Bandsplain

Primus, led by bass-slappin’ virtuoso Les Claypool, emerged from the Bay Area’s funk-punk-metal hybrid scene of the late 80s and 90s, to become a textbook cult band—you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Music journalist Christopher Weingarten makes the case for the true cult fandom of Primus and the oddball, arty genius of Les Claypool.

Follow Christopher Weingarten on Twitter @1000TimesYes and pick up his 33 ⅓ book on Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.

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Operation Ivy was likely your favorite band’s favorite band, and Corbett Redford, director of the documentary Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk, tells us why. These teenage pioneers of ska-inflected punk were a flagship band of Berkeley’s 924 Gilman scene in the mid 1980s, releasing only one full length that galvanized a scene and several generations of future punks.

Follow Corbett Redford on Twitter at @CorbettRedford and check out Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk.

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Pitchfork’s Quinn Moreland joins us to explain the reverberations of Jenny Lewis’s reign as the queen of 2000s indie rock with her band of Los Angeles darlings, Rilo Kiley.

Follow Quinn Moreland on Twitter at @quinnmoreland.

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We’re back with Cole Cuchna, host of Dissect and Key Notes, for Part 2 of Radiohead, starting from their revolutionary 2000 album Kid A through their continuing evolution both as a band and as individual artists. Steven Hyden, author of This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A and the Beginning of the 21st Century, also joins us for an examination of Kid A’s impact on music criticism and the album’s context within rock music history.

Follow Cole Cuchna on Twitter at @dissectpodcast and check out his podcasts Dissect and Key Notes, only on Spotify.

Follow Steven Hyden on Twitter @Steven_Hyden, and check out his podcasts Indiecast and 36 From the Vault. Find his book This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A and the Beginning of the 21st Century wherever fine books are sold.

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Cole Cuchna, host of Dissect and Key Notes, brings his keyboard to Bandsplain for Part 1 of our deep dive into the history, music theory, and immense, innovative impact Radiohead has had on music at large. Covering their first era, Cole and Yasi take us through the band’s Oxford origins, to how they grappled with and later defied Creep’s one-hit-wonder status, all the way up to their groundbreaking work on OK Computer. Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of Radiohead.

Follow Cole Cuchna on Twitter at @dissectpodcast and check out his podcasts Dissect and Key Notes, only on Spotify.

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Once again, Yasi and Producer Dylan take a little breather from the 60 page Google Docs and 5 hour episodes to answer your burning questions, including: the making of Bandsplain, what bands we’re listening to now, and why we haven’t done Guided By Voices yet. Special shout out to our Gen Z listeners who called in, you are very cool.

Check out the artists Yasi and Dylan recommended in this episode:

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A major figure in the cool girl canon, Liz Phair broke through Chicago’s indie rock scene (and its politics) with her seminal 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville, setting her off on a fearlessly confessional path of continual, defiant self-reinvention. Writer Niko Stratis talks with Yasi about Liz Phair’s bold songwriting and boundary-pushing across the worlds of provincial indie rock and chart-topping pop.

Follow Niko Stratis at @nikostratis.

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In honor of 3/11 day, we present to you: 311. Purveyors of positivity as well as amber-colored energies, 311’s extensive career gets a thorough and loving look from writer and known Excitable, Marty Sartini Garner.

Follow Marty Sartini Garner at @mrrrty.

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Songwriter laureate of Los Angeles Randy Newman gets explained by the Valley’s own Molly Lambert. Infinitely more prolific, and controversial, than his common image suggests as the “I Love LA” and Toy Story theme song guy, Molly takes Yasi on a tour of his extensive and complex oeuvre as Hollywood songman.

Follow Molly Lambert at @mollylambert.

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Sublime, the ultimate legacy band for stoner kids everywhere, get explained by return guest Jeff Weiss. Jeff joins Yasi to make the case on how Sublime’s Long Beach heritage and their of-its-time infusions of ska, punk, rock, and reggae made them a ubiquitous Southern Californian musical export, even after singer Bradley Newell’s passing in 1996.

Follow Jeff Weiss at @passionweiss and check out The LAnd magazine at @theLAndmagazine.

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