Performance Anxiety

Today we head to France with Rabih Gebeile. We decide to take a walk through the French countryside and no, that’s not a euphemism. So occasionally there will be a bit of wind noise. But Rabih has led a fascinating life, including escaping civil wars. He’s lived all over the world and all of this can be felt and heard in his music. It’s also been influenced by the medical condition his father deve...

Astrid Young comes from a long line of creative people. Her father is legendary writer, journalist, & author Scott Young. And her brother is...well her brother is Neil Young. Those are some tough acts to follow. Astrid talks about growing up and getting into music in her own way. She describes what it was like when Neil asked her to sing on Harvest Moon. There are some great stories about the Unpl...

Beth Jeans Houghton, AKA Du Blonde, joins the show. We talk about the value of free shoes, week long constipation, and bootlegging your own records. Her mom has a bath while we also discuss making videos for Ezra Furman and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, creating video games, and the 2000 year old computer. We swap childhood phone numbers and in between all these hilarious tangents, we talk about her...

Josh Caterer is our guest. And he’s got quite a story. He started a band with two brothers which became the Smoking Popes. They decided to let Josh sing because he was the best at singing and playing while not looking at his hands. They quickly went from recording 18 songs in a day to opening for bands like Green Day. There’s a funny story about that. But with all that success came a pretty big fa...

I’ve mentioned this list I made early on of “unicorn” guests. Well today I get to check another one off the list. Rob Marshall is one of the most incredible people I’ve had on this show. He’s an amazing guitarist, but more importantly, he’s a great human. He began making walls of sound with Lyca Sleep & Exit Calm. When that period ended, he began writing for & with Mark Lanegan, culminating in the...

Tim Foljahn has had a very interesting career. He’s worked with Steve Shelly, Lee Ranaldo, and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. He’s toured extensively with Jad Phair, Half Japanese, Cat Power; Thurston Moore, Townes Van Zandt, and others. He’s been in a TV band called Side Boob on Orange Is The New Black. He’s pursuing a Master’s degree in psychoanalysis. AND...he has a new album coming out. It’s c...

Benjamin Wright joins us on Performance Anxiety. And I’m going to stay in touch with him because in addition to being a musician, he’s a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. He’s releasing his second album with his sister Amanda, under the band name Benjamin Jayne. Benjamin lives in Vermont but Amanda lives in Barcelona. Spain. Not New York. So the pandemic rally didn’t change how they wrote music. In...

This is an interesting episode. We have a previous guest returning with a new guest. We have a singer/songwriting and a poet/comedian/rapper. We are joined by Elizabeth McCullough, also known as Alpha Cat and Jamal Hassan, who raps under the name Kid Anansi We talk about the two sides of Jamal’s poetry. One of the worst experiences he’s witnessed at a poetry event. What inspired and continues to i...

I know I’ve mentioned that when I starting thinking about doing this podcast, I had a top ten list of guests I wanted to have. Some were obvious and others less so. This one is one of the top three. Richard Black is the singer for the band Shark Island. They played in the LA area beginning in the late 70’s through to the early 90’s. They released one major label album and a handful of songs on sou...

Keith Kenny is a one man band. But not the kind with an accordion and cymbals on his knees. He does use a suitcase as a drum, but more on that later. He's known for his multiple extended and varied sets. I mean how many people do you know who can pull off a one man, acoustic based Tool medley? His new album Lifetimes Ago Motel is out after a six month delay. But it's well worth the wait. Follow hi...

Christopher Harold Wells joins us on this episode. Growing up, his house was full of music and sports. His dad was a linebacker for the Eagles. But Christopher’s passion was music. He’s jammed with some incredible people like Lauryn Hill & Bubba Sparxxx. He’s released an album under the name The Neverlutionaries and it’s a wonderful mix of genres and styles. The album was recorded at Hyde Studios...

This week Laura Carbone joins us from Berlin. She’s released a Live album, Live at Rockpalast that’s the closest thing to a live show we’ve had in over a year. Why? Because it’s a live album with absolutely no overdubs or corrections. We talk about how an accidental gift of Nirvana’s Nevermind changed her musical perspective, causing her to put down her flute and pick up a guitar. She also talks a...

Steve Almaas was on the cutting edge of punk music in the 70’s with the band Suicide Commandos. In the 80’s he took a turn towards pop music with the album & band Beat Rodeo. He began releasing true solo albums a short time later. He’s got a new album coming out called Everywhere You’ve Been and it’s a lot of fun. It includes two tracks that came to Steve in his sleep. You can check Steve out on F...

It’s not everyday that an artist comes out of the blue to make me pause. Derek Day did exactly that. He started out playing on the street in Santa Monica doing over 70 different cover songs. Now he’s writing and recording with artists like Vernon Reid and opening for Living Colour, Ted Nugent, & Steve Vai. He has so much energy on stage and in everyday life. I’m so glad we met and I really look fo...

We welcome the arrival of Peter Holmstrӧm. In addition to playing guitar for The Dandy Warhols, he’s been busy with his project Pete International Airport. He explains how that began and who else is involved. We also get some great Dandy’s history. They’ve been together for over 25 years, so they’ve done just about everything you can think of, including writing both the longest AND the shortest so...

We’re joined by a musician who thrives when he’s uncomfortable. Tobias Nathaniel’s greatest enemy is muscle memory. That’s why he switched from guitar to organ. He formed The Black Heart Procession and kept his penchant for being uncomfortable by playing instruments like sheetmetal and being the wedding band for Melvins drummer Dale Crover’s nuptials. He also explains how he inadvertently wrote Ri...

Tamar Aphek has been called Israel’s guitar goddess. Her music is a wild combination of styles and genres. She’s fearless and knows exactly what sounds she’s looking for. But she didn’t start out as a guitar deity. She began her musical journey with piano. Singing came a little after that as she joined a prestigious children’s choir. It wasn’t until she was 18 that she really started listening to...

Keith Lowell Jensen is a comedian. He doesn’t use music in his act. He doesn’t play in a band on the side. But he started performing as a frontman in bands growing up, and that experience gave him a head start in comedy. He began his comedy career abruptly with Spike & Mike’s Festival of Animation as kind of a one man cover band of comedy. He’s performed with a lot of great artists, including an u...

Let’s welcome singer, guitarist, & all around chill dude, Ryan Scully to the podcast. We talk about a lot of different topics, getting a little philosophical at times, but in a way that ultimately ends in one of laughing. He tells how he wound up in New Orleans after growing up in Missouri, working in his family’s restaurant. He also tells me about how he found his own voice as a songwriter. He’s...

Sean Dowdell and Mace Beyers from the band Grey Daze join the show to talk about their favorite Unplugged albums. And as luck would would have it, they are releasing their own acoustic EP called Amends...Stripped. It’s acoustic versions of five tracks from their recent album Amends. Grey Daze was Chester Bennington’s band before he shot to stardom in Linkin Park. It’s a rare chance to hear someone...

We welcome SoCal punk legend & legitimate scientist, Alfie Agnew to the podcast. Alfie spent his youth with his brothers Rikk & Frank defining the SoCal punk sound. We talk about that and what it takes to create a new musical landscape. He was a vet by the time he was a junior in high school. But one book changed the entire trajectory of his life. After decades in academia, writing pieces like A T...

Today we're joined by recording engineer, producer, musician, gardener, part-time luthier, & breakfast burrito enthusiast, Tom Biller. He's worked with heavyweights like Jon Brion, Fiona Apple, & Kanye West. I think it all started with the amazing advice his dad gave him about taking guitar lessons: Learn how to play & then we'll think about lessons. He won a grammy...and then broke it. He's been...

Today we are joined by royalty. Corey Ledet’s family has been at the forefront of jazz, bebop, blues, & zydeco from the beginning. His grandfather, Buchanon, is known as the originator of the double clutch drum pattern that defines zydeco. Corey started in his grandfather’s footsteps, as a drummer, playing professionally by the ripe old age of ten. But things really started to click when he took u...

We’re joined by author Robert Duncan. He’s led a pretty rock & roll life. He saw the Beatles live, walked out of The Who on their first US tour, & played “22” with Mitch Ryder. One of his first writing assignments was interviewing KISS the same day Paul Stanley got his infamous rose tattoo. He became the first managing editor at Creem Magazine, working with the legendary Lester Bangs and wrote the...

Let’s welcome drummer Andrew Toy to the Performance Anxiety family. He’s played in so many genres of music that I lost count. He likes to use music genres like chords; building one on top of another to create something unique. And it began by playing on a cruise ship! Now he’s got a solo album out that is full of experimental percussion. And it’s a true solo album. He plays everything. It’s called...