Talkhouse Podcast

Dan Zanes has long been one of the biggest names in the still-exploding genre of so-called "kindie-rock" — music made especially for kids. As the leader of the Grammy-winning Dan Zanes and Friends, he’s made over a dozen hugely popular and acclaimed albums and played concerts for adoring audiences all over the world.And Bill Sherman has not only won a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmmy, he's the music director of the iconic children's show Sesame Street. As a songwriter and orchestrator, he's responsible for the music you hear on the show, and works with the many musicians who drop in and sing: stars like Janelle Monae, Ed Sheeran and Will-I-Am, and many others. But perhaps more impressively, Sherman is one of the driving forces behind such magnum opuses as "Glory of Cookies," "Grover Can Do It All" and "Guacamole: the Musical."In the mid to late ‘80s, Zanes led the scrappy and beloved New England roots-rock band the Del Fuegos. Here, Zanes talks about how he went from playing in a rock band that, as Spinal Tap keyboardist Viv Savage once put it, had a good time all the time to making wholesome music for kids, and how it helped him rediscover what he loved about making music in the first place.Sherman discusses how Sesame Street music is made — with a lot of care, for starters — and what it's like to work with the many stars who drop by the show… and lots of other stuff you've probably wondered about music at Sesame Street.So these guys certainly had a lot of interesting things to say about making music for children, but they also had a lot of interesting things to say about making any kind of music. Like, why — and how — do you make music in the first place?A note to parents: while the music these guys make is rated G, some of the language here is definitely PG.

On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, acclaimed English composers Geoff Barrow (Ex Machina) of Portishead fame, and Clint Mansell (Noah, Black Swan) discuss their creative processes, working with filmmakers, Ennio Morricone's low­ opinion of modern composers, the questionable quality of most films today, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film.

Lower Dens leader Jana Hunter is a frequent Talkhouse contributor and a fine writer — in April of 2015, she wrote a widely read piece for Cosmopolitan titled "What It's Like to Be a Female Musician When You Don't Identify as a Woman." And Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, has said he's pretty fluid with gender too. But that was only one reason why we invited these two to sit down and chat for the Talkhouse Music Podcast. Lower Dens and Perfume Genius make some of the most interestingly beautiful music around, and Hunter and Hadreas are two intriguing, well spoken people.Sure, they talked about "gay/gender stuff" but they also just related as musicians — and talked candidly about inspiration, how to conduct yourself on stage, the perils of social media and dealing with hate mail. And they related as people too — they talk about dealing with email, the awesomeness of Rihanna, their methods for quitting smoking and why Clark Kent is hot.Hadreas and Hunter had met only briefly once before, but they're fans of each other's music, and when they sat down at the Talkhouse Music mikes, they hit it off immediately — in fact, almost from the start these two very thoughtful people were giggling like teenagers. They do have one big difference, though: Hadreas believes in everything, but Hunter doesn't believe in anything.

On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, Gayby's writer­-director Jonathan Lisecki talks about the best new TV show of the summer, UnREAL, with Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, its co-­creator, writer and supervising producer. The pair discuss Shapiro's background, her inspirations, how she turned an award­-winning short film into a hit TV show in record time, getting over "the Lifetime of it all," and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film.

In the late '70s, Andy Gill and Jon Langford were schoolmates at the University of Leeds in England. That was where Andy co-founded a band called Gang of Four and Jon helped start a band called the Mekons. Those bands went on to great things, such as helping to invent post-punk — and becoming iconic bands in the process.The Mekons are possibly the longest-running and certainly the most beloved post-punk band. Their music has encompassed punk rock, country music and dub reggae, and they've released a long string of truly great albums like Fear and Whiskey (1985) and The Mekons Rock & Roll (1989). Their history, their music and their perseverance through thick and thin, not to mention their sense of humor, are showcased in the 2015 documentary Revenge of the Mekons.In the late '70s and early '80s, Gang of Four made some classic albums of life-changing, canonical Neo-Marxist post-punk, like Entertainment (1979), Solid Gold (1981) and Songs of the Free (1982). They've influenced everybody from Rage Against the Machine to St. Vincent. With Andy Gill as the sole remaining original member, they released an album in 2015 called What Happens Next.Here, these two smart musicians and old friends recall their common roots, trace the evolution of the concept of punk rock as it traveled north through England, and how it inspired their respective bands.Punk's chief message, according to these guys: "You can really go anywhere you want with it."

On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, Joe Swanberg becomes the first person to make a return appearance, here talking to Kris Swanberg, his wife and the writer-director of the recently released Unexpected. In a really frank and revealing conversation, they discuss the Sundance experience, selling a film, finding the right distributor, dealing with agents, taking meetings, shaping a career, and the challenges of being in a two-filmmaker household. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film.

You might think that Chicago rapper Vic Mensa and Samuel Herring, the frontman of Baltimore synth-pop band Future Islands, don't have much in common. But you'd be wrong. And it's not because Mensa used to rap in a rock band and Herring has been a hip-hop fan since he was a kid. And it's not because Mensa is a fan of the Beatles and Nirvana, and Herring is about to drop a hip-hop EP he recorded with Stones Throw producer Madlib.No, it's because Mensa and Herring are both musicians and they enjoy each other's work. So these guys, who had never met before, hit it off right away when they sat down at the Talkhouse Music microphones backstage at the 2015 Pitchfork Music Festival.In less than 30 minutes, they cover a whole lot of ground: their previous lives as shoplifters, music biz economics, compromising your youthful ideals, going to church, the ghettoes of Baltimore, the U.S. legal system and their mutual disappointment with the Obama presidency. And Herring even reveals the inspiration for his trademark sidestepping dance move!

Chvrches was playing a great set at the 2015 Pitchfork Music Festival when we noticed all three members of Haim rocking out by the side of the stage. Clearly, they're big Chvrches fans. When our producer bumped into Este Haim in the VIP area, he asked if she'd like to do a podcast with Lauren Mayberry, Chvrches' lead singer (and a regular Talkhouse writer). She absolutely did. Then Danielle Haim wanted in. And then Alana Haim wanted in too. So we wound up with Lauren chatting with all three Haim sisters in a noisy trailer right there on the festival grounds.Topics covered: how to deal with getting hit in the face with a beachball in front of thousands of people, mesmerizing Afros, panic-vomiting, forgetting lyrics on stage and, most importantly, how to pronounce GIF.

On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, writer­director Mary Harron sits down with Rose McGowan, the actress turned director who last year moved behind the camera for the acclaimed Sundance short, Dawn. Their wide­ranging discussion touches on everything from punk, religious cults and pyromania to Harron's experiences making American Psycho, McGowan's past as a teenage runaway and the ingrained sexism of Hollywood. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film.

Belle & Sebastian co-founder Stuart David is the author of the critically acclaimed In the All-Night Café: A Memoir of Belle and Sebastian's Formative Year, which came out this year, and the Pogues' longtime accordionist James Fearnley is the author of the candid, vivid and appropriately rip-roaring Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues (2012). The two author-musicians discuss the tricky matter of writing about your bandmates, the vagaries of memory and taking out the bits that make you look like a knobhead. And there might just be an anecdote or two.