Talkhouse Podcast

On this week's Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a lively conversation between some people whose relationship got off to kind of a rocky start, but who’ve since become friends: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and all three members of Mountain Man: Amelia Meath, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Molly Sarle.Now the occasion for this conversation is the recent reissue of the first Mountain Man record, 2010’s Made the Harbor, which features new liner notes written by Tweedy. This gorgeous, strange record was made back when these three women were just getting to know each other as college students in Vermont. Somehow, as if by magic—you’ll hear about that in this chat—their voices perfectly intertwined, and some of the very first songs that any of them wrote ended up becoming these timeless little gems. And then they went their separate ways for quite a long time: Meath ended up as half of Sylvan Esso, most notably. They’ve since regrouped for shows and more excellent music, most recently a live album called Look at Me, Don’t Look at Me.The members of Mountain Man first met Jeff Tweedy when they played Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival—and apparently snubbed Tweedy when he introduced himself. No offense was taken and a friendship was eventually formed, though as you’ll hear, Tweedy still finds himself a little intimidated in their presence. Tweedy’s latest entry in an incredibly prolific career is a deluxe edition of Love is the King, the album he recorded and released during the first part of the pandemic. It’s now getting a bonus disc called Live is the King, which as you may have guessed, features live renditions of these excellent songs. Tweedy and Mountain Man will meet again in person in January during Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky festival in Mexico. Presumably they will recognize him this time.In this funny, winding conversation, they begin by talking about seasonal depression, pivot quickly to a discussion of candy, and then move on to the serious business of creating music—and what that means to them. So we’ve got everything from Mountain Man’s magical discovery of their own voices—like a unicorn in the woods—to Jeff’s story about the time he thought he could lose weight by eating only Snickers. One minute, Amelia Meath is talking about sexy lumberjacks on TikTok, the next Jeff Tweedy is pining for an honorary Bachelor’s Degree. Won’t somebody give him one? We’re looking at you, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jeff Tweedy and Mountain Man for chatting. If you liked what you heard, follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and all relevant social channels. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

Hey Talkhouse friends, this week we’re re-surfacing an episode that originally ran in May of 2020. Unlike most Talkhouse Podcast episodes, which feature two or more creative folks in conversation, this one is mostly just one guy talking: Joe Talbot of the band IDLES. It was recorded in front of a live audience in Glasgow, just before the pandemic hit, and it’s a fascinating look at an incredible artist—Talbot is a guy who’s unafraid to put it all out there, in both interviews and in his music. Speaking of music, part of the reason we’re re-promoting this episode this week is that Idles just released another incredible album: Crawler is the British band’s fourth, and it’s unsurprisingly being met with pretty ecstatic reviews. Check out this fascinating chat with Joe and a live audience, and have a great Thanksgiving.—Josh Modell----This week's show is a bit different from usual Talkhouse Podcast episodes. While it's nominally hosted by the legendary Alan McGee of Creation Records — the man who signed The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and a lil ol' band called Oasis — it's not at all a two-person conversation. Instead, this episode features Joe Talbot, frontman of the incredible post-punk group IDLES, in one of the funniest, most viscerally honest live audience Q&A's I've ever witnessed.Both Joe and the attendees are willing to go to deep and often uncomfortable areas: Buckle up for a discussion of toxic masculinity, the role of violence in IDLES' music, and the difficult process of developing one’s own artistic language. We also hear about Joe collabing with Mike Skinner of The Streets, turning Sleaford Mods’ taunts into a song, putting human ashes into vinyl records, and... we even get an unexpected lesson on mindfulness.This Q&A was recorded at the wonderful Barras Art & Design in Glasgow.Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast, including upcoming talks like Helado Negro with Buscabulla, Julien Baker and Katie Harkin (Harkin, Sleater-Kinney), Black Belt Eagle Scout with Sasami, and Scott Avett (The Avett Brothers) with Eef Barzelay (Clem Snide).— Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producerToday’s show was recorded in Glasgow by Nadar Shahzad of Blue Audio (thx Nadar!). Our co-producer is Mark Yoshizumi.Thanks so much to Matt Sadowski of Alt Waves Records and to Barras Art & Design for allowing us to share this event.The Talkhouse Podcast’s theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a roundtable of old friends who are also, as it happens, all New York City legends: Cynthia Sley and Pat Place of Bush Tetras with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and director Jim Jarmusch.Cynthia and Pat — vocalist and guitarist, respectively — started the “groove-centric” post-punk band Bush Tetras in 1979 with Laura Kennedy on bass and Dee Pop on drums. They broke up just a few years later, but over the decades they’ve reunited periodically, and are back in action now — though, sadly, without Kennedy, who died in 2011, and Dee Pop, who passed away last month after the recording of this conversation. But as Cynthia told the New York Times, “Bush Tetras is a force that cannot be stopped.” Their pioneering work lives on, archived in a new box set called Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best of Bush Tetras, which came out on Wharf Cat last week and includes three LPs and a booklet featuring essays by Moore, Jarmusch, members of The Clash and Gang of Four, and many others.Thurston Moore was a founding member of Sonic Youth. Now based in London, he performs and records solo — his latest album is last year's By The Fire. Jim Jarmusch is the director of films like Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Coffee and Cigarettes, and so many more. He’s also a musician, and currently performs with the avant-rock band SQÜRL.As Cynthia says at the beginning of their conversation, they have about 40 years of friendship between the four them, but this is the first time all four of them have gotten to talk together. Their decades-in-the-making conversation covers a lot, including Pat’s influence on Thurston as a guitarist, Tier 3 and Mudd Club memories, and an era of New York when there were still chicken slaughterhouses on Prince Street. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Bush Tetras, Thurston Moore, and Jim Jarmusch for chatting. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, longtime friends and collaborators Rosario Dawson and Talia Lugacy sit down for a chat, on the occasion of the release of their latest film together, This is Not a War Story, the moving drama about combat trauma which Lugacy wrote, directed and stars in and Dawson executive produced. In a wide-ranging conversation, the two started off by talking about the recent tragic death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust and how it connects with persistent problems in both indie and studio filmmaking, and moved on to touch on everything from the human aspect of cinema, art as therapy and Rosario’s thoughts on directing, to their time as teenagers at the Lee Strasberg Institute with Scarlett Johansson and Hayden Christensen, the changing of the guard that is currently taking place in Hollywood, and the journey they have taken together, both creatively and personally. 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.This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan. The Talkhouse Podcast theme music is composed and performed by the Range.

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got a little more focused conversation than usual, as Matthew Houck—the driving force behind the band Phosphorescent—chats with legendary songwriter Nick Lowe, largely about Lowe’s recently reissued 2001 album The Convincer.Even if Nick Lowe’s name isn’t super familiar to you, some of his songs almost certainly are. He’s had an incredible career that stretches back to the late 1960s, with his biggest mainstream moment coming via his dear friend Elvis Costello, who covered Lowe’s “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” and made it a hit. Lowe also produced Costello’s first five albums, as well as a bunch of other classic British records, in addition to his solo work and his time with the band Rockpile.Today’s conversation is focused largely on Lowe’s 2001 album The Convincer, which was something of an artistic rebirth for him. He wanted to age gracefully and continue to challenge himself, which he did with a trilogy of albums that ended with this one. It’s a beautifully written and performed set of songs that didn’t set the commercial world on fire, but which has quietly found its way into many people’s hearts over the past two decades.The song “I’m A Mess” is the reason for this conversation. Matthew Houck, who has been making incredible music of his own under the name Phosphorescent since the early aughts, is an obsessive fan of The Convincer, so much so that he’s been working on a cover of “I’m A Mess.” A mutual friend of Houck and Lowe’s sent Lowe a copy of the song, which isn’t available yet, and they chat about it here. The most recent Phosphorescent release is the BBC Sessions EP, and it strips a set of Houck’s songs down to their barest essentials—much of his studio material is far more gussied up, and this is a great chance to hear them naked.As you’ll hear in this conversation, Houck is a huge fan of Lowe’s, and specifically of The Convincer. They get into specifics about a bunch of the songs—and you’ll find out if Lowe agrees that this was indeed his finest hour. You’ll also hear about how The Bodyguard soundtrack changed Lowe’s fortunes forever, how his onetime girlfriend Margot Kidder made her way into a song, and how Wilco helped him win fans in Indianapolis. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Nick Lowe and Matthew Houck for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This week’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve put together a pair of tourmates—past and present—who are separated by decades but united by a deep respect of American music: Patterson Hood and Carl Nichols.Patterson Hood has been in rock bands since he was a pre-teen, and he’s been the co-leader of Drive-By Truckers since 1996. The band has explored the sounds and ideas of Southern rock—Hood is from Alabama—over the years, with sounds and lyrics that stretch the boundaries well beyond the world of Lynyrd Skynyrd. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Hood is a nuanced thinker and writer. You’ll also hear that, of course, on his records, both as a solo artist and a Drive-By Trucker. The band actually released two albums last year, The Unraveling back in January, and then its companion, The New OK, in October.Carl Nichols, aka Buffalo Nichols, toured with Drive-By Truckers in the past, and he’s in the midst of another touring opening for them now. Nichols, as you’ll hear, has an interesting musical history of his own—he’s been more of a genre jumper than his friend Patterson, playing in punk bands early on and then in the Milwaukee folk-ish duo Nickel and Rose. He just released his debut as Buffalo Nichols, and it takes a turn toward what Rolling Stone called “existential blues.” It’s just out on the venerated Fat Possum label.Nichols and Hood—that sounds like a great name for a duo, come to think of it—talk here about the protests in Portland, where Hood now lives; how Hood’s politics drove off a certain percentage of his audience; and a mutual love of Outkast. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Patterson Hood and Carl Nichols for chatting. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time.

This week’s Talkhouse conversation features a pair of performers who came up in the ‘90s, and who have followed each other’s careers since: Tim Burgess of the Charlatans, and Joan Wasser, aka. Joan as Police Woman.Tim Burgess has had a fascinatingly diverse career: He first came to prominence as singer of the Charlatans, who were part of the early '90s Madchester scene along with the likes of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. But unlike many of their contemporaries, the Charlatans have had a long and prosperous career, releasing more than a dozen albums in addition to Burgess’ solo output. This week sees the release of a massive Charlatans box set called A Head Full Of Ideas that spans their career and includes hits and rare tracks.In addition to the box set, a Charlatans tour that’s just about to start, and a solo album slated for next year, Burgess has kept himself busy through the pandemic with a fun concept he named Tim’s Twitter Listening Party. It’s simple enough: He coaxes other musicians to essentially live-tweet their own albums, and it’s resulted in literally hundreds of sessions with everyone from his UK contemporaries like Oasis and Blur to a session with Sir Paul McCartney himself. A hundred of those parties have now been gathered into a hardcover book, which also includes rare photos from the participants and lots more.One of those hundred is Joan Wasser, who also got her start in a ‘90s band—the Dambuilders—and subsequently launched an incredibly varied career. She was in Antony and the Johnsons for a bit, and she’s recorded a bunch of great records under the name Joan As Police Woman. The first of those, 2006’s Real Life, knocked Tim Burgess over when he first heard it—as you’ll hear in this conversation. Wasser is just about to release an incredible collaborative album that she made with Dave Okumu and Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen, not long before Allen’s death last year. It’s called The Solution is Restless, which is a pretty perfect title, and it’ll be out in November.These two have a great chat: Tim is super chill and loves to meditate; Joan is a total firecracker. They talk about how Joan’s album “knocked Tim for six,” the myth of Lou Reed—Tim met him as a fan, Joan toured with him—and how Tim, in addition to everything else, has a coffee business. Sort of. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Tim Burgess and Joan Wasser for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

For this week’s Talkhouse Podcast episode, we rounded up a pair of friends who deeply admire each other’s playing and songwriting—and who ultimately met because of a different episode of the Talkhouse Podcast: Kurt Vile and Julia Shapiro.Kurt Vile first came into music fans’ consciousness as part of The War On Drugs, though it wasn’t long before he decided to dedicate his time to his solo material. He’s released a string of incredible albums since, including 2013’s instant classic Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze and 2018’s Bottle It In. As you’ll hear in this conversation, he’s been hard at work, writing "too many" songs for a new album. In 2017, Vile collaborated with Australian singer Courtney Barnett on an album called Lotta Sea Lice, and it was Barnett who turned him onto Julia Shapiro and her band Chastity Belt. When Barnett and Shapiro chatted on this very podcast back in 2017, that sealed the deal for Vile, who became a huge Chastity Belt fan—and eventual friend of Shapiro’s.Now Chastity Belt, which started life about a decade ago in Washington State, has released four powerful albums over the years, most recently a self-titled set in 2019. But the occasion for this conversation is actually Shapiro’s second album as a solo artist. It’s called Zorked, a word that means kind of what you might think: extremely stoned, or maybe just completely out of it. That’s how Shapiro felt after moving to Los Angeles at the beginning of the pandemic, where her social circle was smaller and the world kind of closed in on her. The result is a weird, incredible set of songs Shapiro co-produced with her roommate Melina Duterte—aka Jay Som.That might sound a little serious, but Julia and Kurt have a fun chat here, talking about how they met, how Kurt mistook Chastity Belt for another band at first, how Julia once crowdsurfed at one of Kurt’s shows, and Julia’s love of TikTok. She even tries to convince Kurt to sign up. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Kurt Vile and Julia Shapiro for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcast and social media outlets. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of songwriters separated by a generation, but united by a serious dedication to the craft: Carl Newman and Liam Kazar.Carl Newman—aka. A.C. Newman—is best known as the gravitational center of The New Pornographers, the lark of a supergroup that he started back in 1997 but that quickly found great enough success that it became his main gig. As you perhaps already know, the band also features the prodigious talents of Neko Case and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, though Newman does the vast majority of the songwriting. The band’s latest album is 2019’s In The Morse Code of Brake Lights, but as you’ll hear—maybe for the first time?—in this conversation, they’ve spent part of the pandemic working on a new one. If that’s not enough, the band’s classic debut Mass Romantic has just been reissued on vinyl, and in November and December the New Pornographers will do a tour on which they perform both that album and 2005’s Twin Cinema in their entirety.Newman has also been spending some time on Twitter in the past couple of years, and that’s how he heard about Liam Kazar’s song “Shoes Too Tight.” Another Talkhouse guest from this year, Eric Slick, tweeted about the song, and Newman heartily endorsed it. It’s from Kazar’s debut solo album Due North, which came out earlier this year on Kevin Morby’s new label, Mare Records. And while it may be his first album as a solo artist, it’s far from the first thing Kazar has done: He was part of the Chicago collective Kids These Days, which also featured Vic Mensa, and he’s part of the band Tweedy with his pal Spencer Tweedy and Spencer’s famous dad, Jeff. But Due North is the first time that Kazar has been front and center as a songwriter, and he sounds like an old soul. Newman and Kazar talk a lot about songwriting on this podcast, and they also get into social media, Liam’s talented family, and lots more. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Carl Newman and Liam Kazar for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting services and social media channels. Today’s episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range.

On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Podcast, Tiller Russell – the man behind both the doc series The Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer and real-life drama Silk Road – sits down with Oscar winner Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee’s screenwriting partner on BlacKkKlansman, Chiraq and Da 5 Bloods and a fine director in his own right om films such as C.S.A: Confederate States of America and The 24th. In a fascinating conversation, the two filmmakers discuss the parallels between their work, the theme of duality that runs through Willmott’s movies, making work that resonates in a post-January 6th world, how Errol Morris changed Tiller’s life, Kevin’s path to becoming Spike Lee’s collaborator, and 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.