Fluxpod

This episode features Chris Ott, a music writer best known for his Shallow Rewards videos and podcasts and his 33 1/3 book about Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures. We go deep on a lot of topics including music gear, CDs, online music communities, and IRL scenes.  Also, be sure to check out the new episode of Junk Filter where I talk about Steely Dan with the host Jesse Hawken! 

This episode features Heather Havrilesky, the author of the Ask Polly and Ask Molly advice columns as well as the books What If This Were Enough? and How To Be A Person In The World. We spend a bit of time at the top talking about observations on generational differences before jumping into the main event – judging the advice given in various hit songs from the 60s up to the recent past. You might be surprised by some of the judgments but I can guarantee you there’s some solid wisdom in this episode.

This episode features the musicians Matthew E. White and Lonnie Holley. In this conversation we talk about their new collaborative album Broken Mirror, A Selfie Reflection, which was inspired by early '70s jazz fusion, specifically Miles Davis' classic On the Corner. We also discuss White's company Spacebomb, which is a studio/label/artist management company mostly servicing artists in Richmond, Virginia, as well as Holley's long history as an artist and musician, and the unusual process that resulted in the new record. 

This episode features Larry Fitzmaurice, a veteran music critic who recently launched an excellent newsletter called Last Donut of the Night. This conversation is largely focused on music media - both independent, like Fluxblog and Last Donut, and our experiences working for corporate publications that are now largely driven by metrics and social media trends. We talk about what we like about doing things on our own, and what we think the broader media needs to do to break out of its creative doldrums and move away from the often poisonous cultures of the companies.

In this special episode of Fluxpod I am joined by Molly O’Brien and Chris Wade from And Introducing for a symposium on the topic of PARTY ROCKING. We define the concept of party rocking, explore its aesthetics, consider its origins, and ponder its social and political implications. We talk a lot about LMFAO –  the foremost icons of party rocking – and digress into discussions of the “hot couch guy” archetype and the power of “uncle magic.”

This episode features John Norris, a veteran music journalist who has written for a wide range of publications but is best known for his work at MTV News for two decades. In this conversation we talk about the trajectory of MTV News through his tenure there, discuss recent documentaries about Britney Spears and 6ix9ine, and get into issues of ageism in media. Along the way we digress into anecdotes of some of his firsthand experiences with Spears, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Manson, Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain, and Ariel Pink, as well as being the guy who had to go on TRL to break bad news to the youth of America.

This episode features AV Club writer Tatiana Tenreyro. We talk about all the songs on a playlist of indie songs from 2011 that she made, including artists such as M83, Fleet Foxes, Florence and the Machine, Girls, The Black Keys, The Arctic Monkeys, Lana Del Rey, Vivian Girls, Cold War Kids, Panda Bear, and The Horrors. A stroll down indie memory lane! 

This episode features Trevor Beaulieu of the podcast Champagne Sharks. This is pretty much a freeform conversation that gets into a lot of different topics – media, comics, blogging, aging with music, record stores, SPIN magazine in the ‘90s, how bad Gen X can be about wokeness, forgettable 2000s rock bands, Eminem's music aging badly, etc. FYI, the majority of the music breaks in this episode are from the new Madlib album Sound Ancestors.

This episode features the journalist Abraham Riesman, author of the new Stan Lee biography True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee. We spend a lot of the full episode talking about the book and his history with Marvel Comics, but in this (rather generous) preview segment we talk about Stephen Malkmus, Beck, Kiki & Herb, and how coming out as bisexual in his early 30s shifted his relationship with some music. For the full episode, hit up the Fluxblog Patreon. 

This episode features Norman Brannon, who is best known as the guitarist for Texas Is The Reason and New End Original, but has also had careers as a writer, educator, TV presenter, and real estate agent. A lot of this episode is about following a muse through different stages of artistic pursuits and careers, the way being in a successful band when you're young is very similar to being a child star, and the creative ideals that have driven Norman's art. This episode also gets into his struggles with depression, his connection to queer culture, and the ways the recent past is quite similar to the 1980s. You can a lot of find Norman's writing about music, including a three-part essay about his experiences in the emo scene, on Talkhouse.