Left of the Dial

If you've listened to any recent episode of Left of the Dial, you've heard us singing the praises of this week's guest. Jenn Coulter is our Editor-in-Chief, one of our studio session videographers, and an all around fantastic person. Jenn brought a handful of songs she's currently in love with, and we're excited to officially introduce y'all to her! Follow Jenn on Twitter: @Spooky_Coochie Read Jen...

Bel (Isabel Furman) is a Philly singer-songwriter who played our Left of the Dial live studio series at the end of 2021. At the time, she shared a couple of songs off her upcoming album, which was released on March 25th of this year. We asked her back to talk about those songs and a few more. Bel is such a thoughtful songwriter, and it was a joy to talk about her process. Pick up Beaches . Watch o...

Andrea's antics (tm tm tm) finally got Kitzy back on the podcast, so we're actually talking independent music this week! So much incredible new music came out today that we made it a whole thing! We're featuring songs off of five of our favorite albums released today, March 25th, and you can read reviews of those albums by our wonderfully talented writers, and find links to pick up all these album...

Andrea's still hosting the show on her own, which means she's still doing whatever she wants. This week, she brought one of her lovely co-hosts from New Jersey Is the World , MikeD, to talk about one of his favorite Jersey artists, Nancy Sinatra. You can catch Mike co-hosting a few of our shows over at patreon.com/newjerseyistheworld and nowhere else because he has the good sense to stay off socia...

Caleb left Andrea unsupervised so she decided to switch up the format and invited her brilliant friend Jay Jolles, who wanted to talk about the soundtrack to Hulu's limited series, The Dropout, which, according to Hulu, is an "unbelievable tale of ambition and fame gone terribly wrong." Jay is a PhD student in American Studies at The College of William and Mary. His work lives at the intersection...

If you've been listening to Left of the Dial for more than 5 minutes, then you're already familiar with Riverby. We covered Smart Mouth back in 2020, Riverby played our first ever live session in February of 2021, and a year to the day since that performance, August joined Andrea and Caleb to talk about their upcoming album, Absolution , working in the studio with Jim Wirt (longtime producer of An...

We're back this week with Caleb's friend from the St. Louis scene, Wes Hoffman. Wes brought his new EP Rewrite the Story. It's a real love letter to pop-punk and just the thing to help you kick off your weekend. Pick it up today ! Check out the Wes Hoffman and Friends mini tour doc here. If you're in the St. Louis area, check out Wes Hoffman and friends , March 5th at Off Broadway! Follow Wes and...

In an apparent attempt to fully destroy any cred she might have, our on-call host and Left of the Dial producer, Andrea, has brought 6 songs by her favorite band. She's keeping them a secret, so you'll have to listen to find out who she brought and why she wants you to hear these songs before you judge. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram . We're kicking off the 2022 Left of the Dial studio session...

It finally happened—Caleb got annoyed enough with Spotify to try out a new service. And wouldn't you know, the very first record he clicked on was full of bangers! We're talking about the new release Love and Other Lies, from indie pop/pop-punk artist Charlotte Sands. Crank this one and get ready to dance! Don't forget to head over to Left of the Dial dot FM to keep up with all the latest music ne...

Andrea's filling in for Caleb again this week, which works out just fine, because we've got Alyse Vellturo—better known as PRONOUN—in to talk about one of Andrea's favorite releases from 2021, OMG I MADE IT, the five track EP PRONOUN recorded at the height of the pandemic and released in June of last year. It's a big, sprawling release despite it's short tracklist, and we talk with Alyse about how...

Our on-call host, Andrea, is filling in for Caleb this week, and she's brought along her favorite covers of the last year or so. Featuring a few friends of Left of the Dial and some folks we've never covered, plus, of course, Andrea and Caleb's VERY favorite band makes an appearance on the list. If you love these covers as much as we do, think about supporting these artists, who all make their own...

In preparation for this episode, Kitzy told Caleb "I’m only a minute into the first song but this is extremely your shit." Can confirm. Still Blooms hits from start to finish, and at times leaves us speechless. Kitzy didn't even mind that there were horns. Check out the video for "Separated" and more on their site ! We may have postponed Left of the Dial Live sessions for January, but now's the pe...

As we close out 2021—and our second full year of making this show—Caleb picked a special theme. But the catch is he didn't tell Kitzy what the theme was, or what songs we'd be discussing, in advance. As the episode progresses, Kitzy attempts to guess the theme, and gets a surprise gift along the way. Make sure you're subscribed to the Left of the Dial channel on YouTube and keeping an eye out on L...

As we come to the end of both 2021 and our second full year of this show, Kitzy recaps some of their favorite songs of the year. You may recognize some bangers from past episodes, and they even surprise us with a couple unexpected (but still fantastic) new jams. We also talk about all the amazing performances available on the Left of the Dial YouTube page. But you already knew about those because...

There may still be a couple of weeks left, but Caleb is prepared to call it - Graceful Rage is his record of the year! We've been wanting to talk about this one for a few months now, and are super excited to finally get the chance! RIYL - Elizabeth Elmore, The Gloria Record, the ending track on any Jimmy Eat World record, and layers of seemingly random instruments that just work. Meanwhile, on the...

It may be December in the real world, but there's always room for more October. First of October, that is. We're back talking about the second annual-ish release from our favorite YouTube duo Andrew Huang and Rob Scallon . Honorable mention to a fire track from Rick Riffson we talked about, but that isn't on the record. And of course there's a discussion on just how much is too much to pay for rav...

Way back in episode 1, Caleb promised to wait until we were in triple digits to cover another Jimmy Eat World record. Well, as fate would have it, the band decided to release the audio from their incredible Phoenix Sessions online concert events just in time for our 100th episode. We talk about the incredible studio quality of these live performances, and how impactful this record was for teenage...

Feeling inspired, and perhaps a little wired, Kitzy presented a challenge: what are your favorite songs about coffee? Join as we discuss a carefully curated selection of the finest tracks, for a delightful music-tasting experience. Don't forget to check out all of the happenings on leftofthedial.fm , and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to never miss a Left of the Dial Live performance.

If you've listened to us for a while, you'll know we're big fans of Dave Hause. So when Dave dropped his new record, we just had to give it the "first listen" treatment on the show. There's a lot about this record that feels familiar and expected, but we were caught off guard by just how... grown up it is. Give it a listen and see what you think! Make sure to subscribe to the Left of the Dial YouT...

The week, Caleb stumbled across an article on Beyond the Stage that introduces the reader to the growing subgenre of Emo Rap. As you might guess, that was too good of a lure to pass up. So we listened to these tracks, learned a bit about the artists, and explored the cinematic quality of modern music videos. This was a fun episode for us, and we hope you enjoy it! Special thanks to Kira Mautone fo...

This week, Kitzy and our New Jersey correspondent Andrea Quinn are coming to you live(ish) and on location from The Fest with a ton of recommendations for bands you should make sure to put on your Must See list if you’re in Gainesville this weekend. And if you’re not in Gainesville, you should still check them out at the links below. Visit the Fest website (https://thefestfl.com/) or app for the m...

This week we're completing the podcast exchange between Left of the Dial and 25 O' Clock Podcast (a.k.a. - Philly's premiere music podcast, or "Kitzy's Favorite Philadelphia Music Podcast"). The assignment was for Dan to pick 6 of his favorite Philly bands but, as sometimes happens, he forgot. So instead we get to go on a musical journey of Dan's influences, from the late 90's Rochester NY emo sce...

Playing the part of Caleb Coy this week is South Jersey correspondent Andrea. Today we're talking with Maja from Queers To The Front , an independent management and booking company focused on helping marginalized artists. Check out the video for Plum Summer by Matchstick Ghost. Songs played in this episode: GILT -  Black And Blue Ellen Siberian Tiger -  Grinding My Teeth The Y Axes -&nbs...

This week we're talking about the new record from Calicoco, Underneath. Fun fact: it was recorded by our friend Stephen Roessner, who long time listeners may remember from our episode on Recover by Small Signals . Don't forget to check out the music video for Heal Me (unless you don't want to see a pretend lobotomy, in which case you should just listen to the song because it's still very good).

Caleb’s still stoked about finally getting to see The Casket Lottery live and decided it was time to talk about their 2020 release Short Songs For End Times. This record is sometimes everything you’d expect from TCL, and sometimes completely surprising, but start to finish it bangs. As a bonus, this was Kitzy’s first real exposure to TCL, so you get to hear them get into these jams for the very fi...