My Favorite Album With Jeremy Dylan

This week I’m joined by rock legend and Something for Kate frontman Paul Dempsey, to dive into Fugazi’s classic album ‘In On The Kill Taker’. Paul discusses how the band’s unique approach to intertwining instrumental parts influenced his guitar playing, the different ways of discovering bands in a pre-internet age, the contrasts between Ian Mackaye and Guy Piccitotto, the time Something for Kate nearly opened for Fugazi, why he has vowed never to cover their songs and his strong feelings against ‘opening the vaults’ and releasing alternate versions of albums.

This week singer/songwriter and actress (Stranger Things, Little Women) Maya Hawke joins me via landline (!) from Woodstock to talk about the enduring classic of unfettered emotion, Joni Mitchell's towering Blue. We dig into Maya's love of poetry and how it intersects with her music, treating the lyrics of Joni's songs as a puzzle, separating art from the artist, how music helped with her dyslexia, the process of writing her own album and how Blue has helped her to find space, privacy and independence during Covid-19 lockdowns.

"If you're lucky, you get to see a lot of life. The fact that I can listen to an album like this and connect with a person to a person I was for a good deal of my life, came out of the hardest things in my childhood, and a kind of anger and sadness that motivated me to try to be who I've become and pushed me, kept me from settling. The fact that I can connect to that so directly with an album like this, to the person I was so long ago, it's like a time warp." - Bob Odenkirk. This week, the legendary Bob Odenkirk (Mr Show, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad) joins me to talk about The Replacements classic debut album 'Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash'. Bob talks about whether the album qualifies as punk rock, his shared midwestern roots, the wit and cynicism of the lyrics, how the album helps him access the harsher emotions of his younger self, Bob Mehr's Replacements biography Trouble Boys, the recently released Replacements live record and more. Plus, Bob talks about the challenges of portraying Jimmy McGi

In our first lockdown era episode, I connect with Golden Globe nominated screenwriter and producer Liz Hannah (The Post, Long Shot, All the Bright Places) to talk about Van Morrison's classic 'Astral Weeks', as well as how the current situation has impacted Liz and her media diet, how she's listening to music at the moment, iPods, puzzles, streaming services vs DVDs and much more.

And we’re back! For our first show post-isolation, it’s another guest-packed special as we finish my countdown of favorite albums of the 2010s. 7. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit 6. Lorde - Melodrama (both with guest co-host Caitlin Welsh) 5. Jason Isbell - Southeastern (with Camp Cope’s Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich) 4. Taylor Swift - 1989 (with Imogen Clark) 3. Jenny Lewis - The Voyager (with Bernard Zuel) 2. Tame Impala - Currents (with Japanese Wallpaper) 1. Father John Misty - I Love You Honeybear (with Jonathan Wilson). It’s another epic action packed episode, also featuring some voicemail messages from friends of the show Ultragrrl, Bob Mehr, Anita Lester, Davey Lane and Troy Cassar-Daley.

Seven years and 300 episodes of the podcast in, we are marking the occasion with an epic three part celebration of my favorite albums of the past decade. Music journalist Caitlin Welsh joins me to criticise my taste and banter about the first three records on my list, and I'm joined by the artists behind those records - Dan Kelly on the rollercoaster of Dan Kelly's Dream, Margaret Glaspy on her undeniable Emotions and Math and Gang of Youth's frontman Dave Le'aupepe on their life-affirming masterwork Go Farther in Lightness. Plus we check the voicemail to hear from friends of the show Jim Lauderdale, Holiday Sidewinder, Kristina Murray, Chris Hewitt and Jeff Greenstein on what their favorite albums of the past ten years have been, and debut our special new theme song by the genius Matt Farley. Check back soon for part 2 of our 300th Episode Spectacular!

After almost 300 episodes and 7 years, we finally talk about 'Rumours' by Fleetwood Mac, as Camp Cope bass princess and Kelso icon Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich takes me on a journey through its 11 iconic tracks, matching each to a different kind of relationship you will experience throughout your life.

On the heels of her debut solo EP release, Hayley Mary joins to finally bring Cyndi Lauper into the program. We get into it - the hits you remember, the backstory you didn't know, the Motown and punk influence, how the record portends the future and why the songs mean more now than they did at the time, and how Lauper has inspired Hayley through the years.

Today we head to genius producer, singer-songwriter and multi instrumentalist Jonathan Wilson's home studio for a wide ranging journey through the music that has inspired him, from Hank Williams to Maggot Brain. We dig into Hank Williams' alter ego Luke the Drifter, JW's Americana roots, how he finds time to balance working on his solo records vs producing artists like Father John Misty, what California means to him musically, his karaoke past and much more.

New episodes are back for 2020! After being recently knocked out by David Byrne's American Utopia on Broadway, I connected with brilliant percussionist Jacquelene Acevedo and asked her to join me on the show to go behind the scenes on this fascinating show. We talk about everything from how her dance background informed the show's unique choreography, the technical demands of staying mobile while playing, joining the show for Broadway after the world tour, her favorite songs in the set to perform, audience reactions, how the show spreads hope and teaches us to be engaged members of society and which celebrities have dropped in to see the performance.

This week, multi-multi-ARIA-winner Ben Lee welcomes me into his Laurel Canyon home to talk about Jonathan Richman and 'Modern Lovers Live'. We delve into the arc of Richman's career, how his music became more and more stripped back and seemingly innocent, the inherent joy that Ben has tried to carry into his own work and some weighty digressions about the artists responsibility to pose questions to their audience, our mutual distaste for unsolicited advice and knowing whether to continue a music career when your best days could lay behind you.