Third Gear Scratch

The pandemic takes its toll on everyone in different ways and Sarah Shook is not unique in that it yielded a new record, but this music was a new sort of fruit from a fresh vine. Sarah's delivery and metrics have up to now hewed to an 'outlaw country' quilt but these songs stood out from their work with Sarah Shook & The Disarmers . They leaned towards pop, yes, but a spartan and economized versio...

AE goes back in the vault for a loving reexamination of his conversation on with actor Patrick Fabian (Ep. 37) of Better Call Saul as  the high powered attorney Howard Hamlin. We talk about his time and tenure on BCS as that iconic series has just wrapped its final season, in which Patrick's character is central.  There's even more poignancy and relevance in the rearview context of the Covid pande...

When drummer Zach Barocas began to play with his legendary band Jawbox again in late 2017 to rehearse for some reunion shows, he wasn't sure exactly how that might play out given they hadn't been in the same room together for about 20 years. Turns out, it went so well they're still playing shows now and in fact will be playing Riot Fest in September 2022. Zach has been creatively busy with his ban...

Our handsome host Allen Epley goes guestless for this episode to take time to reflect and wax on the state of his state of mind. It is the eve of his 54th birthday and the week before his twins fly the coop for college and leave their parents alone at home at once, both elated and broken; free at last or utterly rudderless. Raising kids is a dangerous business; to love someone so much with the kno...

Drummer Ian Prince couldn't have predicted that at this time in his life he'd be making music again with the same two men who he really needed time away from in 2004 when Houston had been on the road for long stretches. After Houston's implosion, he formed Story of the Sea with his brother Adam Prince to make several albums of high level song craftsmanship, he played with Minneapolis' Porcupine, S...

Terrance Hannum, synth-ist and keyboardist in his darkly beautiful drone-core band Locrian, doesn't set out everyday to be the most creative human on earth, but more often than not, something does indeed get made. Between his job as a professor of 3D Printing and digital fabrication and his life in Locrian, he also manages to write award-winning fiction, pulls haunting images out of his soul for h...

Stephan "The Kid" Howard was christened thusly by the old blues players he first began gigging with as a bassist when he was only 13 years old in Chicago, and introduced him to a universe of music and travel that changed his life in every way. His time as both drummer and baritone guitarist in the influential Chicago band Pinebender in the 90's put him in contact with musicians that continue to al...

Comic Joe Sib is that rare human who takes new endeavors that might normally intimidate the rest of us as a challenge. His punk-rock band Wax struck gold in the early 90's with a hit song California and a video directed by Spike Jonze known as the burning guy running in slow-mo video, then parlayed the success from that band into starting Side One Dummy Records, a label responsible for bands like...

Documentary filmmaker and my old homie Clayton Brown revisits the TGS confines for the 2nd time to chat about his new film in which he details the work of Doug Pagitt, an activist and progressive evangelical pastor who has been protesting current immigration policies by riding his bike along the US Border from San Diego to St Augustine. For this film, Clayton has teamed with his wife Kim Sullivan...

Pete Moffett has been working in the music industry as a drummer in the late 80's with bands like punkrock-forefathers Government Issue and also some guy named J Robbins, in the early 90's with Wool and Franz and Pete Stahl, and then again with J Robbins in the late 90's with Burning Airlines which rose mightily from the ashes of Jawbox. But his longest tenure has been that of touring drum technic...

Trevor Shelley de Brauw took 26 months to get Covid and waited even longer to release his new RLYR record (Gilead Media), the Pelican guitarists side project and secret hook up. The new self-titled record, their 3rd, is an orchestrated love letter to guitar rock riffs, post hardcore surges and ambient waves. Pelican is also busy as they face a Euro tour starting late May in support of the reissues...

Martin Bisi has owned BC Studios since 1980 when he started it with Brian Eno and Bill Laswell and has been witness to it's growth from gritty avante-garde hub of the No-Wave scene in which he was foundational, working with Lydia Lunch, Swans, Foetus and Sonic Youth into a largely gentrified but still arts-centric village. He's a pioneer for his work with early hip hop artists like Afrika Bambaata...

The pandemic offered Evan Patterson an opportunity he hadn't had in years; to take some time off from touring with his earth-shaking band Young Widows, his solo outfit Jaye Jayle and with his ex-wife's band Emma Ruth Rundle after he played 210 dates in 2019. The breather has given him perspective on making music and why he does it. It also gave him time to refine his artistic and screen printing s...

Bassist/Drummer/Journalist Michelle Bacon found her calling late in the game to start playing in bands (Frogpond/Other Americans/Katie Guillen and the Drive) and also have her finger on the pulse of the Kansas City music scene as Content Creator and Data Manager at 90.9 The Bridge. She has witnessed and participated in the growth of the talent pool in KC and has been able to assist the evolution o...

The rock and roll Scott McCloud grew up with in the 80's was a fantasy of glitz and glam far beyond the most ambitious of his dreams, until he heard punk rock in DC, and it all seemed very possible. Inevitable, even. His bands Soulside in DC and then Girls Against Boys out of NY were both highly influential heavy-weights. Between those bands, New Wet Kojak and Paramount Styles, this man has made o...

When Conductor/Composer/Educator Debra Lynn cold-called Stewart Copeland's management about helping him stage a collegiate production of his opera, The Invention of Morel, she wasn't holding her breath. And yet, as fate would have it, they were working together not long after to stage it and have since collaborated on Police Symphonic arrangements and other projects, they remain tight with she as...

In this episode, Allen talks with each member of Shiner individually to get their own thoughts, reflections and obsevations of the most recent US Shiner tours. Bassist Paul Malinowski goes first from his Massive Sound Studio in KCK with sharp insights on touring without a sound man. Drummer Jason Gerken entertains as he's just arrived at Rancho de la Luna Studio to track with Chris Shinn, and guit...

Guitarist/Drummist/Producist/Engineerist and now Managist Mario Quintero of Spotlights revisits the hallowed halls of TGS for an encore episode in which we prep for the Shiner / Spotlights tour as he spills all about his tenure as the proxy Josh Newton, we talk about his new project with Jason Blackmore called Sisters, his joint venture with Spotlights drummer Chris Enriquez as managers of several...

Right before Craig Wedren's influential DC band Shudder To Think broke up in 1999 and sent him into a momentary career freefall, they had scored several films including Velvet Goldmine. Five years earlier, Shudder had their claim with a record called The Pony Express Record for Epic that was as polarizing as it was genre-twisting; artsy, prog leaning, angular and sexy rock songs set within complex...

It was the Chicago Wax Trax sound and roster that helped lure producer/musician Sanford Parker from the Florida Panhandle but it was his unique production style that made his name for him, starting with an EP for an unknown band called Pelican in 2003. The word was out and his influence and production schedule has only grown since then with bands like FACS, EyeHateGod, YOB, Voivod and so many othe...

Podcaster/Drummer Mike Schulte had no clue his career as drummer in DopeWalker with William Elliott Whitmore and in Pork Tornadoes, by far Iowa's biggest cover band attraction and his career as avid movie watcher throughout his life would translate into his most successful venture--The Confused Breakfast podcast, where three normal dudes dissect the movies of our lives. The Pork Tornadoes describe...

Cheli Clayton Samaras is a high school buddy of mine and has spent the past 25 years working behind the camera on the biggest movies of our lives, (think Spider Man, Team America etc) as First Assistant Camera A. She spills the goods on her journey, from Louisville to LA and we talk about women behind the camera, run-ins with handsy blow hard directors, unsafe working conditions, 14 hour days, why...

Greg Obis spends his days as part of the elite team at Chicago Mastering Services with Bob Weston (Shellac), his nights making angular new prog punk with his band STUCK, his dawns and dusks running his label Born Yesterday releasing music from some of Chicago's elite new crew like Cafe Racer and Mesh. The gig at CMS mastering records for a living is a dream job he doesn't take for granted, allowin...

For drummer Dave Elitch, teaching the art of drumming isn't a day-job he holds until he can just float off his royalties from playing with artists like Justin Timberlake, The Mars Volta, Miley Cyrus, and M83 among many others, it's actually THE gig while playing with superstars is an added bonus. Dave has found a niche within the drum-educator sphere as one who can instantly "read" a drummer withi...

This guest-less version of TGS provides a wrap-up of the most recent Shiner tour and what a hero Mario Quintero of Spotlights was for literally saving the tour, COVID wrecking shop on our desperate existences, my Pitbull Katie Epley's recent surgeries and why she's our hero, why the vaccines are so important even now as we learn their limitations and capabilities, and the valuable currency in our...