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Episode 594: Alex Winter
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When we last spoke to Alex Winter, he was in the midst of a publicity push for his Zappa documentary – a longtime passion project about enigmatic musician of the same name. This time out, the actor-turned-documentarian has returned to the tech world. It’s topic that he has returned to several times, including 2012’s Downloaded and 2015’s Deep Web – the latter of which was the subject of our first conversation that same year. The YouTube Effect finds Winter and company exploring the light and dark sides of the world’s most powerful media organization. The documentary includes conversations with YouTubers, media experts and top executives at the Google-owned platform, in a bid to understand its influence and power.
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Episode 707: Craig Thompson
53:22|With Ginseng Roots, Craig Thompson returns to his childhood -- subject matter that already proved a rich vein for his beloved 2003 book, Blankets. While his latest once again explores the family dynamics of a religious upbringing, the work casts a much wider net. His family's economic dependence on ginseng is a starting point for exploring the root, which has been a staple of Chinese and Korean medicine for centuries.
Episode 706: Grey Delisle
39:56|About 40 minutes into the conversation, Nickelodeon calls. They need her in the studio post haste. It’s a fitting spot to end things for an artist as in demand as Grey Delisle. While she’s known as voice artist with hundreds of credits – including The Simpsons and Scooby-Doo – we’re here for something else altogether. Delisle also has a vintage country singing voice that would have earned her a permanent spot at the Grand Ole Opry in another life.
Episode 705: Amy Irving
39:34|When Willie Nelson suggests you record an album of his songs, you do it. Amy Irving and the country legend met on the set of 1980’s Honeysuckle Rose and remained close ever since. Irving features on the album’s soundtrack, despite a latter turn as Jessica Rabbit’s singing voice, a music career was never on her radar. Her solo debut, Born In a Trunk,, arrived 43 years after her musical debut, laying to rest any doubt that the Carrie star was simply acting as a singer. As she’s opted to slow down on the acting front, Irving is experiencing a successful second career, with the April 25th arrival of her new LP of Willie Nelson covers, Always Will Be.
Episode 704: Anika
45:08|Abyss is a dark, heavy album for a dark, heavy time. A journalist in a former life, Anika never shies away from the bleakness. The Berlin-based singer made a point of recording her third solo record with minimal overdubs, in a bid to capture the immediacy these the songs require.
Episode 703: Benmont Tench
43:06|At age 11, his fate was sealed when Benmont Tench met Tom Petty at a Gainesville music store. Fueled by the recent British invasion, the pair made music together for the first time at The Sundowners. A decade later, Petty recruited the keyboardist for Mudcrutch, the Southern rock band that soon evolved into the Heartbreakers. For the past six decades, Tench has never strayed far from that path, playing keys on records by Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and U2. This March saw the release of Tench’s second solo album, The Melancholy Season.
Episode 702: Luke Lalonde (Born Ruffians)
48:59|Vladimir Nabokov's 1951 memoir, Speak, Memory, opens with a quote describing life as the content between two dark eternities -- the before and the after. Though teaming with potential existential dread, the quote is a hopeful one for Luke Lalonde. The sentiment inspired "Mean Time," the first single from Born Ruffians' forthcoming LP, Beauty's Pride. It's a celebration of the moments that happen between the voids, a hopeful outlook the singer attributes to the recent birth of his son.
Episode 701: Gabríel Ólafs
44:24|Polar is as much an exercise in world building as it is a classical album. Icelandic pianist Gabríel Ólafs describes a lifelong desire to score films. In the meantime, he’s making his own. The new record combines worlds defined by his compositions, narrated by work from science-fiction author, Rebecca Roanhorse. It’s fascinating latest chapter from one of the most exciting new voices in classical.
Episode 700: Chester Brown
47:46|Since its debut at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Paying For It has garnered rave reviews from critics, drawing comparisons to fellow comic adaptation, Ghost World. Based on Chester Brown’s beloved 2011 work of the same name, the film centers around Brown and a fictionalized version of Sook-Yin Lee, the director who also happens to be his real life ex. Brown joins us to discuss the memoir, drawn from his own experiences with sex workers. We also discuss 2016’s Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus and the recent loss of his longtime friend, cartoonist Joe Matt.
Episode 699: Lloyd Kaufman
51:41|One thing you should know about Lloyd Kaufman is that he isn’t dead. The introduction to Mathew Klickstein’s new interview collection is very adamant about this. The Troma founder was certainly well enough to engage in an hour-long conversation about the early days of indie filmmaking, Michael Bay and making transgressive art amid a second Trump administration. Besides, at very least, the man needs to make to the end of August to see the Toxic Avenger’s triumphant return to the big screen.