Talkhouse Podcast

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a lively chat between Philly friends Kurt Vile and Francie Medosch. Medosch is the singer and main creative force behind the band Florry, which exists in the same sonic universe as Courtney Barnett and the currently exploding MJ Lenderman—loose, rocking, a little bit jammy, a little bit indie, and frequently catchy as hell. The Lenderman connection makes even more sense when you realize that the upcoming Florry album was recorded with help from Colin Miller, who plays in Lenderman’s band and has recorded music from the band Wednesday. That upcoming Florry album is called Sounds Like… and it’s due out May 23 on Dear Life Records. It’s a corker, kinda rambly and rockin’ in all the right ways. You can pre-save and pre-order at all the usual spots. Check out the song “Hey Baby” right here. The other half of today’s chat is a longtime supporter of Florry’s, fellow Philadelphian Kurt Vile. Vile first came out swinging as part of the War on Drugs way back when, but pretty quickly established himself as a genius of hazy, dazed guitar songs pitched somewhere between the ‘70s squall of Neil Young and more contemporary indie-rock. As you’ll hear in this chat, Vile is working—at his own pace, of course—on the follow-up to 2022’s Watch My Moves. Whenever it’s finished, it’s sure to be intriguing, like all of his work. In this chat, Vile and Medosch talk about their shared hometown as well as the fact that Medosch recently moved to Vermont and is working in both a dispensary and a record store—kind of a perfect combo to describe her music, come to think of it. They also chat about a lot of stuff that they love, including John Prine, the recently departed Michael Hurley, and the deeply lovable Bob Odenkirk, who Vile was very excited to meet recently. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:07 – Start of the chat 3:00 – On Jobs 5:30 – Writing songs in your head while you're working 6:58 – On Florry's new album, Sounds Like… 13:04 – "I hate headphones" 15:59 – On Kurt Vile's brother, Jelloman, stealing Kurt's van 18:02 – The six degrees of MJ Lenderman 23:25 – On Michael Hurley 28:38 – On John Fahey 30:10 – On Philly 33:50 – On Bob Odenkirk 40:05 – What's new with Kurt Vile Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Kurt Vile and Francie Medosch for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and while you’re at it check out all the great podcasts in our ever-growing network, including Subway Takes, Life of the Record, and many more. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

A bonus interview by How Long Gone's Chris Black and Jason Stewart with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). Watch the companion video version on YouTube.Subscribe to How Long Gone.Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

On this week’s episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a pair of fantastic songwriters and friends who travel in the same musical circles, and who’ve both released disarmingly charming records recently: Clairo and Hannah Cohen. Clairo has been making music since she was a teen, and her songs and sounds have a remarkable depth and breadth of influence, from ‘70s soft-rock to more worldly sounds. Her early viral success pointed to a pop-star trajectory, but Clairo always seems to choose a more interesting sonic path over the more obvious one. Her third album, Charm, came out last year, and it leans into a bit of slinky groove more than she had in the past. Check out the song "Juna" right here. The other half of today’s conversation is Hannah Cohen, who tapped a bunch of cool guests—including Clairo—to help out on her new album. Earthstar Mountain is Cohen’s first in more than five years, and you can hear the care she put into it: It’s an understated but deeply considered ode to her surroundings, the Catskills—and it sounds like that area feels. She made the record with her partner Sam Evian—a Talkhouse alum himself—at their upstate New York studio, Flying Cloud. It doesn’t sound rushed, which is a topic you’ll hear in this chat. In addition to Clairo, it features a guest appearance from Sufjan Stevens. Check out the song “Rag” right here. These two friends get right into a delightful chat that covers Cohen’s record, including the mushroom that inspired its title. They also chat about how working on music with your romantic partner can be its own form of therapy, and they get deep into soundtracks toward the end, tossing around the idea of making one, even without a movie to hang it on. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:02 – Start of the chat 2:30 – On mushrooms and 'Earthstar Mountain' 8:55 – Cohen on making music with her romantic partner, Sam Evian 12:30 – "Artists are so in tune with things on a whole different level" 19:20 – On the song "Rag" 24:45 – "Take what you need from [my] songs; find your own meaning" 30:05 – On soundtracks Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hannah Cohen and Clairo for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com, and be sure to follow and rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

This episode originally aired on April 8, 2025. Subscribe to That's How I Remember It. Adam Granduciel is my guest on this episode That’s How I Remember It. Adam is the principal behind the amazing band The War on Drugs and also produced my new record Always Been. We’ve been friends since a 2009 THS/TWOD tour which we spoke about here. We also got into rock and roll ephemera, his Live Drugs records, being flattered by bootleg merch, our 2008 joint European tour that never happened, and making my record Always Been together. Grateful to Adam in so many ways including being a guest on this podcast. Great talk. Listen and subscribe.

I hope you’ve been enjoying the last few weeks of the Talkhouse feed as we’ve been throwing some new shows your way. If you haven’t checked out Summer Album/Winter Album yet, please do, and look out for new episodes of Nobody’s Ever Asked Me That, featuring my esteemed colleague Nick Dawson, in the coming months, too. Today’s episode of the Talkhouse Podcast features a pair of incredible songwriters in a lovely chat about the thing they love to do the most: make music. We’ve got Benmont Tench and Taylor Goldsmith. Tench, in case you don’t recognize the name, is a founding member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and a guy who helped shape rock music for decades with the distinctive sound and feel of his piano, organ, and much more. Tench made music with Petty from the time they were 11 years old until Petty’s death in 2017, but he’s also contributed to songs and albums by a dizzying array of other artists, too, from Roy Orbison to Fiona Apple to U2. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Tench is always playing music because he loves it so damn much. He recently released his second-ever solo album, The Melancholy Season, and it includes some playing from his friend Taylor Goldsmith. Check out the title track from The Melancholy Season right here. Goldsmith is best known as the singer of the band Dawes, whose Laurel Canyon-inspired folk-rock has been caressing our ears for the past 15 years or so. Dawes has gone through some personnel changes in the past couple of years, paring back to Goldsmith and his brother Griffin and releasing a new album, the fittingly titled Oh Brother just last year. Both Goldsmith brothers were hit hard by the Los Angeles fires, losing their homes and the majority of their beloved instruments. But Goldsmith, as you’ll hear, is taking it in stride. In this conversation, Tench and Goldsmith talk about, again, their love of music: Tench even recalls telling his daughter that he loves her more than he loves music—the highest compliment he can pay. Both of these guys are pretty recent fathers, too, which comes up. And of course they can’t get around talking about the genius of Tom Petty—and the accidental genius of Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell’s shirt. Listen and you’ll understand. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 2:24 – Start of the chat Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Benmont Tench and Taylor Goldsmith for chatting. If you liked what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com and in the Talkhouse Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

On the latest episode of this new Talkhouse Podcast spin-off series, host Nick Dawson sitsdown with veteran actor, director, producer and writer Griffin Dunne, who is currently starringin the family drama Ex-Husbands. Deviating from the usual, well-trodden interview path, thetwo talk about uncertainty, mortality, the complex nature of grief, driving cross country at timesof great change, that time Griffin scared the living daylights out of Neil Simon, Nick’s idea for asecret eighth day of the week, how Chekhov changed the course of Dunne’s life and career,and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse attalkhouse.com/film. Subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the TalkhousePodcast.Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

Dylan Tupper Rupert is a music writer, podcast host, and producer in Los Angeles. You might know her as the host of KCRW's Lost Notes: Groupies, or as the producer fka Producer Dylan of Bandsplain. This spring, her new show Music Person is coming to the Talkhouse Podcast Network—where she'll have in-depth conversations with musicians and brilliant people in the greater music ecosystem, and will sometimes maybe even go on an adventure. So here's a sneak peek—Dylan's diary of her week in Austin for South By Southwest.

Tonight on Summer Album/Winter Album: Modern Vampires Of The City. Vampire Weekend. 2013. Our special guest: Amanda Petrusich of The New Yorker.Jody Avirgan is arguing Winter, Craig Finn is arguing Summer.Craig won the coin toss. He is presenting first.This episode was recorded live at the On Air Fest in Brooklyn.Weigh in and find lots more on Instagram, and clips on our YouTube page.Get in touch through our website.Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more.Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

In this bonus chat, Talkhouse host Josh Modell speaks with the guys behind the great new Summer Album/Winter Album podcast, Craig Finn and Jody Avirgan. After our conversation, stick around for an episode in which they vociferously debate whether Vampire Weekend’s classic Modern Vampires of the City belongs to warm or chilly weather. Subscribe to Summer Album/Winter Album Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.

This week's episode of the Talkhouse Podcast came together by way of my colleague and friend Keenan Kush, who jokingly referred to the music of today’s guests as "Keenan-core." We’ve got a conversation between the duos Kit Sebastian and Pearl & The Oysters. Kit Sebastian came together in London, but their musical (and even geographical) pedigrees are spread much wider. Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, now based in Turkey and France, play music that reflects their locations. Tropicalia and psychedelic pop flirt with an array of other influences to create something that sounds almost out of time. Their latest album New Internationale came out last year on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label, and it adds Azerbaijani and some funk to the mix. Check out the track “Faust” right here. Pearl & The Oysters is also a duo with international roots, having moved from France over a decade ago to Florida, but ending up in Los Angeles. Jazz and Tropicalia also inform their indie pop, and they also ended up on a hip label run by another musician: In this case, Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw. Juliette Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack—sometimes known as Juju and Jojo—put out a great album last year called Planet Pearl. Check out “Side Quest” from that album right here. In this wide-ranging conversation, these two duos talk about their geographic moves and sounds, analog vs. digital recording, favorite filmmakers, and how one cold email kickstarted Kit Sebastian. Enjoy. Chapters: 0:00 – Intro 4:34 – Start of the chat 6:43 – On Influences 13:02 – On Creative Processes 19:27 – On Recording styles 29:09 – Why did Pearl & The Oysters leave France? 31:56 – The DIY scene in Gainesville, FL 36:51 – On Musical Communities 44:22 – The London scene 51:38 – How one cold email kickstarted Kit Sebastian 54:32 – On musical educators 59:21 – Finding your voice 1:03:34 – On cinema and their favorite filmmakers 1:12:28 – How to interact with your audience Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Pearl & The Oysters and Kit Sebastian for chatting. If you like what you heard, check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and arranged by Keenan Kush, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! Find more illuminating podcasts on the Talkhouse Podcast Network. Visit talkhouse.com to read essays, reviews, and more. Follow @talkhouse on Instagram, Bluesky, Twitter (X), Threads, and Facebook.