Kreative Kontrol

The first of two interviews I conducted with the late Vic Chesnutt took place over the telephone on Tuesday, September 4, 2007, at 3:00 PM ET. The occasion was the impending release of the majestic North Star Deserter , which was his first album on Constellation Records. It was co-produced by Jem Cohen and features contributions from Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, alo...

Rollie Pemberton , a.k.a. Cadence Weapon returns to discuss his new album Forager and his new book of socio-cultural criticism essays, Ways of Listening: Building a Deeper Relationship with Music in the Streaming Era , the parallels between his writing on his album and his book, his renewed interest in crate digging for records and thrifting for great clothes, resisting passive cultural consumptio...

David Fuller, Niko Kapetan, Bailey Minzenberger, and Korgan Robb from Friko are here to discuss their new album, Something Worth Waiting For , the state of Illinois and dystopian literature, bonding in a high school music theory class, loving noise-infused pop bands like Pavement, the Breeders, and, from Liverpool, England, the Beatles, inspiration from local bands like Smut and the Felix Culpa, t...

Mike Belitsky and Travis Good from the Sadies and Dave ‘Billy Ray’ Koster are here to discuss Live at 6 O’Clock by Gord Downie, The Sadies, and the Conquering Sun , Billy’s long and all-encompassing tenure in the working lives of Downie and the Tragically Hip as a technical director and confidante, how the Sadies and Downie connected and why he was so fond of playing with them, a look back at Down...

Richard Reed Parry returns to discuss Were “The Watchtowers” by Dallas Good + Richard Reed Parry, his Skybarn recording studio, being a new dad and adjusting to life off the road, how he first got to know Dallas after they were randomly chosen to participate in a Dawson City Music Festival collaborative workshop, a shared love of the Everly Brothers and other key artists and records, instant frien...

Janel Leppin returns to discuss her new solo album Slowly Melting and Pluto in Aquarius by Janel Leppin's Ensemble Volcanic Ash, her ability to compartmentalize her visual art impulses from her musical ones, why she frequently releases more than one album on the same day, how Susan Alcorn and David Lynch remain constant inspirations, an eye-opening Mdou Moctar tour, making protest jazz music in a...

Dave Bidini and Dave Clark from Rheostatics are here to discuss The Great Lakes Suite , politics and tensions between the U.S.A. and Canada, contemporary protest music, what prompted this album’s concept and improvisational approach, featured contributions by Alex Lifeson from Rush, Kevin Hearn, Hugh Marsh, Tanya Tagaq, Laurie Anderson, Chief Stacey LaForme, Anne Carson, Liz Howard, Kendel Carson,...

Joe Pernice is here to discuss his excellent new album, Sunny, I Was Wrong , living in frigid Canada as a well-informed American, his obsession with bicycles and riding bikes, his close friendship with music writer Warren Zanes who penned lovely liner notes for this new record, being a dad and coaching baseball with some encouragement from Buck 65, writing music again after a substantial break and...

A.C. Newman returns to discuss The Former Site Of by the New Pornographers , life in New York State, playing more mandolin in his home recording studio, R.E.M. snobbery, not knowing about a nearby Dry Cleaning show, and understanding fans who come and go, songs about grieving and newfound flower expertise and songs people misunderstand, spirituality and social media, how the song “Calligraphy” ref...

My first interview with Bill Callahan took place over the telephone on March 31, 2011, ahead of the April 19 release of his album, Apocalypse . The interview was conducted for and broadcast on the Mich Vish Interracial Morning Show! on May 4, 2011, and also for a print magazine profile. Bill and I bonded over our shared love of The Larry Sanders Show among other things, which you can hear now. As...

Charlotte Cornfield returns to discuss her new album Hurts Like Hell , living in Toronto after stints in Montreal and New York, how becoming a mother has altered her sense of self and her artistic perspective, notions of connection, teaching, and learning, how Lucinda Williams’ memoir impacted her relationship to narrative realities, talking about Neil Young, Zuma , and Tonight’s the Night, who th...

Verity Susman and Matthew Simms from MEMORIALS are here to discuss their new album All Clouds Bring Not Rain , the confusing measurement units different countries use to track distances, the roles their respective fathers played in inspiring them to explore music, telling me what a boffin is, working on film scores and soundtracks, a helpful boost from Stereolab, the significance of the Susan Sont...

Brian Weitz is here to discuss the solo debut by Geologist , Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? , his previous academic and vocational pursuits in environmental and ocean policy on Capitol Hill, how his interest in playing the hurdy gurdy led him to Ben Grossman, Guelph, Ontario, and my inbox a few years ago, why a Keiji Haino show at the New York City club Tonic made a huge impression on him as a...

Jason P. Woodbury returns to discuss the new, self-titled album by Jason P. Woodbury & The Night Bird Singing Quartet, why he shifted from releasing records as JPW to his current band name and who’s part of the NBSQ, working to overcome self-consciousness about making music under his own name as an active music journalist, his fascination with birdsongs and rogue roosters, using your imaginati...

Morgan Nagler is here to discuss her long-awaited debut solo album, I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It , her connection to nature, compiling songs she wrote during a long relationship that she realized predicted the end of that relationship, fuelling up with grassoline, a deep bond she has formed with Kim Deal after Deal suggested they write songs together, her prolific child acting caree...

Bill Frisell is here to discuss his new sextet record, In My Dreams , the different American and European cities he has lived in over the years and how they might inform his musical practice, his 75th birthday and the March 2026 tour dates that mark the occasion, a dream about music and its possibilities that he had 30 years ago and is still processing, the lessons mistakes teach us, how film noir...

Adam Sturgeon returns to discuss the new Status/Non-Status album, Big Changes , living in London, Ontario as it struggles through volatile and difficult socio-political conditions under late-stage capitalism, being a homebody and making music that your neighbours aren’t always into, lyrical themes and the sound of this new album, loving Eric’s Trip and collaborating with Julie Doiron, other guest...

Gregory Uhlmann is here to discuss his lovely solo debut album, Extra Stars , the lives he’s led in Los Angeles and Chicago, what it was like to be a student at CalArts, getting into blues and jazz music and music making thanks especially to his dad and his brother Evan, being a big Hanson and Backstreet Boys fan at one point, key venues from the past and present that fostered his musical communit...

Ani DiFranco returns to discuss her new book, The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music & Freedom , her involvement in establishing the Buffalo, New York arts hub known as Babeville, which is where I last saw Shellac play a show, why Buffalo was fertile ground for an aspiring musician, what prompted her to write this book with Lauren Coyle Rosen, the evolution of her posi...

Buck 65 makes a rare reappearance to discuss his excellent new album, Do Not Bend , musical brevity, Joe Pernice inspiring him to start an insightful Substack , writing jokes and stories that wind up as rhymes, befriending the late great Biz Markie and hanging out backstage at a Beastie Boys show, meeting Lou Reed but being low key about their creative kinship, acquiring the four-track he once use...

Buck Meek is here for a talk about his charming, confessional new album, The Mirror , coming up in Wimberley, Texas and people’s misconceptions of the Lone Star State, the vibrancy of transient college towns, how his grandmother’s death and caring for his grandfather galvanized his family and inspired aspects of The Mirror , writing songs about communication, teaching, language, speech, parenting,...

Brendan Canty , Joe Lally , James Brandon Lewis , and Anthony Pirog return for a Valentine’s Day discussion about Deface the Currency , the excellent new album by The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis , what led them into a studio with engineer Don Godwin fresh off of some tour dates, the noisier, aggressive aspects of this record, social currency and community-building in music, the significanc...

Sahan Jayasuriya is here to discuss his book, Don’t Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen , loving living in Milwaukee, benefitting from the reverence that artists like Beastie Boys and Nirvana exhibited for their own influences and favourite musicians, discovering that people like Neko Case, Matt Sweeney, Dave Grohl, and David Pajo all love Die Kreuzen as he was writing a book about them, w...

During Family Day in Canada, my wife and kids and I gathered around our kitchen table to discuss our shared experience watching all nine episodes of The Beatles Anthology documentary series. Please enjoy two parents and their 14- and 11-year-old children reflecting upon what we learned and liked about the Beatles, including who loves John, Paul, George, and Ringo the most. One correction: contrary...

Elizabeth Nelson returns to discuss the Paranoid Style and their new album, Known Associates , life near Washington D.C., a recap of our recent discussion about the Replacements’ Let It Be reissue, a brief overview of American paranoia, her penchant for wordy lyrics and how that impacts her as a singer, some of her favourite sincerely humorous songwriters, Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” and Bob...