Talkhouse Podcast

If you’re a pop musician of South Asian descent, not many like you have yet reached the toppermost of the poppermost. Some really famous ones include M.I.A., Norah Jones and Tony Kanal from No Doubt. Soundgarden lead guitarist Kim Thayil, whose folks came from India, was among the first. As a kid, acclaimed new singer-songwriter Bhi Bhiman, whose family emigrated from Sri Lanka, looked to Thayil as something of a role model. Which was wise, because Thayil is one of the brightest, coolest rock musicians one could hope to meet.Now Bhiman and Thayil aren’t just mutual fans, they’re also friends. We put them together at KEXP’s studios in Seattle for a Talkhouse Music Podcast, and sure, they talked about being self-described “outsiders in rock & roll,” but they talked about a lot of other interesting things, too: their musical backstories, ruminations on the nature of pleasure and pain, the role of baseball in assimilation, their first guitars, the Chi-Lites, Nirvana’s nickname for Thayil, dealing with fans and, perhaps most important of all, the meaning of the word “epistemological.”

In this episode of The Talkhouse Music Podcast, two great rock songwriters, Courtney Barnett and Kim Deal — of iconic alt-rockers the Breeders — get together, have a few laughs and talk about hearing the sound of your own voice, obsessing in the studio, the relationship between drugs and creativity, touring and seeing the world, what it's like to be 27, and playing guitar upside down. Don't miss Kim's imitations of English people speaking French. And she just may have come up with the title of Courtney's next album.

In this episode of the Talkhouse Music Podcast, Philip Selway (Radiohead drummer and outstanding solo artist) has a really lovely conversation with one of his favorite new musicians, Ghostpoet, who weds vivid poetry with flowing grooves. (Offstage, he's Obaro Ejimiwe, and he happens to be a big Radiohead fan.)The two had never met before, but you can hear them hit it off, as they get deep into their processes in a really candid and insightful way, and get to places that only two musicians can get.Selway has some really great reminiscences about the dawning days of Radiohead, and Ejimiwe has some really great reminiscences about the dawning days of Ghostpoet, and they talk about music theory vs. intuition, collaboration, self-doubt, the dangers and benefits of reading your own press, and much more. Although they make very different kinds of music, by the end, Selway declares, "We've got similarly wired brains."

In this episode of the Talkhouse Music Podcast, Philip Selway (Radiohead drummer and outstanding solo artist) has a really lovely conversation with one of his favorite new musicians, Ghostpoet, who weds vivid poetry with flowing grooves. (Offstage, he's Obaro Ejimiwe, and he happens to be a big Radiohead fan.)The two had never met before, but you can hear them hit it off, as they get deep into their processes in a really candid and insightful way, and get to places that only two musicians can get.Selway has some really great reminiscences about the dawning days of Radiohead, and Ejimiwe has some really great reminiscences about the dawning days of Ghostpoet, and they talk about music theory vs. intuition, collaboration, self-doubt, the dangers and benefits of reading your own press, and much more. Although they make very different kinds of music, by the end, Selway declares, "We've got similarly wired brains."

Erika Wennerstrom sings and plays guitar and keyboards with the great Heartless Bastards, whose new album Restless Ones came out June 15th. Her band has threads of garage rock, blues and country — and the music of the great Texan singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard shares some of those same sounds. Wennerstrom and Hubbard are also fans of each other’s music, so we put them together for a Talkhouse Music Podcast and they dug deep into their songwriting process and had some laughs… and maybe a cry too.

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Matthew E. White and Delta Spirit lead singer Matt Vasquez had never met before they recorded this Talkhouse Music Podcast, but they just fell right into a great conversation, and they covered a whole lot of ground: their path into a career in music, the new music industry, the future of music, why they are musicians, and why and how they do what they do, and who is the greatest American rock & roll band.

In the second part of their conversation for the Talkhouse Music Podcast, Janet Weiss discusses her talent crush on Nick Cave and Meredith Graves talks about making music as a solo artist.

In this edition of the Talkhouse Music Podcast, Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney and Meredith Graves, formerly of Perfect Pussy, talk about creating safe spaces for women to feel empowered, crashing with your fans, and fist fights.

Big-time Gang of Four fan Annie Clark (St. Vincent) talks with the band’s guitarist Andy Gill about distortion pedals, soccer tricks and the Grateful Dead.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, husband-and-wife filmmaking team (and regular Talkhouse Film contributors) Lawrence Michael Levine and Sophia Takal discuss with Hollywood screenwriter Larry Karaszewski their Brooklyn-set screwball comedy Wild Canaries, plus the art of writing dialogue, acting in your own movies, mysteries, the movies of Milos Forman and Blake Edwards, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film.