RiYL

The New Pornographers are running late. It’s hard to say whose decision it was to drive from midtown at this time of day on a weekday — likely not former New York City resident, Carl Newman, if I had to guess. These days the ringleader and frontman lives a far more idyllic life, a two-and-a-half hour drive away in Woodstock. To hear him tell it, it’s a veritable retirement home for rock legends —...

Punk rock, politics, history and some gracious nods to science — there’s a lot to like about The Future of Another Timeline. Annalee Newitz’s latest explores the possibilities of time travel in a world where the sci-fi standby is downright utilitarian. The book is a lovingly researched second novel for Newitz, who joined us back in 2017, shortly after releasing their debut, Autonomous, an explorat...

Fresh off her hiatus, Renee Holiday is ready to put on a show. Late last year, the artist formerly known as Shaprece (full name: Shaprece Renee Richardson) put on “Beautiful” in her native Seattle. The multimedia event was held at the Can Can, beneath the city’s iconic Pike Place Market. After “regrouping” to deal with both self-imposed and external pressures, Holiday release “Ain’t Got No Love” i...

With The River at Night, Kevin Huizenga found his perfect hook. Casting his go-to surrogate Glenn Ganges as an insomniac, the cartoonist discovered an ideal frame for storytelling that that runs the gamut from the beginning of earth to the dot com bubble burst. It’s peak Huizenga, really. The work belies the cartoonist’s love of learning, visualizing a stream of information that leans heavily on a...

We don’t have a lot of time. I’m setting up my gear in some Sirius-XM meeting room, while Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan order lunch. They get something nice, a welcome change from the usual road fare. The Milk Carton Kids just finished an appearance on Steve Earle’s show, chatting with the country legend following an appearance on the Howard Stern after show. It’s a bit of cultural whiplash, bu...

A lot has changed in Krewella’s world in the seven years since the band debuted with Get Wet. The group’s second full-length finds the one-time trio down a member, while having jumped from Columbia to their own label, Mixed Kids. But Zer0’s an album dedicated to fresh starts and sister duo Jahan and Yasmine Yousaf vibrate positivity as they discuss the project and their own positive life changes....

There have been plenty of opportunities for Daniel Clowes to get reflective in recent years. 2015 saw the release of The Complete Eightball, a massive two-volume hardcover set that collected the full eight year, 18 issue run of his iconic underground series. Next month sees the release of Original Art, a deluxe single volume book that examines his raw pencil and ink work, from Eightball to 2016’s...

When she arrives, Leslie Stevens is carrying a large beach bag. Protruding from its insides is a large cowboy hat sporting a massive feather. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the Los Angeles singer-songwriter, whose career found her flirting a number of genres, including time as the frontwoman of the punk band, Zeitgeist Auto Parts. But her the twang of her latest, Sinner, is perfectly suited to he...

It hasn’t always been easy for Fastball. Some night, weeks and even years, playing rock and roll music can feel futile, especially when it’s not clear when the next show might be. But neither Tony Scalzo nor Miles Zuniga hesitate for a second when asked if they’re doing exactly what the should be. And while the future of the Austin band hasn’t always felt certain, the group has remained remarkably...

In 2019, Professor Richard Wolff was everywhere. He published two introduction to economics books — Understanding Marxism and Understanding Socialism — hosted a weekly YouTube show and podcast and made countless media appearances, all while serving as a visiting professor at New York’s New School. As he offhandedly points out during this conversation, we were his third podcast appearance of the da...

In hindsight, things happened quickly for Paula Cole. Before her first record arrived, she was on tour with Peter Gabriel, playing stadiums in Europe. The following year, she released her debut and deleted with Melissa Etheridge on VH1. Her sophomore record, This Fire, sported two decade defining hits in “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” and “I Don’t Want to Wait.” It’s a tremendous rise for a kid...

Sound Field Volume One turned out quite differently than its creator planned. Randy Randall had grand plans for field recordings. Inspired by his early years growing up the Inland Empire, the No Age guitarist took a microphone to the freeways of Southern California. Turns out all freeways more or less sound the same. Lesson learned. The experience did, however, shape his first instrumental for the...

NYLONANDJUNO finds Jason Lytle trying something new. It’s a set of songs constructed around limitations — in this case, all of the music is played on a synthesizer and guitar, with a broken bottom nylon string. It’s also an entirely instrumental album, a far cry from the singer-songwriter’s days fronting indie-rock mainstay, Grandaddy. The record finds Lytle joyfully exploring new territory more t...

The group’s URL evocatively posits the question, Who Is Arthur King? It’s not a particularly easy question to answer. It never is with a collective. For the sake of brevity, we’ll cowardly default its own description. Arthur King is an experimental music and visual art collective seeking to engage the tension between the known and unknown inherent in creative expression. For the sake of this inter...

When Drive appeared in theaters, Electric Youth was still finding its sound. The track, created in collaboration with producer College, was a defining aesthetic touchstone for the film, appearing throughout. For the Toronto-based duo, it was as good a sign as any that they were on the right track. It was a sort of overnight success for Austin Garrick and Bronwyn Griffin, a pair that had been toget...

There’s been an argument. Actually, that’s probably too strong a word. Some minor disagreement. The entire band is laughing about it by the time I arrive at the Brooklyn apartment. Like everything else they do, the conversation over some synth patch is downright familial. The quartet has been making music together for so long, they’re practically siblings, with all of the love and squabbles that b...

Having just secured a plate of pasta, Lonnie Jordan’s beaming. Even with a nightly club rider, life on the road as a vegan can be a tough one. But he swears by it, even when it means getting creative with a couple of slices of bread and some condiments. At 71, he swears he’s in best shape of his life, having sworn off the many vices of a touring rock musician. Toward the end of our conversation, I...

I had to double check, but its seems that, in all of my time writing about comics for various outlets, I’ve never actually interviewed Sammy Harkham. It’s shocking, really, given what a important player he’s been in the indie comics scene for some time. Thankfully, the release of Kramer’s Egot 10 presented the perfect opportunity. For fans of round numbers, next spring also marks the 20th (!?) ann...

At times, Nice Try is a book about failure. Josh Gondelman chronicles his struggles as as up and coming comedian, love woes and awkward teenage attempts to be cool — all topics that might be a touch too painful had things not worked out so well. When he meets up with me, he’s just come from his gig writing on the Showtime series for the beloved Bronx duo, Desus and Mero. It’s a gig he left John Ol...

In Revenge of the She-Punks, Vivien Goldman charts feminist ideology in punk across nations, languages and decades. Beginning with 70s pioneers like Poly Styrene, Patti Smith and The Slits, the book draws together threads that are often ignored in wider conversations about the genre. The book follows the rebirth of Goldman’s own musical career, with 2016’s terrific anthology, Resolutionary (Songs...

The guest are running late. So far as I’m aware, my conversation with Aaron “SonReal” Hoffman is the first RiYL to get pushed back due to an appearance on Sway’s morning show. It’s a pretty good excuse, so far as those go. Hoffman is in good spirits when he arrives. The appearance went well. It was his second time free styling on the show, and things went far better this time It’s amazing what a f...

In  Faking It , Lux Alptraum explores a wide range of lies about sex, from faked orgasms to sexual assault. It’s a powerful statement that spans the wide range of her many years of writing about sex — the good, the bad, the unspoken. As an author, her work has appeared in a wide range of outlets, including The New York Times and the Guardian. She also served as the editor of Fleshbot, a pop cultur...

Life was fairly different the last time Whitney Matheson was on the show. In fact, USA Today pulled the plug on her 15 year culture column Pop Candy sometime between the recording of the interview and its publication.  In the intervening half decade, Matheson took up a teaching gig, moved to Tennessee and had a kid “It's funny how life can change on a dime” is how she put it as we were discussing...

There will never be another Swamp Dogg. At 77, Jerry Williams Jr. has had one of the most fascinating and diverse careers in popular music. It’s hard to believe the same man created the psychedelic funk of 1970’s Total Destruction to Your Mind, manage a young Dr. Dre, and penned the country standard, “She’s All I Got. While his career career and life have hit plenty of rough patches, he’ll be the...

Toward the end of the interview, Wayne White gestures to a word painting sit nearby on the floor of his home workshop. “Finally got there, wasn’t so great,” he says, reading the big, block letters out loud. “That’s the story of life. It’s been a heck of a journey, though. In the late-70s, the Chattanooga kid moved to New York, to attend classes at SVA, including a brief stint studying under Art Sp...