RiYL

By most accounts, the heyday of the guitar as a pop cultural force is several decades in the past. But every so often, an artist emerges who breathes new life into the instrument. A musician happy to explore the fringes of her own musical boundaries, Kaki King’s instrument music is consistently fresh and nearly impossible to categorize. Released during the pandemic, Modern Yesterdays finds the guitarist finding new ways to interact and promote her music, stuck at home in Brooklyn with her young family. In this wide ranging interview, we discuss the development of King’s sound and the personal and professional lessons over the course of this very strange year.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sixteen years is an eternity in this world. But for Bob Forrest, the time was right finally right for a reunion. A brilliant outgrowth of the Los Angeles 80s punk scene, Thelonious Monster flirted with major label success, signing to Capitol Records for 92’s Beautiful Mess. The group  failed to reach the heights of contemporaries like Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili, finally self-destructing not long after its major label debut. Forrest would go on to release one of his strongest works in 1999 as The Bicycle Thief, but his most mainstream success would come from somewhere altogether different. His addiction saw its rock bottom in the mid-90s, kickstarting a journey to become one of the country’s best known drug counselors. In addition to running dependency services and recovery services, Forrest appeared along with Dr. Drew on the TV shows Celebrity Rehab and Sober House. The pair also cohost two podcasts. Last year saw the release of Thelonious Monster’s sixth LP, Oh That Monster.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ginseng Roots finds Craig Thompson returning childhood memoir — albeit in an entirely different form. Currently being serialized as mini-comics through Uncivilized Press, the series is as much the story of ginseng cultivation as it is his formative years growing up in rural Wisconsin. It’s a chance to revisit some important aspects of his youth that failed to make it into his epic 600-page book, Blankets, as well as an opportunity to trace some global history through the roots of one important plant he and family members spent years harvesting. The move toward serialize, meanwhile, finds the artist interacting with his own work in a matter different than the customary seven or so years it takes for him to produce a complete graphic novel. In this conversation, Thompson discusses creating the deeply personal work.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 “Something I realized after we spoke that I curiously never had noticed before,” Peter Stampfel wrote in an email shortly after our interview, “big similarity that hallucinogens and the Smith Anthology both had on me: I saw that the world was much more strange and much more vast than I had previously thought.” The musician’s own long, strange career has almost certainly had its own profound effect on generations of music, from being a driving force in The Holy Modal Rounders and, briefly, a member of The Fugs, to his more recent collaborations with anti-folk artist, Jeffrey Lewis. This year finds Stampfel releasing his most ambitious work to date. Stampfel's 20th Century In 100 Songs is a project roughly two decades in the making. The work finds the idiosyncratic singer tracing the history of popular music through a wide gamut of hand-picked songs. Now struggling with dysphonia, which has left his voice weakened and strained, the musician continues to write and play, looking to continuing expanding his already-broad musical scope.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Power, wealth and mental health,” Craig Finn offers a succinct tagline for a hypothetical Open Door Policy movie poster. These themes, among others, including technology, working and inequality under capitalism clearly emerged as the lyrics for the latest Hold Steady record came into focus. To borrow a quote the singer, in turn, borrowed from Joan Didion, “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Finn’s long-time fascination with hard-luck characters continues to populate the world of the Hold Steady and his solo work, but the stars of his songs have matured along with him. The band’s early records often featured tales of drugging and drinking, hard partying youth. These days, the work is more concerned with what happens next.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter and the Wolves is a lot of things. It’s both memoir and biography, as Adele Bertei recounts her early days in music, while showing an oft-ignored side of friend and mentor, Peter Laughner. The  Pere Ubu/Rocket from the Tombs guitarist gave the musician her earliest break in Cleveland, only to die at age 24, following longtime substance abuse. Back in print, Bertei’s book is an effort to show a side of the musician beyond the easy live fast, die young headlines. After Laughner’s passing, Bertei moved to New York, becoming a fixture in the city’s burgeoning no wave scene. The subsequent decades have given way to a fascinating and diverse career, working as a backup musician for some of the era’s biggest names and recording dance hits of her own.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a darkness to Catspaw — something that lurks beyond the innocuous and even adorable title. Culled from an episode of the original Star Trek, Matthew Sweet’s usage is evocative of a certain doom. For an album finished before Covid-19 really took hold, the mood is certainly in keeping with the present moment. Not that things were particularly great prior to the pandemic, of course. Equally fitting is the truly solitary method in which the album was written and recorded — perhaps the most purely solo recording of a decades-long solo artist. In a remote interview, the power-pop star opens up about struggles with bipolar disorder and a unique and lasting career.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A lot has changed in the nearly five years since the the launch of Beautiful/Anonymous — some for the better and many for the worst. Certainly, the need to listen and be heard has only grown stronger during a pandemic that has left many alienated and alone. Earlier this month, host Chris Gethard announced that the Earwolf series will become a TV show, adding a visual element to the long conversations between strangers. Prior to launching the series, the New Jersey-born comedian was best known for his self-titled variety show, which started life on public access and managed to maintain a celebratory underdog quality, even after moving to Fusion and, ultimately, truTV. In a conversation that’s ever bit as honest and open as his listeners have come to expect, Gethard discusses his struggles with mental health and the role his work plays in fostering his own empathy.  Apologies for some technical difficulties this time out.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The timing of Sonic Boom could have been better, as far as these things go. The first collection of original Nixons music in 20 years arrived about two months into a country-wide shutdown. In 2018, the band toured for the first time in nearly as long. The group’s breakup wasn’t the most amicable, but it’s amazing how bad feelings can dissolve with a couple of decades between them. For singer Zac Maloy, the breakup was an opportunity to explore new avenues in the industry, including the fruitful beginnings of a songwriting career that’s found him collaborating with musicians ranging from Carrie Underwood to Adam Lambert. Ahead of a livestream online event, Maloy joined us to reflect on the band’s career, life as a songwriter and how much to foster his own kids’ musical ambitions.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In September, “Free Fall” seemed to be everywhere. In her latest long form work for The New Yorker, Emily Flake captured a sense of existential ennui that permeated much of the population six months into a pandemic-driven shut down. It was, one of the cartoonist’s most widely-shared works for the magazine since “Young and Dumb Inside,” which explored her decades’ long love for the punk band, Jawbreaker. Flake is probably best know as the long-time publisher of New Yorker gag strips, but her deeply personal comics essays strike an entirely different chord among its readership. Flake joined us to the discuss the process of putting heartfelt and personal work on paper and how the pandemic has impacted her comics.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.