The Music Book Podcast

095 Ira Robbins on Trouser Press - Too!

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Ira Robbins, editor of "Zip It Up! Too: More of the Best of Trouser Press Magazine, 1974-1984," published on his own Trouser Press Books. It's a follow up to 2024's "Zip It Up!," the first anthology of pieces from the legendary music magazine which Robbins co-founded and co-edited; I talked to him about that book when it came out, and you can hear our conversation in episode 31 which ran in March 2024.

This second volume features more great articles from Trouser Press, as well as the full series of what they called "Autodiscographies," in which bands such as Blondie, John Cale, Iggy Pop, Sparks and more give guided tours through their own discographies as they stood at the time. The book also includes features divided into categories such as The Old Guard, New Wave and Beyond, and Characters, with fascinating pieces on artists from Paul McCartney to the Cure to Can to Duran Duran.

As Ira writes, "The story of Trouser Press resembles the story of a band. We met in high school, got things going in college, had fun for a while, met a lot of great people, made no money, broke up - and then got famous. We never had a clear sense of what the magazine meant to anyone until we stopped. Since 1984, I have been amazed by how durable a concept, a memory, an ideal Trouser Press turned out to be."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Ira Robbins!

094 John Davis on DC Music Fanzines

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with John Davis, author of "Keep Your Ear to the Ground: A History of Punk Fanzines in Washington, DC," published in October of 2025. It's a thorough history of punk fanzines in DC from the 70s to the present day, focused on the stories of the people behind these publications and the way they both covered and influenced one of the most vital music scenes in the world. Davis gives time to small-run, more obscure zines that might otherwise have been lost to history, and shows how punk and indie in DC developed, changed, and continues to matter.

As John writes, "Without the photographers, concert promoters, volunteers, audio engineers, showgoers, record stores, and other key elements, there is no punk scene. This book examines another of those integral, yet under-explored, parts of DC punk – fanzines and the fans who made them."

Keep Your Ear to the Ground grew out of the work Davis has done as curator of Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland's Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library, where he's been since 2013, and where he established the D.C. punk and indie fanzine collection, an archive of DC zines that continues to grow and is open to the public. Read more here:

https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/diy-dc-punk-and-indie-fanzine-collection-at-university-of-maryland-college-park-archives-deep-dive

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with John Davis!

093 Craig Robertson on Chris Knox

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Craig Robertson, author of "Chris Knox: Not Given Lightly," published in October of 2025 in New Zealand and available for pre-order now in the US. It's an incredibly thorough biography of the musician, artist, critic, and character who had so much influence on New Zealand indie music from the 70s until now, through his bands the Enemy, Toy Love, and Tall Dwarfs, as well as his huge role in the country's legendary indie label Flying Nun.

As Craig writes, "Knox deserves a biography because of the immense impact he’s had in New Zealand and overseas, largely through his music. But he’s also a critic, a cartoonist, a writer, an artist. And he’s an enormously colourful personality — opinionated, provocative, endlessly creative."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Craig Robertson!

092 Barry Walters on the History of LGBTQ Music

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks Barry Walters, author of "Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000," published in May of 2026. It's a fascinating version of music history focused on LGBTQ musicians and audiences, with chapters centered on specific artistsm from the Velvet Underground through David Bowie up to Judas Priest, Diana Ross, Prince, Depeche Mode, and so many more. Walters delves into each with the eye of a seasoned rock critic and the skill of a journalist, telling their stories and measuring their impact on LBGTQ culture and society as a whole.

As he writes, "Straight critics have been telling us how to hear our music for ages, so I’m simply offering a queer alternative—based on forty years of professional research and two prior decades of fandom, with insights gleaned not only from when these records were new and we experienced them in the moment but also from retrospection and insider information."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Barry Walters!

091 Steve Lowenthal on John Fahey

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks Steve Lowenthal, author of "Dance of Death: The Life of John Fahey, American Guitarist," published in June of 2014. It's an enthralling biography of the legendary guitarist, writer, painter, and music historian, whose solo instrumental guitar work drew on so many sources and added so much that an entire genre became associated with him. "Dance of Death" is lean and efficient, but Lowenthal manages to fit such a wealth of information in its 220 pages that you might be astounded by how much you've learned once you've finished reading.

As Steve writes, "John Fahey remains an ineffable presence, a touchstone. Seemingly, his career was in preparation for his legacy, with his copious notes and fictions providing its building blocks. His albums are the soundtrack to his story, and Blind Joe Death his alter ego. As a scholar, he saw the scope of modern music, and carved his place therein by weaving fragments of cultures and genre together in his own strange collage."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Steve Lowenthal!

090 Ben Cardew on Stereolab

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Ben Cardew, author of "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music: The Story of Stereolab in 20 Songs," published in April of 2026. It's a mix of biography and criticism that gets at both how Stereolab made their music and why it's had such an effect on so many people. The 20 song framework helps Cardew structure the narrative well, but he is also not beholden to it, as he covers many other songs, albums, stories, and ideas that surround this fascinating group.

As Ben writes, "I've been listening to Stereolab since around 1992...and I still don't fully understand them...This is the story of Stereolab in twenty songs, each of which illustrates a certain facet of the band's abundant personality. It's not a comprehensive list, and it's not meant to be; it's a guide, a weak torch with dodgy batteries to light up your trip into the yawning Stereolab cave."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Ben Cardew!

089 Caryn Rose on Patti Smith

Tue, 12 May 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Caryn Rose, author of Why Patti Smith Matters, published by the University of Texas Press, and Three Chords and Blessed Noise: A Patti Smith Tour Chronicle, a chapbook released on her own Till Victory Press imprint. The former is part biography, part memoir of Smith fandom, and part critical analysis of Smith's work and life. The latter is a tour diary that Rose wrote when she went to four Smith concerts held in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Smith's debut album Horses in November of 2025.

Taken together, these books paint a portrait of Smith as a vital artist but also a devoted worker, someone who never stops putting time and energy into her art. Rose herself has been a writer for many decades, so she knows what it's like to treat creativity as a job, and it makes her insights about Smith particularly sharp.

As Rose writes in Why Patti Smith Matters, "This is not a biography and this is not a hagiography. This is a book about Patti Smith's work, because it is her work that matters, and because of that work and the value that she places on her labor within the creative process."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Caryn Rose!

088 Richard Langston on the Clean

Tue, 05 May 2026 03:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Richard Langston, author of "The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul," published in April of 2026. It's an excellent oral history of the Clean, the band started by brothers David and Hamish Kilgour along with Peter Gutteridge, and then Robert Scott. Langston tells their story thoroughly through interviews with the band and the many New Zealand music figures who surrounded them as well as American bands who played with them, alongside quotes from reviews and interviews during the band's tenure and archival material like their journals and letters.

As Richard writes, "Once Hamish Kilgour and Robert Scott also agreed to tell the story, David and I discussed how to go about it, and we agreed on an oral history. We liked that format of storytelling as you can hear the unmediated voices of the different participants, giving it an immediacy and the richness of multiple voices talking about the same events."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Richard Langston!

087 Steve Bowie on Cootie Williams

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 03:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Steve Bowie, author of "Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams," released in October of 2025. It's an in-depth look at the saga of a revered trumpet player who was a vital member of Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman's groups, as well as spending 20 years as a band leader of his own. He was a massively popular artist who consistently filled venues and won jazz awards, but he never had a crossover hit and subsequently his story has been somewhat lost to history. Bowie corrects that omission skillfully, telling the tale of a man who made great art for a living.

As Steve writes, "In Mr. Williams's seventy-four years on this earth, his story has a lot of territory to cover...Most of the available biographical information doesn't dive beyond the surface and consists of a handful of articles and chapters in anthology-style biographies...Willams's years as a leader and the time he spent under the baton of Mercer Ellington has received scant coverage.

You can buy "Concerto for Cootie" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Steve Bowie!

086 Melvin Gibbs on How Black Music Took Over the World

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Melvin Gibbs, author of "How Black Music Took Over The World," published today, April 14, 2026. It's a unique look at what Gibbs considers "the science of Black Music," a combination of musical theory, analysis, history, and memoir. Gibbs has played in such diverse projects as Defunkt, Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, Rollins Band, and the Punk-Funk All Stars, as well as collaborating with Arto Lindsay, Bernie Worrell, Marc Ribot, Vernon Reid, and so many more. He brings all this experience and knowledge to his book, combing through history, telling stories of his work, and analyzing how black music works rhythmically, melodically, and culturally.

As he writes, "Even when culturally sensitive people analyze Black music, and they are able to properly situate it in its cultural context, they still have to wrestle with Western cultural hierarchies and tussle with the Western musical tool set. This book is my effort to reset that dynamic, to wrestle out of its straitjacket that confines analysis of Black music. I analyze the music on its own terms, using tools I've uncovered and methods I've either discovered or had passed on to me."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Melvin Gibbs!

085 Peter J Woods and John Melillo on the Academics of Noise

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to two authors, Peter J. Woods and John Melillo. Peter is an assistant professor in learning sciences at the University of Nottingham in England, and John is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Arizona. They've both written academic books about noise: Woods' "Learning Through Noise" was published in early 2025, and Melillo's "The Poetics of Noise from Dada to Punk" was published in 2020.

In the former, Woods examines noise as a potential vehicle for education, because "noise music as a distinctive musical genre relies on the production of unique learning ecologies and vice versa." And Melilo's book looks at 20th century poetry through the lens of noise, "constructing a literary history of noise through poetic sound and performance...and tracing how poets figure noise in the disfiguration of poetic voice."

In our chat, Peter and John talk about how they approach something as abstract as noise through academic analysis, and how writing academic books is unique and challenging. Peter and John are both musicians themselves as well as show organizers, so they both bring more than just academic experience to the subject of noise.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Peter J. Woods and John Melillo!

084 Adele Bertei on the Women of No Wave

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Adele Bertei, author of "No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene," released today, March 31, 2026. It's an insightful and super-entertaining chronicle of Bertei's journey through New York music and art in the late 70s, including her time in Contortions and The Bloods as well as her solo career. It also delves deep into so many figures of the scene that Bertei worked and associated, particularly women such as Lydia Lunch, Nan Golden, Vivienne Dick, Patti Smith, and so many more.

As she writes, "I wrote this book to dig deeper. What truly set No Wave apart from other artistic movements of the 1970s and early '80s? The women. They didn't just participate. They set the tone – and they lit the fuse...resisting tired stereotypes and reinventing according to our individual artistic visions...dismantling art's male-dominated paradigms, we ignored the boundaries of gender and genre."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Adele Bertei!

083 Kembrew McLeod on Blondie and the Downtown Pop Underground

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Kembrew McLeod, the author of two closely related books: "Parallel Lines," an entry on Blondie's 1978 album for the 33.3 series published in 2016, and "The Downtown Pop Underground: New York City and the Literary Punks, Renegade Artists, DIY Filmmakers, Mad Playwrights, and Rock 'N' Roll Glitter Queens Who Revolutionized Culture," published in 2018.

Both books cover all the amazing counterculture music and art made in the 60s and 70s in New York, and how it bubbled up into the mainstream. "Parallel Lines" of course focuses on Blondie, but also on the context within which the group operated, particularly as punk was crossing with disco. "The Downtown Pop Underground" extends to many other musicians as well as poets, playwrights, actors, venues, organizers, and much more.

As McLeod writes in Parallel Lines, "Blondie was part of a social network of artists, musicians, intellectuals, and freaks who remade popular culture...Parallel Lines was the multiplatinum punctuation point on a slow-building subcultural explosion, a fuse that was lit in the early 1960s by a handful of outsiders living in the margins of New York City. Today, we inhabit a world that was conjured into existence by these downtown denizens."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Kembrew McLeod!

082 Ronen Givony on NYC Indie, 2004-2014

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Ronen Givony, author of "Us v. Them: The Age of Indie Music and a Decade in New York (2004-2014)," published in March of 2026. It's a fascinating history of the indie and underground music scene in Brooklyn during a time when Givony ran the Wordless Music concert series, worked for Nonesuch records, and pursued many other music-related activities. Givony divides the book into chapters on individual bands, curators, venues, and publications that had a huge effect on music in New York – groups such as Oneida, Parts and Labor, Weyes Blood, and Vagabon, and spaces such as Glasslands, Silent Bard, and Death by Audio.

As he writes, "This is a book about a dozen or so individuals and bands with a curious claim to fame. A few of them achieved a degree of renown; a few would nearly make it big, only to self-destruct; as of this writing, though, none is a household name. Yet what they did was more decisive for the culture of New York than billionaire philanthropists whose names were carved in concert halls, more enduring than bands with fifty times their sales."

You can buy "Us v. Them" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's chat with Ronen Givony!

081 Andy Beta on Alice Coltrane

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Andy Beta, author of "Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane," published in March of 2026. It's a thorough and insightful biography of the musician and her various lives as a prodigious young student, a seasoned jazz player, a wife and mother tightly bonded to her husband John Coltrane, and a swami who reached spiritual heights as a teacher and leader. Andy charts all of these versions of Coltrane while also providing close readings of her many amazing recordings.

As he writes, "Even five years ago, it seemed unlikely that Journey in Satchidananda and the music of Alice Coltrane could ever be acknowledged or accepted by a wider audience...Yet I'm reluctant to classify Alice Coltrane as an example of a beloved artist going from obscurity to belated discovery. The stars are always above us, but the conditions on Earth must be right in order to fully glimpse their splendor. In that sense, Alice's "Cosmic Music" was always there, waiting for that moment when a new generation would be ready to hear its message."

You can buy "Cosmic Music" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Andy Beta!

080 Daniel Rachel on Nazi symbols in Rock'n'Roll

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Daniel Rachel, author of "This Ain't Rock'n'Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich," published in February of 2026. It's an enthralling and massively important look at many of the bands and artists who have flirted with, or even flat out adopted, Nazi iconography in their art, music, dress, performances, and more. Rachel lays out plainly and with thorough context the stories of these artists' use of Nazi symbols, in the process showing how rarely their decisions and motivations have been questioned.

As he writes, "The central question of this book concerns the extent to which artists have commented on their flirtation with the swastika and the Third Reich, and whether rock'n'roll – that is musicians, the media, and the record industry – has ever taken responsibility for it...the notable absence of significant archival documentation underscores rock'n'roll's failure to confront its past."

You can buy "This Ain't Rock'n'Roll" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Daniel Rachel!

079 Howard Fishman on Connie Converse

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Howard Fishman, author of "To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse", published in May of 2023. It's part biography, part detective story, as Fishman combs through the facts and myths behind singer and guitarist Connie Converse, who made music in the 1950s that went unreleased in her time, and then vanished in the mid-70s at age fifty, never to be heard from again. Fishman meets her family members, friends, people who saw her play, and more, making the case for her music as important and unique, and painting a picture of a singularly creative person.

As Howard writes, "The more I listened to her music, the more my curiosity grew...In short order, I stopped writing my own music and became devoted only to Connie Converse – to learning more about her; to piecing together her life; to spreading the gospel of her particular brand of genius everywhere and everyhow I could; to, eventually, inserting myself into the life she left behind to the point that – at times – I felt that I'd become part of the plot."

You can buy "To Anyone Who Ever Asks" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Howard Fishman!

078 Matthew Blackwell on Plunderphonics

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Matthew Blackwell, author of "Plunderphonics," part of the 33.3 "Genres" series of books focusing on specific musical styles and movements. "Plunderphonics" covers artists who use other people's recordings in their music without permission, often to make a statement about copyright law, the idea of fair use, and so forth. Blackwell focuses primarily on four artists - John Oswald, who coined the term Plunderphonics, Negativland, Avalanches, and Girl Talk - but he also covers many more who've played a vital role in this genre, such as Evolution Control Committee, the Tape Beatles, and Dangermouse.

As Matthew writes, these artists "tried to change the system. They did so by creating music that was deemed illegal, responding to lawsuits with daring media blitzes, and educating their audience about their own right to adapt and transform media."

You can buy "Plunderphonics" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Matthew Blackwell!

077 Seth Neblett on the Women of Parliament-Funkadelic

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Seth Neblett, author of "Mothership Connected: The Women of Parliament-Funkadelic," published in September of 2025. It's a fascinating oral history of the female members of Parliament and Funkadelic, particularly those in the P-Funk sister groups Parlet and the Brides of Funkenstein: Mallia Franklin, Lynn Mabry, Dawn Silva, Debbie Wright, and Shirley Hayden. Seth is the son of Mallia Franklin, who, along with being an important musician in the P-Funk story, was responsible for the inclusion of many members of the collective; most famously, she introduced Bootsy Collins to George Clinton and convinced him to include Bootsy in P-Funk.

As Seth writes, "The Brides of Funkenstein and Parlet, were, along with Bootsy Collins, the most successful groups to come out of the P-Funk Empire. The women sang and contributed to all the organization's in-house projects...In an era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, detouring through disco, and cresting on punk and new wave of the eighties, this critical "female" piece of the music history puzzle is as important as any other."

You can buy "Mothership Connected" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Seth Neblett!

076 Josh Bloom on The Apples in stereo

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Josh Bloom, author of "The Apples In Stereo," published in December of 2025. It's all about the Denver band The Apples in Stereo, who began in the early 90s and were part of the Elephant 6 Collective alongside Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, of Montreal, and more. Josh has known members of the band for decades, particularly their main leader Robert Schneider, and his book is a mixture of informational bio and first-person narrative, written in a conversational, often humorous tone.

As he writes, "Because Robert and I have a history as on-off-on again friends, I can speak from personal experience to complete a picture of him as the more emotionally complex person, and therefore, songwriter, recording artist, and producer I know him to be."

You can buy Josh's book here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Josh Bloom!

075 Al Shipley on Baltimore Club Music

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Al Shipley, author of "Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music," published in August 2025. It's a thoughtful, detailed, and revealing look into a music movement that grew organically in Baltimore clubs, radio stations, and record stores, with beats and other musical ideas passed around quickly so that the styles and sounds morphed constantly. Though it may not have gotten a lot of play outside of the city, was as innovative and important as any club music scene in America.

As Al writes, ""Local" is sometimes seen as a shameful or insulting word in music media, but treating the music that’s made in your neck of the woods with curiosity and respect is incredibly rewarding, and too many music writers have never even tried it. Fun music and dance music deserve thoughtful journalism and critical analysis as much as more conventionally “serious” art."

You can buy Tough Breaks here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Al Shipley!

074 Simon Raymonde on Cocteau Twins

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Simon Raymonde, author of "In One Ear: Cocteau Twins, Ivor, and Me," published in America in November of 2025. It's a sharp, enthusiastic, and funny memoir of Raymonde's life as a musician, member of the legendary UK band Cocteau Twins (with Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie), and owner of the vital indie record label Bella Union. Simon also delves into his relationship with his father Ivor, who was himself a renowned musician, producer, and arranger. It's all told with a sense of humor and wisdom that makes Simon's words practically leap off the page.

As Simon writes, "It seems that my own past is no longer just a shoegazey blur of distant lights receding in the rear-view mirror; it is clearly visible in my present too. Cocteau Twins have never been as popular as we are now, almost three decades after we stopped making music."

You can by Simon's book here.

We. hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Simon Raymonde!

073 Howard Weulfing on his 80s DC Fanzines, Descenes and Discords

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Howard Weulfing. He's the author of Descenes and Discords, an anthology of two fanzines he edited in the early 1980s, documenting the burgeoning underground rock scene in DC at the time. Descenes featured interviews, record reviews, live reviews, and more, with most of the focus on DC. Discords also covered scenes around the country, publishing reports from writers such as Gerard Cosloy in Boston, Jim Testa in New Jersey, Tesco Vee in Michigan, and John Foster in Olympia.

This new anthology includes explanatory introductions by Howard for each zine issue, as well as a conversation between Howard and Ian MacKaye, reminiscing about what things were like in DC back then.

As Howard writes, "Our contributors were out in this community and readily accessible. We were playing shows, running record stores, simply hanging out. We got plenty of letters of criticism, clarification, and sometimes praise. We tried to process it constructively: broadening the coverage, questioning our judgements, while keeping the tone conversational and direct though often with tongue planted firmly in cheek."

You can buy Descenes and Discords here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Howard Wuelfing!

072 Bill Janovitz on The Cars

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Bill Janovitz, author of "The Cars: Let The Stories Be Told," published in September 2025. It's a deeply researched, deftly crafted story of the Boston band, led by Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr, who started peppering the charts with hits from their self-titled 1978 debut album, and kept making great music and selling tons of records for the next decade. Drawing on extensive interviews with the group's surviving members Elliott Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Robinson, Janovitz digs deep into their creative and personal dynamics.

As Bill writes, "In the late 1970s, rock and roll resisted premature pronouncements of its demise. The Cars were crucial in that resuscitation. They grew to a towering presence and provided the soundtrack for the 1980s."

You can buy "Let the Stories Be Told" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Bill Janovitz!

071 Joe Bonomo on Writing Essays About Music

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Joe Bonomo, author of "Play This Book Loud: Noisy Essays," published in May of 2025. It's a collection of pieces Bonomo wrote for various publications, primarily the website The Normal School, covering a wide range of music subjects and formats. Among the topics explored are the Cramps, the Who, the Stooges, the Jam, an exploration of the history of the song "Tobacco Road," a delving into a early 70s compilation sponsored by Dick Clark, and even a thorough examination of a 7-inch that 7-11 gave out to customers in the late 60s called "Dance the Slurp."

Joe is the author of several other books including Sweat, a biography of the Fleshtones, an entry in the 33.3 series on AC/DC's Highway to Hell, and a previous collection of essays called Field Recordings from the Inside.

You can buy Play This Book Loud here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Joe Bonomo!

070 Sahan Jayasuriya on Die Kreuzen

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Sahan Jayasuriya, author of "Don't Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen," published in August of 2025. It's a thorough look at the band who began in the early 80s as one of the most vital and unique hardcore groups, but quickly evolved past that tag toward mixture of punk, metal, and proto-grunge that influenced many indie-rock bands of the 90s. Sahan tells the Die Kreuzen story through interviews with band members, people who worked with them and helped them, and many musicians who admired them both then and now.

As he writes, "It's debatable whether Die Kreuzen could have ever happened at any other time or in any other place besides the American Midwest during the 1980s... In hindsight, Die Kreuzen’s eventual formation feels inevitable: four wildly talented individuals with shared influences who were seemingly made to play music together."

You can buy Don't Say Please here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Sahan Jayasuriya!

069 Ellen Koskoff on Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Ellen Koskoff, author of "Bittersweet Sounds of Passage: Balinese Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music," published in July of 2025. It's a fascinating look into a specific kind of gamelan music in Bali that is an essential part of cremation ceremonies, performed by village members who don't even consider themselves musicians. Koskoff learned to play this music herself by living in Bali and joining in with ensembles there, revealing a tradition that is unlike anything in Western culture. In the process, she captures the perspective of the people playing in these groups, who regard the music as essential to the dharma that sustains all things.

As Ellen writes, "The history and meaning of gamelan angklung and its importance to contemporary Balinese cremations is hazy; written sources, recordings, and other forms of scholarship are almost nonexistent...yet, this music, most often performed by everyday villagers, is considered by all Balinese to be a necessary component of village life and death."

You can buy Ellen's book here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Ellen Koskoff!

068 Pat Blashill on The Birth of Texas Punk

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Pat Blashill, author of "Someday All the Adults Will Die!: The Birth of Texas Punk," released in September of 2025. It's a narrated oral history of the early days of punk in Texas, exploring the many bands and figures who created a distinct strain of punk rock in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, including Big Boys, the Dicks, MDC, and Butthole Surfers. Pat weaves the voices of musicians, journalists, venue runners, fans, and more to paint a picture of a scene that used punk to break punk's rules.

As Pat writes, "If punk gave many of us a way to understand the word, it also became a way for us to explain Texas and Texans to the rest of the planet. Punk didn't flourish in the Lone Star State in spite of local conditions but because of them."

You can buy Pat's book here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Pat Blashill!

067 Ian Thompson on the 70s French Underground

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Ian Thompson, author of "Synths, Sax, & Situationists: The French Musical Underground 1968-1978," published in August of 2025. It's a detailed history of a group of French rock bands who, inspired by the protests and civil unrest of May 1968 as well as psych rock and free jazz, broke with convention to create some of the most original music of the 70s. The best known of these groups were Gong, Magma, and Heldon, all of which Thompson covers in depth, but he also delves into bands who haven't gotten their due such as Lard Free and Moving Gelatin Plates, and ones who barely existed yet made a mark, such as Barricade and Cheval Fou.

As Ian writes, "It slowly dawned on me that if other anglophones were to discover this essential music they would need a reference - in English. And so, for the last five years I’ve digested everything I could find on the topic and interviewed almost fifty musicians from the scene. Now, at long last, the result of my efforts rests in your hands."

You can buy "Synths, Sax, & Situationists" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Ian Thompson!

066 J. Hoberman on 1960's New York

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to J. Hoberman, author of "Everything is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde--Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop," released in May of 2025. It's a fascinating, real-time history of the art coursing through New York City in the 1960s, with vivid descriptions of plays, concerts, events, political movements, and all other types of creative moments. Hoberman, the legendary former film critic at the Village Voice, tells his tales in an excited rush of detail-drenched scenes, conjuring the adrenaline of a time when the past was broken and the future was unclear.

As he writes, "[New York] was the site of demonstrations, insurrections, strikes, trials, sit-ins, be-ins, bombings, and, as a music, all manner of public theater – one giant happening on an epic urban stage...Although too young to have participated in most of the events I evoke, I am old enough to have experienced what might be termed the normalization of cultural craziness that characterized the 1960s."

You can buy "Everything is Now" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with J. Hoberman!

065 Audrey Golden on the Raincoats

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Audrey Golden, author of "Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats," published on July 15, 2025. It's an innovative and thorough biography of the crucial UK band the Raincoats, told through an unconventional structure which divides their history not into eras, but "lives" - those of the band members, their supporters, and the people they inspired.

As Audrey writes, "I consider this book–constructed from a Raincoats material archive built by Ana, as well as an archive of oral history and additional research materials collected by me–to be a layered feminist archive unto itself."

You can buy Audrey's book here, and you can hear her talk about her previous book, "I Thought I Heard You Speak: Woman At Factory Records,” on our 14th episode here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Audrey Golden!

064 Jason Schneider on "Hey Joe"

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode Marc talks with Jason Schneider, author of "That Gun in Your Hand: The Strange Saga of ‘Hey Joe’ and Popular Music’s History of Violence," published in June of 2025. It's a fascinating look at the way the song "Hey Joe" has weaved its way through music over the course of the past six decades, from its origin in the hands of a singer and guitarist named Billy Roberts, through its height of fame when covered by Jimi Hendrix, through numerous different covers, interpretations, and re-imaginings.

As Jason writes, "Great art, even in the form of a three-and-a-half- minute song, exists because of its ability to withstand attempts at dissection. “Hey Joe” is still being performed and recorded today because its expression of raw human emotion remains undiminished."

You can buy "That Gun in Your Hand" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Jason Schneider!

063 Brian Anderson on the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Brian Anderson, author of "Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection," published in June of 2025. It's a detailed and compelling tale of how the Grateful Dead, over the first decade of their existence, continually created and expanded their own sound system into a gigantic tower of speakers known as the Wall of Sound. Scores of techs, roadies, and other fascinating figures worked on this monstrous array of gear, which delivered clear, almost mystical sound throughout the venues to which the Dead hauled it.

As Brian writes, "Our world has been radically shaped by the Dead, regardless of one's own relationship with the band. And their fabled PA of the early 70s is perhaps the most striking example of that outsized influence."

You can buy "Wall of Sound" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Brian Anderson!

062 Dean Van Nguyen on Tupac Shakur

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Dean Van Nguyen, author of "Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur," published in May of 2025. It's a fascinating look at the socially-conscious life of rapper 2Pac, developed while growing up around radical black activism, particularly that of his mother Afeni Shakur of the Black Panther Party. This includes a thrilling opening section which serves as a kind of miniature history of the African-American left in the 60s, 70s, and beyond.

As Dean writes, "Words for My Comrades is the story of how Tupac Shakur came to exemplify radicalism and revolution...How did a man who made music to dance to find himself elevated to a status that's commonly the realm of civil rights leaders and guerrilla warfare commanders?"

You can buy "Words for My Comrades" here, and we hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Dean Van Nguyen!

061 Niko Stratis on Dad Rock

Tue, 27 May 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Niko Stratis, author of "The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman," published on May 6, 2025. It's a memoir of Stratis's many experiences and life changes, explored through music that has greatly affected her, with each chapter focused on a specific song. Stratis expertly mixes her own story with the stories of these songs and how those two things intertwine, along the way carving out her own definition of Dad Rock that speaks to who she is, who her own dad is, and how life can be shaped and guided by the music we love.

As she writes, "So much of my relationship to music is driven by what it says about who I am. What the things I collect and adore can possibly say about the parts of myself I am desperate for people to see."

You can buy Niko's book here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Niko Stratis!

060 Jon King on Gang of Four

Tue, 13 May 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Jon King, author of "To Hell With Poverty / A Class Act: Inside the Gang of Four," published in April of 2025. It's an engaging, fast-paced memoir by the lead singer of legendary UK band Gang of Four, whose classic lineup also included guitarist Andy Gill, drummer Hugo Burnham and bassist Dave Allen.

King's tales of his youth up through the formation of Gang of Four and the four albums they released between 1979 and 1983 are written in the present tense, as if we're there with him experiencing it all, giving To Hell With Poverty a rushing excitement as life moves quickly both for the band and King himself.

You can buy Jon's book here or here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Jon King!

059 Lisa MacKinney on the Shangri-Las

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Lisa MacKinney, author of "Dressed in Black: The Shangri-Las and Their Recorded Legacy," released in March of 2025. It's a thorough history of the 1960's group comprising sisters Mary and Betty Weiss and twins Mary Ann and Marguerite Ganser, best known for their hits “Leader of the Pack” and “Remember (Walking in the Sand)." MacKinney started this project 20 years ago as a graduate student, gradually unearthing almost every possible detail about this fascinating group, despite not having access to any members.

As she writes, "A reappraisal of the Shangri-Las’ small but tremendously significant and influential body of work is long overdue. Repeatedly marginalised in traditional rock narratives, the Shangri-Las deserve to be examined in more informed historical contexts and on their own terms, right now and not later."

You can buy "Dressed in Black" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Lisa MacKinney.

058 Matthew Shipp on his Collected Writing

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Matthew Shipp, author of "Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings," published in April 2025 by Autonomedia. It's a collection of essays, poems, tributes, obituaries and more. Shipp, best known for his piano playing (solo, in collaboration, and with the David S. Ware quartet), presents much of what he's learned and contemplated over decades as an artist, touching on inspiration, improvisation, language, and many other big ideas.

As he writes, "I don't consider myself a poet, but I do consider myself able to write about what inspires me to play the way I do. And the reason I'm able to do that, even though I'm not a poet, is because obviously I know myself to some extent."

You can buy Matt's book at Autonomedia's website or here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Matthew Shipp!

057 Mark Doyle on John Cale's Paris 1919

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Mark Doyle, author of "John Cale's Paris 1919," published in February of 2025 as part of the 33.3 series of short books on individual albums. It's a fascinating examination of John Cale's 1973 album, which Doyle approaches along the theme of "ghosts," with chapters on "The Ghosts of New York," "The Ghost of Dylan Thomas," "The Ghosts of HIstory," and "The Ghosts of Christmas."

As Doyle writes, "If you are looking for some systematic explanation of the songs' mysteries, some Grand Unified Theory that will tie together all the historical, literary, and autobiographical references in the lyrics, I am afraid this is not that book. Instead, I will undertake the more delicate task of identifying, one at a time, and with the utmost care, just a few of the ghosts haunting the album, taking their measure for a few moments before they float off into the night."

You can buy Mark's book here, and we hope you enjoy our conversation with him!

056 S.H. Fernando Jr. on DOOM

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with S.H. Fernando Jr., author of "The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap's Masked Iconoclast," released in October of 2024 by Astra House. It's a thorough and thought-provoking biography of the legendary rapper, writer, and producer known best as MF DOOM. Fernando delves into the mystery of DOOM's work and life while also capturing the magic that his music conjured.

As Fernando writes, "As a complex character who cherished his privacy, DOOM's very nature precludes any efforts to get behind the mask and into his head. Instead, his story unravels like a ball of yarn as told through the people who worked with him and knew him best."

You can buy "The Chronicles of Doom" here.

We hope you enjoy Marc's chat with S.H. Fernando Jr.!

055 Eric Shade on the Bangles

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Eric Shade, author of "All Over The Place - The Rise of The Bangles From The L.A. Underground," published in January of 2024. It's a super detailed, comprehensive biography of the Bangles from the childhoods of each member up to the present day, as well as a compelling depiction of the LA scene, especially the Paisley Underground, that they grew up from and are still really a part of. Eric has been a Bangles fan since he was a kid and the amount of knowledge and illustrations he has collected over the decades helped him make this a thorough book about a compelling band.

As Eric writes, "The deeper I delved, a vast, interconnected network of individuals within the LA Underground unfolded. It was an enormous tapestry of impresarios, club promoters, ambitious artists, roadies, music enthusiasts, family members, and devoted friends. The Bangles were both part of this symbiosis and simultaneously stood apart from it all.”

You can buy Eric's book here at Hozac's website.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Eric Shade!

054 Angela Jaeger on her Punk Diaries

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Angela Jaeger, author of “I Feel Famous: Punk Diaries 1977-1981,” released on February 4th, 2025. It’s a compendium of her diary entries when she was a teenager living in New York and London, going to see punk bands at CBGB’s, Max’s, Tier 3, and many other places. Jaeger seemingly saw and met every band around, forging friendships with the Cramps, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, X-Ray Spex, the Raincoats, and the Clash, among many others. Her diary entries rush with the excitement of getting to see new music every night at a time when bands were seemingly forming every minute.

As Jaeger writes, "When I see myself jumping back and forth between New York and London, going out all the time to see bands, joining bands, starting college, stopping college, etc, it leaves my head spinning. And yet I see the motivations behind my moves–wanting to figure out who I was on my own terms, not always pleasing my parents or even myself, but curious to grab the moment, tell the story here and now.”

You can buy Jaeger's book here: https://hatandbeard.com/products/i-feel-famous-punk-diaries-1977-1981

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Angela Jaeger!

053 Donna-Claire Chesman on Emo Rap

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Donna-Claire Chesman. She’s the author of “Crybaby: The Artists Who Shaped Emo Rap,” published on January 21, 2025. It’s a fascinating look at a genre that grew up from the Soundcloud underground to become wildly popular, focusing on artists like Atmosphere, Lil Peep, Yung Lean, and Juice WRLD. “Crybaby” does justice to a musical subculture that’s more complex and rewarding than you might realize.

As Donna-Claire writes, “The history of Emo Rap is imperfect, and in many ways, 'Crybaby' is an imperfect reconstruction and critical examination of a genre that is felt more than articulated…at one point I toyed with the idea of asking my interview subjects who emo rap “was for,” except I quickly understood that emo rap is for everyone.”

To buy "Crybaby" and support independent bookstores, go here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/crybaby-the-artists-who-shaped-emo-rap-donna-claire-chesman/21650174

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Donna-Claire Chesman!

052 Daniel Spicer on Peter Brötzmann

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 04:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Daniel Spicer, author of "Peter Brötzmann: Free-Jazz, Revolution and the Politics of Improvisation,” published January 14, 2025. It’s a thorough and fascinating biography of the German musician best known for his roaring saxophone tone and boundary-breaking albums like “Machine Gun” and “Nipples." Talking with Brotzmann and his collaborators, Spicer digs deep into his many great recordings, performances, and partnerships, showing him to be a three-dimensional artist with a wide range of work and ideas.

As Daniel writes, “In terms of biography, my emphasis throughout is on his art rather than his personal life. However, I have made it a priority to consider his art in the context of the revolutionary politics that informed both his own music and the free-jazz tradition from which it sprung.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Daniel Spicer!

051 Liz Pelly on Spotify

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Liz Pelly, author of “Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist,” published on January 7, 2025. by One Signal. It’s a deeply reported expose of the streaming service Spotify and how their decisions and manipulations have changed music both for artists and for listeners. Liz has been reporting on Spotify for almost a decade and her many published articles on the subject led her to this fascinating book, which will hopefully change the way people think about streaming and what it’s done to music.

As she writes, “In my writing and reporting, I’ve been driven toward a deep impulse toward demystification–toward shedding light on the inner workings of streaming companies and debunking the myths they perpetuate. Sometimes it feels more complicated and convoluted than I could ever have imagined. Other times it just all feels like music industry business as usual. The truth is somewhere in the middle: the story of streaming is as much about what’s changed as what’s stayed the same.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Liz Pelly!

050 Brendan Greaves on Terry Allen

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Brendan Greaves, author of “Truckload of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen,” published in March of 2024. It’s a thorough and compelling biography of artist, musician, and performer Terry Allen, whose art has crossed lines from museum-hosted visual art to outlaw country to work that no genre can contain. Greaves, who runs the record label Paradise of Bachelors, met Allen many years ago and reissued many of his classic albums, forging a relationship in which really only he could tell such an intimate and honest story of Allen and his many colleagues and friends.

As Greaves writes, “Terry Allen occupies an utterly unique position straddling the disparate, and usually distant, worlds of conceptual art and country music. I’m not sure you could say the same about anyone else, ever, and certainly no one with the same aplomb, acclaim, and prestige in each discipline–not to mention the same lacerating, self-effacing sense of humor about it all.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Brendan Greaves!

049 Jim Saah on Photographing Punk

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Jim Saah, author and illustrator of “In My Eyes: Photographs 1982-1987,” originally published in 2021 and out in a second edition now. It’s a huge, beautiful book of black and white photographs taken by Saah of an astounding array of punk and post-punk groups, from the Ramones to Black Flag to Fugazi to Pavement. It also includes Saah’s interviews with artists who work at the cross sections of music and imagery, including J. Robbins, Jon Langford, Shepard Fairey, and Ian MacKaye.

As Jim writes, “I went through thousands of negatives to choose the hundreds of photos in this book. It was a joy to revisit all these images and remember how I felt and why I took them in the first place. I took these photos because I had to.”

We hope you enjoy Marc’s conversation with Jim Saah!

048 Marcus J. Moore on De La Soul

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Marcus J. Moore, author of “High and Rising: A Book about De La Soul,” published today, November 19. It’s a biography of the legendary rap trio that also weaves in Moore’s own story as well as the evolution of rap from the 80s, when De La Soul started, to today. It's a follow up to Moore's first book, “The Butterfly Effect,” about Kendrick Lamar, which came out in 2020.

As Marcus writes, “High and Rising doesn’t just tell the story of De La Soul; it unpacks the birth of hip-hop and the evolution of alternative rap. It’s also a memoir about my own travels through life and the environment, and how their music helped me grow as a person and creator in a landscape that doesn’t always understand differing viewpoints of artistry.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Marcus J. Moore!

047 Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere on Alan Vega

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere, co-authors of “Infinite Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega,” a deep and thorough portrait of the man most know as half of the innovative duo Suicide, but who also had an amazing career as a visual artist and poet. Laura and Liz weave a compelling narrative of his life with extended quotes from many people whose lives were affected by him, as well as an amazing wealth of images from along his entire, massively-productive career.

As Liz writes, "Alan Vega lived his life through the lens of creation, tapping into the full spectrum of human emotion...Many have heard the legends of the intense stage persona; far fewer have a deeper knowledge of the full spectrum of creative pursuits and sphere of influence of the man himself.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere!

046 Steve Wynn on The Dream Syndicate

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Steve Wynn, author of “I Wouldn't Say It If It Wasn't True: A Memoir Of Life, Music, And The Dream Syndicate,” published in August of 2024. It’s an entertaining and insightful memoir of his music-obsessed life, from his childhood biking to the store to buy records, to his days as a record store clerk and radio DJ, to his co-founding of the Dream Syndicate, the LA band whose debut album “Days of Wine and Roses” is a classic of 80’s post-punk.

As Wynn writes, “I had somehow and against all odds gone from being a music-obsessed record-store clerk making songs in his father’s basement to being an underground sensation navigating a major label bidding war, theater tours with the coolest bands on a similar but loftier ascension, and then descending to a contentious flameout and the ultimate crash and burn, all within those three short years.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Steve Wynn!

045 Jonathon Grasse on Eric Dolphy

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Jonathan Grasse, author of “Jazz Revolutionary: The Life and Music of Eric Dolphy,” due out on October 15. It’s a thorough history of the legendary jazz multi-instrumentalist, who produced an impressive body of work both on his own and in groups led by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, and many more, before his tragic death in 1964 at age 36. Grasse crafts the first truly comprehensive biography of Dolphy by tracing nearly every step of his music career, as well as delving deep into the releases he appeared on.

As he writes, “Jazz Revolutionary approaches the artist’s recordings as essential cultured artifacts, as primary texts..[Dophy had] a warrior-monk dedication to exploring diverse musical resources beyond what the extant jazz vocabulary provided.”

We hope you enjoy Marcs conversation with Jonathon Grasse!

044 Corey duBrowa on The EP

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Corey duBrowa, author of “An Ideal For Living: A Celebration of the EP,” published in early 2024. It’s an overview of some of the best EP’s from the 1950s until the present, with decade-themed chapters containing entries on individual releases by a wide range of writers. In addition, duBrowa wrote an opening chapter on the history of the format, and put together a final chapter of what he and his friends deem the best EPs of all time. There’s also an intro by Spoon’s Britt Daniel and an epilogue by former Guided By Voices member Chris Slusarenko.

As duBrowa writes, “With an immediacy that flies in the face of an LP’s “grand concept,” an EP turns out to be a great way for an artist to write a few songs and get them out quickly, without fanfare or pomp.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Corey duBrowa!

043 Henry Rollins on Staying Fanatic

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Henry Rollins, author of “Stay Fanatic! Volume 4,” the latest entry in his series of books chronicling, as he puts it, “Lessons in Possession and Confessions of Obsession.” Written in diary form, “Stay Fanatic!” dives into Rollins’ adventures in listening to music, finding out about music, and hunting for records on Ebay and Discogs. It’s also a kind of travelogue, as many entries were written while Rollins was on tour, as well as a kind of evolving philosophical document of how and why he got so obsessed with music.

As Rollins once explained, “I wanted the writing to be exactly how I think about records; endless amounts of detail, making mountains out of molehills, everything pretty much slammed into the red with enthusiasm…If music is one of those things that is and has always been one of the best friends you’ve ever had, you might like this book."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Henry Rollins!

042 David Stubbs on Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with David Stubbs. He’s the author of “Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen,” originally published in 2009 and recently reissued. It's an examination of how avant-garde visual art gets mainstream acceptance but avant-garde music is comparatively obscure and unpopular. It's also a pocket history of modern art and music that brings up all kinds of interesting issues and associations among many different artists

As David writes, “Part of this book is a history, albeit a potted and highly subjective one, of twentieth-century music set in its social and aesthetic contexts and in parallel with developments in the arts…This text isn’t intended as a sealed and finished piece of academic work - it’s as much a matter of questions, suspicions, and impressions as answers, historical facts, and conclusions.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with David Stubbs!

041 Frans de Waard on RRRecords

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Frans de Waard, author of “America’s Greatest Noise,” published in July of 2024 by Frans’s own imprint, Korm Plastics. It’s the story of Ron Lessard, founder of RRRecords in Massachusetts, which he ran from the mid-80s until 2009.

It's a story told in Lessard’s own words, compiled by de Waard from a series of Skype conversations the pair had over the past year. There are so many fascinating and often hilarious stories about how Lessard put together his releases, including some uniquely odd projects that helped define the noise scene of the past 40 years.

As Frans writes, “I learned a lot and we laughed a lot about noise musicians, releases, quirks, anti-records, concerts, and so much more. Here’s a man who enjoys a joke and whose releases sometimes have a humorous streak, yet at the same time he is serious concerning the release of records and creating noise music.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Frans de Waard!

040 Robyn Hitchcock on 1967

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Robyn Hitchock, author of “1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left,” published in July of 2024. You probably know Robyn as an incredibly creative and accomplished musician. His first book could be called a memoir, but it’s confined to the year 1967, when he left home at age 13 to enter boarding school in England, and fell in love with music. It's a super compelling book filled with Hitchcock’s vivid depictions and idiosyncratic notions, written to read like a real-life novel.

As Robyn has explained, “For me, 1967 was the portal between childhood and the adult world...the world was changing as fast as I was, and music embodied that change.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Robyn Hitchcock!

039 Toby Manning on Pop and Politics

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Toby Manning, author of “Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music,” published in May of 2024. It’s an extensive examination of pop music from the early 1950’s to the present in America and England, and how it interacted with the political culture of its respective times. Covering a vast selection of songs and albums, Manning finds connections and provides insights that you might never have considered. Anyone interested in pop music of the last 70 years will find something entertaining and thought-provoking inside this book.

As Toby writes, “Popular music’s dialectic of repression and refusal charts and channels the political struggles of the last three-quarters of a century, and it’s this relationship to which this book is dedicated.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Toby Manning!

038 Mike Smith on Popular 60s Jazz

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Mike Smith, author of “In With The In Crowd: Popular Jazz in 1960s Black America,” published in May of 2024. Smith argues that most studies of 60s jazz focus on the avant-garde centered around John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and more, and he sets out to balance that with a history of the more popular jazz artists from that decade, such as Eddie Harris, Nancy Wilson, and Ramsey Lewis, showing how their music also influenced the form and culture of jazz.

As Mike writes, “There was an infrastructure that allowed jazz to thrive in the sixties because jazz, for many, was a moneymaker. It wasn’t just the music of protest; it wasn’t just the music that spoke to feelings of rage, anger, and resentment. Jazz could be all of those things, but it was also so much more.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Mike Smith!

037 Tom Maxwell on 90s Chapel Hill Music

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Tom Maxwell, author of “A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene, 1989-1999,” published in April of 2024. It's the story of a community where musicians played in each other’s bands, toured with each other, produced each other’s records, and supported each other’s work regardless of style or pedigree. Tom also shows what it was like to be in a place where major labels descended, boosting some bands and discarding others. He experienced it first hand as a member of many NC bands, including Squirrel Nut Zippers, whose 1995 album “Hot” sold over a million copies.

As Tom writes, “I want to give you a sense of what was broadly going on musically and show you the fertile soil from which all this wondrous music sprang. Because this kind of community is very much like a garden: there are the beautiful flowers, of course, which command most people’s attention, but for those flowers to grow there must also be a rich diet, pollinators, earthworms, and the right amount of rain, shade, light, and decay.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Tom Maxwell!

036 Tara Lopez on Chuco Punk

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Tara Lopez, author of “Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso,” published today, June 4th, 2024. It’s a fascinating history of how punk rock developed and grew in the Texas city of El Paso, and the way this opened punk up to marginalized groups. It’s a story about community and self-reliance that adds a new chapter to the history of punk rock.

As Tara writes, “While punk is known for its daring subversion, so too is El Paso. Indeed, in the nineteenth century, El Paso’s reputation as a criminal outpost of sin was so widespread that its nickname soon became “Chuco,” a derivative of the Spanish word for “crooked” or “illegal.” El Paso was the natural staging site for a punk revolution."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Tara Lopez!

035 Bill Sassenberger on Toxic Shock Records

Tue, 21 May 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Bill Sassenberger, author of “Toxic Shock Records - Assassin of Mediocrity: A Story of Love, Loss, and Loud Music,” published in the spring of 2024 by Fluke Publishing. Bill and his wife Julianna ran Toxic Shock Records from 1980 up until about 2014 - it was a store, a label, a distributor, and tour booker, and much more.

Bill’s book is both a personal memoir and a history of his business, as well as a diary of his time with Julianna after she had a stroke in the early 2010's. Julianna passed away before Bill wrote the book, but he includes her voice via an interview she did, which he puts right after his introduction. All together, this is a compelling portrait of two people who worked hard to get deserving music heard.

As Bill writes, “We preferred to work behind the scenes. Much to our chagrin, it was this fact that probably kept us from being more successful in a business where who you knew led to your success or failure. It was just us against the world and we preferred it that way.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Bill Sassenberger!

034 Laina Dawes on Black Women in Heavy Metal

Tue, 07 May 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Laina Dawes, author of “What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal,” first published in 2013 by Bazillion Points books, then republished in a new edition in 2020. It’s a combination of memoir, oral history, and highly-researched documentation of the roles black women have played in heavy metal, both as artists and as fans, and by extension in all kinds of music scenes.

As she writes, “What are you Doing Here? reveals the common thread of strength and determination among black women musicians in male-dominated music industries. We have a track record of resilience against all the obstacles put in our path.”

So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Laina Dawes, here it is!

033 Michael Veal on John Coltrane and Miles Davis

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Michael Veal, author of “Living Space: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Free Jazz, from Analog to Digital,” released in April 2024. It’s a fascinating, complex study of John Coltrane’s work from 1965 to his death in 1967, and Davis’s “Lost Quintet,” who played from 1968 to 1970 without ever recording in the studio. Comparing the former to digital architecture, and the latter to experimental photography, Veal explores themes of outer space, free meter, race, musical analysis, the avant-garde in jazz, and much more.

As he writes, "Similar to the way that my interest in architecture influenced my articulation of rhythmic ideas (with John Coltrane), my immersion in the language and history of photography helped transform what initially seemed like an intractable stumbling block (the lack of official Davis recordings) into a constellation of new opportunities for jazz history, analysis, and interpretation."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Michael Veal!

032 Jon Fine on Indie Rock's Failed Revolution

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Jon Fine editor of “Your Band Sucks: What I Saw at Indie Rock's Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear),” published in May of 2014. It’s a memoir of his time in the late 80s band Bitch Magnet, as well as his later bands Vineland and Coptic Light, plus the Bitch Magnet reunion in 2011. It's also a bird’s-eye history of indie rock in the 80s and 90s, including quotes from many people who had bands at the time, and lots of compelling descriptions of how exciting things were back then.

As Jon writes “In the eighties and nineties I was certain we were participating in something important...And despite my complicated relationship with this time and its many aftermaths, what I’d do to have that feeling again before I die.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Jon Fine!

031 Ira Robbins on Trouser Press

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 06:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Ira Robbins, editor of “Zip it Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine, 1974-1984,” published in March 2024. It’s an anthology of pieces published in the New York-based magazine Trouser Press, which covered all kinds of rock music and other genres, and launched the careers of writers like David Fricke, Jon Leland, and Tim Sommer. The selections are roughly chronological in order but also grouped into categories such as glam rock, roots of punk, reggae, and post-punk.

As Ira writes, “We were determined to never patronize our readers, who we assumed to be intelligent, curious and willing to make a little effort — just as we were in our reading. We used big words, tossed around arcane references, even the occasional sophisticated concept to put across what we wanted to convey."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Ira Robbins!

030 Will York on San Francisco Post-Punk

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 06:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Will York, author of “Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age,” published in April 2023. It’s a thorough and fascinating history of underground music in San Francisco, from the punk scene at Mahubey Gardens, to the post-punk craziness of Flipper, to the art rock of Tuxedomoon and the Residents, to the weirdness of Thinking Fellers, Caroliner, and Amarillo Records, to the massive success of Faith No More. Will captures San Francisco at a time when truly creative freaks were drawn there, could survive there, and changed the course of underground music.

As Will writes, “With the benefit of hindsight, it’s possible to detect premonitions of things to come…as if they could sense that this was somehow a last gasp for a certain age of humanity. Yet instead of fear and loathing, the overriding mood was one of desperation and urgency. To paraphrase Flipper’s Bruce Loose, “It was the dance to the death at the end of the world.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Will York!

029 Michael Azerrad on Amplifiying Nirvana

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 06:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Michael Azerrad, author of “The Amplified Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana,” published in October of 2023. It’s an update of his 1993 biography of Nirvana, in which he annotates his original book, adding context, perspective, behind the scenes details, and his own feelings about the experience, three decades later, presenting new research and new insights that deepen the narrative and show what it was like to write a book about the biggest band in the world.

As Michael writes in his introduction, “My intention isn’t to track down every gory detail, find every skeleton in every closet, it’s to shed additional light on Nirvana’s story, and help Nirvana fans, people interested in the cultural history of the ‘90s, and yes, myself get a better understanding of what the hell happened.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Michael Azerrad!

028 Marshall Gu on Krautrock

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 06:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Marshall Gu, author of “Krautrock,” published on November of 2023. Part of the 33.3 "Genre" series, it's a look at Krautrock through chapter-length examinations of 12 individual groups: Can, Faust, Cluster & Harmonia, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, Guru Guru, Popol Vuh, Amon Duul II, Embryo, NEU!, and Kraftwerk. Along the way Marshall points out commonalities between these groups without boxing them into strict genre rules.

As he writes in his introduction, “What does Krautrock actually sound like? It can sound the most unrelenting psychedelia you’ve ever heard. It can sound like the most hypnotic grooves found in rock music. It can sound like jazz, like junk, like pure noise, or like peaceful ambient music. It can sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before, which was certainly the original mission statement of many of its practitioners.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's chat with Marshall Gu!

027 Simon Price on The Cure

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 06:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Simon Price, author of “Curepedia: An A to Z of The Cure,” published on December 12, 2023. It’s a literal encyclopedia of the great British band the Cure, arranged in alphabetical order by subjects, including entries on albums, singles, and band members, plus themed entries such as Drugs, Hair, Drowning, and even Lockjaw. Price’s weaves interesting narratives in many of the entries, with tons of research to back him up.

As he writes in his introduction, “...even though this book contains facts, so many facts, the facts themselves are not the point. What I’ve aimed to do is to cross-reference, contextualize, analyze, and provide perspective. To draw unseen connections, and find parallels that are not immediately apparent.”

A note about this episode: As Simon and I were chatting, the audio sounded glitchy and choppy. We tried to fix this and thought we had, but the resulting recording still sounds that way. So I want to apologize in advance if it’s a tough listen, but I felt that our conversation was so good that I didn’t want to redo it. If you find it totally unlistenable, I’ve also made a transcript which I posted on my blog at this URL:

https://themusicbookpodcast.blogspot.com/2024/01/transcript-interview-with-simon-price.html

Thanks for bearing with us!

026 Paul Steinbeck on the AACM

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 08:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Paul Steinbeck, the author of “Sound Experiments: The Music of the AACM,” published in paperback in December of 2023. It’s a look at the longtime Chicago-based musical organization the AACM, or Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and began in 1965 and is still going strong today. Paul chose to approach the history of the AACM through individual recordings, focusing each of his chapters on a single album, and providing both a background of the artist and the recording, and a detailed, step by step description and analysis of the music on that record.

As he writes in his introduction, “Close analyses of these pieces illustrate how AACM composers and performers advanced the Association’s signature musical practices, from extended forms and multi-instrumentalism to experimental approaches to notation and conducting.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's talk with Paul Steinbeck!

025 Steven Jones on Murder Ballads

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Steven Jones, author of "Murder Ballads Old and New: A Dark and Bloody Record," published on November 12, 2023. It’s a fascinating and in-depth look at songs throughout history that have dealt with death and tragedy, including folk songs that have been passed down through and transformed by generations, as well as more recent works that are just as affecting and impactful as tunes that are hundreds of years older.

As Steven writes in his introduction, “This book is about unhappy music–songs of death and loss caused by sudden, often violent reversals of fortune, celebrated and scrutinized for what each reveals about the human condition, and the role creativity plays in processing trauma and grief.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Steven Jones!

024 Ben Apatoff on Body Count

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Ben Apatoff, author of "Body Count," published on September 7th, 2023. It’s a thorough study of the 1992 self-titled album by Body Count, a band most famous for having Ice-T as their frontman and for a song called “Cop Killer” that stirred up so much controversy even the President had something to say about it. But there’s so much more to the Body Count story, and Ben tells it so well.

As Ben writes, “Body Count outlasted the politicians that scorned them and the record stores that banned them…(they’re) still confronting racism, police misconduct, mass incarceration, and political corruption, outliving their old adversaries and striking out at new ones.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Ben Apatoff!

023 Nate Patrin on Music in Movies

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Nate Patrin, author author of “The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies, From Rock and Roll to Synthwave,” published on November 28th, 2023. It’s a look at the way songs that already exist–needle drops, as they’re known–have been used in films, transforming both the music and the movie. Each of Nate’s 16 chapters focuses on a specific film and a specific song it uses, exploring the background behind each and the way the combination changes both.

As Nate writes, “The needle drop is a strange yet vital component of narrative film–an often direct and instantly memorable way for a director to steer the tone of the film by incorporating a crucial element that they had no hand in creating.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Nate!

022 Amy Coddington on Rap and Radio

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Amy Coddington, author of “How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop,” released on September 12, 2023. It’s a fascinating study of how hip-hop made its way into the musical mainstream through pop radio in the 80s and 90s. Coddington explores so many issues: what exactly is mainstream, what exactly is rap, how did those two things change each other, plus issues of backlash, economics, authenticity, and more.

As she writes, “This history is really a story about money, about how the business model of the radio industry affected rap’s relationship to the mainstream. And it’s a story about race, about how the racial prejudice central to radio’s business model influenced rap’s mainstream potential.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Amy!

021 Will Hermes on Lou Reed

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Will Hermes, author of “Lou Reed: The King of New York” released on October 3rd, 2023. It’s a thorough yet highly entertaining biography of the legendary musician, who Will depicts as a figure with so many sides and so many pursuits, who really can never be reduced down to a single personality, a single motivation, or a single classification.

As Will writes in his introduction, “If you’re hoping for some neat totalizing statement or psychological profile to explain Reed, to fix him like a butterfly specimen, you won’t find it here. Somewhat vexing for a biographer, if thrillingly for a fan, Reed was a shapeshifter who represented–lived–the potentialities of identity without apology, one reason why he remains such a complicated figure.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Will!

020 Thurston Moore on Thurston Moore

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 06:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Thurston Moore, author of “Sonic Life: A Memoir,” released today, October 24, 2023. It’s a fascinating story of Moore’s journey through music as a creator and a fan, from his early days discovering records with his older brother, to the end of his longtime band Sonic Youth. It's also a history of the music that surrounded and inspired him, with so many great stories about some of the amazingly creative people he’s met along the way.

We hope you enjoy Marc's talk with Thurston!

And if you're interested in Marc's new book "High Bias: The Distorted History of The Cassette Tape," check out highbiasbook.com and highbiasbook.bandcamp.com. Thanks!

019 Marc Masters on Cassette Tapes (w/guest host Jesse Jarnow)

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, our host Marc Masters is the subject, talking about his new book "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape," released in October of 2023. It’s a technical and cultural history of the cassette tape format, charting the many ways that cassettes changed the course of music and brought new possibilities and new kinds of freedom to creators and listeners–tape artists, bootleg traders, mixtape makers, international tape hunters, current tape labels, and more.

To talk about how he put the book together, Marc invited writer Jesse Jarnow to be this episode's guest interviewer. Jesse is the author of great histories of Yo La Tengo (“Big Day Coming”), The Weavers (“Wasn’t That A Time"), and a “Biography of Psychedelic America” called "Heads," and he's currently working on a book that includes an exploration of the cassette tape as well.

Jesse is also the co-host of the Good Ol' Grateful Deadcast, which you can find here: https://www.dead.net/deadcast

We hope you enjoy Marc's talk with Jesse!

To order a copy of "High Bias" direct from Marc, as well as a companion tape of music from labels featured in the book, go to highbiasbook.bandcamp.com. Thanks!

018 Lior Phillips on South African Pop Music

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Lior Phillips, author of “South African Popular Music,” released in May of 2023. It's one of the first installments in 33.3's “Genre" series–an extensively researched, information packed narrative covering many different styles of South African music, from stars like Miriam Makeba and Johnny Clegg, to artists little known outside of the country.

As Lior writes, “My greatest hope is that by diving deep into the popular music of South Africa, the ways in which African music inspires nearly all of modern music, and the astounding history of the apartheid era, this book may help elucidate those concentric circle of art and politics, grief and rejoicing, that permeate the world at large.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's talk with Lior!

And if you're interested in Marc's forthcoming book "High Bias: The Distorted History of The Cassette Tape," out October 3 on UNC Press, check out highbiasbook.com and highbiasbook.bandcamp.com. Thanks!

017 Jeff Schwartz on Free Jazz

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Jeff Schwartz, author of “Free Jazz,” published in April of 2023. It’s a smart survey of free jazz that’s structured not around individual artists but more around aspects of free jazz, with chapter titles such as "Energy", "Spirituality", and "Self-Determination."

As Jeff writes, “Few pieces or artists will fall neatly into one chapter…There is no discography or recommended listening list at the end of this book. The goal is to suggest things to listen for rather than what to listen to.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Jeff!

016 John Szwed on Harry Smith

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with John Szwed, author of “Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith,” published in August of 2023. It’s a fascinating and superbly skillful portrait of a man who played so many roles: anthropologist, archivist, musicologist, filmmaker, painter. He's best known for his massively influential Anthology of American Folk Music, but he did so much more. Szwed takes a figure who is so hard to pin down and crafts a real story without losing all the mystery of his life and work.

As John writes in his introduction,“How are we to understand the paradox of an artist whose life was almost completely outside the public’s view, always on the edge of calamity–if not death–and yet so influential in so many ways?”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with John Szwed!

015 Clifford Allen on Matthew Shipp

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Clifford Allen, author of “Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on Rogue Art,” published in August of 2023. It focuses on the 25 releases pianist Matthew Shipp has been involved in for the Rogue Art label, while also functioning as a biography of Shipp as well as a history of the free jazz scene he’s been involved in in New York since the late 1980s.

As Clifford explains in his introduction, “[this book]’s purpose is to take a 25-disc slice of Shipp’s universe as a microcosm of the larger world of creative music and explore the mutable interactions between history, current practices, and ideas through the lens of on pianist, his various playing partners, and others who have helped realize this work.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Clifford!

014 Audrey Golden on Women at Factory Records

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Audrey Golden, author of “I Thought I Heard You Speak: Woman At Factory Records,” published in June of 2023. It’s a fascinating oral history of the legendary UK record label told exclusively by women involved in at all levels. Golden talked to nearly 100 individuals for her book, from people who ran the office, to people who managed the bands, to people who promoted the music, to people who worked at the label’s nightclub, the Hacienda, and so much more.

As she writes in her introduction, “I set out to do two things: to create an innovative historical record of Factory and its cultural influences, and to collate an archive of women’s experiential knowledge in all its vast, varied, and anecdotal complexity.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Audrey!

013 Eric Harvey on Rap and Reality

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Eric Harvey, author of “ Who Got the Camera? A History of Rap and Reality,” published in October of 2021. It’s a fascinating investigation into how rap music in the 80s and 90s intersected with the rise of reality TV and tabloid news - as Eric once put it, “(when) the news was getting more entertaining…and rap was becoming more informational.”

Eric covers so much ground in this book, dissecting some of the best and most important hip-hop of the time while connecting it to so much that was going on politically and culturally throughout those years.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Eric!

012 Kerry O'Brien and Will Robin on Minimalism

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Kerry O'Brien and Will Robin, co-editors of “On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement,” published in April of 2023. It's an anthology of writings on the modern musical style known as minimalism, presenting essays, interviews, reviews, and more. There are over 100 documents included in “On Minimalism,” organized chronologically but also grouped under themes such as “Dream Music,” “Altered States,” and “Gurus and Teachers.”

As Kerry and Will write in the book’s introduction, “It’s a retelling of the history of musical minimalism - a revisionist history…Who was there? What did it sound like? How was it described? And what is missing from how it was remembered?”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Kerry and Will!

011 Steve Turner on Mudhoney and Grunge

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks to Steve Turner, author of “Mud Ride: A Messy Trip through the Grunge Explosion,” published in June of 2023. Steve is a founding member of Mudhoney, the great Seattle band who helped explode Sub Pop and Grunge with their first single “Touch Me I’m Sick. “Mud Ride” is a memoir of Steve’s own life in music, but also of the Seattle scene in the 90s and beyond, including the moment where Steve was asked to join Nirvana but turned them down because he thought they were already great as a trio.

In his introduction, Steve writes, “What I have to offer is an insider’s insight into a time that went from homespun fun to international acclaim in a handful of years. It still seems unreal to me, because it was so unexpected.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Steve!

010 Bill Perrine on San Diego Experimental Music

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Bill Perrine, author of “Alien Territory: Radical, Experimental, & Irrelevant Music in 1970s San Diego,” published in May of 2023. It’s a fascinating look at so much varied experimental music, much of it centered around the University of California at San Diego, whose archives Bill was able to comb through for unheard gems. Bill highlights familiar figures such as Harry Partch, Pauline Oliveros, and Diamanda Galas, but also lesser known characters like Jim French, Warren Burt, Arthur Frick, and tons more.

In his introduction, Bill writes, “I take it as a given that the music is not, and should not be, the sole providence of academics, specialists, or art snobs. It is made by professors at universities as well as punks in trailer parks.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Bill!

009 Lily Hirsch on Sexist Labels in Music

Tue, 23 May 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Lily Hirsch, author of “Can't Stop the Grrrls: Confronting Sexist Labels in Music from Ariana Grande to Yoko Ono,” published in March of 2023. It’s a thorough look at the many ways women artists, including Courtney Love, Britney Spears, and FKA Twigs, have been the target of unfair labels in the media, and how they’ve fought back. As Lily writes in her intro, “By spotlighting the consequences as well as the pervasiveness of this labeling, I hope to create a certain awareness and, in the end, real change.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Lily!

008 Dan LeRoy on Drum Machines

Tue, 09 May 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Dan Le Roy, author of “Dancing to the Drum Machine: How Electronic Percussion Conquered the World,” published by Bloomsbury in November of 2022. It’s a fascinating look at the winding, surprising history of drum machines, and it covers so many musicians and styles of music, from Raymond Scott to RUN-DMC. As Dan writes in his introduction, "The story of the most high-tech endeavor is still the story of people.”

Hope you enjoy Marc's chat with Dan!

By the way, if you have any feedback, suggestions, questions, or anything you'd like to say about the Podcast, you can email us at MusicBookPodcast@gmail.com. Thanks!

007 Vashti Bunyan on Vashti Bunyan

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc chats with Vashti Bunyan, writer, singer, songwriter, poet, artist, and author of the memoir "Wayward: Just Another Life to Live," released in 2022 on White Rabbit books. It covers her entire life, with special focus on her 1968 journey across the UK, when she wrote songs that appeared on her 1970 debut album Just Another Diamond Day. Since its reissue in 2000, Bunyan made two more incredible records, and she writes about all of this in a voice very similar to that heard in her enchanting songs.

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Vashti Bunyan!

006 Dee Peyok on Cambodian Music

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc chats with Dee Peyok, author of Away From Beloved Lover: A Musical Journey Through Cambodia, published by Granta in January of 2023. It’s a history of Cambodian music mostly from the 60s and 70s, a travelogue through the country to track down musicians from that time, and a detailing of all the societal upheaval that happened in Cambodia during those decades. If you ever got into the Cambodian Rocks compilations or the Cambodian Cassette Archives comp on Sublime Frequencies, or are simply curious about Cambodian music, you’re going to love this book!

Thanks for checking out Marc's conversation with Dee!

005 Michael Tau on Extreme Music

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:00:00 -0700

For this episode, Marc chats with Michael Tau, the author of Extreme Music: From Silence to Noise and Everything In Between, published by Feral House in October of 2022. The book delves into all kinds of music that could be called extreme: long music, short music, fast music, loud music, vulgar music, even “disgusting” music, just to name a few. It’s kind of a field guide to all kinds of conceptually committed sounds and releases, structured in a taxonomy that groups artists and records into categories but also tells their stories and the motivations behind why they do such interesting and challenging audio experiments.

Hope you enjoy Marc's chat with Michael!

004 Annie Zaleski on Duran Duran

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 07:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Annie Zaleski, author of Duran Duran's Rio, an entry in Bloomsbury's 33.3 series exploring classic albums. The book originally came out in 2021, and about a year later, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of "Rio," a second, larger edition was released with extra material and illustrations. Annie is a great at telling stories and unearthing information, and her book is so full of details and insight, painting a portrait of a band that was more than just a chart-topping pop act.

Hope you enjoy our chat with Annie!

003 Kate Molleson on 20th Century Composers

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 08:00:00 -0700

On this episode, Marc talks with Kate Molleson, a journalist, documentarian, and radio presenter for BBC3. She’s the author of the fascinating book Sound Within Sound: Radical Composers of the 20th Century, which focuses on ten composers left out of the standard histories of classical music. In her intro, Kate says she wrote the book out of “love and anger” - “the love because I want to shout from the rooftops that classical music is gripping, essential, personally and politically game-changing. The anger because I can’t shout proudly about a culture that wilfully closes its doors on perceived outsiders.”

We hope you enjoy our chat with Kate!

002 John Lingan on Creedence Clearwater Revival

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 11:00:00 -0700

On our second episode, Marc talks to John Lingan, author of the book “A Song for Everyone: The Story of Creedence Clearwater Revival." John does a great job telling the story of this amazing band, framing it more like a cinematic narrative than an oral history. He puts you right in the middle of the CCR journey, which started slow but flew fast once their career took off. Hope you enjoy Marc's chat with John!

001 Matthew Goody on Flying Nun Records

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 11:00:00 -0700

On the first episode of the Music Book Podcast, Marc talks to Matthew Goody, author of the book “Needles and Plastic: Flying Nun Records 1981-1988." It’s a history of the first seven years of this amazing New Zealand record label, told through chronological entries that cover all of the releases in that span of time. Matthew gets into the details of each record but also tells a story across the book of how this label worked and why it was so important. Enjoy!