Kreative Kontrol

Michael Longfellow is here to discuss life as a lazy student and his creative writing academic pursuits, how and why he got into comedy and music as a kid, growing up with different step-parents and step-siblings and what his kinfolk think about him making jokes about them specifically, why he’s uncomfortable being compared to Norm Macdonald but why he reminded me of Norm when he was on Saturday N...

Brian Raftery is here to discuss his excellent new book, Hannibal Lecter: A Life , the Burbank Burger King from Back to the Future , what exactly prompted him to explore the origin story and pervasiveness of Hannibal Lecter, his mysterious and seldom-interviewed creator, the best-selling author Thomas Harris, why people love fictitious and apparently also real-life antiheroes, a rundown of the his...

Lance Sampson from Aquakultre returns to discuss his new album 1783 , the time I saw him request and receive chicken wings while performing on-stage and why his friends and family often engage in their own version of Hot Ones , how his research about the history of African Nova Scotia or Black Nova Scotia led him to write songs, why he engaged in this research initially and what he learned about h...

Julia Steiner from Ratboys returns to discuss their new album, Singin’ to an Empty Chair , processing the death of comedy legend Catherine O’Hara, writing songs inspired by her first experiences in therapy, working with producer Chris Walla and songs that combine session work at a rented cabin with those recorded at Electrical Audio , Steve Albini’s drum sound, anxiety, dogs, and Indiana Jones, ou...

ER Jurken returns to discuss his wonderful new album, To Be Continued , topical and timeless songwriting, political satire and comedy on late night tv talk shows, the band Wilco playing Ed’s song “Let Go the Coat” through the P.A. at their shows after they’ve left the stage, getting over a prolonged bout of writers’ block, why several of his new songs invoke travelling, key inspirations like Neil...

Trevor Shelley de Brauw from Pelican is here to discuss the band’s album, Flickering Resonance , our history of working together because of his role in music publicity, the city of Chicago’s music dynamism, a brief foray into North Carolina farming, how guitar teachers underestimate Ramones songs, seeing significant shows at Fireside Bowl as a teenager, the antagonistic antics of Tusk, where Pelic...

Brydon Crain, Adam Sipkema, and Penelope Stevens from Motherhood are here to discuss their January 2026 shows in the Canadian Prairies, their latest album Thunder Perfect Mind , university courses, music school, and religious studies, spiritual and musical communities, Penny’s time in Vietnam and observations about communism, the story of Motherhood, how I think my son is trying to be better at li...

MC Taylor from Hiss Golden Messenger is here to discuss life in Durham, North Carolina and the time he spent in San Francisco, California, the Grateful Dead and Dead Kennedys, why he was so fascinated by the American South, he decided to move there 20 years ago, his love for the Band and the motifs in their music, if his academic background in American studies, folklore, and history offers him muc...

Paul Myers is here to discuss his new book, John Candy: A Life in Comedy , how the actor and producer Ryan Reynolds helped him get from a Boston event about the documentary, John Candy: I Like Me, to an Edmonton book event within 24 hours and in style, the fortuitous connection between the documentary and the book, which were made independent of one another but released around the same time, a Mye...

Lisa G and Lisa Marr from cub are here to discuss the 30th anniversary vinyl edition of Come Out Come Out , the significant year in culture that was 1995, being pegged as “cuddlecore” in a time where labels and preconceptions were being shaken off on the regular, not identifying as men in a predominantly male underground music community and how some fans treated cub, vinyl records and the pros and...

Sohrab Habibion and Johnny Temple are here to discuss the book, Plenty for All: The Art of Rick Fröberg , how they each met and got to know Rick and how this book came to be, the role the late Rich Jacobs played in this project, how this book and the zine that’s part of the deluxe edition might surprise Rick’s fans, the story of Akashic Books and why Sohrab thought it was the perfect home for Rick...

Chris Brokaw , Ken “Bundy K.” Brown , Curtis Harvey, and  Doug McCombs are here to discuss III , the first album by Pullman in 25 years, what inspired Pullman to explore acoustic guitar sounds in the late 1990s, the positive but also harsh critical reception their first two albums, 1998’s Turnstyles & Junkpiles  and 2001’s Viewfinder received, how Tim Barnes joined Pullman and also h...

Mark Medley is here to discuss his remarkable new book, Live to See the Day - Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be , our experiences at writers’ festivals, questions I have about how book publicity works and whether or not some publishers promote their authors and books, what inspired him to write this 10-chapter book of case studies about people who...

Tim Midyett from Mint Mile returns to discuss andwhichstray , what recent Silkworm reunion shows have been like, the throughlines between songs he wrote in that band about mortality, connection, and community and his most recent Mint Mile material, how fortune enabled him to make one more record with his late friend Steve Albini, who engineered andwhichstray in France during the second last record...

My son, who is 14, and I discuss our top 10 albums of 2025, along with several honourable mentions. Each of us mostly highlighted records the other wasn’t all that familiar with, and other members of our family make background or brief appearances on this episode as well. All in all, these are some eclectic lists, so we hope our music recommendations help you in some way! Featuring music produced...

Dave NeSmith and Drew Ringo from Sleepytime Trio are here to discuss Memory Minus Plus Minus , their current music community involvement, the Guelph house show they played and the ice cream tricycle Drew rode around on that day, the significance of bands like Hoover, Shotmaker, Fugazi, Slint, and Drive Like Jehu, making hip-hop music and getting into shoegaze, why kids can’t be blamed for the tech...

Friendly Rich returns to discuss his latest album, The Birds of Marsville , his Brampton, Ontario pride, completing his PhD in music education and becoming a doctor, what having a giant beard might mean, playing the artistic and comedic long game, learning more about Marsville, the eighteenth-century researcher C. Smalloochi, and the orchestrion’s capabilities as a musical instrument, getting into...

Jimmie Kilpatrick returns to discuss his excellent album Jimmie , the heartening experience of living in Manitoba, Canada these days and concentrating on his community, why he retired his Shotgun Jimmie name, bringing his sound sculpture work into his indie-rock aesthetic, collaborating with Ladyhawk’s Ryan Peters and messing around with tape loops, making subversive pop music, numerous lyrical re...

Rebecca Foon and Aliayta Foon-Dancoes are here to discuss their debut album, Reverie , studying at Princeton, their family dynamic and their respective early forays in classical music, how much formal music education can inform improvisation and punk rock, Rebecca’s work on the Lost River Music Festival and the Pathway to Paris initiative, how their feelings about the ecological inspiration behind...

On a recent Kreative Kontrol episode, Mark Molnar mentioned his fondness for a radio interview I once conducted with Tom Holliston, John Wright, and Rob Wright from Canada’s greatest band, Nomeansno . And so, here’s that interview, which occurred over breakfast at the By the Way Café in Toronto, Ontario on April 5, 2011. It’s one of my most cherished work life experiences, so thank you again to No...

Mark Molnar is here to discuss his new album EXO , being made to take classical music lessons at three years old over pursuing sports, key figures in his life who exposed him to music, musicians, and ways to approach your musical instrument, the death of arts funding and risk aversion in the cultural sector, his engagement with my music journalism and a breakfast interview I once did with Nomeansn...

Lonnie Holley is here to discuss his 2025 album Tonky , his view of and appreciation for Canada, the role the country played for African-American slaves and the evolution of terms ascribed to Black people in America, growing up in juke joints, whiskey houses, and slave camps in Alabama in the 1950s, his interest in salvaging objects to make art, his observations about historical cycles, his song “...

Sometime this past November, a Patreon subscriber named Brian asked me if I might have any older interviews with Buck 65 in my archives. So, I took a look and sure enough, I do, including a 2009 talk about his Bike For Three! collaboration with Joëlle Phuong Minh Lê. Then, on December 4, 2025, Mr. 65 released a Deluxe Edition of More Heart Than Brains , which was the debut record by Bike For Three...

Jim White and Guy Picciotto return to discuss Jim’s new album Inner Day , the beginning of New York City’s Zohran Mamdani era, Jim’s recent shows with Ed Kuepper, Jim’s decision to write lyrics and sing them, his relationship with words and their power, Jim briefly singing on a Hard Quartet song, my favourite song of the year, “ I Don’t Do / Grand Central ” and how this collaboration with Zoh Amba...

Elizabeth Stokes and Jonathan Pearce from the Beths are back to discuss their new album, Straight Line Was a Lie , NBA basketball, cricket, and baseball, overcoming writer’s block by reading a book by Stephen King, Liz’s health challenges and her current state of mind, how Jonathan and his bandmates have supported and worked with her in recent years, a helpful typewriter, accepting that people cha...