The Lydian Spin

Carlo McCormick is a pop culture critic and curator living in New York. He is the author of numerous books on contemporary art and artists and has lectured and taught extensively at universities around the United States. His writing has appeared in Aperture, Art in America, Art News, Artforum, High Times, Spin, Vice, and countless other magazines.

Chris Connelly is a Scottish-born musician and writer whose career spans from the industrial and post-punk scenes of the 1980s to a wide range of solo and collaborative projects. Beginning with Rigor Mortis (later Fini Tribe) and continuing through Revolting Cocks, Ministry, and Pigface, Chris's work is an exercise in constant reinvention and movement between genres. His later solo work, including Whiplash Boychild, Shipwreck, and Blonde Exodus, reflects a shift toward melodic, literate songwriting, while his books and collaborations, such as The High Confessions, demonstrate his continuing interest in music as narrative and experimentation.

Gary Lippman is a writer, artist, and attorney. He has worked with New York's Innocence Project and is the author of the acclaimed new book I Wish Therefore I Am. His play Paradox Lust ran off-off-Broadway in 2001, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and VICE. Gary's visual art can be found at apocalippy.com.

🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ Dave Naz played in various LA punk bands including Chemical People, Down by Law, and The Last touring the USA and Europe from 1985 til1997, until an exhibition featuring Larry Clark, Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus, inspired him to pick up a camera. As a photographer his work revolves around the varied identities and personae of our time. His photos have appeared in GQ, Maxim, Stern, and Salon. Several of Naz's photos appear in the artwork of Richard Prince. He has published 17 books with the 18th on the way.

🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/tsd1975) Shane Embury is longtime bassist for the grindcore/death metal band Napalm Death, which he joined in 1987 and has remained with ever since. In addition to Napalm Death, he has been involved in numerous side projects and bands across the extreme metal spectrum, such as Blood from the Soul, Lock Up, Brujeria, and Venomous Concept. Before his bass‑career, he played drums in early death metal and grindcore efforts like Warhammer and Unseen Terror. He lives in Birmingham and is an enthusiast of horror, science fiction, and comics. 🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ The Lydian Spin is more than just a podcast—it's a living archive of raw conversation, radical thought, and unfiltered voices. Week after week, Lydia Lunch and Tim Dahl dive deep with artists, musicians, and cultural agitators who refuse to be silenced. But keeping this archive alive takes time, energy, and resources. If you've ever been moved, inspired, or challenged by the conversations on The Lydian Spin, consider giving back. Your donation helps us cover production costs, keep the episodes free and accessible, and continue amplifying the voices that matter. Click the link above or go to https://paypal.me/tsd1975

🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/tsd1975) Inspired by a lifelong obsession with poetry and prose, Harlow Crandall channels his obsession with literature and rock music into the release of his new album, Better a New Demon, recorded with the support of Peter Manktelow, Meadow Wyand, and Justin Pallini. As a Ph.D. candidate working in one of America's largest music archives at Middle Tennessee State University, he's presently completing a book tentatively titled The Architects of Punk & No Wave: The Literary Impulses of the New York Underground in the 1970s. The project explores how punk and no wave pioneers from Richard Hell to Lydia Lunch established a new aesthetic and subculture from the wreckage of the 1960s and their own literary aspirations, and it documents their response over the next decades to the changing cultural currency of New York's mythic decade. 🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ The Lydian Spin is more than just a podcast—it's a living archive of raw conversation, radical thought, and unfiltered voices. Week after week, Lydia Lunch and Tim Dahl dive deep with artists, musicians, and cultural agitators who refuse to be silenced. But keeping this archive alive takes time, energy, and resources. If you've ever been moved, inspired, or challenged by the conversations on The Lydian Spin, consider giving back. Your donation helps us cover production costs, keep the episodes free and accessible, and continue amplifying the voices that matter. Click the link above or go to https://paypal.me/tsd1975

Budgie (born Peter Edward Clarke) is an English drummer recognized for his work with Siouxsie and the Banshees (1979–1996) and the percussion-driven project The Creatures (1981–2004). He lost his mother at age 12, and that early loss becomes a central theme in The Absence: Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer, where he also writes candidly about his marriage with Siouxsie Sioux, struggles with alcohol, and the power dynamics in both his personal and musical life. His drumming is praised for being offbeat, tom-tom-intensive, and for bringing melodic and rhythmic invention rather than just keeping time. 🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ The Lydian Spin is more than just a podcast—it's a living archive of raw conversation, radical thought, and unfiltered voices. Week after week, Lydia Lunch and Tim Dahl dive deep with artists, musicians, and cultural agitators who refuse to be silenced. But keeping this archive alive takes time, energy, and resources. If you've ever been moved, inspired, or challenged by the conversations on The Lydian Spin, consider giving back. Your donation helps us cover production costs, keep the episodes free and accessible, and continue amplifying the voices that matter.

Paul Cantelon grew up with music in his blood—his mother played trumpet in the Philadelphia Symphony, his father was a preacher. A prodigy on violin, he debuted at UCLA's Royce Hall at 13, then studied piano across Geneva, Juilliard, and Paris. At 17, a bike accident left him in a coma and wiped out his memory; he had to relearn music from scratch. He went on to co-found the band Wild Colonials, release solo piano albums, and score films like The Diving Bell & the Butterfly, The Other Boleyn Girl, and W.. He's also written for silent film classics like Battleship Potemkin.

Shawn "The Defenestrator" O'Connor is a founding member and drummer of the St. Louis band Yowie. Outside of music, he works as a clinical psychologist. Shawn is also something of a luddite, aiming to be the last adult in America without a cell phone.

Pamela Des Barres, born in California, emerged from the 1960s Los Angeles rock scene as both participant and witness. Introduced to Captain Beefheart in high school, she soon immersed herself in the vast Los Angeles demimonde, befriending and dating musicians from The Byrds to Led Zeppelin. With Frank Zappa's guidance, she co-founded the performance collective the GTOs, documenting her experiences in diaries that became the foundation of her seminal memoir I'm With the Band. She later married rocker Michael Des Barres—also known to television audiences for his role as the assassin Murdoc on MacGyver. Pamela herself went on to publish multiple books and establish a career as an author, teacher, and chronicler of rock history, in her role as the definitive voice of the "groupie."