RiYL

You’d think you’d have your fill of a man with four concurrent podcasts. And yet, John Roderick always seems to bring something new to the table. The Long Winters frontman has made a second career of sorts as podcasting’s great indie rock raconteur, cohosting Roderick on the Line, Road Work, Omnibus and Friendly Fire. The medium has proven an ideal fit for an entertainer happy to impart personal stories and knowledge, balancing the personal with the universal. For his third appearance on the podcast, the singer delves deep into stories of sobriety, bipolar disorder, transience and the Long Winters record he’s been putting off for a decade. It’s a rich conversation, that’s both idiosyncratic and deeply relatable for anyone who’s ever had difficulty getting over the hump with creative hump.

Best know to many for guest starring roles on popular show like Park and Recreation and Girls, Jon Glaser has been a mainstay in the alternative comedy scene since landing writing gigs on the Dana Carvey Show and Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Glaser has long called New York his home, becoming a mainstay in the city's comedy scene and writing and starring in a trio of TV series: Delocated and Neon Joe on Adult Swim, and, more recently, TruTV's Jon Glaser Loves Gear. In anticipation of the mockumentary series' second season debuting this month, the comedian joined us to talk about working in New York, learning to write comedy and what's it's like playing an asshole version of yourself. 

One of the more memorable spots in recent memory, "Wu Tang In Space Eating Impossible Sliders” does pretty much what it says on the tin. The web series created to promote vegetarian burgers at White Castle eschews the traditional ad trappings, in favor of a genuinely entering series of videos starting the RZA, GZA and Ghostface Killah. It’s the latest in a long line of high profile collaborations for director Sam Spiegel. In addition to creating ad spots and other videos with his production company, Squeak E. Clean, Spiegel is also a prolific music producer and has served as music director for artists like Karen O and Kanye West. Spiegel paid RiYL a visit on his most recent trip to his hometown of New York to talk about inspiration and the joys of collaboration.

Sabrina seemingly came out of nowhere, only to land on the top of nearly every best of 2018 list. Nick Drnaso’s second book-length work (following 2016’s collection, Beverly) perfectly captures feelings of isolation in an always-connected world. It’s a tale of fake news and online conspiracy custom made for the age of Trump — a world that took an emotional toll on its author during the creation process. For all the accolades the book has racked up in the intervening six months, Drnaso is happy to be focused on his next project.The Chicago-based artist sat down with us on a recent visit to New York, to discuss the difficulties of releasing a book into the world, the search for inspiration and learning the art of cartooning from the great Ivan Brunetti.

It’s a familiar refrain. The 15-year itch. It’s the perfect time to look back and how far a group as come — and wonder aloud how much gas is left in the tank. The More I Sleep the Less I Dream is a 15-year album. The fourth LP from a band whose lineup has remained remarkably consistent since forming to perform at a high school talent show. It finds the group searching for the magic that helped catapult their 2009 debut These Four Walls up the indie chart. Thompson admits that the group spent a couple of records hunting down chart success, but adds that this latest finds WWPJ working with something far more authentic and organic.

You don’t get to choose your audience. Especially when you’re playing a free to the public show at South by Southwest to promote your first record. It was, quite possibly, the worst showcase for a quiet voiced singer-songwriter.But the bad show gave birth to NPR’s Tiny Mix Tapes. The show’s producers quite rightly believed that Laura Gibson deserved a better showcase for here soft-spoken gifts.This year, Gibson released the haunting Goners, a beautiful and more sonically complex record that meditates on the connection between love and loss. It’s a theme that permeates her best work.

Fresh off a hike up Mount Kilmanjaro with his fiancee (now wife) and a ritualistic beard shaving, Taylor Goldsmith sits down to talk about Dawes’ latest, Passwords. The new record finds the band diving into the political and personal in ways not found on past records. Goldsmith is clearly in a good place, halfway through the band’s tour opening for pop-rock legends, ELO. He’s making the effort to be thankful for all of the band has amassed with half-a-dozen records over the course of nine years, even as he looks for ways to take things to the next level. It’s a hopeful talk, as Goldsmith discusses music industry competition, the future of indie rock and lessons he’s learned from The Rock’s Instagram account.

RE/Search’s North Beach office more closely resembles a library or museum. It’s a wonderfully crammed space that also serves as publisher V. Vale’s home, standing as a small monument to self-publishing and serving as a slightly melancholy reminder of all of the books we’ll never have time to read. Not that Vale isn’t trying, of course. The San Francisco mainstay is several decades into a lifelong search to acquire the world’s knowledge. It’s a quest that’s manifest itself in several wonderful volumes, exploring the works of countercultural icons William Burroughs, Lydia Lunch and JG Ballard and offering examinations of countless countercultural phenomenons. RE/Search hit its publishing peak in the 90s, just before the internet became fully ubiquitous here in the States, but Vale and a team of friends and family continue a commitment to printed matter and the goal of amassing useful and fascinating information.  

Somewhere along the line Chris Barron quite literally lost his voice. The condition, vocal cord paralysis, left Spin Doctors frontman barely able to speak, let alone sing. It was, he confesses, a dark time — one that left him wondering whether a return to music was in the cards at all. It slowly returned, thankfully, and Barron, with the help of doctors and a vocal coach, was able to learn how to sing with a single functioning vocal cord. In 2017, he released his second solo record, Angels and One-Armed Jugglers — the second bit an unintentional nod to his own condition. The condition afforded the singer the opportunity to reflect on his life and career. Perfect timing, really, as the Spin Doctors celebrate their 30th year of existence — a run that’s seen remarkably few lineup changes over the decades.

In an age of uncertainty, This Modern World has remained a rare consistent. For nearly 30 years, the strip has offered a staunchly leftist take on the week’s news, outlasting many of the world leaders its lampooned, along with most of the alternatively weeklies that carried it. Back in 2015, artist Tom Tomorrow celebrated the strip’s 25 anniversary with an ambitious Kickstarter-backed collection. The campaign far exceeded its initial goals, pulling in more than $300,000 — a number that required Tomorrow to get a tattoo of long-time mascot, Sparky the Penguin. These past few years, have proven a bit more of a struggle. The ascendence of Donald Trump has turned the world of political satire on its head, forcing the cartoonist and his ilk to rethink their approach to political comedy. Recently relocated to New York City, Tomorrow sat down to talk about keep the weekly strip fresh after nearly three decades.

A trip to India changed everything for Sonia Kreitzer. It’s the kind of cinematic-style quest for knowledge so many seek out and so few actually achieve. For the singer, who opted the stage name Doe Paoro, the trip came at the most vital of times. Struggling to make ends meet as a part-time singer and full-time waitress in New York, Kreitzer was attempting to make peace with her plan to throw in the towel on the music business. Faint singing in the distance, however, led her to study with a Tibetan vocal master, a style that would ultimately inform her future musical direction. Kreitzer sat down for a conversation about creativity, musical phases and the importance of mindfulness.

Eight albums into her career, Marissa Nadler is still discovering aspects of her musical life. For My Crimes finds the Boston-based musician fighting impulses to overthink and overdo. The metaphors and endless layers of music are stripped away for something that cuts even closer to quick.Of course, the ethereal melancholy that has defined much of her work is still present, and the the record finds her singing and picking her way through relationship difficulties and other universal struggles. Nadler’s voice has long been a confident one, but recent life events have found her rethinking her approach to life and art, from leaving a day job to rekindling a love of painting, while leaving other forms of expression behind.  I should note that I, on the other hand, am very clearly losing my voice during this conversation. Apologies in advance.

After that first breakup, the press tends to regard everything as a reunion show. As Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic are quick to note, however, The Get Up Kids have been around as long in their current iteration as they were the first go-round, at 10 years a piece. Reforming has clearly given the legendary emo band a second lease on life, however. This year, the group released Kicker, its fist album of material in seven years. The four-song EP finds them revitalized, and their live sets show no sign of flagging. The members live in different parts of the country, with family responsibilities — a far cry from their teenage beginnings in Kansas City. But the group clearly enjoys playing after all these years, and is already discussing the next record as we sit down bag stage at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City.

The van is running late. Never underestimate the traffic in from D.C. When Malka Spigel and Colin Newman do finally arrive, they’re both a bit wiped. Another late night on tour, getting in after last call, but the couple are both excited and slightly melancholy to play the final show of the tour. It’s Immersion’s first in the U.S., celebrating their first LP in a decade and a half. Spigel and Newman are clearly happy at the reception both the album and tour have received, even if it’s felt a bit like starting from scratch. After all, the mention of the pair’s other legendary bands Wire and Minimal Compact only go so far when it comes to filling venues. But with their son out of the house — as it happens, Spigel and Newman are also a married couple — the time is finally right to fully embrace a musical project that’s been on the back burner for quite some time. And the result is a sort of newfound energy musicians often lack later in their career.  Spigel and Newman sat down ahead of a show at Rough Trade in Brooklyn to discuss the project, touring and choosing musical passion over commercial success.

The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, three top 10 solo hits and one of the defining voices of his generation — but through it all, Michael McDonald has remained utterly humble. He didn’t feel he had the chops to make it as a full time studio musician, he tells me toward the beginning of our chat, so he sought a different path. Plan B gave the world “What a Fool Believes,” “I Keep Forgettin’,” “Takin’ it To the Streets” and “On My Own,” among others. Not too shabby, as far as those things go. Last year, McDonald returned to recording with his first album of original material in 17 years, following a fruitful run that found the singer releasing three covers records, largely drawing upon the Motown songbook. Wide Open arrived as the musician found new life breathed into his career, courtesy of the lovingly parodic web series Yacht Rock, alongside collaborations with a new generation of artists, including Thundercat, Grizzly Bear and Solange. McDonald wasted no time getting back into the studio this time around. This month, he’ll release his latest Christmas album, Season of Peace. The singer joined us for Episode 300 to discuss getting back into the studio, finding his voice as a songwriter and the sorry state of politics in 2018.