Zoh Amba is here to discuss their astonishing new album Eyes Full , making their podcast debut and a recent hang with folk bitch trio, how they got into guitar, songwriting, and rock music, recurring lyrics about God, eyes, searching, and observational behaviour, why “Southern Soil” is such a key song for them in their Tennessee trajectory, the story behind their collaboration with Jim White and Guy Picciotto on Jim’s recent album Inner Day , Jim’s joyful presence and great sense of fun, learnin...
May 28, 2026•1 hr 18 min
Steve Holmes and Steve Lamos from American Football are here to discuss American Football (LP4) , the joys of marking final papers by the college students you teach, the story behind the alluring, unsettling drum part in “Man Overboard” and an appreciation for James Bond soundtrack songs, why Lamos left and returned to American Football in recent years, the factual aspects of LP4’s lyrical themes and thoughts on Mike Kinsella’s direct, unadorned vocals, whether my theory that the album flows lik...
May 26, 2026•31 min
Marisa Anderson returns to discuss her compelling new album, The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music Vol. 1 , the joys of touring, responding to a Patreon subscriber’s inquiry about her new band Ruminants, exploring the Bob Dylan Center and immersing herself in the private record collection of the late, famed cultural collector/curator, Harry Smith, how she landed on recording her own three-album set focussing on music from places that the United States of America has been in conflict with since ...
May 21, 2026•1 hr 11 min
Brian Borcherdt, Matt Schulz, and Graham Walsh from Holy Fuck are here to discuss their new album Event Beat , moving back to Toronto and leaving New York City for Ohio, receiving noise complaints from studio neighbours because of the band Slayer, the growing trend of musicians not having access to isolated practice spaces, whether a hiatus ever placed the band’s future in doubt, making music for fun but also for other people to party to, the impact of having their songs placed in films and tv s...
May 19, 2026•30 min
Jeff Miller is here to discuss his captivating debut novel, Temporary Palaces , living all over Canada and seeing an Edmonton Oilers hockey game in their championship heyday, our unexpected comedy connections, being inspired by bands like Shotmaker, Kepler, and Fugazi among others, hardcore punk rock lore and mythology, how Ottawa's punk community inspired him to participate generally and start writing zines, what his novel is about and what exactly inspired it, pondering your subcultural youth ...
May 14, 2026•1 hr 1 min
Spencer Krug returns to discuss his excellent new album, Same Fangs , local pigs under duress and songs inspired by animals, sharing early and in-progress versions of his new songs with his Patreon subscribers, philosophical notions of what songs actually are, parasocial interaction and the increased intimacy between creators and fans via crowdfunding sites, the ups and downs of Sunset Rubdown and its uncertain current status, feeling a profound sense of sadness and hopelessness about the suffer...
May 12, 2026•30 min
Alex Edkins returns to discuss the new Weird Nightmare album Hoopla , leaving Toronto to live in his childhood hometown of Ottawa, how touring and work travel can be difficult for a husband and a father, why the Buzzcocks and the Replacements inspired this latest batch of songs, the time a broken up METZ played Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney at the host’s request and interacting with him and Conan O’Brien, his thoughts on the end of METZ, recording with killer rhythm section Loel Campbell an...
May 07, 2026•1 hr 12 min
Tucker Elkins and Aaron Graham from Ray Bull are here to discuss their new album, Please Stop Laughing , loving New York, being reunited with your old furniture and coffee mugs after your roommate moves out, art school, high art, academia, and folk art, their efforts to create viral segments to draw people to their music, having eclectic musical interests and learning how to play music on some of the loudest instruments around, loving Rufus Wainwright and his whole musical family, exploring vari...
May 05, 2026•30 min
Eric Bachmann returns to discuss the wonderful new Crooked Fingers album, Swet Deth , his recent heart attack and an update on his health, the eerie nature of the lyrical themes and his son’s cover art for Swet Deth , working with featured guests like Sharon Van Etten and The National’s Matt Berninger, sentimentality and self-loathing, why this new album was almost two separate but similar records, the surprising story behind the sweet yet pointed song, “Spray Tan Speed Queen (In a German Car),”...
Apr 30, 2026•1 hr 21 min
Raymond Biesinger returns to discuss 9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off – An Informal Self-Defence Guide for Independent Creatives , what inspired him to write this book, his personal experiences with intellectual property and wage theft, distinctions between patented inventions and homage and emulation in artistic realms, the role A.I. plays in creative plagiarism, the scourge of uncredited work, memes, and my conflicts about compiling funny tweets and posts by other people, artistic intention...
Apr 28, 2026•29 min
The first of two interviews I conducted with the late Vic Chesnutt took place over the telephone on Tuesday, September 4, 2007, at 3:00 PM ET. The occasion was the impending release of the majestic North Star Deserter , which was his first album on Constellation Records. It was co-produced by Jem Cohen and features contributions from Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, along with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi), Chad Jones & Nadia Moss (Frankie Sparo), Eric Craven & Genev...
Apr 25, 2026•15 min
Rollie Pemberton , a.k.a. Cadence Weapon returns to discuss his new album Forager and his new book of socio-cultural criticism essays, Ways of Listening: Building a Deeper Relationship with Music in the Streaming Era , the parallels between his writing on his album and his book, his renewed interest in crate digging for records and thrifting for great clothes, resisting passive cultural consumption during the age of the algorithm, the Juno Awards, Drake, and Canada’s confidence conundrum, being ...
Apr 23, 2026•1 hr 31 min
David Fuller, Niko Kapetan, Bailey Minzenberger, and Korgan Robb from Friko are here to discuss their new album, Something Worth Waiting For , the state of Illinois and dystopian literature, bonding in a high school music theory class, loving noise-infused pop bands like Pavement, the Breeders, and, from Liverpool, England, the Beatles, inspiration from local bands like Smut and the Felix Culpa, the story of Friko, articulating Niko’s songwriting talents as though he is not on this call with us,...
Apr 21, 2026•28 min
Mike Belitsky and Travis Good from the Sadies and Dave ‘Billy Ray’ Koster are here to discuss Live at 6 O’Clock by Gord Downie, The Sadies, and the Conquering Sun , Billy’s long and all-encompassing tenure in the working lives of Downie and the Tragically Hip as a technical director and confidante, how the Sadies and Downie connected and why he was so fond of playing with them, a look back at Downie’s first solo album Coke Machine Glow and him asking Travis to play on it, Downie’s deep love for ...
Apr 16, 2026•1 hr 49 min
Richard Reed Parry returns to discuss Were “The Watchtowers” by Dallas Good + Richard Reed Parry, his Skybarn recording studio, being a new dad and adjusting to life off the road, how he first got to know Dallas after they were randomly chosen to participate in a Dawson City Music Festival collaborative workshop, a shared love of the Everly Brothers and other key artists and records, instant friend crushes and a yearning to collaborate on music, how they wrote lyrics together in a shared, outdat...
Apr 14, 2026•30 min
Janel Leppin returns to discuss her new solo album Slowly Melting and Pluto in Aquarius by Janel Leppin's Ensemble Volcanic Ash, her ability to compartmentalize her visual art impulses from her musical ones, why she frequently releases more than one album on the same day, how Susan Alcorn and David Lynch remain constant inspirations, an eye-opening Mdou Moctar tour, making protest jazz music in a politically volatile time, her compelling and dynamic use of the cello as a lead instrument in jazz ...
Apr 09, 2026•1 hr 8 min
Dave Bidini and Dave Clark from Rheostatics are here to discuss The Great Lakes Suite , politics and tensions between the U.S.A. and Canada, contemporary protest music, what prompted this album’s concept and improvisational approach, featured contributions by Alex Lifeson from Rush, Kevin Hearn, Hugh Marsh, Tanya Tagaq, Laurie Anderson, Chief Stacey LaForme, Anne Carson, Liz Howard, Kendel Carson, Maiah Wynne, and Gord Downie, why Alex Lifeson was so blown away by Tanya Tagaq’s performance on th...
Apr 07, 2026•29 min
Joe Pernice is here to discuss his excellent new album, Sunny, I Was Wrong , living in frigid Canada as a well-informed American, his obsession with bicycles and riding bikes, his close friendship with music writer Warren Zanes who penned lovely liner notes for this new record, being a dad and coaching baseball with some encouragement from Buck 65, writing music again after a substantial break and from a very honest, reflective perspective, why he chose to release a record under his own name, th...
Apr 02, 2026•1 hr 31 min
A.C. Newman returns to discuss The Former Site Of by the New Pornographers , life in New York State, playing more mandolin in his home recording studio, R.E.M. snobbery, not knowing about a nearby Dry Cleaning show, and understanding fans who come and go, songs about grieving and newfound flower expertise and songs people misunderstand, spirituality and social media, how the song “Calligraphy” references the 2025 arrest of the band’s former drummer on serious criminal charges, accepting loss, to...
Mar 31, 2026•28 min
My first interview with Bill Callahan took place over the telephone on March 31, 2011, ahead of the April 19 release of his album, Apocalypse . The interview was conducted for and broadcast on the Mich Vish Interracial Morning Show! on May 4, 2011, and also for a print magazine profile. Bill and I bonded over our shared love of The Larry Sanders Show among other things, which you can hear now. As usual with archival interviews presented here, this is a raw, unedited recording that reflects the a...
Mar 28, 2026•19 min
Charlotte Cornfield returns to discuss her new album Hurts Like Hell , living in Toronto after stints in Montreal and New York, how becoming a mother has altered her sense of self and her artistic perspective, notions of connection, teaching, and learning, how Lucinda Williams’ memoir impacted her relationship to narrative realities, talking about Neil Young, Zuma , and Tonight’s the Night, who the song “Lost Leader” might be about, recruiting special guest vocalists like Feist and Buck Meek, wo...
Mar 26, 2026•1 hr 9 min
Verity Susman and Matthew Simms from MEMORIALS are here to discuss their new album All Clouds Bring Not Rain , the confusing measurement units different countries use to track distances, the roles their respective fathers played in inspiring them to explore music, telling me what a boffin is, working on film scores and soundtracks, a helpful boost from Stereolab, the significance of the Susan Sontag Memorial Water Slide, touring with Holy Fuck, writing new music, other future plans, and much mor...
Mar 24, 2026•29 min
Brian Weitz is here to discuss the solo debut by Geologist , Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? , his previous academic and vocational pursuits in environmental and ocean policy on Capitol Hill, how his interest in playing the hurdy gurdy led him to Ben Grossman, Guelph, Ontario, and my inbox a few years ago, why a Keiji Haino show at the New York City club Tonic made a huge impression on him as a university student, his friendship with the late David Berman and smoking the last cigarette David g...
Mar 19, 2026•1 hr 17 min
Jason P. Woodbury returns to discuss the new, self-titled album by Jason P. Woodbury & The Night Bird Singing Quartet, why he shifted from releasing records as JPW to his current band name and who’s part of the NBSQ, working to overcome self-consciousness about making music under his own name as an active music journalist, his fascination with birdsongs and rogue roosters, using your imagination on long drives as a kid, a deep interest in extraterrestrial life and spiritual searching, comic ...
Mar 17, 2026•29 min
Morgan Nagler is here to discuss her long-awaited debut solo album, I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It , her connection to nature, compiling songs she wrote during a long relationship that she realized predicted the end of that relationship, fuelling up with grassoline, a deep bond she has formed with Kim Deal after Deal suggested they write songs together, her prolific child acting career and the clever way she earned a role on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , encountering Michael Jackson...
Mar 12, 2026•1 hr 23 min
Bill Frisell is here to discuss his new sextet record, In My Dreams , the different American and European cities he has lived in over the years and how they might inform his musical practice, his 75th birthday and the March 2026 tour dates that mark the occasion, a dream about music and its possibilities that he had 30 years ago and is still processing, the lessons mistakes teach us, how film noir scores and the work of Alfred Hitchcock film composer Bernard Hermann may have found their way to I...
Mar 10, 2026•30 min
Adam Sturgeon returns to discuss the new Status/Non-Status album, Big Changes , living in London, Ontario as it struggles through volatile and difficult socio-political conditions under late-stage capitalism, being a homebody and making music that your neighbours aren’t always into, lyrical themes and the sound of this new album, loving Eric’s Trip and collaborating with Julie Doiron, other guest contributors and new bandmates like Colleen “Coco” Collins, upcoming shows, another new album in the...
Mar 07, 2026•1 hr 14 min
Gregory Uhlmann is here to discuss his lovely solo debut album, Extra Stars , the lives he’s led in Los Angeles and Chicago, what it was like to be a student at CalArts, getting into blues and jazz music and music making thanks especially to his dad and his brother Evan, being a big Hanson and Backstreet Boys fan at one point, key venues from the past and present that fostered his musical communities, how he made Extra Stars and its sonic similarities to film and video game scores, the role impr...
Mar 05, 2026•1 hr
Ani DiFranco returns to discuss her new book, The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music & Freedom , her involvement in establishing the Buffalo, New York arts hub known as Babeville, which is where I last saw Shellac play a show, why Buffalo was fertile ground for an aspiring musician, what prompted her to write this book with Lauren Coyle Rosen, the evolution of her position on God as an entity or name for our collective consciousness, striving for communication and co...
Mar 03, 2026•31 min
Buck 65 makes a rare reappearance to discuss his excellent new album, Do Not Bend , musical brevity, Joe Pernice inspiring him to start an insightful Substack , writing jokes and stories that wind up as rhymes, befriending the late great Biz Markie and hanging out backstage at a Beastie Boys show, meeting Lou Reed but being low key about their creative kinship, acquiring the four-track he once used in the mid-1990s to create new music but also incorporating Ableton, obvious and oblique pop cultu...
Feb 26, 2026•2 hr 5 min
