The LIFERS Podcast

Scott has a lot of friends who are also great songwriters. But none of them are geniuses. Except for Kevin Tihista. This week we finally welcome the legendary singer-songwriter to the show. We talk to Kevin about his musical influences, growing up in Santa Cruz, being an extra in “The Lost Boys”, playing bass for Triplefastaction, the difficult transition to solo artist, embracing life as a reclus...

Scott’s “solo” band —Scott Lucas & The Married Men— is actually a fairly large and open ended collective of Chicago music scene veterans and dyed in the wool lifers (it’s also a close-knit family of friends, but we’ll get to that). The list of bands that the members of The Married Men have been in (and continue to be in) could make up its own podcast series: The Tossers, Caviar, The Joy Poppers, C...

When word got out in 1982 that Wax Trax Records was looking for a house photographer, Bobby Talamine stepped up to answer the call. And he’s never looked back. Still out there photographing and championing bands he loves, you can spot Bobby in the pit of just about any show in Chicago (large or small) — looking to get the shot. On this episode we talk to Mr. Talamine about Gary Numan, sneaking a c...

Bruce Lamont is a lifer’s lifer and a true embodiment of the fabled midwestern work ethic. His band Yakuza is celebrating its 25th year this Sunday at Thalia Hall with a show that will surely feature selections from their latest (and greatest?) album SUTRA. But that’s not all that Bruce has cooking — and Yakuza is far from his only band/project. Oh, no, no, no. If you’re new to the world of Bruce...

If you grew up anywhere near Chicago, the history of JAM Productions is probably a mirror image to your own history as a concert goer. Founded over 50 years ago (and still independent and going strong), JAM has done more to shape the live music landscape in Chicago than just about any entity we can think of. In the late ‘80s and straight out of college, Nick Miller got a job at the powerhouse prom...

We couldn’t book a guest so Scott got drunk, Ben got high, and Gabe sold a bunch of Superbowl squares.

This week on The QUITTERS Podcast: The last time we had Freda Love Smith on the show it was to celebrate/lament her decision to retire from a long and illustrious drumming career. Turns out that was just the tip of the quitting iceberg. In her terrific new book I QUIT EVERYTHING, Freda chronicles her year of furiously and very un-quietly quitting evvverrrything —and no surprise— it’s as funny, tho...

You could call Jack Douglas the world’s greatest living producer and you probably wouldn’t get a whole lotta blowback from people who obsess about these things. Jack has produced seminal records for everyone from Cheap Trick to Aerosmith to Patti Smith to John freakin’ Lennon (he also produced a record for Local H, but we don’t need to get into that). In short — he’s the best. He also has the best...

To the list of perfect and fully formed debut records — a list that includes “Nevermind The Bollocks”, “Murmur" and the first Ramones album — one has to include Electric Six’s “Fire”. 20 years and just about as many albums later, Electric Six and Tyler Spencer (aka Dick Valentine) are still going nuclear as Tyler joins us on a (getting into the) jam-packed episode to talk songwriting, touring, bei...

The LIFERS Podcast is STILL on stage! Night two at Gman Tavern in Chicago was (impossibly) even more drunken and uproarious than night one at Gman Tavern. This could’ve been due to Scott’s general exhaustion, the crowd’s general rowdiness or Figdish being locked in a basement for two hours — but the smart money is on Gabe’s Frank Booth performance. Whatever the case — it was a night for the ages a...

The LIFERS Podcast is back on stage! We started 2024 off right/wrong with a special LIVE New Year’s hangover party at the Gman Tavern in Chicago (it was Kelly Wey’s idea). Was it a success? Well… mostly. After talking about Gabe’s horrific performance as Jambi from Pee Wee’s Playhouse (and witnessing Gabe’s horriFIED performance as Richard Roma from David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross) — we welcome...

Another year gone by — another LIFERS Podcast wrap up. The year in rear-view includes Rick Ness, Rick Froberg, Walter Schriefels, Tommy Stinson, Kyle Kinane, Brendan Kelly, Pat Healy, Allen Epley, and apparently no women! God, we suck.

Brendan Kelly and his excellent punk-rock combo The Lawrence Arms have been waging a war on Christmas at various Chicago venues for 9 years now. Just a couple of weeks ago, their beloved and annual anti-Yuletide concerts lovingly dubbed “War On X-mas” sold out two nights at The Metro. So we figured Brendan would be the perfect guy to drop by and vent some holiday spleen while helping us pick —not...

From a Holiday Inn outside of Rochester: It’s the return of the Road Report! Hang out with us.

There are all kinds of lifers. There’s the lifer that starts a band and then spends their life playing in that band. And that’s great. Then there’s the lifer that starts a band, watches that band fall apart, returns to the hometown scene that made him (in this case the wonderful and influential town of Champaign, Illinois), and then dedicates his life to giving back and cultivating the community a...

This week on the podcast: We can’t stop the plugs! One of our favorite music writer lifers —Michael Tedder!— joins us to talk about his new(ish) book “Top Eight: How MySpace Changed Music” (published by Chicago Review Press, by the way). We also argue/chat about his old(er) articles, Boston (the town not the band), Harvey Danger, the Oughts, Jann Wenner and his beef, Stereogum (that’s a plug), the...

Bored teenagers start bands. That’s about as ambitious as they usually get. But Jess Margera and his buddies in West Chester didn’t just decide to start a band — they started a media empire. CKY (the band) went hand in hand with “CKY” the video series — a bestselling string of pre-viral DVDs (and VHSs) that featured skateboarding, proto-Jackass pranks, and music from Margera’s band. Juvenile delin...

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! On this special mini-edition of The LIFERS Podcast we discuss the greatest Thanksgiving TV episode of all time: Episode 7 of WKRP IN CINCINNATI — “Turkeys Away”. Oh, the humanity.

Okay! We’re doing this. Whether Ben likes it or not. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of their major label debut —DOOKIE— we try and pin down the best (WHAT’STHEBEST?!?) Green Day song. Ben bitches and moans, Gabe waxes rhapsodic about the band’s glory days on Lookout! while Scott defends the move to Reprise, and returning guest panelist Steve “Sleeve” Reidell gets super high and has his own gre...

This week it’s EVERYBODY’s favorite: Freddy Herrera! Former bassist of The Exies —and currently Art Alexakis’ right-hand man in Everclear— Freddy is the kind of guy you always want in the room with you. Positive, funny, and the kind of musician that will always make your band sound better. Which makes him the perfect guy to help us figure out the WHAT’S THE BEST?!?: Bass Lines. Plus:!: Freddy wins...

Meet Jonathan Hertzberg. After years of working for companies like IFC Films and Kino-Lorber, he decided to start Fun City Editions — a boutique home video label that specializes in re-issuing overlooked movies from the ‘70s and ‘80s on a stellar roster of collectible Blu-Ray releases. It’s a totally DIY operation that he runs out of his home in New York (think of Jon as the Gabe of forgotten cine...

This is the one you’ve been screaming for! On this final episode of our Halloween-obsessed October, we’re all about the movies. Specifically—horror movies (no shit?). And since the Music Box Theater has been terrorizing Chicago all month with their “Bride of Music Box of Horrors” series (not to mention last weekend’s infamous, annual and SOLD OUT 24 hour horror marathon) — we thought we’d recruit...

On another special Halloween-centric episode we enlist our ol’ pal —and host and creator of the CAR CON CARNE podcast— James VanOsdol to help us with a “What’s The Best?!?” featuring our favorite movie monsters, psychos, and villains (oh, my!). PLUS!: Gabe Rodriguez’s TV Corner.

This week the podcast is in league with Satan as we draft our good buddies Mike Lustig and Steve Reidell to help us pick THE BEST devil songs to listen to during the Halloween season. PLUS: More Halloween horror movie picks, the Satanic Temple of Illinois, and Ben remixes episode #138.

A remixed and remastered version of our Best of Misfits episode.