The J-Card Podcast

Dylan Gamez has been recording as bedbug for a decade, and this conversation catches him at a pivot point. Part of that pivot is his new, more collaborative project, sit stay, which gave him a break from being “bedbug” for a while. Another part of the pivot is a conscious choice to start moving away from the cassette sound that’s defined past records. Those types of changes are only natural after...

(leave) nelson b joins The J-Card Podcast to talk sampling ethics, Lonely Ghost Records, and a mixtape full of deep cuts. Nelson has been part of the Lonely Ghost Records family almost since the label started, first as a solo artist, then through his ongoing collaboration with Superdestroyer ( Nelson Comes to Visit , Negative Thoughts About Myself and People I Love Dearly ). In this episode we get...

It’s the Season 4 Finale, featuring the one and only KaterFM! Kater is a Twitch streamer, playlist obsessive, and self-described “washed radio DJ” who accidentally built a music community by mishearing a Joyce Manor lyric. In our convo, Kater walked me through how she went from her college radio station to building a thriving, interactive music community across Twitch and IG. We talk about how Twi...

At its core, Josaleigh Pollett’s upcoming album If I Let It Quiet is all about distance. A process that largely revolved around immediacy and spending hours together ruminating over tunes was flipped on its head when Josaleigh’s producer, co-writer, and best friend Jordan Watko moved to Japan. They had to figure out what their creative partnership looked like with 8,000 miles and 14 time zones bet...

Darren Hayman has been making music since the early ‘90s, first as the frontman of Hefner, then through a sprawling catalog of projects including The French, New Starts, Hayman Watkins Trout and Lee, and Darren Hayman and The Long Parliament. In our conversation we covered his traversal through all those bands, and much more, including seeing Elliott Smith before he was the Elliott Smith. Darren’s...

Rob Feulner is the Marketing Coordinator at Duplication.com, the cassette and CD duplication company that’s been a cornerstone of underground music culture since 1989. In this conversation, Rob takes us inside the world of cassette duplication, from the massive tape-loading machines, to the team of artists and technicians who keep the operation running. We talk about the Montreal underground scene...

Jeff Jakobs is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter who put out his beautiful album Lorem Ipsum last fall. We missed the first wave of press, but Jeff was kind enough to join us to talk about how he assembled an incredibly talented group of players for the album (including folks who’ve worked with Big Thief, Andrew Bird, and more), how the recording experiences compared to his earlier work, The Milk...

Theatre people and music people have more in common than you might think, and Erin Davis is living proof. Erin is a Boston-based playwright, dramaturg, and theater administrator who grew up in Georgia, and has spent the last few years developing their play Honey Hole , a story about a young queer beauty queen in rural Georgia that started as a loose adaptation of the Myth of Icarus and became some...

Vince Alvarado is a NYC-based videographer and documentary filmmaker who left agency life to pursue filmmaking full-time. In this episode, Vince talks about the leap from advertising strategy to freelance filmmaking, the highs and lows of freelancing, and how sometimes gigs can come when you least expect them. Vince also shares a six-song mixtape that traces the music that shaped him, from alterna...

Since you’re a paid subscriber, you’re getting the full mixtape from our latest podcast episode. This mixtape is from Andrew Bennett (Jezus Factory Records) and Rudy Trouvé (Heaven Hotel), and you can find the tracklist below. Enjoy! 00:17 - “A Greater Loss Than Pain” by Kiss My Jazz 04:02 - “Leona” by Plano Remoto 08:00 - “Second Hand Clothes” by Pasmans 11:51 - “Torch” by Rudy Trouvé 13:43 - “No...

Belgium doesn’t always come up when people talk about underground music scenes, but maybe it should. In this episode, we sit down with Andrew Bennett, founder of Jezus Factory Records, and Rudy Trouvé, Belgian singer-songwriter and founder of Heaven Hotel, to dig into a world of music that’s been quietly thriving in Antwerp for decades. We also talk about the current state of music criticism, why...

Emma Maurer is a singer-songwriter, multidisciplinary artist, and music director at WNYU, and we get into all of that and more in this episode. From a werewolf performance in the park to digging through hundreds of emails, Emma has range. And of course we talk about her solo project Toyger, which quietly released a great self-titled LP in 2025. The mixtape Emma brought this week takes us way back,...

For the Season 4 premiere, we brought the roundtable format to J-Card for the first time! Eimear O Sullivan (Blakkheart, MusicNGear), Leilani Patao (artist, producer, songwriter), and Michael Kelly (aka MK, culture tech researcher at mkay world) join us for a conversation about AI and music: where it actually helps, where it falls flat, and who’s really driving the narrative around it. The group’s...

Lamar Woods is a musician, writer, comedian, and producer. His new album Rebel Love Language is out now, and we’re stoked to have him join us for the finale of season three of The J-Card! In this episode, we dive deep into the making of Rebel Love Language , the emotional shift from his introspective project Highly Sensitive Person to a more outwardly political tone. We also talk about the unique...

Henderson “Hendo” Cole is not only the founder and managing editor of The Alternative (a long-running independent music blog), but he’s also built a career as an entertainment lawyer with some pretty impressive clients. In this episode, we get into the stuff musicians usually learn the hard way: when an attorney actually becomes useful, what contracts can quietly shape the next 10 years of your ca...

Steven Matrick (Co-founder of New Colossus Festival, manager of A Place To Bury Strangers, and co-founder of Dedstrange Records) joins The J-Card Podcast for a deep dive into the NYC indie scene. Steven takes us behind the scenes of the New Colossus Festival, explaining how it started, what it takes to keep it up and running, and why Manhattan instead of Brooklyn. We also talk about his experience...

In this episode of The J-Card Podcast, we’re joined by Paul Hawkins, Deputy CEO of Attitude Is Everything, an organization dedicated to making the music industry accessible for everyone from fans to artists to the people working behind the scenes. Paul shares his personal journey as a musician navigating the barriers of the industry, explains why accessibility is about much more than physical infr...

Bailey Stephens-Johns, founder and co-owner of Pink Street Management, joins the show to talk about her journey from helping her brother’s band to running a full-fledged management company. We get into what it actually takes to support an artist, contract nerd talk, van breakdowns, and why live performance matters more than ever as AI-generated music creeps in. Later in the episode, Bailey shares...

Perry Eaton is the songwriter behind the solo project Ivy Boy, a longtime member of the band Beeef, and a co-founder of the beloved Boston music blog Allston Pudding. In this episode of The J-Card Podcast, we talk about how different the writing process is when you’re solo vs. in a band, the nostalgia of the music blog era, and how he got a very special guitarist to feature on his debut album. For...

Martin Earley is a member of The Ballroom Thieves, and he’s a booking agent at Little Revolution Artists. In this episode, we go deep into the business side of touring, covering what agents actually do, how tour routing works, why data matters, and when an artist is truly ready to bring on representation. We talk about holds, challenges, contracts, merch cuts, and more. Martin also shares what he...

In this episode of The J-Card Podcast, I’m joined by John from Lonely Ghost Records, a self-described “weird pop” label that operates more like a collective than a traditional industry machine. We talk about how Lonely Ghost works behind the scenes, why they don’t own their artists’ music, and what labels can (and can’t) realistically offer musicians today. John breaks down the economics of PR, wh...

Emile Milgrim is a Miami-based drummer, teaching artist, DJ, and community organizer whose work spans DIY bands, Brazilian percussion ensembles, archival sound art, and music education. In this episode of The J-Card Podcast, we covered everything from playing in an 80-plus-person Brazilian percussion ensemble, to touring with Las Nubes, to KEXP sessions. In the mixtape segment, Emile introduces us...

Brendan Wright of the Boston-based band Tiberius joins us to dig into the process behind their latest album Troubadour , a deeply personal record shaped by place, time, and community. Brendan also tells us about working with friends, trusting outside ears, and how Boston’s DIY scene continues to shape the way they make music. In the mixtape segment, Brendan spotlights six bands from the Allston /...

Alvaro Rodriguez wears a lot of hats. He’s everything from a label head to a studio owner, audio engineer, producer, and one-time aerospace engineer. In this season finale of The J-Card Podcast, we dive deep into what it takes to run an independent label (Geodesic Records) and a recording studio (Geodesic Sound) in Houston, Texas. We talk about the realities of DIY music in 2025, the process of de...

This week’s guest is Daniel Carrai, the creative director at Sever. Sever is a multidisciplinary studio working at the intersection of music, film, and immersive environments. He’s also the longtime creative collaborator behind Oceanic’s ambitious live shows. In this episode, Daniel breaks down how those live shows are built (synchronizing lights, visuals, and even pedalboards across multiple lapt...