Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth discusses each and every song on his excellent new solo rock record, Electric Trim, which is available now via Mute Records. Sponsored by Pizza Trokadero, the Bookshelf, Planet Bean Coffee, Grandad’s Donuts, and Hello Fresh Canada.
William Tyler is a talented musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Known for his work in the bands Lambchop and Silver Jews, Tyler is also an accomplished solo artist and has released four critically-acclaimed albums. His latest is a gorgeous, instrumental record called Modern Country, which is steeped in familiar folk and rock structures but is also eerily expansive and hypnotic. Modern Country is out now via Merge Records and Tyler is playing a number of shows over the next few months, most of which find him opening for the Chicago band Wilco. Here, Tyler and I discuss how things are going in Nashville, the Country Music Association Festival and Bonnaroo, living in Nashville most of your life, Nash Vegas and what happens when your city grows, changes and WXNA, the world’s most talented music city, Harmony Korine is taking his talents to south beach, auditioning for Harmony and Budweiser, Dave Cloud and the Springwater and the Gospel of Power and losing local luminaries, getting older and the song “I’m Gonna Live Forever (If it Kills Me),” the notion behind Modern Country and its relation to America’s current political climate, media mediation and misinformation about different parts of the country you live in, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the illegal and fraudulent conduct of the Democratic National Party, the 2000 Presidential election, Hill feeling the Bern, what Trump is stirring up and people comparing him to Hitler, his platform as it relates to the Republican party’s platform, hatred and racism, projecting a landslide loss, the stigma of intellectualism and the rise of reality TV, hope and faith in the American people, Trump’s imperviousness to criticism, the RNC as imagined by Hunter S. Thompson and Fellini, conveying political thoughts and perspectives via instrumental music, musical intent, receiving external inspiration, the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor and Silver Jews and the Mountain Goats, working with David Berman, lyrics, Wooden Wand, John Darnielle, relating as much to mood as words in lyrics, modernism and archaism, emoji’s and hieroglyphs, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, less talk more rock, adapting to different situations, playing in bands and also not, jamming, the Grateful Dead, Glenn Kotche and Darin Gray, Glenn Jones and Jim O’Rourke and Sir Richard Bishop and John Fahey, O’Rourke deserves more credit, O’Rourke interviews and music recommendations, Glenn and Darin and Insignificance, coming to Canada, touring woes, quiet storm psychedelia, those Silver Jews rumours, pleading with David Berman to write again, the song “I’m Gonna Live Forever (If it Kills Me),” and that was it.
Related links: williamtyler.net mergerecords.com vishkhanna.com
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Nels Cline is an American multi-instrumentalist and one of the world’s most renowned and inventive guitar players. Best known these days as a member of the popular Chicago band Wilco, Cline has collaborated with hundreds of musicians, most often within the realm of jazz or improvised music, but also touching upon almost every music genre human beings currently comprehend. Near the beginning of this century, Cline started a new free jazz ensemble called the Nels Cline Singers, featuring drummer Scott Amendola, bassist Trevor Dunn, and percussionist Cyro Baptista, and to date, they’ve released six albums, including 2014’s Macroscope. The Nels Cline Singers are playing at Guelph, Ontario’s Hillside Festival during the weekend of July 24 and here, Nels and I discuss being back in New York City after playing Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival, MassMoCA and the state of Massachusetts, Chicago music festivals, 318 Canadian music festivals, catching up to Europe, music and social skills and community building, punishment, curating Solid Sound, Jeff Tweedy and Tony Margherita, the new Solid Sound documentary Every Other Summer, when the Nels Cline Singers get together to play, the expanded NCS, Marc Ribot’s open letter to Steve Albini about copyrighting art, the vague notion of making the latest NCS album Macroscope, the 1970s and high school, the Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, MIles Davis, Yuka Honda and Cibo Matto’s new record Hotel Valentine, playing in Cibo Matto, being a dad and not knowing or being able to do anything, proteck ya neck, a terrible nerve pinch, being there when ‘there’ is in Wilco, more people are coming out to see Nels play outside of Wilco these days, the Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofé, hearing classical Indian music in grade 10, hearing Jimi, an entire side of Ravi Shankar goes a long way, visiting India, touring modern, his guitar style or lack thereof, classical Indian sitar elements within his playing, various influences, drones, rising music stars and great younger guitarists, buying new CDs, Julian Lage, the forthcoming double-album of orchestrated ballads called Lovers that Nels has been working on for two decades, at least one of these ballads is by Sonic Youth, it should be out by January, working with John Zorn, new Singers stuff, scoring a new documentary about veteran suicide with Yuka, trying to guess how many records Nels has appeared on, new Wilco recordings and their state of completion, the Mack Avenue record label, the song “Respira,” and so the raga is over.
Related links: nelscline.com vishkhanna.com
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