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Musician and friend of the podcast Thurston Moore discusses his latest book, Sonic Life which has garnered widespread acclaim. The book is a  meticulous work of research and a heartfelt homage to Thurston’s formative years. The memoir paints a vivid picture of the downtown Manhattan music scene of the late 1970s and ’80s. Sonic Life is an essential read for fans of music and cultural history alike.

Author and friend of the podcast Jack Sargeant returns. He is an author who focuses on underground film and culture. Notable works include Flesh And Excess: On Underground Film, Against Control, Naked Lens: Beat Cinema, and Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression, which was republished as Deathtripping: The Extreme Underground. Jack's writings cover underground film, outsider art, photography, and performance. In addition to his writing, he serves as a curator and programmer of film and art, occasionally engaging in visual artistry. Jack is also a co-founder of the Transgressive Cultures Conference in Paris. His books, including Against Control, are available through via bookshops and new technology called the internet super highway.

JG Thirlwell, is an accomplished composer, producer, and performer, with a diverse and prolific career. Known by various pseudonyms such as Manorexia and Foetus, he has released over thirty albums, showcasing a dramatic intensity and cinematic quality across genres. His collaborative spirit extends to numerous artists, including Karen O, Nine Inch Nails, and Nick Cave. Beyond music, JG is an acclaimed graphic artist, recognized for solo sound installations exhibited globally. His versatility is evident in scoring for shows like Archer and The Venture Bros, as well as motion picture scores. In January 2024 in Orlando, Florida, the Alterity Chamber Orchestra will premiere a series of chamber works written by JG, featuring the new orchestral piece Magnus Morris and a woodwind quintet titled Hernea.

Sally Gates is a New Zealand musician and composer currently based in New York. Her avant-rock trio, Titan to Tachyons, recently launched their second album, Vonals under John Zorn's Tzadik Records. This album has received widespread critical acclaim, earning a spot on Spin's Best Metal list and being described as "harnessing virtuosity with an enticingly organic fluidity" by The Wire.

In 2022, Sally was honored with the Wellington Jazz Festival Composer Commission. She returned to her home country to debut her composition Thought & Terraform for solo guitar at the Wellington Opera House, along with a series of other performances across New Zealand.

Sally is known for her "slinky, avant-noir guitar work." She frequently collaborates with various improvisational music groups in New York, notably as a 'secret guest' in a John Zorn ensemble. Some of her recent collaborators include Trevor Dunn, Zoh Amba, Brian Chase, Greg Fox, and Sam Ospovat.

Before her move to New York, Sally Gates released original music as a member of the Miami progressive-metal band Orbweaver. She toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, performing alongside acts such as Gigan, Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky, and Relentless Attrition.

Denton, Texas native Rick Eye is a guitarist involved in several bands, including Bitch Teeth, Gay Cum Daddies, Flesh Narc (his main band), and Vomitatrix, with whom he is currently on tour in Europe with bandmates Tim, Weasel Walter, and Gyna Bootleg.

Early in his career, Rick faced a crucial decision: whether to relocate to a cultural hub like New York or to cultivate a cultural scene in Denton. Fortunately for Denton, he chose the latter path. Rick began establishing connections with artists he admired and started bringing them to his town. As a result, Denton has evolved into a thriving center of cool.

Presently, Rick is responsible for booking events at the beloved Rubber Gloves club in Denton, a venue that Tim considers the coolest music club in the United States.

Friend of the podcast, musician, and artist Rick Froberg, who fronted Drive Like Jehu and many noted bands, sadly died on June 30th of this year. We have wanted for the last couple of months to do something to remember him, so in his memory, we are replaying his episode. Rick was as talented as he was kind, and he will be assuredly missed.

For the past 30 years, Matt Shapiro's mission has been to embrace the "dark, weird, extreme, and wrong." As the former co-owner of Elbo Room and a beloved promoter within the Bay Area, he's indelibly marked San Francisco and Oakland's music scenes. Notably, he facilitated the transition of Elbo Room's Oakland location to new ownership, safeguarding its ongoing musical legacy. As he prepares for his upcoming move to Leipzig, Germany, Shapiro's lasting influence on the Bay Area's music landscape remains palpable.

This week's guest on the podcast is Donita Sparks, a very talented musician, songwriter, and close friend of Lydia. She is the co-founder and lead vocalist of the legendary all-female rock band L7. With her unmistakable voice and fierce guitar skills, Donita has been a driving force in the rock scene for decades. Her dedication to social and environmental issues shines through in L7's upcoming single and video, Cooler than Mars, scheduled for release on September 12th. The song passionately urges humanity to prioritize the present and focus on urgent matters rather than becoming fixated solely on the allure of future life on Mars and space exploration. Beyond her work with L7, Donita collaborates with Lydia and other musicians in contributing to the Marianne Faithfull charity record. L7's momentum remains strong, with an extensive tour across the United States in September, followed by shows in South America throughout October and November, concluding in Australia in December. With shows selling out rapidly across all markets, Donita and L7 continue to leave an indelible mark on the music industry and beyond.

Gregory Jacobsen is a visual artist and performer renowned for his fusion of beauty and horror in his art. He collaborates with bassist Alex Perkolup, a long-time musical partner from Cheer-Accident, to bring this nightmarish artistic vision to life. Their joint project, Lovely Little Girls, showcases Gregory's masterful use of lush colors to adorn unsettling, mutated, and maimed bodies and frames, creating a mesmerizing and disturbing experience for viewers.

Author Craig Clevenger's debut novel, The Contortionist's Handbook, garnered critical acclaim for its masterful exploration of identity and deception. Craig's second novel, Dermaphoria, further solidified his reputation as a maestro of the noir genre, effortlessly blending themes of memory, drugs, and paranoia. With his latest work, Mother Howl, Craig delivers an enthralling novel that follows the son of a serial murderer as he navigates the treacherous path of reinvention and escape from his haunting past.

photo by: Orestes Gonzales

Pat Irwin, has been making music for over 40 year. He has continuously pushed boundaries with his captivating soundtracks for renowned television series such as Dexter: New Blood, Nurse Jackie, Bored To Death, and animated classics like Rocko's Modern Life, and SpongeBob SquarePants. Alongside his TV contributions, Patt was a member of the legendary B-52s and serving as a founding member of two influential New York/No Wave bands, The Raybeats and 8 Eyed Spy. Presently, Pat records and performs with the ambient music ensemble, SUSS.

Adel Souto is a writer and musician from Miami, Florida, who is now based in Detroit. He began the fanzine Feast of Hate and Fear in 1990, later opting for the internet in 2001. He has released a ‘best of’ FHF entitled Some Words (2010), Schizotypal (2011), which uses ritualistic automatic writing, and a book of poetry, 200 Throwaways (2012). He has also translated works by the Chilean occultist Miguel Serrano (2009), and is currently clanging metallic objects in the industrial outfit 156. The podcast begins with 156's Me Olam, Ad Olam and ends with 156's Kokomo.

Author, journalist, editor, and friend of the podcast, Chris Campion, who is known for his contributions to publications like The Guardian, The Times (UK), Rolling Stone, and Vice, discusses his powerful new book out on ZE Books, The War Is Here: Newark 1967. Chris delves into the gripping narrative surrounding the photographs captured by Bud Lee, who at the time was a young photographer for Life magazine, during the riots that unfolded in Newark in July 1967. If you are in the Newark area on June 13th, head over to the Newark Public Library to sit in on a panel discussion about the book, which will include the Mayor of Newark Ras Baraka.

Photo by: Julian Ibbitson

Cathi Unsworth is a renowned British author celebrated for her captivating crime novels and exceptional music journalism. Beginning her career as a writer for music magazines such as Sounds and Melody Maker, she later pivoted to crime fiction, publishing her first novel, The Not Knowing, in 2005. She has since written several acclaimed novels, including The Singer, Bad Penny Blues, Weirdo, and That Old Black Magic. Cathi's writing is admired for its vivid portrayal of London's criminal underworld, skillful weaving of music and popular culture into her stories, and attention to detail.

Her most recent book, The Season of the Witch, explores how goth culture was shaped by the politics of its era. The book delves into how various societal issues like the miners' strikes, privatization, the Troubles, and AIDS, coalesced with innovative, atmospheric music, culminating in a sound that resonated with a generation of disenchanted youth, both within Britain and internationally. The US distributor can be for Cathi's new book can be found here.

Photo By: _through_my_eye_

Phil Caivano is a guitarist, songwriter, and producer known for his work with the legendary rock band, Monster Magnet. Alongside his role in the band, Phil has collaborated with a range of other artists and bands, including The Ribeye Brothers and Blitzspeer. In addition to his collaborative work, he has also released a solo album titled Caivano. Later this year, Phil will be going on tour with Monster Magnet, which will be their first tour since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last month, Dix Denney, co-founder and bassist for the Los Angeles punk rock band The Weirdos, passed away. A couple of years ago, Weasel Walter and Lydia sat down with his brother John for an interview, which we are sharing with you today. John, along with his brother Dix, founded The Weirdos in 1975, and the band is considered one of the most important LA punk bands of all time. The band released the iconic albums Destroy All Music and We've Got the Neutron Bomb in the late 1970s. John and Dix helped shape the early Los Angeles punk scene with The Weirdos' sound, which blended punk, garage rock, and surf music.

John Tottenham, the happiest man in the poetry business, joins Lydia and Tim for a second time. To recap, John is the author of The Inertia Variations, an epic cycle on the subject of work avoidance, indolence, and failure. Antiepithalamia & Other Poems of Regret and Resentment, a sequence of mean-spirited love poems, was published by Penny-Ante Press.

A sonic and cinematic interpretation of The Inertia Variations by The (Matt Johnson) was released in late 2017. While he would never call himself an artist, his paintings and drawings have been exhibited at galleries in Los Angeles and New York.

John's final collection of poetry, The Hate Poems, representing the dregs of his output between the years 2012 and 2015, was published by Amok Press in late 2018. John has also written a novel.

Mark Morgan was the guitarist for the legendary noise/avant-rock outfit Sightings, a band that got its start in 1997 when Mark put up flyers looking for musicians in New York record shops. He also did a stint in one of the lineups of To Live and Shave in LA with Rat Bastard and Tom Smith. Currently, Mark's band Rump State is going on tour in Europe later this month.