This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with pioneering saxophonist and composer Skerik. Over three decades, Skerik has built a devout following through his often contrarian, outsider approach to jazz, funk, and rock music. A founding member of Critters Buggin, Garage A Trois, The Dead Kenny Gs, and DRKWAV, among others, he has also become an essential contributor to several Les Claypool projects and has collaborated with artists including Pearl Jam, Mad Season, and...
May 07, 2026•40 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with renowned pianist and composer Kimball Gallagher. Gallagher’s journey as a pianist has carried him far beyond the traditional concert hall. A Boston-raised musician trained at Juilliard, he began questioning the narrow path often available to concert pianists early in his career. That curiosity led him to launch an ambitious 88-concert tour across seven continents, funded by 88 supporters who each sponsored one key of the ...
Apr 14, 2026•27 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Pittsburgh-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Pat Kelly. Pat recently released his fifth album, and his first for Glamour Gowns Records , entitled Hook , an enticing and cathartic set of songs that evokes self-doubt, delusional ambition, anger, and wistfulness. Pat’s lyrical prowess is exceptional. His wordplay and delivery brings to mind some of the greatest, from David Berman of the Silver Jews, to Bill C...
Mar 25, 2026•29 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Natalie Kyriacou , an award-winning environmentalist, charity director, and author. Natalie was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 honor for her services to wildlife and environmental conservation in 2018, and was recognised as one of The Australian’s ‘Top Innovators’ in 2022. She was the UN Environment Programme’s ‘Young Champion of the Earth’ Finalist and is LinkedIn’s Top Green Voice...
Mar 20, 2026•44 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with director Naja Lockwood . Naja has executive produced multiple documentary and narrative films focusing on social justice and is the founder of RYSE Media Ventures which supports stories of diverse voices. Born in Vietnam, Naja immigrated to Massachusetts during the Fall of Saigon. As a refugee, Naja continues to advocate for immigrants from her undergraduate years to her current work with the Governor's Workforce Services...
Mar 03, 2026•29 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Jonathan Bernstein, a senior research editor and writer at Rolling Stone, who before that was a freelancer for Oxford American, The Guardian, GQ, Vulture, Pitchfork, The Village Voice, Spin, Entertainment Weekly, and American Songwriter. His book, What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome : The Authorized Biography of Justin Townes Earle , is the focus of this episode. In What To Do When You’re Lonely , Jonathan Bernstein, with...
Feb 18, 2026•53 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with artist and educator Michael Townsend. Michael is the founder of the Tape Art movement and for over 30 years, he has created hundreds of ephemeral murals and community projects around the world. His work includes the 9/11 Hope Project , the invention of the BOOM! Projector , and the now-legendary documentary Secret Mall Apartment . Directed by Jeremy Workman and executive produced by Jesse Eisenberg, the critically acclaim...
Jan 29, 2026•35 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with award-winning director and producer Ben Kalina, whose work centers on the collision between human nature and the force of nature. In 2020 he produced and directed Can We Cool the Planet? for NOVA. His film Shored Up , the 2014 Sundance Institute LightStay Sustainability Award winner, explored rising sea levels and the politics of Climate Change in the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. He was Associate Producer of ...
Dec 10, 2025•36 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with singer-songwriter and guitarist Andrew Daly Frank. Andrew is an inimitable songwriting voice and virtuosic guitarist, and his debut album, You’re No Island — the focus of this episode — is a gorgeous, affecting piece of art that is pacifying and vitalizing. Andrew is a guitarist who has lent his thrilling leads and delicate chordal touch to albums by Charlie Kaplan and released a series of beguiling EPs in the lead up to ...
Nov 25, 2025•33 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with author and seasoned music and culture journalist, Mike Ayers . Mike has had work published in Billboard , The Wall Street Journal , Rolling Stone , Time , Esquire , and Relix . His first book, One Last Song: Conversations on Life, Death, and Music came out in 2020, with Variety declaring it as one of the best music books of the year. His latest book, Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the '90s Jam Band Explosion a...
Nov 17, 2025•57 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with bassist/producer Mocean Worker (aka Adam Dorn) and pianist/composer Joe Alterman, who have come together for Keep The Line Open , a funky, feel-good tribute to the late soul jazz legend Les McCann. Keep The LIne Open remarkably taps into the genre-blurring spirit that defined McCann’s music, as well as his influence on Joe and Adam. Both Joe and Adam called Les McCann a friend, collaborator, and mentor. Joe was a devotee ...
Nov 12, 2025•50 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Fabian Holt, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University. He is the author of Everyone Loves Live Music: A Theory of Performance Institutions. His latest book, Organize or Burn : How New York Socialists Fight For Climate Survival , is the focus of this episode. Climate inaction is already causing widespread suffering and devastation around the world. How can citizens take collect...
Nov 04, 2025•49 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with film and TV producer, writer, and director Rick Korn. Rick is the co-founder of In Plain View Entertainment which specializes in creating socially conscious documentaries. Rick has produced benefit concerts with Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Peter Frampton, Kevin Bacon, and Joan Jett (amongst others). He executive produced the documentary about Paul McCartney, My Old Friend, and in 2024, he directed and releas...
Oct 29, 2025•31 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with singer-songwriter Jenna Nicholls . Hailing from the small town of Irwin, PA near Pittsburgh, after college Jenna set her sights east to test her wings as a songwriter and performer. Initially trying Boston, she ultimately gravitated to the creative hotbed of Manhattan’s Lower East Side forging lasting friendships with other like-minded artists and musicians. Jenna made three albums on her own dime: Curled Up Toes in Red M...
Oct 22, 2025•35 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with guitarist and composer Bill Orcutt . Bill is one of experimental music's most influential guitarists, known for weaving melodic lines into a dense landscape of American primitivism, outsider jazz, and a stripped-down re-envisioning of the possibilities of the guitar. Bill’s jagged sound is utterly unique and instantly recognizable, compared with equal frequency to avant-garde composers and rural bluesmen. The New York Tim...
Sep 30, 2025•33 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Brooklyn- based independent singer and songwriter Charlie Kaplan. Charlie has released three solo albums to date, each excellent in their own right, and he is the bassist in the art-pop quartet Office Culture. Charlie also helms the independent record label Glamour Gowns Records . His latest album, A Hat Upon The Bed , is the focus of this episode. A man pleads with the sky for Halley’s Comet to return. Washing the dishes...
Sep 23, 2025•54 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Brian Anderson, a Webby Award-winning senior features editor, writer, and producer at VICE . Brian was a science editor at The Atlantic , where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for early pandemic coverage, and was later an editor at Vox . He lives in Chicago with his partner (and a piece of the Wall of Sound). Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection is his first boo...
Sep 09, 2025•58 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Adam Szetela, who earned his Ph.D. in English in the Department of Literatures at Cornell University. Before that, he was a visiting fellow in the Department of History at Harvard University. He writes for The Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek, and other publications. His latest release — That Book is Dangerous: How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing — is the focus of this episod...
Sep 03, 2025•45 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Sean Enfield, an essayist, poet, bassist, and educator from Dallas, TX. Currently, he resides in Milwaukee, WI where he is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of Permafrost Magazine . Now, he serves as an Assistant Nonfiction Editor at Terrain.org . His essays have been nominated for ...
Sep 01, 2025•56 min
This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with journalist, author, and an acknowledged expert in American right-wing extremism, David Neiwert. Neiwert has appeared on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Newsroom, and The Rachel Maddow Show and is the Pacific Northwest correspondent for the Southern Poverty Law Center. His work has appeared at Mother Jones , The Washington Post , MSNBC.com, and many other publications. His previous books include Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whale...
Aug 31, 2025•50 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Seattle-based multi-instrumentalist singer, songwriter, and soul innovator Brittany Davis . Originally from Kansas City, Brittany began playing piano and organ at a young age. After relocating to Seattle about a decade ago, their exceptional songwriting caught the attention of Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, leading to a deal with his label, Loosegroove Records, and the birth of two outstanding albums. Blind since birth, Brit...
Jul 07, 2025•39 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with acclaimed singer-songwriter Mason Jennings . Mason is a Minnesota-based artist who is well known for his simple yet catchy melodies, intimate lyrics, intensely literary and historical themes, and deep tenor’s voice. With the release of his latest album Magnifier ( Loosegroove Records ) — the focus of this episode — Mason has gifted the world with 20 excellent and deeply affecting albums. Recorded solo at his lake house in...
Jun 24, 2025•34 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Stephen Chung, an award-winning cinematographer with well over twenty years of experience in moving images. Stephen's career began as a stills photographer, working in the commercial, fashion, and music industries in Canada and Europe for over a decade. In the 90s, his photography evolved into cinematography, and his earliest credits were music videos for artists such as Feist, Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think, Buck...
Jun 11, 2025•33 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with the directors of Songs of Black Folk , Haley Watson & Justin Emeka. Songs of Black Folk is a documentary that explores the Pacific Northwest’s largest annual gathering of Black musical talent. At its heart is Ramón Bryant Braxton, who — alongside his uncle, Rev. Dr. Leslie Braxton — brings to life a powerful Juneteenth celebration that honors their family’s legacy. The film captures a vibrant, often-overlooked communi...
May 28, 2025•28 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Alec Karakatsanis. Alec is the Founder and Executive Director of Civil Rights Corps and as one of the country’s leading experts in constitutional civil rights he has pioneered cases to challenge the size, power, profit, and everyday brutality of the punishment bureaucracy across the United States. He has also worked with directly impacted communities across the U.S. to design innovative new legal, advocacy, and narrative ...
May 13, 2025•52 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Mark Lo . Mark has worked on films and TV across many genres for over twenty years, first as a music agent and supervisor, collaborating with composers and artists to bring music to films, and then as an Executive Music Producer. As an Executive Music Producer, he worked on films including Todd Hayne’s Carol (Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara), Paul Haggis’s Third Person (Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, and James Franco), and The R...
Apr 24, 2025•42 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Mattea Kramer , a writer who comprehensively explores weighty ideas about drugs , power and powerlessness , and the voice in your head . She's been published in The Guardian, The Nation, Mother Jones, Guernica, and The Washington Post , and she has appeared on MSNBC and on radio stations across the country. Her first novel, The Untended — the focus of this episode — will be published in May 2025. In The Untended , Casch A...
Apr 10, 2025•35 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Erin Osmon, an award-winning, Los Angeles-based music journalist, critic, and author. She's written long-form album notes for archival releases on Blondie, Hüsker Dü, Townes Van Zandt, Sparklehorse, and many others. A veteran of Chicago newsrooms, her work appears in Rolling Stone , LA Times , New York Times , Washington Post , and other publications of record. She is part-time faculty at USC's Annenberg School of journal...
Mar 25, 2025•37 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with Brooklyn-based musician and Garcia Peoples bassist/vocalist Andy Cush. Cush, under the moniker Domestic Drafts, has recently released his debut album entitled Only The Singer ( Glamour Gowns Records ) — the focus of this episode. Many years in the making, Only the Singer is an ambitious and dramatically engaging debut that spotlights the distinctive songwriting sensibility that Cush has leant to Garcia Peoples (as bassist...
Mar 18, 2025•50 min
This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with musician and bandleader Andy Frasco . Frasco, celebrated for his good time spirit, is a tireless and consummate showman who plays some 250 concert dates a year with his band, Andy Frasco & The U.N., and has been doing so since he was 19. His band's sound has been described as "blues-rock fueled by reckless abandonment and a disregard for the rules, with witty lyrics to back it all up.” This episode of Across The Margi...
Mar 12, 2025•27 min
