Buck Meek is here for a talk about his charming, confessional new album, The Mirror , coming up in Wimberley, Texas and people’s misconceptions of the Lone Star State, the vibrancy of transient college towns, how his grandmother’s death and caring for his grandfather galvanized his family and inspired aspects of The Mirror , writing songs about communication, teaching, language, speech, parenting, and family, pondering duality, mid-life, and overcoming societal inhibitions, a unique recording st...
Feb 24, 2026•30 min
Brendan Canty , Joe Lally , James Brandon Lewis , and Anthony Pirog return for a Valentine’s Day discussion about Deface the Currency , the excellent new album by The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis , what led them into a studio with engineer Don Godwin fresh off of some tour dates, the noisier, aggressive aspects of this record, social currency and community-building in music, the significance of the names of their instrumental songs, my dog Indiana Bones, how authenticity is freedom, excit...
Feb 19, 2026•1 hr 29 min
Sahan Jayasuriya is here to discuss his book, Don’t Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen , loving living in Milwaukee, benefitting from the reverence that artists like Beastie Boys and Nirvana exhibited for their own influences and favourite musicians, discovering that people like Neko Case, Matt Sweeney, Dave Grohl, and David Pajo all love Die Kreuzen as he was writing a book about them, what compelled him to tell this story and his perspective on the band’s trajectory, legacy, potential...
Feb 17, 2026•29 min
During Family Day in Canada, my wife and kids and I gathered around our kitchen table to discuss our shared experience watching all nine episodes of The Beatles Anthology documentary series. Please enjoy two parents and their 14- and 11-year-old children reflecting upon what we learned and liked about the Beatles, including who loves John, Paul, George, and Ringo the most. One correction: contrary to what I stated during this talk, Elvis Presley did in fact perform outside of the United States o...
Feb 17, 2026•58 min
Elizabeth Nelson returns to discuss the Paranoid Style and their new album, Known Associates , life near Washington D.C., a recap of our recent discussion about the Replacements’ Let It Be reissue, a brief overview of American paranoia, her penchant for wordy lyrics and how that impacts her as a singer, some of her favourite sincerely humorous songwriters, Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” and Bob Dylan’s “Love and Theft,” her love of musicals and nodding to other people’s songs, why I think she ...
Feb 12, 2026•1 hr 25 min
Michael Longfellow is here to discuss life as a lazy student and his creative writing academic pursuits, how and why he got into comedy and music as a kid, growing up with different step-parents and step-siblings and what his kinfolk think about him making jokes about them specifically, why he’s uncomfortable being compared to Norm Macdonald but why he reminded me of Norm when he was on Saturday Night Live , insights about how SNL works and why Lorne Michaels knows what he’s doing, how he actual...
Feb 10, 2026•29 min
Brian Raftery is here to discuss his excellent new book, Hannibal Lecter: A Life , the Burbank Burger King from Back to the Future , what exactly prompted him to explore the origin story and pervasiveness of Hannibal Lecter, his mysterious and seldom-interviewed creator, the best-selling author Thomas Harris, why people love fictitious and apparently also real-life antiheroes, a rundown of the history of Lecter in literature, television, and film beyond The Silence of the Lambs and why Brian Cox...
Feb 07, 2026•1 hr 12 min
Lance Sampson from Aquakultre returns to discuss his new album 1783 , the time I saw him request and receive chicken wings while performing on-stage and why his friends and family often engage in their own version of Hot Ones , how his research about the history of African Nova Scotia or Black Nova Scotia led him to write songs, why he engaged in this research initially and what he learned about his home province, his fascination with historical fractures and community-building, police and cultu...
Feb 05, 2026•1 hr 19 min
Julia Steiner from Ratboys returns to discuss their new album, Singin’ to an Empty Chair , processing the death of comedy legend Catherine O’Hara, writing songs inspired by her first experiences in therapy, working with producer Chris Walla and songs that combine session work at a rented cabin with those recorded at Electrical Audio , Steve Albini’s drum sound, anxiety, dogs, and Indiana Jones, our shared love of the Beths and Miriam Toews, addressing empty chairs and the time Clint Eastwood did...
Feb 03, 2026•29 min
ER Jurken returns to discuss his wonderful new album, To Be Continued , topical and timeless songwriting, political satire and comedy on late night tv talk shows, the band Wilco playing Ed’s song “Let Go the Coat” through the P.A. at their shows after they’ve left the stage, getting over a prolonged bout of writers’ block, why several of his new songs invoke travelling, key inspirations like Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, the Grateful Dead, and Steely Dan, what it could mean to become con...
Jan 29, 2026•1 hr 14 min
Trevor Shelley de Brauw from Pelican is here to discuss the band’s album, Flickering Resonance , our history of working together because of his role in music publicity, the city of Chicago’s music dynamism, a brief foray into North Carolina farming, how guitar teachers underestimate Ramones songs, seeing significant shows at Fireside Bowl as a teenager, the antagonistic antics of Tusk, where Pelican came from and why its original line-up reunited, why I think every band should break up so they c...
Jan 27, 2026•29 min
Brydon Crain, Adam Sipkema, and Penelope Stevens from Motherhood are here to discuss their January 2026 shows in the Canadian Prairies, their latest album Thunder Perfect Mind , university courses, music school, and religious studies, spiritual and musical communities, Penny’s time in Vietnam and observations about communism, the story of Motherhood, how I think my son is trying to be better at life than me, the band’s Deerhoof connections, fantastical aspects of Motherhood’s music and the sci-f...
Jan 22, 2026•1 hr 19 min
MC Taylor from Hiss Golden Messenger is here to discuss life in Durham, North Carolina and the time he spent in San Francisco, California, the Grateful Dead and Dead Kennedys, why he was so fascinated by the American South, he decided to move there 20 years ago, his love for the Band and the motifs in their music, if his academic background in American studies, folklore, and history offers him much perspective on the current state and future path of his country, his decision to work with Chrysal...
Jan 20, 2026•31 min
Paul Myers is here to discuss his new book, John Candy: A Life in Comedy , how the actor and producer Ryan Reynolds helped him get from a Boston event about the documentary, John Candy: I Like Me, to an Edmonton book event within 24 hours and in style, the fortuitous connection between the documentary and the book, which were made independent of one another but released around the same time, a Myers family member’s pivotal interaction with John Candy and why Paul decided to write this book, the ...
Jan 17, 2026•1 hr 8 min
Lisa G and Lisa Marr from cub are here to discuss the 30th anniversary vinyl edition of Come Out Come Out , the significant year in culture that was 1995, being pegged as “cuddlecore” in a time where labels and preconceptions were being shaken off on the regular, not identifying as men in a predominantly male underground music community and how some fans treated cub, vinyl records and the pros and cons of the internet, when Nardwuar asked Lisa Marr to join his band the Evaporators so she learned...
Jan 15, 2026•30 min
Sohrab Habibion and Johnny Temple are here to discuss the book, Plenty for All: The Art of Rick Fröberg , how they each met and got to know Rick and how this book came to be, the role the late Rich Jacobs played in this project, how this book and the zine that’s part of the deluxe edition might surprise Rick’s fans, the story of Akashic Books and why Sohrab thought it was the perfect home for Rick’s art, Rick’s different names and a surprising umlaut, upcoming book and live music events that com...
Jan 13, 2026•1 hr 28 min
Chris Brokaw , Ken “Bundy K.” Brown , Curtis Harvey, and Doug McCombs are here to discuss III , the first album by Pullman in 25 years, what inspired Pullman to explore acoustic guitar sounds in the late 1990s, the positive but also harsh critical reception their first two albums, 1998’s Turnstyles & Junkpiles and 2001’s Viewfinder received, how Tim Barnes joined Pullman and also his role as the drummer on American Water by Silver Jews, which David Berman had originally invited Chris to appe...
Jan 08, 2026•1 hr 30 min
Mark Medley is here to discuss his remarkable new book, Live to See the Day - Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be , our experiences at writers’ festivals, questions I have about how book publicity works and whether or not some publishers promote their authors and books, what inspired him to write this 10-chapter book of case studies about people who knowingly and passionately engage in difficult if not impossible projects and don’t seem to worry ab...
Jan 06, 2026•30 min
Tim Midyett from Mint Mile returns to discuss andwhichstray , what recent Silkworm reunion shows have been like, the throughlines between songs he wrote in that band about mortality, connection, and community and his most recent Mint Mile material, how fortune enabled him to make one more record with his late friend Steve Albini, who engineered andwhichstray in France during the second last recording session of his life, how he relates to records he has made with people who are gone, finally lis...
Jan 02, 2026•1 hr 14 min
My son, who is 14, and I discuss our top 10 albums of 2025, along with several honourable mentions. Each of us mostly highlighted records the other wasn’t all that familiar with, and other members of our family make background or brief appearances on this episode as well. All in all, these are some eclectic lists, so we hope our music recommendations help you in some way! Featuring music produced by Levon Khanna . EVERY OTHER COMPLETE KREATIVE KONTROL EPISODE IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE TO MONTHLY $6 USD...
Dec 31, 2025•59 min
Dave NeSmith and Drew Ringo from Sleepytime Trio are here to discuss Memory Minus Plus Minus , their current music community involvement, the Guelph house show they played and the ice cream tricycle Drew rode around on that day, the significance of bands like Hoover, Shotmaker, Fugazi, Slint, and Drive Like Jehu, making hip-hop music and getting into shoegaze, why kids can’t be blamed for the technology at their disposal, the odds of Sleepytime Trio recording new songs, upcoming shows, other fut...
Dec 30, 2025•29 min
Friendly Rich returns to discuss his latest album, The Birds of Marsville , his Brampton, Ontario pride, completing his PhD in music education and becoming a doctor, what having a giant beard might mean, playing the artistic and comedic long game, learning more about Marsville, the eighteenth-century researcher C. Smalloochi, and the orchestrion’s capabilities as a musical instrument, getting into birds, birders, and birding, Canadian arts grants, challenging the players on this album, Gordon He...
Dec 23, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Jimmie Kilpatrick returns to discuss his excellent album Jimmie , the heartening experience of living in Manitoba, Canada these days and concentrating on his community, why he retired his Shotgun Jimmie name, bringing his sound sculpture work into his indie-rock aesthetic, collaborating with Ladyhawk’s Ryan Peters and messing around with tape loops, making subversive pop music, numerous lyrical references to analog and communication technology and falling asleep, keeping a little too busy, touri...
Dec 18, 2025•1 hr 22 min
Rebecca Foon and Aliayta Foon-Dancoes are here to discuss their debut album, Reverie , studying at Princeton, their family dynamic and their respective early forays in classical music, how much formal music education can inform improvisation and punk rock, Rebecca’s work on the Lost River Music Festival and the Pathway to Paris initiative, how their feelings about the ecological inspiration behind Reverie are more melancholy since collective climate change mitigation targets have not been met, a...
Dec 16, 2025•29 min
On a recent Kreative Kontrol episode, Mark Molnar mentioned his fondness for a radio interview I once conducted with Tom Holliston, John Wright, and Rob Wright from Canada’s greatest band, Nomeansno . And so, here’s that interview, which occurred over breakfast at the By the Way Café in Toronto, Ontario on April 5, 2011. It’s one of my most cherished work life experiences, so thank you again to Nomeansno, whose entire catalogue is now available on streaming services , and Alternative Tentacles i...
Dec 13, 2025•15 min
Mark Molnar is here to discuss his new album EXO , being made to take classical music lessons at three years old over pursuing sports, key figures in his life who exposed him to music, musicians, and ways to approach your musical instrument, the death of arts funding and risk aversion in the cultural sector, his engagement with my music journalism and a breakfast interview I once did with Nomeansno, the state of contemporary classical music and whether he and other Constellation Records artists ...
Dec 11, 2025•1 hr 25 min
Lonnie Holley is here to discuss his 2025 album Tonky , his view of and appreciation for Canada, the role the country played for African-American slaves and the evolution of terms ascribed to Black people in America, growing up in juke joints, whiskey houses, and slave camps in Alabama in the 1950s, his interest in salvaging objects to make art, his observations about historical cycles, his song “Protest With Love” and viewing presidencies as temporary viruses, what’s next, and much more. EVERY ...
Dec 09, 2025•32 min
Sometime this past November, a Patreon subscriber named Brian asked me if I might have any older interviews with Buck 65 in my archives. So, I took a look and sure enough, I do, including a 2009 talk about his Bike For Three! collaboration with Joëlle Phuong Minh Lê. Then, on December 4, 2025, Mr. 65 released a Deluxe Edition of More Heart Than Brains , which was the debut record by Bike For Three! and was originally released on May 26, 2009. Then I thought, “Huh, sharing this old interview is r...
Dec 08, 2025•11 min
Jim White and Guy Picciotto return to discuss Jim’s new album Inner Day , the beginning of New York City’s Zohran Mamdani era, Jim’s recent shows with Ed Kuepper, Jim’s decision to write lyrics and sing them, his relationship with words and their power, Jim briefly singing on a Hard Quartet song, my favourite song of the year, “ I Don’t Do / Grand Central ” and how this collaboration with Zoh Amba came to pass, dancing with your musical instrument, their new trio with Colleen Burke, contributing...
Dec 04, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Elizabeth Stokes and Jonathan Pearce from the Beths are back to discuss their new album, Straight Line Was a Lie , NBA basketball, cricket, and baseball, overcoming writer’s block by reading a book by Stephen King, Liz’s health challenges and her current state of mind, how Jonathan and his bandmates have supported and worked with her in recent years, a helpful typewriter, accepting that people change, Sonic Youth’s “Teenage Riot” and writing a rather dynamic Beths record, Indiana Jones and Raide...
Dec 02, 2025•33 min
