Talkhouse Podcast

Each summer, Pitchfork Music Festival brings to Chicago musical legends, the hottest new acts, and the artists that are about to become your new favorites. And for the past four years, Talkhouse has been backstage to record these artists in conversation. Over the coming weeks, we'll be bringing you the rad episodes we cut at the fest last month, including: — Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold x Nilüfer Yanya — Blood Orange's Dev Hynes x Raphael Saadiq — Tierra Whack x Nnamdi Ogbonnaya — Zola Jesus x Circuit des Yeux — Vagabon's Lætitia Tamko x Julie Byrne This week, we kick off our series of Pitchfork Fest episodes with Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner talking with Alex Cameron. Alex and Michelle chop it up about a lot, including their onstage electrocutions, the triumphs and tribulations of the hometown gig, Michelle's future music production goals, the massive on-stage panic attack that nearly ended Alex's career, and his collaborator Brandon Flowers’ extremely unorthodox way of recording The Killers’ vocals. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. — Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer This episode was produced by Mark “North Side” Yoshizumi. Big thanks to Pitchfork Music Festival for hosting Talkhouse, and to Karolina Barej for all of her coordinating work. The Talkhouse Podcast's theme song is “Plastic Man vs. the Giant Red Phase of the Sun” by Iced Ink.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, two hip-hop stars who have reshaped how we think about the genre – former Hamilton star Daveed Diggs and The Roots' MC Black Thought – sit down for a fascinating conversation at 30 Rock, recorded after a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Over the course of their talk, the two friends discuss each of their long-gestating projects, Daveed's movie Blindspotting and Black Thought's album Streams of Thought, parallels between the current Oakland film explosion and the Philly music boom of the late '90s, Black Thought's (pre-Hamilton) dislike of musicals, life-work balance, John Malkovich's surprising on-set viewing habits, and much, much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

Life is busy, and it can be tough to stay up to date on your favorite shows. So, to highlight a few of the Talkhouse team’s favorite moments from the first six months of 2018, we bring you our semi-annual Best Of episode. This week’s show features clips of: — Aasif Mandvi and Jason Jones talking fashion at the flagship Sonos store — Natalie Prass and Matthew E. White discussing the challenges of writing political pop songs at the Strand — Meredith Graves and Cameron Lynch chatting the intersection of music and sports at On Air Festival (in collaboration with The Players Tribune) — An unreleased clip of Adam Goldberg and The Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd on confronting Nazi internet trolls — Oscar winners Guillermo del Toro and William Friedkin on Academy nominations and the apocalypse (in collaboration with Vanity Fair) — Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson and writer Samantha Irby recounting their hilarious path to collaborating on the upcoming TV show Meaty, recorded live at Books Are Magic For this special episode, I’m joined by joined by Talkhouse’s Brooklyn team: Film Editor-in-Chief Nick Dawson, Associate Editor Annie Fell and Operations Manager Keenan Kush. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. — Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer This episode is produced by Mark “the new papa” Yoshizumi.

On the heels of covering each other’s music as part of Joyful Noise Recordings’ very cool Cause & Effect series, Devendra Banhart and Tim Kinsella (Joan Of Arc) sat down to record a Talkhouse Podcast episode about the project. They touch on it for a moment and then, as one might expect from such restless and prolific artists, veer away, never to return. Their talk instead covers their upcoming books, the poems that came out of Devendra’s “ashram-hopping in India,” and the nuts and bolts of what goes into staying sane as highly productive working artists. Oh, and we also hear their argument for a hallucinatory experience as a prerequisite to lead the United States of America … Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. — Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer Today’s episode was recorded by Tim and Devendra, and co-produced by Mark Yoshizumi.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, two of the most exciting emerging writer-directors of the moment sit down together for a chat at the Sundance Film Festival. The filmmakers in question – Reinaldo Marcus Green, whose Monsters and Men is forthcoming this fall, and Boots Riley, frontman of the Coup and mastermind behind the current cinematic sensation Sorry to Bother You – talk about the contrasting routes they took to making their debut features, the stresses of selling your movie at Sundance, how internet-age distraction is the enemy of creativity, partying with Idris Elba, and much, much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

For the Independence Day break, we revisit one of our favorite Talkhouse Podcast episodes of the past year, a conversation recorded live at Sonos' flagship store in Soho NYC featuring Mr Show and Arrested Development's David Cross chatting with two of his longtime friends, comedian and hip-hop star Jean Grae and Fabrizio Moretti, the drummer from the Strokes and Little Joy. Over the course of a hilarious and thoroughly unpredictable conversation, the trio talk about David going into an old people's home, the ills of social media, Jean's inability to ride a bike, the mysterious “gum incident,” the movie and musical of Newsies, conspiracy theories, jobs they were fired from … and David and Fab give Jean an opportunity to prove her talents at the last job she was fired from: a phone sex operator. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop about future Talkhouse Podcasts. Episode engineered and mixed by Mark Yoshizumi and produced by Talkhouse Podcast producer Elia Einhorn.

Natalie Prass' new LP, The Future and The Past, has been a long time in the making. Reeling from the results of 2016's presidential election, Prass made a last-minute decision to cancel the recording sessions she'd booked with producer Matthew E. White, feeling that the songs she'd written about a breakup had to be replaced with new ones which addressed what was unfolding in America. To celebrate the release of this powerful new record, Prass was joined by White at Manhattan's iconic bookstore The Strand for a deep-dive conversation about her creative process and vision for these songs. Their talk also gets into sexism in the studio, aborted attempts at writing with L.A. songwriters, and how Prass almost chose running a dog-clothing company over her music career. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. — Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer Today’s episode is in partnership with The Strand. It was recorded by Jason Kelly and co-produced by Mark Yoshizumi.

This week’s Talkhouse Podcast episode features a fantastic conversation between The Raincoats and Protomartyr, recorded live at Rough Trade East in London, followed by an audience Q&A session. My special guest host is Jenn Pelly, Contributing Editor at Pitchfork — where she glowingly reviewed Protomartyr’s new Consolation EP last week — and author of the 33 1/3 series book on The Raincoats’ self-titled debut album. The bands’ talk takes in a lot: presenting oneself as you are versus a cultivated rock star image; Protomartyr’s collaboration with Kelley Deal of The Breeders and The Raincoats’ work with Angel Olsen; how Kurt Cobain’s fandom forever changed The Raincoats’ career; and much, much more. Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast. — Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer Today’s episode is in partnership with Rough Trade. It was recorded by James Spinks and co-produced by Mark Yoshizumi.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, Broad City's Abbi Jacobson sits down with the hilarious blogger and memoirist Samantha Irby in a conversation recorded at Brooklyn's Books Are Magic. The two discuss Irby's first book Meaty – which not only just got re-issued in an all-new edition but which Jacobson and Irby are also currently turning into a TV show – as well as how Abbi first “courted” Sam five years ago, the perfect soundtrack to writing a great personal essay, Sam’s dream to put diarrhea on TV (and her other aims for the small-screen version of Meaty), her planned Emmy revenge (!), and much, much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, Simon Baker (best known for playing the title role in The Mentalist) talks with fellow actor-turned-director Griffin Dunne, who he has known for two decades. The two friends discuss Breath, Baker's newly released directorial debut – a coming-of-age surfing movie, in which Baker also stars – as well as directing vs. acting, the challenges of making an authentic surfing movie, the documentary Dunne made about his aunt Joan Didion, how “human cinema” will outlast superhero franchises, a hilarious story about Dunne's father giving him “the talk,” and much, more. For more filmmakers talking film, visit Talkhouse at talkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast.