On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, in a special conversation recorded after a screening of Laurie Anderson's documentary Heart of a Dog, the acclaimed musician, artist and filmmaker talks onstage with fellow New York director Darren Aronofsky, best known for his films Pi, Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan. The pair discuss Anderson's new film, which ponders questions of love, death and language, and touch on such other diverse subjects as Herman Melville's discussions with his...
Jan 26, 2016•25 min
In 2000, Tunde Adebimpe and Dave Sitek formed TV on the Radio, one of the most creative, inspired and influential bands of their era. Fifteen years, five albums and a whole lot of ups and downs later, they've still managed to preserve that energy and vision. Which is pretty remarkable. Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Ruban Nielson has also sustained a very long creative streak. He'd played guitar in a hard-edged New Zealand post-hardcore band called the Mint Chicks, and when that ended, he found hims...
Dec 02, 2015•59 min
If you come out of the indie community and you make synth-based music, you owe a huge debt to an iconic duo called Suicide. In fact, if you come out of the indie community at all, you owe a huge debt to Suicide. Starting in New York’s East Village in the early ’70s, Suicide were confrontational, tough, and absolutely visionary, and they were one of the first punk rock bands. But they had no guitars: it was just Martin Rev on cheap electric keyboards and drum machines, and notorious singer Alan V...
Nov 25, 2015•59 min
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, Academy Award nominee J.C. Chandor, the director of Margin Call and All is Lost, is in conversation with Borderline Films' Josh Mond, a producer turned writer-director whose debut feature, James White, is out now. The two friends discuss Mond's personal and professional path to this semi-autobiographical film inspired by his own experiences with his late mother as she battled cancer, while their chat also touches on: Mond's aborted first featu...
Nov 16, 2015•37 min
Lil BUB is a tiny, very special cat from outer space who has been an internet star since 2011, when her "dude" — recording studio owner Mike Bridavsky — posted some photos of her on Tumblr. She's been the subject of an award-winning documentary, she's the author of Lil BUB’s Lil Book: The Extraordinary Life of the Most Amazing Cat on the Planet and she hosts Lil BUB's Big Show, a web-based talk show. And on December 4th, 2015, BUB will release her debut album Science and Magic. The music was com...
Nov 11, 2015•40 min
Lil BUB is a tiny, very special cat from outer space who has been an internet star since 2011, when her "dude" — recording studio owner Mike Bridavsky — posted some photos of her on Tumblr. She's been the subject of an award-winning documentary, she's the author of Lil BUB’s Lil Book: The Extraordinary Life of the Most Amazing Cat on the Planet and she hosts Lil BUB's Big Show, a web-based talk show. And on December 4th, 2015, BUB will release her debut album Science and Magic. The music was com...
Nov 11, 2015•50 min
Sleater-Kinney singer-guitarist and Portlandia co-star Carrie Brownstein has published a critically acclaimed memoir, the candid, moving and eloquent Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. And to kick off her book tour, she sat down and had a great conversation with another acclaimed musician-author, the Roots' Questlove, on October 27th, 2015 at St. Vitus, the beloved metal bar in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. The event was produced by the very cool WORD bookstore mini-chain, with stores in Green...
Nov 04, 2015•32 min
On the latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, two of contemporary cinema’s most controversial, boundary-pushing directors are in conversation. From New York City, Gaspar Noé – whose new film, the pornographic 3D romance Love, is now out in theaters – chats with Abel Ferrara, a fellow scourge of the censors, who is currently living in Rome. Over the course of their highly entertaining talk, the pair discusses such topics as censorship, having their movies banned, what’s sexy in Saudi Arabi...
Nov 03, 2015•30 min
JG Thirlwell came out of the early ’80s New York underground scene and, under multiple pseudonyms that all had the word “foetus” in them, made lots of intense albums that evoke what AllMusicGuide has called “a harrowing netherworld of death, lust, disease and decay.” You can hear the Foetus influence in bands like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. Over the years, Thirlwell broadened his musical scope to the point where he is now an acclaimed new music composer, as well writing scores for film and te...
Oct 28, 2015•57 min
On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, in conversation are two former actors who are now two of the funniest and liveliest writer-directors in the U.S. indie sphere. Lynn Shelton, best known for her movies Humpday, Your Sister's Sister and Laggies, chats with the impishly provocative Bobcat Goldthwait, whose new film, the excellent documentary Call Me Lucky, reveals yet another facet of his creative personality. In their talk, they discuss their work in detail and also touch on su...
Oct 27, 2015•37 min
Back when they were in college in the late '80s, Laura Cantrell and Mac McCaughan were in a band called Bricks. That band didn't get very far, but Laura went on to become an acclaimed country singer-songwriter hailed by the likes of Elvis Costello and legendary BBC DJ John Peel. Mac soon founded Superchunk, who went on to 26 years (and counting) of indie-rock glory, as well as co-founding the phenomenally successful Merge Records. Even though Laura and Mac have taken different musical paths, the...
Oct 21, 2015•55 min
El-P, legendary hip-hop producer and half of the celebrated rap duo Run the Jewels, and acclaimed new singer, rapper, songwriter, producer, musician and filmmaker Boots (Beyoncé, FKA twigs, Run the Jewels), sat down and recorded a Talkhouse Music Podcast while they were on tour, backstage at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They talked about lots of things: their jazz-musician dads, the creative value of sampling, drugs and music, the internet’s fascination with cats, their doomsday scenarios...
Oct 14, 2015•48 min
On this new episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, two highly original and idiosyncratic British writer-directors are in conversation: Ben Wheatley and Alex Cox. In addition to their new projects (the current festival hit High-Rise and the multi-perspective Western Tombstone Rashomon, respectively), the two email friends discuss numerous movie-related topics, from their favorite portmanteau films and the difference between Charlie Kaufman and Charlton Heston, to the forgotten genius of Peter Wat...
Oct 06, 2015•40 min
The iconic multimedia artist Laurie Anderson always has two or three projects going at any one time, and aside from her acclaimed new feature film Heart of a Dog, she’s unveiling an installation and performance called Habeas Corpus, which takes place at the cavernous Park Avenue Armory in New York, October 2nd through 4th, 2015. Among Anderson’s collaborators on the show are the great Syrian singer Omar Souleyman, ace multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and Anderson’s partner in this Talkhouse...
Sep 29, 2015•29 min
If there's a running theme in London neo-post-punk band Art Brut's rock music, it's rock music. The band's leader Eddie Argos isn't just a musician, he's a big-time music fan. And one of the musicians he's a big fan of is indie-pop sensation Ezra Furman, whose new album Perpetual Motion People takes inspiration from brilliant, nasal auteurs such as Bob Dylan, the Violent Femmes and Jonathan Richman to make smart, heartfelt music. But his songs are all over the map: sure, it's indie-pop, but he w...
Sep 22, 2015•57 min
Hiss Golden Messenger’s most recent album Lateness of Dancers came out in the autumn of 2014, and found frontman M.C. Taylor’s songwriting process still evolving. He obviously thinks a lot about the craft and inspiration involved, so it’s no surprise that the songwriting process was the main thing he talked about with My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James in this edition of the Talkhouse Music Podcast My Morning Jacket brings in some disparate outside influences — prog-rock and disco, for instanc...
Sep 16, 2015•40 min
This edition of the Talkhouse Music Podcast features Fred Thomas, longtime mainstay of the beloved, idiosyncratic lo-fi indie-pop band Saturday Looks Good to Me, with musician, motivational speaker, producer, nightclub impresario, advice columnist, and TV and radio host Andrew WK. It's a little-known fact that Mr. Thomas and Mr. WK go back a long way — 20 years, to when they were teenagers in the very weird and wild Ann Arbor, Michigan underground music scene. They're still good friends, and WK ...
Sep 15, 2015•58 min
On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, writer-director Allison Anders talks with her mentor, iconic German filmmaker Wim Wenders, on the occasion of Wenders' new touring film series. In their fascinating and wide-ranging conversation, the two old friends talk about a possible sequel to Paris, Texas, why Wenders didn't direct True Detective, how Until the End of the World presciently anticipated everything from GPS to search engines to selfie culture – and also a lot of stuff about...
Sep 09, 2015•56 min
This edition of the Talkhouse Music Podcast features two of the more acclaimed new singer-songwriters of 2015: Jessica Pratt and Tobias Jesso, Jr. Both musicians have deep roots in the sounds of the '70s, but two very different sides of the '70s. Jesso's piano-driven debut album Goon evokes superstar '70s singer-songwriters like John Lennon, Carole King, Harry Nilsson and Elton John. But Pratt's latest album On Your Own Love Again channels a very different, much more obscure side of the Me Decad...
Sep 01, 2015•39 min
“Transsexuals are the stormtroopers of the future.” So says Genesis P-Orridge, the iconic, visionary musician who has fronted influential bands like Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle. While P-Orridge isn’t transgender — they* call themselves a pandrogyne — their partner in this Talkhouse Music Podcast, Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace, came out as transgender in 2012. Still, as P-Orridge points out, both musicians have done something very brave: they’ve transitioned, in one way or another,...
Aug 25, 2015•1 hr 5 min
Dan Zanes has long been one of the biggest names in the still-exploding genre of so-called "kindie-rock" — music made especially for kids. As the leader of the Grammy-winning Dan Zanes and Friends, he’s made over a dozen hugely popular and acclaimed albums and played concerts for adoring audiences all over the world. And Bill Sherman has not only won a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmmy, he's the music director of the iconic children's show Sesame Street. As a songwriter and orchestrator, he's responsi...
Aug 18, 2015•1 hr 17 min
On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, acclaimed English composers Geoff Barrow (Ex Machina) of Portishead fame, and Clint Mansell (Noah, Black Swan) discuss their creative processes, working with filmmakers, Ennio Morricone's low opinion of modern composers, the questionable quality of most films today, and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/film.
Aug 18, 2015•33 min
Lower Dens leader Jana Hunter is a frequent Talkhouse contributor and a fine writer — in April of 2015, she wrote a widely read piece for Cosmopolitan titled "What It's Like to Be a Female Musician When You Don't Identify as a Woman." And Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, has said he's pretty fluid with gender too. But that was only one reason why we invited these two to sit down and chat for the Talkhouse Music Podcast. Lower Dens and Perfume Genius make some of the most interestingly beautiful...
Aug 11, 2015•49 min
On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, Gayby's writer-director Jonathan Lisecki talks about the best new TV show of the summer, UnREAL, with Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, its co-creator, writer and supervising producer. The pair discuss Shapiro's background, her inspirations, how she turned an award-winning short film into a hit TV show in record time, getting over "the Lifetime of it all," and much more. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at talkhouse.com/...
Aug 07, 2015•36 min
In the late '70s, Andy Gill and Jon Langford were schoolmates at the University of Leeds in England. That was where Andy co-founded a band called Gang of Four and Jon helped start a band called the Mekons. Those bands went on to great things, such as helping to invent post-punk — and becoming iconic bands in the process. The Mekons are possibly the longest-running and certainly the most beloved post-punk band. Their music has encompassed punk rock, country music and dub reggae, and they've relea...
Aug 06, 2015•48 min
On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, Joe Swanberg becomes the first person to make a return appearance, here talking to Kris Swanberg, his wife and the writer-director of the recently released Unexpected. In a really frank and revealing conversation, they discuss the Sundance experience, selling a film, finding the right distributor, dealing with agents, taking meetings, shaping a career, and the challenges of being in a two-filmmaker household. For more filmmakers talking film ...
Jul 31, 2015•40 min
You might think that Chicago rapper Vic Mensa and Samuel Herring, the frontman of Baltimore synth-pop band Future Islands, don't have much in common. But you'd be wrong. And it's not because Mensa used to rap in a rock band and Herring has been a hip-hop fan since he was a kid. And it's not because Mensa is a fan of the Beatles and Nirvana, and Herring is about to drop a hip-hop EP he recorded with Stones Throw producer Madlib. No, it's because Mensa and Herring are both musicians and they enjoy...
Jul 31, 2015•31 min
Chvrches was playing a great set at the 2015 Pitchfork Music Festival when we noticed all three members of Haim rocking out by the side of the stage. Clearly, they're big Chvrches fans. When our producer bumped into Este Haim in the VIP area, he asked if she'd like to do a podcast with Lauren Mayberry, Chvrches' lead singer (and a regular Talkhouse writer). She absolutely did. Then Danielle Haim wanted in. And then Alana Haim wanted in too. So we wound up with Lauren chatting with all three Haim...
Jul 27, 2015•21 min
On this latest episode of the Talkhouse Film podcast, writerdirector Mary Harron sits down with Rose McGowan, the actress turned director who last year moved behind the camera for the acclaimed Sundance short, Dawn. Their wideranging discussion touches on everything from punk, religious cults and pyromania to Harron's experiences making American Psycho, McGowan's past as a teenage runaway and the ingrained sexism of Hollywood. For more filmmakers talking film and TV, visit Talkhouse Film at ta...
Jul 24, 2015•52 min
Belle & Sebastian co-founder Stuart David is the author of the critically acclaimed In the All-Night Café: A Memoir of Belle and Sebastian's Formative Year, which came out this year, and the Pogues' longtime accordionist James Fearnley is the author of the candid, vivid and appropriately rip-roaring Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues (2012). The two author-musicians discuss the tricky matter of writing about your bandmates, the vagaries of memory and taking out the bits that make you ...
Jul 14, 2015•1 hr 2 min
