RiYL

In terms of both influence and longevity, few zines rival Doris. While Cindy Crabb hasn’t published an issue in several years, it remains a prominent presence in bookstores across the world. The series, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is both deeply personal and broadly relatable, regularly tackling life’s obstacles, both large and small. These days, Crabb runs a somatic therapy p...

There’s prolific and then there’s Jad Fair. The 30 albums released by his seminal art punk band Half Japanese just scratches the surface. Since 1974, the musician has released hundreds of albums, including 150 issued through Bandcamp in a single year. Beyond the output with his band, Fair’s best known work may be his collaborations with artists like Daniel Johnston, Yo La Tengo, R. Stevie Moore an...

Wronger finds Cowboys in the Campfire embracing the sort of stripped down twangy Americana such band name suggests. It’s the latest left turn in a career full of them. Tommy Stinson’s musical career began in his pre-teen years, courtesy of bass gifted by older brother, Bob. Joined by Paul Westerberg and Chris Mars, The Replacements would ultimately become one the 80s most influential acts. In the...

Last year, Chad Clark got a new heart. It was an emergency transplant, after a mechanical version failed – the latest in a horrific season of events that began when he was diagnosed with a rare heart virus. The condition has been a surprise motivator. For one thing, the $2 million fee was only partially covered by insurance. Facing massive medical debt, Clark opted to release a remix of the band’s...

The bad apology has become a major feature of modern American life. “I’m sorry to anyone I might have offended” more often than not boils down to “I’m sorry I got caught. Are the impacted obligated to forgive? And more importantly, what is the process for earning such forgiveness? Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg draws on the teaching of 12th century philosopher and Torah scholar Maimonides for her latest,...

Fifty years after its founding, Romeo Void finally got its first live album earlier this year. Released in limited quantities for Record Store Day, Live from the Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980 finds the young band at the top of its game. Teetering at the edge of post-punk and new wave, the group rose the charts on the strength of timeless tracks like "Never Say Never" and "A Girl in Trouble (I...

In the early 70s, Vashti Bunyan went away. Frustrated with an industry unwelcoming of her talents, she eventually moved back to Scotland and raised three children. She never sang, and rarely missed it. It was a perfectly content life. But 30 years later, music once again came calling. The singer experienced a resurgence in interest at the turn of the millennium – more interest than she’d ever had...

A wonderfully lush and layered debut, Mole is awash with ideas. Maryam Said’s Poolblood project arrive with a truck full of ideas and a reverence for pop rock. Said’s religious upbringing offered little access to secular music, though Yusuf Islam’s (née Cat Stevens) gentle folk rock managed to slip through. A later embrace of artists like Fiona Apple, Nick Drake and Apples in Stereo, however, left...

There’s no such thing as half-measures in Kid Koala land. Take, for example the recent release of Creatures of the Late-Afternoon. Most would be perfectly content to issue 20 tracks half as innovative and vibrant at this point in their career. Koala, on the other hand, created his own accompanying board game. For nearly 30 years, the Canadian DJ has pushed musical boundaries, fusing a broad range...

A special edition of the podcast this week, as we joined by three musicians who have released books. Howard Fishman’s To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse is available now from Dutton. The book explores the life of converse, who remained largely unknown until her music was reissued in 2009 with the compilation, How Sad, How Lovely. Vashi Bunyan’s music had its o...

Few in the indie world are as deft at creating a perfect pop song as Carl Newman. Since the late-90s, he’s served as the principle songwriter, front man and nucleus of The New Pornographers. A little over a month ago, the band issued its 9th studio album, Continue as Guest – living proof that the band still has new ideas more than a quarter century into its existence. Over the years, Newman has re...

Brooklyn's Last Secret is a wonderful synthesis of its creator’s twin passions. It’s a book that cartoonist and rock guitarist Leslie Stein was uniquely qualified to create. The book is built around the daily minutiae of an indie rock band that sets out on tour in hopes of finally catching that one important break. It’s a meditation on friendships, relationships and the harsh realities of the mode...

Sometimes your body knows innately, well before those reach your brain and sink their hooks into your consciousness. Of course, it’s also entirely possible that Blindsided’s title was just one of those strange bits of cosmic irony. The word arrived well before Mark Erelli was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) a degenerative eye condition that almost invariably leads to blindness. The diagno...

Where I’m Coming From arrived in the Detroit Free Press at the tail end of the 80s. The strip, based on Barbara Brandon-Croft’s friend circle, was a breath of fresh air amid often formulaic newspaper comics. Two years later, Croft’s work received national exposure, upon being syndicated by United Press Syndicate. The strip would go on to run in more than 60 papers, plus magazines like Essence, bef...

This bonus episode features the a full version of my recent conversation with the Batman writer for Publishers Weekly. The feature can be found here . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This has never been a podcast obsessed with spoilers. In fact, the topic has rarely comic up over nearly 600 episodes. But Why Don’t You Love Me is the kind of book you desperately don’t want to spoiler. The Neil Gaiman quote that monopolizes the entire back cover of the Drawn & Quarterly edition sums it up nicely, reading, in part, “The kind of story leading to a last panel that’s all pain an...

After more than two decades, Lee Fields left the music industry and strongly considered opening a fish store. “What do you know about fish?” his wife asked. Very little, turns out. He did, however, know soul. In the late-60s, his performances had earned him the nickname “Little JB” – an homage to long-time hero, James Brown. Re-entering music in the 90s, Fields began experimenting with home record...

Formed in the late-70s South Bronx, ESG has an almost impossibly wide-ranging impact on popular music. Factory Records-owner Tony Wilson spotted sister act performing in Manhattan, and within days they found themselves recording in Manchester and playing opening night at the Hacienda. The group’s self-titled debut EP prove a massive hit with critics, while its third track, “UFO,” would go one to b...

Even with nearly a quarter-century under their belt, five years was a long time to wait between Ladytron releases. The group had settled into a comfortable cadence of three year, but 2019’s self-titled album finally arrived after two major releases. Life can get in the way – take, for example, Daniel Hunt’s move to Brazil. Or his production of big name artists like Christina Aguilera. Or various m...

Earlier this year, The New York Times Review of Books published All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End. The collection features cartoons dating back to the 60s and 70s, offering a glimpse into author Charles R. Johnson many have not seen. Decades before he won the National Book Award for Middle Passage, his historical novel about the slave trade, Johnson was being published as a cartoonist. The wo...

There are those musical careers that follow predictable paths – and then there’s Ivan Julian’s. The child of a Navy officer, he found himself in far flung corners, including Guantanamo Bay. After spending his early teenage years as the front man of a Led Zeppelin cover band, he found himself in London, as a touring guitarist for The Foundations, eventually leaving the group behind to take up resid...

Beyond Vaudeville is a perfect time capsule. It’s a pre-internet era, when public access provided a rare outlet for entertainers. As Frank Hope, Rich Brown was the neurotic calm in the storm. Along with stoic sidekick David Greene, the pair held together a 30-minute variety show that paired celebrities with outsider entertainers for a decade. In 1997, the show was reborn as Oddville, MTV, which ma...

Sometimes you can’t fully appreciate the power of music until you need it. For me, it was 2019’s Silencia, which helped me through the darkest period of the pandemic. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to speak to Marc Byrd on the occasion of Hammock’s 12th release, Love in the Void. Byrd happily discussed the healing role of music as a musician, as writing and performing pulled him through so...

Prism is a breath of fresh air in troubled times. The Brooklyn-based seven piece delivers sunshine psychedelic soul grooves transported from a different time. At the group’s core is the three-part harmony of Piya Malik, Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown. Their ties to groups like Chicano Batman and the Dap-Kings betray the band’s rich and dreamy sound. The trio joined us to discuss th...

Ahead of our conversation at Greenlight Books in Brooklyn, Tom Gauld and I sat down to discuss his career. The cartoonist was on tour in the States to promote his latest Drawn & Quarterly collection, Revenge of the Librarians. The book is classic Gauld, gag strips with historic and literary edges. These days, he’s probably best know for the latter, with a weekly strip appearing in The Guardian...