Indiecast

The Fall Albums Fantasy Draft is heating up between Steven and Ian. After Steven jumped out to an early lead, Ian has been slowly creeping up and it's looking like he might seriously contend for the top spot (7:21). After spending way too long hashing that out, the guys move on to a conversation about the recent layoffs at  Bandcamp  and what this might mean for the future of the beloved...

For the past several weeks, Steven and Ian have planned to do a mailbag segment on the show. But they always end up yapping for too long, and the segment inevitably ends up getting bumped. This week, the guys finally rectified the situation by addressing some emails from their loyal listeners. What do  Indiecast  listeners want to know about? Our first letter concerns the matter of seate...

Loyal listeners are aware that Steven is currently wiping the floor with Ian in their Fantasy Fall Albums draft (3:24). But Ian has a shot this week to make up some ground with the release of  Javelin,  the new critically acclaimed album by  Sufjan Stevens (9:58). While Steven respects Sufjan's talent and stature in the indie world, he's never quite warmed up to the singer-songwrite...

Steven and Ian begin today's episode by reflecting on the news that John Darnielle and Lin-Manuel Miranda are apparently friends and consult each other on songwriting. They also tiptoe around their mixed feelings on both artists, while pointing out that they might be more alike than people want to admit. As if this wasn't enough to alienate part of the  Indiecast  audience, Steven and Ia...

It's been a week since former  Rolling Stone  publisher  Jann Wenner gave a disastrous interview  to the  New York Times  to promote his upcoming book of classic rocker interviews,  The Masters.  Thankfully, it lingered just long enough in the news for Steven and Ian to talk about it on the pod. The guys reflect on Wenner's legacy, why he chose to say out lo...

Those following the Fall Albums Fantasy Draft are probably aware that Steven is off to a big lead, as  Olivia Rodrigo's  Guts  (his no. 1 pick) is already one of the year's best reviewed albums. But how do Steven and Ian feel about it? After a mini "Sportscast" episode featuring a surprisingly contentious debate about NFL vs. college football (7:19), the guys get into the album (19:...

The NFL season is upon us, and Steven and Ian are marking the occasion by launching their first ever Fall Albums Fantasy Draft. Here's how it works — they each pick five albums that are coming out this fall with the object of accumulating the highest overall Metacritic score. In this scenario, Olivia Rodrigo is like Patrick Mahomes and Taylor Swift is like Justin Jefferson. Does that make sense? N...

This week's  Indiecast  was recorded a few days earlier than usual, so if there was some major indie news that is not discussed, that is why. Why did the guys record early? Well, Steven shipped off to Dayton, Ohio to see the 40th anniversary shows for  Guided By Voices . Before he left, he previewed the weekend — which he dubbed "45-Year-Old Indie Fan Woodstock" — with Ian (1:45). A...

This week it was reported that Ed Droste of the fine art-rock band  Grizzly Bear  is now working as a therapist (:25). That this was news at all speaks to the weird navieté that we as indie-rock fans have about the financial realities of the musicians we love. Steven and Ian begin the episode by talking about the "Joe jobs" of indie-rock lifers, and the potential "indie star to therapist...

Steven was on vacation for part of the week, so he was checked out of the discourse. When he returned, he kept seeing the same face in his social media feed — the "Ginger Mumford" himself, Oliver Anthony. The folk-country artist went mega-viral this week with his right-wing, anti-welfare song "Rich Men North Of Richmond." Steven asked Ian if he's heard the song, and about the recent upswing in rea...

Every summer, the music press tries to figure out the song of the summer. For Steven, this can be a tedious exercise that feels like one of those fake holidays made up by greeting card companies to sell product. Nevertheless, the discourse is welcome during an otherwise dead time of the year. So Steven and Ian are getting down to the task this week of determining the defining track of the season....

This week, indie-rock institution Wilco announced a new album. It's called  Cousin ,  and Steven and Ian naturally wondered: Is this a deliberate reference to  The Bear ? After all,  the hit FX show is known  for multiple Wilco needle drops. Did Jeff Tweedy return the favor? The verdict is "probably not," but it's fun to speculate about regardless (:28). From there, they t...

After Ian hit up the Pitchfork Music Festival last weekend, Steven hits him up for a post-mortem in today's episode (6:31). Turns out Ian skipped out on Saturday — a day marred by weather delays — in order to eat custard in Wisconsin. Which means he missed out on the headline set by Big Thief, the weekend's most polarizing performance. Steven and Ian also talked about the band's recent single, " V...

Let's say you are starting a record label. Money is no object, and every artist and band in the world is a free agent. Who would you pick? That's the premise of this week's episode. (31:21) This wholly original idea involves selecting acts that fall into five categories: prestige (they don't stream big but they get great reviews), popular (they don't get great reviews but they stream big), solo ar...

Last week, Steven briefly forgot how to work his podcast equipment, and the result was the first, instantly iconic "lost"  Indiecast  episode. Fortunately, Steven Googled "how to work podcast equipment" and he was able to match his vocals to Ian's for this week's episode. The guys begin with a discussion of a weird new trend in live music: People  throwing things at artists' faces ....

There's no fresh, funny, and incisive commentary on Indiecast this week due to technical issues. But here's a rundown of what you would have heard, including musing about Bluesky, The Bear 's soundtrack, and the 30th anniversary of U2's Zooropa . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

On  Indiecast , Steven and Ian try to keep the gap between what we talk about privately in the DM's and what we talk about on the show as narrow as possible. But given all the weird online discourse this week, that just wasn't possible in this episode. Between all the  Boygenius  gatekeeping and "state of music criticism" chatter, it was a very odd bunch of days online. Oh, and as i...

This week Steven and Ian reach back to a momentous year in music and both of their lives:  2013 . One man discovered the joys of Phish and jam bands that year. And the other man fell hard for the burgeoning emo revival. Somehow, they both managed to also listen to music that wasn't Phish or emo. And we discuss a lot of that music in this episode. Before we get to that, the guys talk about the...

Before getting to the serious business of handing out their mid-year  Indiecasties  awards for indie music semi-excellence, Steven and Ian try to make sense of the most nonsensical TikTok trend of 2023:  The Pinegrove Shuffle . Apparently, there are young people doing this weird dance to a deep cut by the rootsy indie-Americana band. Why? Who knows? Listen to two guys in their 40s t...

Last week Steven and Ian had to bank an episode because Steven was on vacation. Which is why they did their first all "Yay Or Nay?" episode rather than address possibly the most annoying music story of the year (and maybe decade?) so far — the short-lived dating  relationship between Taylor Swift and The 1975's Matty Healy , and the insane online reaction it sparked. Sadly, they do touch on t...

It started out as a joke: Wouldn't it be funny if Indiecast did an entire episode of just "yay or nay?" responses to various stimuli? But then, listeners deluged Steven and Ian with "yay or nay?" emails about seemingly every band known to mankind. Clearly, they had no choice but to go full-on "yay or nay." They tackled quite the range of topics this week. Listeners wanted to hear their takes on th...

This week's episode begins with Ian telling Steven about his recent experience seeing  The Cure  in concert. Turns out they are playing a lot of new songs live, and they sound a lot like  Disintegration.  Steven reveals that  Jason Isbell said something similar  about his experience seeing The Cure in New Orleans (5:06). Next, they address the most hyped release in th...

If there is one thing that we love here at  Indiecast , it is festival posters with absolutely chaotic energy. So Steven and Ian were psyched this week to see the lineup for  Riot Fest in Chicago , which is topped by big-time bands like Foo Fighters, Death Cab For Cutie and Queens Of The Stone Age. But the real action takes place further down the list — where else can you see Ani DiFranc...

In Indiecast 's latest episode, Steven declares that Ian is a surgeon, Dr. Han. (Is this meme old yet? Will anyone know what we're talking about next week?) Actually, their first order of business is talking about  In Times New Roman,  the just-announced  new album by Queens Of The Stone Age  due June 16, their first in six years (6:16). They try to sort out their current feeli...

Every week, Steven and Ian make it their business to talk about the latest news in indie rock. This week, however, they don't do that. Instead, they made the least indie-rock episode of  Indiecast  ever. The most indie topic on the docket is  the rumored relationship between Taylor Swift and The 1975's Matty Healy (17:12). Is this (alleged) relationship too annoying even for them? A...