis joins us for a spirited conversation. James Brandon Lewis has become a prominent figure in the world of modern creative music, showing himself to be prolific both as a band leader and as a player on a number of others' projects, building a thrilling body of work, and personally, some of the most-played in my collection over the past...

On today's show, it's the Baltimore-based pianist, composer, and bandleader Lafayette Gilchrist. Lafayette is an extravagantly-gifted instrumentalist and composer, the type of pianist often described as a “two-handed player” for the strong rhythms of his left hand and his nimble melodicism of his right. His deep understanding of the music's history find him schooled in piano styles that go back at...

Here's the part where I give a brief introduction to this episode's guest, something particularly difficult with a guest as extravagantly talented as Steven Erdman. He might be best described as a one-man production company, having skills as a graphic artists with hand-illustrating skills, a songwriter and producer, an animator and filmmaker, and set designer and creator and over the last thirty o...

On today's show saxophonist, flautist, composer, poet, Elliott Levin. Levin is a Philadelphia-born talent, who has traveled far and wide in his career, establishing himself as an iron man of music, ubiquitous across the city of Philadelphia since the 1970s, playing countless gigs across numerous styles.  Soon after picking up the saxophone, Elliott fell under the spell galvanizing jazz pianist Cec...

On today's show, it's the second appearance of writer Mike DeCapite (previously on F2N Ep. 20), whose latest novel, JACKET WEATHER was published in late 2021 by Soft Skull Press, home to works from everyone from Dennis Cooper to Noam Chomsky. DeCapite is originally from Cleveland and the son of novelist Raymond DeCapite, a novelist whose well-reviewed work was first published in 1960. Mike DeCapit...

It is the interview I conducted with director Sean Baker that planted the seed for today's episode, which is the long-delayed fiftieth episode of Fun 2 Know. It was three years ago that Rob Burson was in pre-production for his debut film HELL OF A HEARTACHE when he stumbled across the Fun 2 Know interview with Sean Baker, whose films PRINCE OF BROADWAY and THE FLORIDA PROJECT were inspirational as...

On today's show: Austin, Texas musician and thereminist, Aileen Adler. I first met Aileen back in the late '80s during the halcyon days of Tower Records, when we both worked at store #173 on South Street in Philadelphia. I moved to Alaska and then San Francisco in the early '90s, around the same time when Aileen moved to another artist's hub, Austin, Texas. We lost touch with each other for a coup...

Our guest today, guitarist Nick Millevoi. To quote his bio, “Nick Millevoi is a guitarist and composer whose music searches for the sonic cracks between jazz, rock and roll, noise, and modern composition.” Nick has performed with Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Nels Cline, Marc Ribot, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma, the duo Archer Spade with trombonist Dan Blacksberg as well as making five full-length...

Today, bassist extraordinaire, Jamaaladeen Tacuma. Jamaaladeen was our guest back in Episode 11 of the podcast, where we talked about growing up in Philly, his discovering the bass in his teen years, his joining Ornette Coleman's electric Prime Time band while still a young man, as well as his world travels and his love of fashion. A few months back I had him back as a guest on my show on WPRB-Pri...

On today's show: music historian Elijah Wald. I was just hanging out in my South Philly neighborhood when I happened to get introduced to Elijah, a music historian who has written over a dozen books, mainly on the subject of roots music but also on subjects as diverse as hitchhiking, the cultural phenomenon known as “the Dozens” and the genetics industry. Elijah won a Grammy for his liner notes in...

Early on in the show's history I had Monnette on the short list of Philly-area musicians with which I wanted to interview. I'd long been a fan of the records she recorded in the mid-1970s for the prestigious Steeplechase label, a Danish label who continues today to make important records for artists who have gone slept-upon back here in the states, artists including Archie Shepp, Chet Baker, Jacki...

F2K Episode 44: The enduring musician, Kenn Kweder It's the show's proud third appearance from our most popular guest, musician Kenn Kweder. Kweder (who appeared previously in Ep. Six, Ep. Seven, and Ep. 30 of the FUN 2 KNOW podcast) has been a beloved fixture of the Philadelphia music scene since rising up from the Philly streets in the mid-seventies with his band, The Secret Kidds. In his first...

Kenn Kweder talks about his 1975 gig with Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye at Glassboro State College in New Jersey. From the soon forthcoming episode 44 of The Fun 2 Know podcast...

On today's show, with trumpeter and composer Jaimie Branch. I'd seen Jaimie's name in the credits of releases by bassist Jason Ajemian, in the large band of Keefe Jackson, with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and saxophonist Jarrett Gilmore but she didn't really capture my attention until her stunning debut with her band Fly or Die arrived on the International Anthem label in early 2017. This rock-solid...

On today's show, Matt Prigge. Matt has written about film since the late 1990s, originally at The Philadelphia Weekly, then for four years as the film editor at The Metro, the free commuter paper that has editions in New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. Matt is a particularly engaging writer with an unusually firm grasp on a wide range of cinema, finding what is worth celebrating in everything...

On today's show, Heather Henderson and Emery Emery, who together host both the award-winning Ardent Atheist podcast as well as the podcast, Skeptically Yours. I've known Heather since back in the early 2000s, when she was part of the Philly-based burlesque troupe The Peek-a-Boo Revue, who specialized comedy and satire along with classic strip routines. Heather was a memorable performer with the tr...

On today's show, our guests are Michelle MF Ausman and Kimberly Vice of the musical duo Hestina. Named after a genus of butterflies, the duo's 2016 nine-song release, BLOSSOM TALK is a tour-de-force of harmony vocals, literate lyrics and rhythmically-propelled melodies that haunt long after they hit their climax. With the easy accessibility of modern music, favorite songs can come and go fast but...

On today's show: Film director Sean Baker and film critic Piers Marchant. First, a very recent conversation I had with filmmaker Sean Baker. I was so taken with Sean Baker's 2015 film TANGERINE, famously and beautifully shot from an Apple iPhone, that I started tracking down his earlier work, four fascinating films, including two brilliantly-executed micro-budget indies, 2004's TAKE OUT set in the...

On today's show: a conversation with poet and author Maryan Nagy Captan Maryan is a poet, writer and performer currently centered in Philadelphia. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Mayan's parents immigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s where they earned a somewhat hard-scrabble living and raised two girls. With English as a second language, Maryan approached language with a linguistic curiosity that helped fuel...

In the 90s I began seeing Travis Crawford's byline pop up in assorted magazines, and over the years he has written for publications including Film Comment, Filmmaker, Fangoria and increasingly in the liner notes of archival DVDs. Currently he writes regularly for the U.K. Publication, the Calvert Journal. Crawford's always intelligent and passionate writing, often about films that mix genre conven...