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(*both laugh*) officially kicked off in April 2020. Since we were all going to be in lockdown for the foreseeable future, we wanted to take some time to focus on bands who'd had plans cut short due to the ever-changing world. As quarantine continued, our focus shifted to catching up with people that were doing fun and inspiring things to stay connected - and busy - during lockdown. New music, new books, new podcasts, and myriad other projects. We initially started doing interviews over Instagram Live because it added an interesting, unpredictable component, but sometimes, predictability is actually a good thing, so we've switched to Zoom. However, that's allowed us to capture the audio too and upload them here. Behold...the (*both laugh*) Quarantine Chats podcast.
Episodes
Monday Dec 13, 2021
Monday Dec 13, 2021
This particular episode was a long time coming, for a variety of reasons. Josh Freese has had the type of career - and has the type of personality - that has made me want to interview him for a lot longer than I've had the capacity to actually conduct interviews. He might have played with everyone from Sting to Guns 'N' Roses to Nine Inch Nails to The Offspring to Dweezil Zappa to Juliana Hatfield to Kelly Clarkson, but if you've been involved in the punk rock scene at all for the last three decades, he's still Josh from The Vandals. Or, for a small number of us, Josh from Viva Death.
Anyway, Josh just put out a new solo album, "Just A Minute: Vol. 1" - it was written and recorded from his home studio during quarantine. It's twenty songs in, you guessed it, twenty minutes, and it was released on Loosegroove Records, a label owned by Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and Brad's Regan Hagar. It's wild: some of the songs are expertly crafted and fully thought-out punk rock songs and some of them sound almost like the descent into madness that a lot of us experienced when locked in our houses for an indeterminate amount of time.
We cover a lot of ground over the course of 75 or so minutes: Danny Elfman, The Vandals, Stone Gossard and Pearl Jam, living in Long Beach, playing with Sting, Queens Of The Stone Age, setting up a home recording studio a decade ago and actually finding the time to use it during a pandemic, and a lot more. We also talked, obviously, about "Just A Minute: Vol. 1" and probably spent more time talking about "Just A Minute: Vol. 2," which should hopefully be out during the spring of '22.
Buy "Just A Minute: Vol. 1" on vinyl: https://shop.thehardtimes.net/products/josh-freese-just-a-minute-vol-1-neon-coralvinyl?_pos=1&_sid=8d3887eea&_ss=r
Buy other Josh Freese merch, like stickers and pins and t-shirts and plaid shorts and a guitar: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JoshFreeseGoods
"Just A Minute: Vol. 1" Videos:
"Heavy Metal Car Collection" - https://youtu.be/GpaSvkwDTrU
"The Dwarves And The Queens" - https://youtu.be/ShnXbZDetyw
Follow Josh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshfreese/
(*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021
Wednesday Dec 08, 2021
(*both laugh*) Episode 48: The Return of Josh Caterer (Smoking Popes)
Wednesday Dec 08, 2021
Wednesday Dec 08, 2021
The good ship (*both laugh*) keeps sailing along with our 48th episode, and it features one of our only repeat guests to date. He's the owner of one of my favorite voices in the pantheon of punk rock, and he's also one of my favorite songwriters and one of, in my opinion, the most underrated guitar players in the scene. A triple threat!
Anyway, he's the inimitable Josh Caterer, and if you remember back at the beginning of 2021, we chatted about what was to be his first solo release, The Hideout Sessions. It was an album recorded in front of a live stream online audience at an otherwise empty club in Chicago, and it marked the first real appearance of any sort by this particular project, which featured Caterer on guitar and vocals, John Perrin on drums and John San Juan on bass.
To mark the release of that album this spring, the band played an album release show, but because all of the clubs were still closed to the public, they did it via live stream and recorded it as an album...AGAIN! If you're keeping score at home, that makes not one but TWO live albums recorded before actually playing a show in front of an in-person, human audience. The result of that latter show is The SPACE Sessions, due out next week (December 17th) on Pravda Records. It was recorded at - you guessed it - at SPACE in Evanston, Illinois, and like The Hideout Sessions, it features an interesting mix of songs from Caterer's catalog (via Smoking Popes and, yes, Duvall!!!) and some standards that you might otherwise think of as from the big band era, because they were popularized by the likes of Judy Garland and Sammy Davis Jr. and Elvis Presley and, in the case of "At Last," which happens to be my wedding song...Etta James.
The set also closes with Caterer being joined on vocals by his daughter, Phoebe, for an updated take on "Somethin' Stupid," popularized by Frank Sinatra and his own daughter, Nancy. If been even tangentially aware of the punk scene over the course of the last three decades, you're of course aware of a legion of bands that have covered songs from outside the typical punk rock milieu, but they've done them with a fair amount of tongue planted firmly in cheek, as in "oh, isn't it funny/ironic that we're playing this song this way!" Sometimes it works great and sometimes it's a gag that tires after the first few listens, much like a comedy album. What's different about the old standards that Caterer et al., take on is the appreciation that the band has for the source material, paying considerable homage in their modern retellings.
Anyway, I'm rambling (I know, right?)...if you liked The Hideout Sessions, you'll love the SPACE Sessions. I'll add pre-order links when they're available (it'll be available digitally and on CD next weekend but the vinyl will have to wait until...who knows, honestly. Friggin' Adele...).
Catch the Josh Caterer Trio (along with the Sunshine Boys) live and in person:
December 16th at SPACE in Evanston, IL
December 17th at The Lyric Room in Green Bay, WI
December 18th at the Back Room at Colectivo in Milwaukee, WI
https://joshcaterer.bandcamp.com/music
(*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021
Wednesday Dec 01, 2021
(*both laugh*) Episode 47: Jesse Ahern!
Wednesday Dec 01, 2021
Wednesday Dec 01, 2021
Boston-area Americana-punk troubadour Jesse Ahern has shared stages with everyone from Dropkick Murphys to Rancid to Frank Turner to Lenny Lashley and countless others both across the US and across Europe. At long last, he finally sits down with us for a chat about his new album, "Heartache and Love." The album grew out of sessions that popped up during the pandemic when what had been some pretty expansive 2020 tour plans ground to a halt. The album both refines and expands upon the sort of roots-rock-meets-folk-punk thing that Ahern has been doing so well for years now. It helped earn Ahern a Boston Music Award nomination for Americana Artist Of The Year, where he's up against some local heavy hitters like Mark Erelli and Lila Wiles and Lashley himself.
At first glance, it might seem that Ahern would fit into a handful of other categories, from Singer-Songwriter of the Year to Punk/Hardcore or Rock or Folk or even Blues Artist of the Year...but maybe that's what makes Ahern so perfect for the Americana label, because his sound is an amalgam of all of the above, all of which make him an artist rooted in classic American working-class music.
As you might imagine based on the almost 90-minute length of our chat, we cover a lot of ground, from parenting three children during a pandemic, to touring Europe with Dropkick Murphys and Frank Turner, to his upcoming overseas run with Chuck Ragan and Chris Cresswell, to growing up in the Boston area music scene, to the struggles with addiction and the depths of the recovery community in the punk scene. We also talk quite a bit about Lenny Lashley, because he's a one-of-a-kind.
Check out Ahern's website here: https://www.jesseahern.com/
Order "Heartache & Love" here: https://www.jesseahern.com/store
Watch the video for "Just A Moment" here: https://youtu.be/CJFlBaypUME
Watch the video for "Lost In This World" here: https://youtu.be/4ebNhULQ3E4
(*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021
Friday Nov 19, 2021
Friday Nov 19, 2021
Despite having a career that has consisted of more than three decades of writing and recording and playing music professionally in bands like Rancid and the Old Firm Casuals and Stomper 98 and Last Resort and Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards and Oxley's Midnight Runners and probably more that I'm forgetting, next Friday (November 26th if you're keeping track) marks the release date for the inimitable Frederiksen's debut release as a solo artist. The album is called "To Victory" and it'll be released on Pirates Press Records (and yes, physical copies of the vinyl version do exist!) and it features reworked versions of a half-dozen tracks that span Frederiksen's entire career arc as both a music fan and a music maker. Fear not, fans off Frederiksen's particular style of aggressive songwriting; this solo release doesn't see him abandoning his street punk roots for a beard and a flannel and a campfire acoustic guitar. It's still raw and aggressive, yet the stripped down version of a song like "Motherland" or "Skunx" finds the lyrics resonating on a much more personal level. We were lucky enough to have a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation with Frederiksen about all things "To Victory," from the initial batch of several dozen songs that were proposed, to playing his first show as a true solo artist, to the sort of shifts in perspective and priorities that come from going through a divorce and the death of his mother and finding a new partner and turning 50 all in the span of a couple of years...a span that included a global pandemic that forced the shutdown of the entire music industry for the foreseeable future.
Lars Frederiksen "To Victory" music videos:
"Skunx" - https://youtu.be/vJ-JHDHQD9Q
"God And Guns" - https://youtu.be/B7UvBZE_RS4
"Army Of Zombies" - https://youtu.be/qsO0ANtKpjM
Order "To Victory" here: https://shop.piratespressrecords.com/products/lars-frederiksen-to-victory-12-ep-cd-cassette
More Lars merch: https://kingsroadmerch.com/lars-frederiksen/
Follow "Lahz's Lockah" on Instagram to catch when he sells some of his personal memorabilia...could be old records, could be wrestling action figures, could be old pants...you never know: https://www.instagram.com/lahzs_lockah/
Check out the Wrestling Perspective Podcast that features Lars, two former MLB All Stars Jason Kendall and Dmitri Young, 4x Stanley Cup champ Darren McCarty, Impact Wrestling's Petey Williams and Dennis Farrell: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJXIX4REmMnNkqVTIaohL6Q/featured
(*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021
Friday Nov 12, 2021
Friday Nov 12, 2021
Welcome back, (*both laugh*) fans! We took a little hiatus there for a few but we're back in action.
For episode 45, we caught up with Sonia Sturino of the kick ass trio known as Weakened Friends. They're due to put out their sophomore full-length, "Quitter," on November 19th and let me tell you...it's a great one! We talked an awful lot about the band pushing themselves on this record (which was produced by the band's bass player, Annie Hoffman, and engineered by Hoffman and their drummer, Adam Hand) in ways that they hadn't quite before. We also talked about being on tour in March 2020 as the world was shutting down, and getting back out on the road last month in the, I guess we're calling it, "new normal." Oh, and we definitely talked about The Tragically Hip (a band I've quite honestly never knowingly heard) and Our Lady Peace (a band that I've definitely heard and enjoyed for years) and about how cool a record label Don Giovanni is and lots more stuff as well (like our mutual pal Adam Parshall, who is an amazing concert photographer...hi Adam!).
This was a lot of fun and everyone should check out "Quitter" ASAP and go catch Weakened Friends on the road with The Beths early next year!
-Pre-order "Quitter" from Don Giovanni Records here: https://www.dongiovannirecords.com/store
-...or find it on their Bandcamp page here: https://weakenedfriends.bandcamp.com/
-Visit Weakened Friends' website here: https://www.weakenedfriends.com/
-Theme song as always is "Hurts To Laugh" by the lovely and talented Kali Masi. from their 2021 release [laughs].
Thursday Aug 19, 2021
Thursday Aug 19, 2021
Franz Nicolay has had a long and winding and frankly vaudevillian journey through the music industry over the two-plus decades since he left our shared home state of New Hampshire. Dying Scene readers from the days of yore no doubt are familiar with the #1 accordion player in punk rock (it's true, Connor checked: https://dyingscene.com/heroes-of-the-punk-accordion-a-tribute-to-squeezebox-rockers/) through solo work or his stints in The Hold Steady and The World/Inferno Friendship Society and Against Me! and perhaps Anti-Social Music and maybe Guignol and probably from collaborations with countless beloved acts like Jeff Rosenstock and The Loved Ones and Frank Turner and Junior Battles and more.
A few years ago, he published a fascinating nonfiction book, "The Humourless Laties of Border Control: Touring The Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar." It's an incredibly detailed and dense look at DIY touring through large chucks of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia and the like. At long last, Nicolay is set to release his debut novel. It's called "Someone Should Pay For Your Pain," and it's finally due out next week (August 24th) through Gibson Press, and let me tell you: it's wonderful. It centers around a character named Rudy Pauver.
Originally from Wisconsin, Pauver finds his way to the DIY punk mecca that was late 90s Gainesville and joins a band and, when they goes belly up for a variety of reasons, he continues to ply his wares as a solo artist/troubadour for the better part of the next two decades. There is a cast of characters that includes former bandmates and former proteges-turned-megastars and crotchedy bartenders and condescending soundguys and a next-generation punk rock niece. If you've been in a band or been even loosely tied to a scene, you know these people and these places and these roads and these dive bar floor tiles and these mattresses in the corner at the local flophouse. It's real and it's relatable and it's a sort of book about what happens after the "coming of age" stuff gets old.
For a musician who dabbles in writing - Franz can craft a hell of a novel.
Purchase "Someone Should Pay For Your Pain" here: https://bookshop.org/books/someone-should-pay-for-your-pain/9781948721134
Visit Franz' website here: https://franznicolay.com/
Wednesday Aug 11, 2021
(*both laugh*) Episode 43: Suzi Moon!!
Wednesday Aug 11, 2021
Wednesday Aug 11, 2021
Suzi Moon has been an active member of the punk rock scene for well more than half her life, so you might expect that she would have used the free time provided by unplanned COVID-related shutdowns over the last 18 months to pause and catch her breath. You'd be sorely mistaken, however. After years of playing in a band with her sister (Civet, obviously) and taking filmmaking classes and starting a new band, Turbulent Hearts, and playing bass in a new band that flamed out rather unceremoniously last year (L.A. Machina), Moon stepped out on her own for real. She put out an EP, "Call The Shots," earlier this year under her own name with the help of Pirates PRess Records. She self-produced and directed music videos for each of the three songs on "Call The Shots." She's also got another ten songs already recorded for a full-length, and is going back in to the studio in the coming days to record another brand new EP. She's got a full backing band of fellow scene vets (Drew Champion and Sean Peterson of The Split Second on guitar and drums respectively, Patti Bo from River City Rebels on bass) that are slated to play their first shows, including Camp Punksylvania, in a couple of weeks - delta variant be damed. We caught up with Moon to talk about all of that and more. Stay tuned for updates on new material and new videos soon!
Suzi Moon Videos:
"Special Place In Hell" - https://youtu.be/g7ReC6k16UI
"I'm Not A Man" - https://youtu.be/K9NyEBVO6lw
"Nuthin' To Me" - https://youtu.be/5-rwDjyPU94
"Call The Shots" is sold out on vinyl and you can't have mine, but you can get it digitally here: https://suzimoon.bandcamp.com
Intro Music as always: "Hurts To Laugh" by Kali Masi. Find us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts if you prefer not watching my ugly mug yakking away on screen!
Wednesday Jul 28, 2021
Wednesday Jul 28, 2021
If you've watched previous episodes of (*both laugh*) or if you've heard me guest on other podcasts or if you know me personally, you know that Pearl Jam has been a huge part of my musical journey. "Ten," which turns thirty years old this time next month, struck at exactly the right time in my formative years. The shockwave is still being felt, to say the least. Pearl Jam were very honestly the band that really ushered in my love of punk rock, in part through their very public love of bands like Dead Kennedys and Bad Religion and Social D and Dead Boys and obviously The Clash and Ramones. As I one-time aspiring bass player, it was Jeff Ament whose style got me to buy my first bass when I was a teenager (an Alvarez Dana bass, if you're interested).
I've not only followed Pearl Jam far and wide over the last three decades, but I've followed Jeff's solo career and side projects (Three Fish, Tres Mts., RNDM, etc) along the way. His songs are always intricate and textured and unique and pull from a variety of influences. Next month, Ament will release a new solo full length. Entitled "I Should Be Outside," it was written and recorded entirely during COVID-related quarantine. But it's also not the only material he's put out during this time, as it follows last year's blistering "American Death Squad" EP and a new project called Deaf Charlie that features Fitz and the Tantrums' John Wicks on drums.
This was immensely entertaining and meaningful for me, and I hope that came across. I was lucky enough to meet Jeff once in passing at an RNDM show on a snowy November night in Boston (there's a picture of that meeting in the intro and over my right shoulder during our chat here) and I thought that was one of the coolest things that had ever happened to me that didn't involve marriage or the birth of my kid. This was cooler. Thanks Jeff. And yes, don't worry Pearl Jam fans...we talked a lot about PJ and songwriting history and all the "how the sausage is made" stuff!
Jeff Ament - "I Hear Ya" video: https://youtu.be/8g0YYt13Ir8
Jeff Ament new solo album pre-order: https://shop.pearljam.com/collections/music/products/2021-ament-i-hear-ya-b-w-bandwidth-7
Montana Pool Service info: https://montanapoolservice.com/
Deaf Charlie (Jeff Ament and John Wick): - "Something Real" video: https://youtu.be/BrKlmL4gNeA
Jeff Ament as American Death Squad: https://youtu.be/jWfzwf2dDyg
Deranged Diction (Jeff's early hardcore band): https://youtu.be/IHmwk3f6n0E
Intro Music as always: "Hurts To Laugh" by Kali Masi.
Monday Jul 05, 2021
(*both laugh*) Episode 41: Nate Cook from The Yawpers!
Monday Jul 05, 2021
Monday Jul 05, 2021
For Episode 41 of (*both laugh*), we caught up with Nate Cook from The Yawpers for a quick hitter about his upcoming bike ride from New York to Los Angeles. Yes, you read that right...beginning on the 4th of July, Nate Cook from The Yawpers (whose 2019 Bloodshot Records release Human Question is still in heavy rotation in this house) is cycling from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
Cook took up cycling early in the pandemic, and last summer he embarked on a 700-mile ride from Denver to Tulsa as a fundraiser for the Sweet Relief Musician's Fund. For this year's ride, dubbed Go West, Aging Man (or GxAx for short), Cook decided to go bigger, since he figures he'll be on tour every summer going forward. Two months. NY to LA. A few shows along the way. All on a bicycle, and all for Sweet Relief again.
As an added bonus, GxAx has added another rider this year. Badass singer/drummer Liliana Urbain is going west to east via a more northern route; she left Washington State a couple weeks ago and is presently in Montana with her sights set on Portland, Maine! As a semi-avid road cyclist, I cannot even comprehend how hard that is (particularly given the all-time high temps lately).
Find out more about Nate's ride here: https://gxaxride.com/
Help fund the ride here: https://gxaxride.com/gxax-store
Follow along with Liliana Urbain here: https://www.instagram.com/lilurbain/
Follow along with Nate here: https://www.instagram.com/theyawpers/
Find out more about Sweet Relief here: https://www.sweetrelief.org/
New (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021
Friday Jun 25, 2021
(*both laugh*) Episode 40: Chachy from Round Eye! (Shanghai freak-punk)
Friday Jun 25, 2021
Friday Jun 25, 2021
For episode 40 of (*both laugh*), we went international again, this time catching up with Chachy Englund from Shanghai-based freak punk band Round Eye. The present incarnation of the band features ex-pats from three different countries (the US, Italy and Ireland), and are slated to officially release the physical version of their latest album, Culture Shock Treatment, via Sudden Death Records post haste (the digital release was handled last year by Paper + Plastick). And if you order the album (check the link below), there's a very realistic chance that it'll be in your grubby little paws WAY before anyone from the band actually sees it themselves.
Such is the way of the world when you're doing the punk rock thing under the watchful eye of the CCP. We covered a lot of ground with Chachy - literally and figuratively, and he's got a fascinating first-hand perspective on the COVID outbreak (and subsequent mismanagement), making a record with the iconic Mike Watt (and having it mixed by the equally iconic Bill Stevenson), the state of international touring, and the rigors of touring mainland China as a band of outsiders...and trying to return once you've toured outside the motherland. It's a fascinating chat if I do say so myself. Wonder if Chachy and his bandmates will actually get to watch it!
Listen to "Culture Shock Treatment" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAUJEO_cvLImm5GjmVH_BJg
View the videos:
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlJlHXa8Bi8
Smokestack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l945vbCN64
Red Crimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylZEoffVO0w
New (*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021