Performance Anxiety

Ellen Southern and Tom Bush of Dead Space Chamber Music join me to discuss their new album. But it’s not just another rock album. Through our discussion, we all decided that the band is the only one in the dark neoclassical ambient jam band genre.  But how did they get to that point? Was it Ellen getting thrown out of orchestra at school? Or was it Tom’s decision to study guitar at night? Regardle...

I’m so happy to be joined by ambient pioneer, LARAAJI. We take a trip through his vast musical history, beginning with his early musical influences to changing his career path from architecture or engineering to music, to his discovery of the zither in a pawn shop. Even then, his path to music was not a straight one. In fact, it began in comedy at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem. Through perfor...

I was lucky enough to have John Barrett of Bass Drum Of Death join me. He talks about growing up in Oxford, Mississippi and how Ole Miss sports can be very frustrating. After moving into a house in Oxford that ended up being home to several bands and a recording studio for his first two albums, he moved to New York City. That really had an impact on his songwriting, one that some of his fans weren...

I’m pleased to have Ken Andrews from Failure on the podcast. We talk about so much in this episode, like how Ken got into music, how Failure formed, and how the band decided on their name. There is so much Failure in this episode, which makes sense because they just released a new album called Wild Type Droid. But we also go into the space between Failure’s breakup in 1997 and reformation in 2013....

Welcome to the Performance Anxiety Podcast Holiday Special. In the spirit of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, I have asked a couple of guests from podcasts past to come back on. Alain Johannes discusses a song of Christmas past that he recorded with his wife Natasha Shneider and Chris Cornell. I’m also joined by Josh Caterer of Smoking Popes to talk about a song he recorded and released this Christmas...

Norman Westberg is my guest today. This episode went to a few places I wasn’t expecting. At first we discuss his entry into music and how he really wanted to play drums. But a photo of Mark Farner from Grand Funk Railroad made him rethink that idea. But he started off playing bass in his bands. Until The Stooges made him realize that he really could play guitar in a band.  This is where we take a...

I am joined by the multi-talented artist Ellen Foley. You might remember her from the musical Hair, or maybe as public defender Billie Young from the 80’s sitcom Night Court, or maybe as the female lead from Meatloaf’s Paradise By The Dashboard Light (or the entire Bat Out Of Hell album for that matter). She talks about a lot more than those highlights, though. There’s moving to NYC from St. Louis...

John San Juan is our guest. He’s the guitarist for Hushdrops. The band was preparing their third album when they suffered the unexpected passing of their drummer, Joe Camarillo. John talks about how he spent the next few months drinking, until one day he decided the best tribute to Joe would be to finish the album. It’s a really great story of how they were able to use drum tracks by Joe to finish...

We’re thrilled to have Jared Michael Nickerson as our guest. He grew up right in the middle of the funk capital of the world, Dayton, Ohio. He talks about the effect it had on his life and how it shaped his music. He attended the University of Notre Dame where one of the priests introduced him to the early works of Miles Davis. There’s also a pretty wild story of how he wound up with the bass he’s...

I would like to welcome singer/songwriter Sarah McQuaid to the show. Sarah has been singing since joining a children’s choir and was touring before hitting double digits. Even in school she looked at singing like it was her vocation. That shouldn’t be surprising once you discover that both her parents were artists and one of her relatives was a founder of the ACLU and won a Nobel Peace Prize. She...

Cassie Watson Francillon & Bryan Webre of Shakespeare and The Blues join the podcast today from New Orleans.  We recorded just a few days after Hurricane Ida impacted the area. So our connection was not the clearest. But it’s a fun talk and I think it provided a little distraction in all the post Ida chaos. In the band, Bryan plays bass and handles electronics and Cassie plays the harp.  It sounds...

I don’t believe I’ve ever had a guest more self-deprecating than Mike Connell, particularly concerning the band he founded with his brother and some friends, The Connells. Through everything, the local gigs and homemade demos to radio hits and opening for Def Leppard, he has remained appreciative of the opportunities that have come his way, treating each album like it was the last one they’d be al...

This week we take a deep dive with James Hall. We hit on a lot of topics and a lot of bands like Mary My Hope, The James Hall Band, The Futura Bold, The Steady Wicked, and The Ladies Of. As always, we find out how he got his start in the music business. But we also find out a lot more. Like how the record labels had a hard time figuring out what to do with him and his band, placing them on tours w...

Erik Golts and Dave Fulton of the band Møtrik are my guests. Møtrik is on the front lines of a krautrock revival. The band’s origin can be traced back to a drunken conversation about the genre. And it’s really funny to listen as the memories come flooding back to Dave and Erik as we go through the band’s history. They give me a really good lesson on krautrock and what drew them to it in the first...

Back in mid-July, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Scott von Ryper. Scott’s love of music stems from his dad’s passion for big band and family organ lessons as a child. He began playing in a band with his brother at age 11, doing covers. He began playing bass soon after. His first one being made from some wood he found under his house, clothesline wire, and some nails.  Once he got a p...

This episode gives you two guests in one. The multi-talented Luke Condon joins me. Not only is he a part of the band Town Meeting, he’s a co-host of the Long May You Young podcast. Luke and I discuss his early musical venture into rap and being in a band with his brothers Russ and Babe and hearing his dad play While My Guitar Gently weeps while passing gas on the toilet. Luke reveals his best and...

Flood Twin’s Grant Curry joins me on this episode. His road to music was neither direct nor easy. He was diagnosed with diabetes at age 8. By the age of 14 he was already in a drug treatment center. After going through rehab, he has stayed clean and even became a counselor. But music was always in the back of his mind, calling him. When the opportunity to take time off of work and play, he took it...

One of the benefits of doing this podcast is being introduced to new bands by my guests. Early on I had Leah Shapiro & Peter Hayes from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on the show. After the show they both said I had to have the guys from a band called Restavrant on. Well, it took a little while but we finally made it happen. Troy Murrah from Restavrant is my guest. He got started playing music a litt...

I’m joined by drummer Paul Claro. Paul is one half of the band Cinema Cinema. He is also related to the other half of Cinema Cinema, guitarist and noisemaker, Ev Gold. Together they form one of the most avant garde bands recording today. Paul tells me all about wanting to be in a band with Ev ever since he was a little kid.  Paul got a feel for being a musician early. In high school, his jazz band...

Justin Greaves of Crippled Black Phoenix joins the podcast family this week. Not only do we talk about Crippled Black Phoenix, it’s formation, it’s troubles, it’s resurrection, and a new album; we go even further back. Back past Electric Wizard, past Armour Of God, past Hard To Swallow, and even past Iron Monkey. We go all the way back to his dad’s record shop and how that informed his desire to c...

Thirteen time Offbeat Magazine accordion player of the year and two time Grammy nominee Dwayne Dopsie jumps on the podcast. He’s got zydeco in his blood. His family created the genre! He was going to play zydeco and there was no backup plan. We talk about his music, playing some unusual cover songs, and the possibility of a zydeco concept album. I don’t think he’s completely sold on that yet. We d...

Bren Holmes moved from Dublin, Ireland to Los Angeles, California to start an Irish band called The Young Dubliners. They play a great combination of rock and traditional Irish music. In fact, Bren tells me how he gets a royalty check for a song that’s 400 years old.  After 28 years of grueling touring with the band, Bren called it a career. Until, that is, he started finishing music that he had b...

Chris Olley of six by seven was kind enough to take a break from writing to join us on the podcast. We jump right into it with how difficult it is for artists to remain true to themselves. Chris also discusses how he transformed from a guitar shredder to a Neil Young disciple. His band, six by seven, was the band that should have broken here in the US but didn’t. Chris posits that it could be the...

Poet Joseph Massey was kind enough to spend a little time with me. He discovered poetry after a particularly troublesome childhood which included neglectful parents and spending one school year by himself in an auditorium. He spent his time after that reading and writing poetry; corresponding with some of the most influential poets alive, like Cid Corman, Robert Bly, and Allen Ginsburg (who gave h...

This episode is another Performance Anxiety first. I heard about my guest Suzie Stapleton through a listener, Sandy Olivia. We got to chatting through social media (and I am always open to that) and Sandy was so enthusiastic about Suzie that I had to check her music out. It’s moody, atmospheric, and heavy without getting bogged down. After listening to her debut, I reached out and Suzie agreed to...