The Music Book Podcast

On this episode, Marc talks to Jeff Schwartz , author of “Free Jazz,” published in April of 2023. It’s a smart survey of free jazz that’s structured not around individual artists but more around aspects of free jazz, with chapter titles such as "Energy", "Spirituality", and "Self-Determination." As Jeff writes, “Few pieces or artists will fall neatly into one chapter…...

On this episode, Marc talks with John Szwed, author of “Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith,” published in August of 2023. It’s a fascinating and superbly skillful portrait of a man who played so many roles: anthropologist, archivist, musicologist, filmmaker, painter. He's best known for his massively influential Anthology of American Folk Music, but he did so much more. Szwed t...

On this episode, Marc talks to Clifford Allen , author of “Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on Rogue Art,” published in August of 2023. It focuses on the 25 releases pianist Matthew Shipp has been involved in for the Rogue Art label, while also functioning as a biography of Shipp as well as a history of the free jazz scene he’s been involved in in New York since the late 1980s. As Clifford explain...

On this episode, Marc talks to Audrey Golden, author of “I Thought I Heard You Speak: Woman At Factory Records,” published in June of 2023. It’s a fascinating oral history of the legendary UK record label told exclusively by women involved in at all levels. Golden talked to nearly 100 individuals for her book, from people who ran the office, to people who managed the bands, to people who promoted...

On this episode, Marc talks to Eric Harvey , author of “ Who Got the Camera? A History of Rap and Reality,” published in October of 2021. It’s a fascinating investigation into how rap music in the 80s and 90s intersected with the rise of reality TV and tabloid news - as Eric once put it, “(when) the news was getting more entertaining…and rap was becoming more informational.” Eric covers so much gr...

On this episode, Marc talks to Kerry O'Brien and Will Robin , co-editors of “On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement,” published in April of 2023. It's an anthology of writings on the modern musical style known as minimalism, presenting essays, interviews, reviews, and more. There are over 100 documents included in “On Minimalism,” organized chronologically but also grouped under t...

On this episode, Marc talks to Steve Turner , author of “Mud Ride: A Messy Trip through the Grunge Explosion,” published in June of 2023. Steve is a founding member of Mudhoney, the great Seattle band who helped explode Sub Pop and Grunge with their first single “Touch Me I’m Sick. “Mud Ride” is a memoir of Steve’s own life in music, but also of the Seattle scene in the 90s and beyond, including t...

On this episode, Marc talks with Bill Perrine , author of “Alien Territory: Radical, Experimental, & Irrelevant Music in 1970s San Diego,” published in May of 2023. It’s a fascinating look at so much varied experimental music, much of it centered around the University of California at San Diego, whose archives Bill was able to comb through for unheard gems. Bill highlights familiar figures suc...

On this episode, Marc talks with Lily Hirsch , author of “Can't Stop the Grrrls: Confronting Sexist Labels in Music from Ariana Grande to Yoko Ono,” published in March of 2023. It’s a thorough look at the many ways women artists, including Courtney Love, Britney Spears, and FKA Twigs, have been the target of unfair labels in the media, and how they’ve fought back. As Lily writes in her intro,...

On this episode, Marc talks with Dan Le Roy, author of “Dancing to the Drum Machine: How Electronic Percussion Conquered the World,” published by Bloomsbury in November of 2022. It’s a fascinating look at the winding, surprising history of drum machines, and it covers so many musicians and styles of music, from Raymond Scott to RUN-DMC. As Dan writes in his introduction, "The story of the mos...

On this episode, Marc chats with Vashti Bunyan , writer, singer, songwriter, poet, artist, and author of the memoir "Wayward: Just Another Life to Live," released in 2022 on White Rabbit books.  It covers her entire life, with special focus on her 1968 journey across the UK, when she wrote songs that appeared on her 1970 debut album Just Another Diamond Day . Since its reissue in 2000, B...

On this episode, Marc chats with Dee Peyok, author of Away From Beloved Lover: A Musical Journey Through Cambodia, published by Granta in January of 2023.  It’s a history of Cambodian music mostly from the 60s and 70s, a travelogue through the country to track down musicians from that time, and a detailing of all the societal upheaval that happened in Cambodia during those decades.   If you ever g...

For this episode, Marc chats with Michael Tau , the author of Extreme Music: From Silence to Noise and Everything In Between , published by Feral House in October of 2022. The book delves into all kinds of music that could be called extreme: long music, short music, fast music, loud music, vulgar music, even “disgusting” music, just to name a few. It’s kind of a field guide to all kinds of concept...

On this episode, Marc talks with Annie Zaleski , author of Duran Duran's Rio, an entry in Bloomsbury's 33.3 series exploring classic albums. The book originally came out in 2021, and about a year later, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of "Rio," a second, larger edition was released with extra material and illustrations.  Annie is a great at telling stories and unearthing in...

On this episode, Marc talks with Kate Molleson , a journalist, documentarian, and radio presenter for BBC3. She’s the author of the fascinating book Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the 20th Century , which focuses on ten composers left out of the standard histories of classical music. In her intro, Kate says she wrote the book out of “love and anger” - “the love because I want to shout fr...

On our second episode, Marc talks to John Lingan , author of the book “A Song for Everyone: The Story of Creedence Clearwater Revival." John does a great job telling the story of this amazing band, framing it more like a cinematic narrative than an oral history. He puts you right in the middle of the CCR journey, which started slow but flew fast once their career took off.  Hope you enjoy Mar...

On the first episode of the Music Book Podcast, Marc talks to Matthew Goody , author of the book “Needles and Plastic: Flying Nun Records 1981-1988." It’s a history of the first seven years of this amazing New Zealand record label, told through chronological entries that cover all of the releases in that span of time. Matthew gets into the details of each record but also tells a story across...