Apologue Podcast

Oakland power pop band The Goods return with Don’t Spoil the Fun, their first full-length album, arriving October 24th, 2025 via Dandy Boy Records. Written and produced by frontman Rob Good (Ryli) in his Oakland studio, the record captures the band’s signature mix of jangling guitars, big melodic hooks, and heartfelt songwriting. Joined by bassist Cherron Arens and guitarist Gabriel Monnot, Good channels the classic shimmer of The Byrds and Big Star with the energy of Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet - crafting songs that feel both familiar and fresh.

The album’s focus track and accompanying video, “Sunday Morning Out of the Blue,” also arrives October 24. It’s about the push and pull of trying to make a relationship work  -  the kind of argument that leaves you both worn out and closer at the same time. Built around bright guitars and melodic basslines, the song captures that uneasy calm after a fight, when things finally start to make sense again.

Across its eleven tracks, Don’t Spoil the Fun explores the search for love, connection, and meaning with warmth and empathy. “These songs were written over the last five years - some of them even pre-date our first EP,” says Good. “We recorded several versions before finally landing on something that felt right. This album is us leveling up our sound and finding our own style.”

From the chiming immediacy of lead single “April Fools” to the wistful reflection of “Remember,” the album moves fluidly between exuberant and introspective moods. “Photograph” memorializes a lost Oakland venue, The Golden Bull, where The Goods played their first show, while “Aurora” celebrates staying rooted instead of chasing dreams elsewhere. “Me and My Ghost” turns a song written for a friend into a self-reflection on solitude, and “Keep It Safe” closes the album with a gentle reminder to protect one’s mental health amid chaos.

With their blend of bright guitars, fuzz-drenched hooks, and honest storytelling, The Goods craft a record that balances classic influences with a distinctly modern heart. Don’t Spoil the Fun arrives October 24, 2025 on Dandy Boy Records.

D I S C O V E R

Bandcamp: https://dandyboyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dont-spoil-the-funInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_goods_musicYoutube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpoBK9seWqis1TndDBjI4vQSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2MPqTq6PBP2ZEWnNQEhVqB

Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

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Ugly Stick’s Absinthe returns in 2025 with a long overdue vinyl reissue, more than thirty years after its first appearance on CD in 1993. Formed in Delaware, Ohio in 1989, the four-piece carved out a sound that was equal parts Los Angeles punk and Midwestern heartland rock, drawing on the grit of X and the melodic punch of Tom Petty to create what critics would later hail as “genre-crossing” and “seminal.” Hovercraft Records has remastered the album and added bonus material from contemporaneous live shows and unreleased studio sessions, marking the record’s first-ever release on LP and digital platforms.

Steeped in the small towns and shrinking industrial landscapes of Middle America, Ugly Stick were uniquely positioned to capture the tension of that moment in time. Their cow-punk attack carried both the edge of beer-soaked garage nihilism and the expressiveness of roots rock filtered through a landscape of carnival posters, endless farm fields, and collapsing barns. As Columbus Alive once wrote, Absinthe was “the bedrock of the Cowtown sound,” establishing Ugly Stick as central figures in a movement that defined the Columbus scene of the early ’90s.

The record’s remastered release only underscores how prescient the band was. “Their mix of punk, college rock and alt-country was years ahead of its time,” noted Daggerzine. Exclaim! observed that “straddling the line between genres is never an easy task but with Ugly Stick’s talent and experience the results have rarely been so rewarding.” From the ragged twang to the jangly guitars, the band’s ability to transform punk and rockabilly into something original drew international praise, with Belgium’s Rootstime calling them “pioneers of a genre and a sound which was baptized as the Columbus sound.”Photo Credit: Amy Rathbone

UGLY STICK  ONLINE

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Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

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Toronto’s pop-punk powerhouse The Mendozaz are set to unleash their most ambitious and hilarious work to date, the eight-song concept EP The Completely Fictional History of This Great Nation of Canada, out November 3 on Cartridge Heart. Fronted by guitarist-vocalist Jonny alongside Michael on vocals and bass and Dic on drums, The Mendozaz have carved their name into Toronto’s punk scene with relentless touring, wild live shows, and anthems built for gang shouts, beer spills, and grinning through the chaos. They’ve long been known for wrapping sharp hooks in self-aware humor, but on this record they go bigger, faster, and louder, with a clear mission to turn every basement, bar, and festival stage into a frenzy.

The EP is bookended by a pair of songs so preposterously profane that reinforcements were needed. Members of Joan Smith and the Jane Does and The Meringues were brought in to provide extra fuel for the f-bombs. All songs were written by The Mendozaz and recorded between This Place Needs A Name and Arc Recording Studio by Matt Gauthier (Handheld, Wasting Time), who also handled mixing and mastering. The result captures the reckless charm of their live show while pushing their storytelling and arrangements into sharper, stranger, and funnier territory.

The accompanying video-single “A Piercing Shriek of Death” sets the tone perfectly. “This was the first song written for this record,” says Jonny. “It’s based on a very-true Canadian legend that we made up about an expedition of ice fishers being eaten alive by a school of great white sharks near Hudson Bay. I had an old recording of an instrumental jam we did six or seven years ago that I really liked. I channeled my inner Serj and came up with something unlike anything we’ve ever done. When recording the demo our engineer almost fell out of his chair laughing during the blood curdling scream. He’s okay (I think). I needed to be authentic while channeling the plight of the victims of this totally-legit horrible tragedy. Thoughts and prayers.” It’s a mix of heavy riffs, absurd humor, and unflinching commitment that defines the EP as a whole.THE MENDOZAZ ONLINE

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Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

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Today the Band Pretty joins me on the show. Pretty is “psychedelic without all the flower-sniffing.” They combine fuzz, clang, synthesizers,heavy grooves and lots of glitter to create a sound that is equal parts danceable, whimsical andbrutal. Fresh off a tour of the United Kingdom, Pretty is making their return to Canada yourproblem as well as theirs. In Toronto, Pretty has opened for the Brian Jonestown Massacre, theBudos Band, Ghost Funk Orchestra and Improvement Movement, among others.

Photo credit: Max Chu

Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

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Welcome to Episode 400!! Dave Hill is a comedian, writer, musician, actor, radio host, and man-about-town originally from Cleveland, Ohio but now living in New York City in a totally sweet apartment with a party deck and everything. Hot chicks come over to hang out and eat cheese plates and stuff with him all the time and it’s awesome.

Anyway, on the show business front, Dave has appeared on Netflix’s The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Adult Swim's Joe Pera Talks with You Amazon’s The Tick, Peacock TV's Girls5Eva, Comedy Central’s @midnight and Inside Amy Schumer programs, TBS' Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, TV Land's The Jim Gaffigan Show, and TruTV's Comedy Knockout among a bunch of others. He is a frequent on-air host for HBO and Cinemax and has been on channels like MTV, VH1, BBC-America, and the Sundance Channel a whole bunch too. Dave also starred in his own television program The King of Miami on the Mojo Network, which was cancelled even though Dave really liked it. The show also aired in the United Kingdom on Sky TV’s Film24 Channel. And you can still watch The King of Miami on Hulu too, which Dave is super pumped about. Oh, and Dave was a correspondent on Hoppus on Music starring Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus on the Fuse channel, which ruled. Dave has been on other shows and in obscure movies too but let’s keep moving for now.

Dave performs live comedy over the world and has appeared at such festivals as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, SXSW, San Francisco Sketchfest, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Sasquatch Festival, Bumbershoot, Bonnaroo, the Bridgetown Comedy Festival in Portland, the Crap Comedy Festival in Oslo, Outside Lands in San Francisco, and then some other ones too. He has also performed comedy at Sing Sing Correctional Facility twice and even ripped some guitar solos inside a Mexican prison a couple times too. In 2007, Variety magazine named Dave one of their “10 Comedians to Watch,” something he still won’t shut up about. Some things are hard to let go of.

Dave hosted his own radio show The Goddamn Dave Hill Show on WFMU in Jersey City, New Jersey every Monday night from 9pm to midnight for years and now hosts the podcast Dave Hill's Podcasting Incident, which is also broadcast on the UK's Fubar Radio, So...You're Canadian with Dave Hill, and History Fluffer, on which he is joined by Jim Biederman, Jodi Lennon, and Chris Gersbeck. Dave is also a frequent contributor to public radio’s Live from Here with Chris Thile and  This American Life. He has also appeared on podcasts like WTF with Marc Maron, The Adam Carolla Show, The Nerdist, and then roughly 78 other ones besides those.

Dave is the author of four books, including his brand new book The Awesome Game: One Man's Incredible, Globe-Crushing Hockey Odyssey, in addition to Parking the Moose (Doubleday Canada/Penguin Random House 2019), Tasteful Nudes (St. Martins Press, 2012) and Dave Hill Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Blue Rider Press 2016). He has also written for the New York Times, GQ, Salon, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, New York Observer, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, VICE, Guitar World, and a bunch of other places too. Comedy legend Dick Cavett called Dave “a major figure among American comic writers, past and present,” which is pretty much the coolest thing that has ever happened as far as Dave is concerned.

Dave is also a musician who currently sings and plays guitar in the power pop band Valley Lodge, whose song “Go” is the theme song to HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and the psych/garage rock band Painted Doll. He was also a member of Cleveland rock bands Sons of Elvis and Cobra Verde as well as Diamondsnake, a heavy metal band with Moby. Additionally, Dave has played guitar for Walter Schreifels and muscle metal band Thor and bass for Lucy Wainwright Roche and former Faith No More singer Chuck Mosley. He also contributed musical scores to films such as Dirty Deeds, Shoot First and Pray You Live, and then some other ones besides those two.

Additionally, Dave’s mostly imaginary Norwegian Black Metal Band Witch Taint is currently bringing its own disturbing brand of comedy and music to audiences all over the world after having existed merely as an absurb email chain for over a decade. They’ve also sold a lot of T-shirts.

Dave has made out with a lot of chicks, is sweet at guitar, and smells really great. You can ask anyone.

Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

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Seattle four-piece APPALOOSA return September 4 with “Get It Together, Kid,” a bouncy, bittersweet blast of femme-led power pop. Rooted in punk grit and dressed in glam shimmer, the track showcases the band’s knack for tight arrangements, melodic punch, and emotional clarity. Their past releases have drawn praise from underground staples like Maximum Rocknroll and Razorcake, and “Get It Together, Kid” captures the same raw charm with a sharper melodic edge.

APPALOOSA began when singer and guitarist Erica Rose moved back to Seattle after six years in NYC’s punk and indie scenes. Just as she was preparing to start a family, she also began writing the songs that would become APPALOOSA. “I was pregnant with twins and couldn’t stop writing,” she says. “I knew exactly what I wanted this to be: melodic, loud, emotional, and real.” With Leif Anders on lead guitar, Kevin Voss on bass, and Ian Sides on drums, the group quickly locked in, combining raw energy with power pop precision and a garage-born sense of urgency.

“Get It Together, Kid” started out as something completely different. “It was five minutes long at first, more of a ballad,” says Rose. “But once we started playing it together, it wanted to be fast. It wanted to move.” The final version clocks in under three minutes. It is catchy, kinetic, and lyrically rich, exploring the strange contradictions of growing up and trying to hold it all together. “It’s about the ambiguity of being ‘mature,’” Rose says. “Whatever that means.”

APPALOOSA ONLINE

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Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

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Friendly Rich is a composer from Brampton, Canada.  Mr. Rich has composed background music for 3 seasons of MTV's The Tom Green Show.   Since 1994, he has recorded exclusively for his own eclectic record label, The Pumpkin Pie Corporation, and in Europe more recently by Hazelwood Records. Rich just completed his PhD in Music Education from the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Lee Bartel.  His doctoral research was on musical playgrounds as a vehicle for community development.

Friendly Rich’s music has brought his toured to New York, Montreal, Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig, and Prague.  In early 2008, Friendly’s music was released in Europe by Hazelwood Records, and the Lollipop People successfully toured there every year since then, playing such festivals as the Fusion Festival in Germany and the Balkan Fever Festival and Danube Festival in Vienna.  He has also presented The Lollipop People at several Canadian festivals including Guelph Jazz Festival, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Halifax Jazz Festival, Newfoundland Music on the Rocks and at the Western Front in Vancouver. 

Over the years, The Lollipop People have performed alongside such artists as Of Montreal, The Tiger Lillies, Trevor Dunn, and Amanda Palmer.      

Friendly Rich’s is set to release a new studio recording, Man Out of Time on the label, We Are Busy Bodies in 2023 followed by a European and Canadian tour.

Things are busy with Friendly Rich and The Pumpkin Pie Corporation, but as Friendly says, “one can either produce, or become produce”.  

Photo Credit - Jim Tobin

D I S C O V E RWebsite: http://www.friendlyrich.comBandcamp: https://friendlyrich.bandcamp.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/friendlyrichFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/friendlyrichTwitter: https://twitter.com/Friendly_RichYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/friendlyrichSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1SWneDpUI2N0Bz46xl1cg5?si=zo59VzLcR9mAZr6F_m9ksg

Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

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Johnny Nails “Savor The Blood” will be fully available to you August 20th, 2025. It was a long time in the making and it’s been done for some time so I’m happy to see it coming out to the world. It was built and recorded during the middle of the pandemic. The songs, sounds, and vibes were influenced by anxiety and insanity but I hope the love pours through to you. 

I am an artist that thrives on studio energy. Did it feel good? Keep it. Was it perfect? Who cares?! But when you have a crew like I do first takes are THE TAKES sometimes. “Taking Tea with Crowley” (Side A) was TAKE #1!!! Much to some of our chagrin at first, but I think we are happy with it in the end. I knew it at the last note though it was the one and I can’t imagine it any different now. The album is full of these energies. The subject matter is all over the place. Light and dark. Fuck you. I love you. Goodbye. Hello. You’re a psychopath and it takes one to know one. 

Thank you to the amazing Andy King on Drums, Aldo Galatioto on guitars, Mike Sparks on Bass, Billy Stover on keys, Matt Bayles on engineering and mixing, and mastering by Ed Brooks. We all had our part in making this record what it is and I am super proud of the noises we ended up now sharing with the world. Truly one of my happiest times in the studio with this group of people. 

Thank you to my dear homie Radjaw for the radical album art, and Monique Robert for making us comfortable in front of the camera. 

Thank you to my current band: Mike Sparks, Billy Stover, Gregg Anderson, Jeff Grant for making the songs come ALIVE. 

The vinyl is now shipping so please purchase one on the Johnny Nails bandcamp link in the bio to show your support for indie labels and artists! 

D I S C O V E R

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Lillian King’s debut album In Your Long Shadow arrives October 24th via Pronounced Kroog, with its first advance single “Tiber Creek” landing August 26th. Written shortly after the passing of her father, “Tiber Creek” offers a haunting glimpse into the album’s emotional landscape, transforming a simple walk across Washington, D.C. into something expansive and meditative. Her father’s ritual walks to the hospital along the National Mall, past memorials, monuments, and the invisible flow of Tiber Creek buried beneath the city, anchor the song’s vivid imagery. Lillian’s voice, warm and mournful, carries a quiet intensity through every line, reflecting on place, memory, and the way certain moments linger long after everything else changes.

“Tiber Creek” also marks the beginning of Lillian’s collaboration with Spencer Krug, whose indie rock resume needs little introduction—Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Moonface. Krug, who rarely steps outside his own projects, connected deeply with Lillian’s stripped-back performances while on tour together in 2024. Signing her to his label, Pronounced Kroog, was instinctive. That rare co-sign lends weight here, but Lillian’s voice carries the story, elevated by her bandmates Robert Salazar (drums) and Nick DePrey (keys), with producer Jack Henry shaping the soundscape.

The track leans into mood more than spectacle: dusty drums, upright bass, and creaky piano lines swirl around Lillian’s singular vocal tone. The arrangement leaves room for quiet moments to land, capturing the bittersweet ache of mid-winter reflection. This is indie-folk at its most elemental, echoing the timelessness of Bill Callahan or Sharon Van Etten, but with a wind-whipped edge that’s entirely Lillian’s.

Photo Credit: Kirsten Southwell

LILLIAN KING ONLINE

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Kelowna, BC  -  The Cavernous, a heavy psychedelic electronic duo from Kelowna, BC, are releasing their most unconventional project yet: Please Hold, a full-length concept album only accessible by calling a toll-free number. The album dropped July 28, 2025.

Dial 1-877-420-9159 and you won’t find a streaming link - you’ll be placed in a surreal hold sequence filled with lo-fi beats, ambient textures, dissonant soundscapes, and cryptic automated messages. It’s an experience equal parts soothing, uncanny, and existential.

While Please Hold is only available in full via phone, the lead single “Guile” will be released on major streaming platforms with an official video, offering a glimpse into the project’s eerie, immersive world. Built around a shifting tapestry of paranoia and tension, “Guile”showcases The Cavernous’ ability to blur the line between unsettling and sublime.

Known for their wall-of-synths setup and experimental ethos, The Cavernous (Rob McLaren and Jesse Barrette) draw sonic inspiration from HEALTH, Nine Inch Nails, and Mogwai’s electronic works. Please Hold pushes that further, weaving together washed-out electronica, eerie downtempo, and progressive synth odysseys into a nonlinear meditation on death, vulnerability, and the fractured calm of modern life.

Created over the winter of 2022–23, Please Hold was born out of asynchronous collaboration. McLaren leaned into the slow, liminal quality of looping improvisations, inspired by ambient comfort and the strange stillness of lo-fi music. Barrette added unpredictable rhythmic complexity, like the rare 15/8 time signature on “Quinze,” and sonic oddities - glass bottle percussion, banjo-synth hybrids, and distorted field recordings. Tracks like “Vitric” unfolds like a synthesizer-led funeral march, written the same week McLaren’s cousin and closest childhood friend was found after going missing.

The album’s narrative turns hauntingly personal as it progresses. In “Lo-finite,” an automated operator breaks the fourth wall, reminding listeners that they, too, are on borrowed time. Please Hold lulls the listener into a false sense of security before pulling the rug out, one dial tone at a time.

“It started as a joke about hold music,” says McLaren. “Then it became a meditation on death.”

Please Hold isn’t just an album - it’s a call you won’t forget.

To experience the album, dial:

📞 1-877-420-9159

D I S C O V E R

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@thecavernous6344?si=jfAPcVd7axGwMoFYTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_cavernous?_t=ZM-8sY59HmBumz&_r=1Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecavernous?igsh=MXRkdGw3dDVhZTZvbA==Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2kRWGmNlKFQ5ZRP1o1uHEa?si=oqTiyxNPQmKYuo7FCzI5mgFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063588158575&mibextid=ZbWKwLBandcamp:https://thecavernous.bandcamp.com/

Checkout my YouTube Channel with long form interviews from the Subversives | the History of Lowest of the Low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuxFWKuRdmn9j8UTW6AHwS_fAlso my Weekly Tour Vlog is up an live on the YouTubeshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9d1VSeOHYuwphwhc4zd0VgY66f1OUQZp

Pledge monthly with Patreon https://www.patreon.com/apologueShop Apologue products at http://apologue.ca/shopCheck out new Four Square Here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/foursquare/brighton-beach-ephttps://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/foursquare/seven-oh-sevenhttps://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/foursquare/industry-at-home--21st-anniversary-remix-remasteredhttps://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/foursquare/when-weeks-were-weekends