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Ep. #122: Heather O’Neill

Heather O’Neill is a talented and provocative novelist based in Montreal. Her first book was the celebrated Lullabies for Little Criminals, which won Canada Reads in 2007 and the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her latest novel is The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, which was published by HarperCollins Canada this past April and tells the compelling story of a pair of directionless fraternal twins in Montreal, Noushcka and Nicolas Tremblay, who live in the shadow of their has-been folk-singer of a neglectful father and bare certain emotional scars as a result. Young Quebecois coming of age in 1995, they are separatists on one hand, but unwitting sovereignists on the other. Their creator is bringing their story with her as a participating author at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, where she’ll read on Sunday September 14. Here, Heather and I discuss how to pronounce Nicolas, why it’s difficult to describe what The Girl Who Was Saturday Night is about, the magic in the mundane, having an amicable break-up with a book you wrote, separatism, separating, and needing people you need to get away from, establishing boundaries to become your own person, why we’re reading this world from Noushcka’s perspective, what this book might say about the separatism/sovereignty debate, class divides, promiscuous has-been folk-singer daddy issues, embittered former child stars, Raphael the sexy bad boy, fame might be a drag, people who think authors are their characters, how Heather relates to her characters, how Quebec today relates to Quebec of the mid-1990s, how a teacher’s encouragement drew Heather to write a story about shrinking machines and a cockroach, needing to write, delving into creative non-fiction and how it intertwines with a novel like The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, the political folk music of Montreal that’s conjured in this book via Etienne Tremblay, Heather’s thoughts on film treatments of her works, Wes Anderson and The Royal Tenenbaums, her forthcoming book of short stories Dear Piglet out this spring, writing more than one story at a time, what Heather will be doing at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, @lethal_heroine, weird turns, and the end.

Related links: harpercollins.ca twitter.com/lethal_heroine vishkhanna.com

heatheroneill

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Ep. #121: Dave Ullrich of Zunior & The Inbreds

Dave Ullrich is the founder of Zunior.com, one of the world’s first digital distribution services for independent music, which celebrates its tenth anniversary with various enterprises, including a new tribute album by Tony Dekker and a big festival at Sandbanks Provincial Park on Sept. 13. He was also a founding member of the excellent indie-rock band the Inbreds. Here, Dave and I discuss Allen’s Pub on the Danforth in Toronto, Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip and the Inbreds, growing up in Oshawa but making the Inbreds in Kingston, hiding your Oshawa, k-os rapping upside down, Cuff the Duke owning Oshawa, my pilgrimage to Mike O’Neill’s childhood home and memories of that episode, playing cover songs at an O’Neill Collegiate Vocational Institute battle of the bands in an outfit called the Fresh Steaming Turds, the forgettable U2, I know the R.E.M. discography pretty well apparently, loving Zeppelin and Bonzo, why the complexity and fury of punk is often equated with simplicity and rudimentary playing, sincerity in music, Proboscis Funkstone Records, the rise of cassettes, the riff-y, fingerpicking early days, luck + preparedness = success, these are the breaks, I challenge you to dislike the Inbreds, Lewis Melville, Rheostatics, Guelph, when the Inbreds turned down a Foo Fighters tour opening slot to break up, sneaking low-profile records to Dave Bookman who got them to superstars, angering the Tea Party while Foo Fighters munched on KD, a circuitous route to scooping the White Stripes, starting the prescient Zunior.com digital music delivery service 10 years ago, vinyl sales and holding a piece of wood, leveraging the spirit of indie-rock computing, Zunior platinum, the top 10 moments in the history of Zunior, suprising Rheostatics, the Zune, solar power, Egger plays live, Peanuts, Boxing Day, patron saint Stuart McLean, making commercials with Scott Cudmore and Martin Tielli, the joy of the label and Wax Mannequin, getting into e-books and working with rock writer Martin Popoff, predicting the future for music consumption, flirting with Rdio and musical curation and discovery, vinyl might have a cost ceiling, major labels are like cockroaches, the new Tony Dekker Sings 10 Years of Zunior album and how it came to be, the Zunior 10th anniversary show in Sandbanks Provincial Park in Prince Edward County on Sept. 13, the song “At the Airport” by Old Man Luedecke, and then it’s the right time to say goodbye.

Related links: zunior.com inbreds.com vishkhanna.com

inbreds

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Ep. #120: Steve Albini

Steve Albini is a world-renowned recording engineer and the owner and one operator of the stellar Electrical Audio recording facility in Chicago, Illinois. He is also one of three singers and one of one electric guitarists in Shellac, one of the most significant and influential underground rock bands of the past 25 years. On September 16, Touch and Go Records will release Dude Incredible, the fifth official album by Shellac. Here, Steve and I chat about a cool Chicago July and the Polar Vortex revival, his recent interview with High Times who care a lot about drugs, how smoking weed is a young man’s game, how certain things should be experienced by all of us who wish to relate to everyone else, the last time he tripped balls, rolling fatties, Kevin Goldstein and getting the royal treatment at a recent White Sox/Astros game in Chicago, meeting Steve Sparks and talking about knuckleballers, living in Houston, being on-field for batting practice, the Cubs are really embarrassing statistically and otherwise, Wrigley Field is cool but Sox games are more fun, the Steve Bartman incident, baseball and curses, National League versus American League baseball, when he first fell in love with baseball as a kid, the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970s, why baseball might be the most appealing, compelling, and distinctive major team sport, pulling the goalie, participating in events like the World Series of Poker, welcome back Gabe Kaplan, why poker can be so engaging, oddly complex games like baduci, winning, tells in poker versus the dramatic arts, interpreting behaviour, reverse psychology, and pantomime, the honesty of Jamie Gold, streakiness, the significance of the Ramones, laughing at the Clash, the Jesus Lizard’s BOOK, David Yow and cats that demand respect, Gary the cat, making At Action Park 20 years ago, taking time with Shellac, the Shellac albums don’t need to be remastered, why Shellac haven’t released singles in a while, contemplating a Shellac singles compilation album, a one word encapsulation of every song on Dude Incredible with a slight elaboration on that one word, the Evens, his upcoming Pop Montreal speaking engagement, recording symposium with Howard Bilerman, and a cooking exhibition, making a record in Winnipeg this fall, and that’s the end of radio/podcasting.

Related links: touchandgorecords.com electricalaudio.com vishkhanna.com

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