Talkhouse Podcast

For the first new Talkhouse Podcast episode of the new year, we’ve got an unlikely pairing—which is one of our favorite kinds of pairings. But it wasn’t exactly our idea to connect Michael Vincent Waller and Lex Luger, it was theirs. The contemporary classical composer and the extremely prolific hip-hop producer made a really cool record together that came out in 2021, called Classic$.Waller is not your typical classical composer, he’s a real musical searcher. His compositions range from avant-garde to minimalist to slightly more classic-sounding classical music. But over his career he hasn’t stayed in one place musically for very long. He made a record back in 2019 with electronic producer JLin, which you may have read about in an interview with the pair right on this very website. So maybe it’s no surprise at all that Waller didn’t let genre get in the way of his love for hip-hop when he reached out to Luger for an assist on Classic$—which I should note is credited to MVW, rather than Waller’s full name, in case you have trouble finding it on your favorite streaming service. The two collaborated on the music, as you’ll hear, and they brought in a bunch of voices to help flesh things out. Luger has had an incredible career in hip-hop. For the last decade-plus, he’s been a go-to producer for some huge names, starting with Waka Flocka Flame—who he connected with via MySpace—and Rick Ross, but running through tracks by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Snoop Dogg, among many, many others. He famously used to make hundreds of beats at a stretch: If you didn’t like one of his spooky trap sounds, he had a dozen others ready for you. I guess the place that Luger and Waller might intersect is that Luger’s beats often feature symphonic elements: They can sound, at times, like horror-movie scores.In this conversation, Luger and Waller talk about how working together affected them: It was more than just another job for Luger, who feels like he learned something valuable from Waller’s acoustic-first approach. They also talk about what music actually means to them, which is a very Talkhouse-friendly subject. They clearly want to work with one another again, which says something about the deep connection they made on Classic$. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Lex Luger and Michael Vincent Waller for chatting. Be sure to 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. 

This week we’re resurfacing a delightful episode that originally ran in April of 2020, and which features two of our favorite songwriters/performers: Matt Berninger of The National and Aimee Mann. Their chat was inspired by the release of an excellent documentary about Other Music, the revered New York record store that closed in 2016. The conversation veers into many other areas as well, including creativity during the pandemic. The challenges of the past couple of years were no match for these two: Berninger released a solo album called Serpentine Prison last year, and Mann just released Queens of the Summer Hotel, a set of new songs inspired by the book Girl, Interrupted. Enjoy, and we’ll be back with a brand new episode next week.—Josh ModellThis week on the show, we celebrate the wonderful Other Music documentary with two Grammy-winning artists: singer-songwriter Aimee Mann and the National's Matt Berninger. The two discuss the iconic record store and the creative importance of having physical spaces dedicated to musical community, plus we hear how they're managing to work during the pandemic, and Matt reveals that he's both writing a musical and launching a label imprint.The Other Music doc features many wonderful artists that have appeared on our show — TV on the Radio, the Magnetic Fields, Superchunk, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jason Schwartzman, Animal Collective, William Basinski, Frankie Cosmos and more — this is truly a #talkhousecore film!Other Music is currently being screened via a "virtual theatrical release," with more than 200 independent record shops and movie theaters offering it to rent, and splitting the profits 50/50. This is a wonderful chance to support your local purveyor of brilliant art, and catch one of the must-see music films of the year. Click here to find your local favorite store or theater that's screening it! (Our producer Mark Yoshizumi rented it from his alma mater Reckless Records in Chicago; Talkhouse Film's Editor-in-Chief Nick Dawson supported Permanent Records in L.A., and I went with Record Grouch in Brooklyn, where I've spent many and many a happy hour amongst the hallowed racks.)Enjoy today's show, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast, including upcoming talks like Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) with the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, and Black Belt Eagle Scout with Sasami.—Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producerThis week’s show was recorded by Aimee Mann, Matt Berninger, Nick Dawson, and myself in our respective #stayhome studios. The Talkhouse Podcast's co-producer is Mark Yoshizumi. Our theme song was composed and performed by The Range.

We’ve hosted some incredible Talkhouse conversations in 2021, and for our final brand-new episode of the year, we’ve got two people responsible for some of the best records of this year: Julien Baker and Aaron Dessner.Baker released her third album, Little Oblivions, back in February, and it’s a doozy. Expanding her sonic palette massively, Baker delivered her powerful, vulnerable songs with much bigger sounds. That might have felt like a gamble, but it paid off massively—she produced it herself and pushed herself into new spaces.Dessner is of course a founding member of the National, with whom he’s played for the past 20+ years. While his main band slowed down over the past couple of years, Dessner has been operating at hyperspeed. He was one of the main co-writers and producers on Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums. He won an Album of the Year Grammy for the former, and was nominated for five more Grammys for the latter. He somehow also found time to release a new album with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon under the name Big Red Machine called How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? In addition to loads of guest singers, that record features Dessner on occasional lead vocals.These two have a fantastic conversation about creativity and, specifically, production: Aaron has done a lot of producing for other artists, and Julien is just getting into it. Julien talks about what it’s like to have a full live band backing her, rather than being a quote-unquote masochist and playing alone. They talk about what it was like to be deprived of live audiences for so long, and Aaron gets into how his studio setup has changed over the years. Also, they both know what it’s like when music can make you cry—that’s the kind of thing we love here at Talkhouse. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Julien Baker and Aaron Dessner for having such a wonderful chat. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service and social media channels--we’re everywhere. This episode was produced by Melissa Kaplan and Keenan Kush, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

This week’s Talkhouse episode features a pair of legends from the alt-country or country or No Depression or Americana worlds—you pick. It’s Jay Farrar of Son Volt along with singer-songwriter (and many other things) Steve Earle.Jay Farrar started his career as part of the seminal band Uncle Tupelo alongside another noted songwriter (and frequent Talkhouse guest) Jeff Tweedy. After their split, Tweedy went on to Wilco while Farrar formed the band Son Volt, which has since released an impressive catalog—their tenth and latest album was recorded during pandemic downtime, and you can hear it in the deliberateness of the songs. It’s called Electro Melodier.Steve Earle is one of those guys who makes you feel lazy. He’s not only an incredibly accomplished singer and songwriter with literally dozens of albums to his credit, he’s also a producer, an actor—most notably on The Wire—a novelist, a Sirius XM DJ, and as you’ll hear here, an aspiring TV show creator. His 2020 album Ghosts of West Virginia was spun off from an off-Broadway show he worked on, while this year’s J.T. is a tribute to his talented son, Justin Townes Earle, who passed away just last year. As you’ll hear, he’s got even more projects in the works, including a tribute to singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker.As you’ll hear, Steve Earle loves to chat, while Jay Farrar is a bit more subdued—a fact that these friends acknowledge right off the bat. But they get into a great conversation about their favorite subject: music—what they listened to growing up, the great shows that Earle saw as a kid, and even selling some weed to Leslie West of Mountain. Steve talks about missing the whole genesis of alt-country for good reason—he was in jail—but catching up with it, and with Son Volt in particular. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Jay Farrar and Steve Earle for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on all your favorite podcasting services and social media channels. 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 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.