Shanked with a Partyknife

Dan Magers comes on the show and shanks us with his Partyknife. It’s a loving shank, though, and marks the first time ever that Talus, Or Scree tackles the topic of Civil Engineering. You know you want to get shanked, too.

 

 

A Song for Our Grandfathers

Jay, Patrick, and Pookahantas chat about one of the many things they have in common: the fact that they all had asshole grandfathers and wrote something as a result.

 

Being Michael Benedikt: A Conversation with John Gallaher

We have a chat with John Gallaher, who is undertaking the great endeavor of editing and selecting Michael Benedikt‘s Selected Poems, culling from his first five (published) books and the brief case of papers currently in his possession. John’s enthusiasm for this project is infectious. We certainly caught the fever. We hope you do, too. Go have a listen! And be sure to keep up on this project, as the book will have a home and hungry audience soon.

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Occasion for Conversation with Jerry DeCicca of The Black Swans

Occasion for Song cover

Jerry DeCicca of The Black Swans

We talk with Jerry DeCicca, songwriter, singer, and acoustic guitarist for The Black Swans, about their forthcoming album Occasion for Song, out on Misra Records. We also touch on their previous albums, like this one, this one, and this one. But, Jerry wears many hats. For one, the top hat he dons as Dr. Silverfoot, his balloon animal making alter-ego. He’s also produced some great albums with such songwriters as Larry John Wilson, Bob Martin, and Ed Askew. This work, in turn, lead to collaborations with Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Ed Askew himself. But that’s not all. Jerry is also at work on a book that compiles narratives from obscure American singer-songwriters, which also reflects on his life as an American singer-songwriter. The episode opens with a cut off the new album and closes with one off their previous album, Don’t Blame the Stars. Settle in and give a listen, both on record and in conversation. He’s a great fella doing a lot of interesting work. Buy an album, see a show, spread the word!

Note: We had intended this episode to go up on July 2, 2012. Unfortunately, a derecho struck our Central Virginia office and took power with it.

Transgression and Ruin: A Conversation with Jake Hinkson

Jake “Hardboiled Hillbilly” Hinkson returns to the show to talk about his debut novel Hell on Church Street, in which, as Steve Shadow Schwartz writes, Hinkson “stunningly limns the dichotomy between true faith and religous hucksterism while tossing in  sociopathic behavior so that his book becomes a cautionary tale rife with sly humor, lust, and self-delusion.” We’ve been heaping praise on Jake’s first novel in our own private conversations, and now on the podcast, but we’re not alone. Read other reviews here, here, and elsewhere on the interwebs.

Marcus Villano delivers us an Aging Cheerleader in response, partly, to our previous episode with Joe Bussard.

We send you home with a Pookahontas original, “The Final Torch Song.”

Also, we have a YouTube Channel!

Check out our friend Stephen Usery’s interview with Jake as well.

The Poetry & Cruelty Hotline, Vol. 3

We send National Poetry Month out like a lamb on the walk of shame with a third installment of The Poetry & Cruelty Hotline, featuring Betsy Wheeler, Dara Wier, Jane Lewty, Andrew Durbin, Sandra Lim, Nate Slawson, Dora Malech, Daniel Khalastchi, Jacob Saenz, Louise Mathias, John Gallaher, and Matt Zambito. We had a GarageBand crash and lost seven of these guests. We were able to retake six of them. Sadly, we couldn’t get Ben Fama back in to the studio in time. Our apologies to him, and the others who had to hear our voices a second time. Look for more from Ben Fama in the future, though. We’ll be running this feature again next April, but stick around for more of our irregularly scheduled program the rest of the year. Spread the word!

The Poetry & Cruelty Hotline, Vol. 2

After a brief remembrance for Levon Helm, we open the lines back up for more poetry & cruelty! This installment features Lily Brown, Joesph Mains, Donald Dunbar, Brian Foley, Dorothea Lasky, Ashley Toliver, Stephen Danos, Claire Becker, Dolly Lemke, and Lisa Ciccarello. We hope you like pee stories. Levon sings us home.

*Note: Dorothea Lasky’s poem first appeared in Tin House. All journals where poems on our show first appeared, to the best of our knowledge, are linked on the side under “Sites.”

The Poetry & Cruelty Hotline

In honor of National Poetry Month, we decided to open the Poetry & Cruelty Hotline. Poets call in, read us a poem, and then tell us the cruelest thing they’ve ever done or had done to them. We originally thought NaPoMo was in April because of the first line of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” but we were wrong. That’s ok. We’re wrong often.

But we’re right about hearing poems and cruelties from Elisa Gabbert, Eric Baus, Andrea Rexilius, Kelly Forsythe, Bill Carty, Hafizah Geter, Catherine Pierce, Camille Rankine, and Arda Collins.

This is the first installment. There are two cruel weeks left. More poems and cruelty coming!

And here’s this, too.

Is Collective Soul on Myspace?

We’re back in the saddle again! On this brief episode we pitch a new television channel. It’s a bit of an inverse Comedy Central. It’s called Tragedy Central. Melvyn Brown sings us a classic from the deep, glistening cave that is Glen Frey‘s oeuvre. Not enough for you, dear listeners? Well, don’t worry. Pookahontas sews it all up with a gem from a little band called Sugar Ray. But that’s not all. Sadly, our Aging Cheerleader, Marcus Villano, recently sent his stereo receiver to the other side. There’s more, of course, as there always is when he digs into his sonic memory chest. Take a listen. And get comfortable. We’re back at you with regularity, here to stroke you softly to a place of ease you never before thought existed. As they say, “tune in, turn on, tune in again.”

Down in the Basement with Joe Bussard

Download this episode on iTunes.

As you probably know from our previous post, it’s long been a dream of ours to meet Joe Bussard and hang out in his basement, which houses, among many other treasures, 15-16,00 rare 78rpm records. From Robert Johnson’s famed “Crossroad Blues” to rare recordings of authentic Cuban music to radio skits, Joe has it all. He also has the most Black Patti records of anyone in the world. As for the trip, well, it’s just about all here in this episode. Once you descend the stairs to the basement and Joe hits play, time stops. It’s disorienting in the best sense of the word. On the ride back to Jay’s house, it took us over an hour before we could communicate with each other again. We hope that comes through in this episode. Aside from letting us hear music that could have been lost forever, Joe had us in stitches with his stories of record hunting, pirate radioing, playing shows with the likes of Bill Monroe, and, well, we’ll save the rest for the episode. We had a helluva lot of fun, and hope you do, too.

As for the music you hear, well, it’s quite hard to keep track of what’s spinning, be it the record or your head. Joe drops the needle, the song ends, and he’s gone in a flash to grab the next, bringing you a soundtrack purely by association from record to record, all of which are categorized in a way only he knows. It’s not alphabetical, that much we know. How he does it we’ll never know. Still, we’ve done our best to put together a rough track list of what you hear as it’s played.

“Gospel Plow” by Patrick’s niece Abby

Theme song

“California Desert Blues” by Lane Hardin

“Crossroad Blues” by Robert Johnson

“The Wagoner’s Lad” by Buell Kazee

“A Mountain Boy Makes his First Record” by Buell Kazee

“Election Day in Kentucky” by Goods Box Whittlers (Buell Kazee and others)

A selection of songs from Joe’s record label Fonotone Records.

We know that we heard “Big Legged Mama” and “Tennessee Drag” by Ted Kreh (who plays under the name Milo Way sometimes)

We also heard songs from Jolly Joe’s Jugband, Bluegrass Travelers, and more.

Many of these songs were gathered in this box set.

Joe’s “Ethnic Stuff”

Joe takes us out by playing his Martin guitar, using a screwdriver as a slide.

Thank you, Joe.

Listen to Joe Bussard’s Country Classics on iTunes.

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