On today's episode, I talk to musician Joe Rainey. Originally from South Minneapolis, Joe is A member of the Red Lake Nation of Ojibwe people and began attending and singing at pow wows from an early age, as well as becoming a pow wow singing archivist. Eventually ending up in Wisconsin, Joe began guesting with different musicians, working with people like Alan Sparhawk of Low, Bon Iver, Chance the Rapper, among many others. This eventually led to his debut album Niineta, which he composed with producer and artist Andrew Broder and which was released at the end of May on Justin Vernon's label 37d03d! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to musician Shaun Fleming. Originally from Agoura Hills, CA, Shaun started out their creative life as a child voice actor on shows like Fillmore!, Kim Possible and Lilo & Stitch. As a musician though, they first started playing professionally as the touring drummer for the indie rock band Foxygen. Soon after, Shaun formed Diane Coffee as an outlet for their own music, and since then have recorded five albums and EPs, the latest of which, With People, was just released on Polyvinyl! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to comics writer Ryan North. Originally from Osgoode, Ontario, Ryan was on a path to a career in computational linguistics before a small webcomic he started, Dinosaur Comics, launched him in a somewhat different direction. Since then, he's become a New York Times-bestselling and Eisner Award-winning writer whose work includes the non-fiction book How To Invent Everything, the semi-fictional graphic novel adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and the so-far-fictional Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comic and podcast for Marvel. He's also written Adventure Time, Jughead, The Midas Flesh and many other comics as well, and his most recent work is another non-fiction book How To Take Over The World! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to composer and singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane. Originally from Venice Beach, California, Gabriel has been making albums for almost a decade and a half, starting with his self-titled album which was released on Family Records in 2008. Gabriel comes at much of his songwriting from a conceptual standpoint - on his 2014 album The Ambassador, he used ten addresses in LA to write songs from the perspectives of characters both real and imaginary, his 2018 album Book of Travelers was based on a cross-country train trip he took, and his first concert work Craigslistlieder set real Craisglist ads to music. In addition to his songwriting, Gabriel has also been commissioned to write dozens of pieces for orchestras, festivals and theaters, and his latest album Magnificent Bird was just released at the end of March on Nonesuch Records! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to Eisner Award-winning comics writer Kelly Thompson. After graduating with a degree in Sequential Art from The Savannah College of Art & Design, Kelly began her career as a novelist, penning two books in the early 20-teens, The Girl Who Would Be King and Storykiller. She soon began writing comics with some creator-owned series through Dark Horse and Boom, as well as on the IDW series Jem & The Holograms, among many others. This led to writing for Marvel, where she's written many critically acclaimed and well-loved books including Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Deadpool, Uncanny X-Men, Rogue & Gambit and Hawkeye, among many others! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to musicians Kathryn Calder and Mark Andrew Hamilton. Kathryn and Mark have been making music in different bands for years. Kathryn is a member of The New Pornographers, has released three albums under her own name and was in the indie pop group Immaculate Machine from 2003 to 2011. Similarly, Mark's primary band since the mid-aughts has been Woodpigeon, who have released over two dozen albums and EPs since their formation. After a chance meeting in the hallway of a recording studio, the two vowed to form a band together one day, and in the late 20-teens, they did just that! Their first self-titled album was released in 2018, and their latest Parade was just released last week on Oscar St. Records! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to rapper, academic and politician Mariah Parker AKA Linqua Franqa. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Mariah wears many hats. As an academic, they earned their master's in Linguistics at the University of Georgia in 2017 and are currently a doctoral student in Language and Literacy Education at the University. As an activist and politician, Mariah ran for and won county commissioner in District 2 of Athens, Georgia. And as a rapper, they've released two wonderful albums, Model Minority in 2018 and their latest Bellringer, which was just released on Ernest Jenning Record Co., and it's great! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to musician Carey Mercer. Originally from Okanagan, British Columbia, Carey formed the band Frog Eyes in the early 2000s out of the ashes of his former band Blue Pine. From 2003 until 2018, they wrote and released almost a dozen albums and EPs on labels like Absolutely Kosher and Dead Oceans. And in that time, Carey also released a number of solo albums, as well as with the supergroup Swan Lake featuring Destroyer's Dan Bejar and Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug. In 2018, Frog Eyes disbanded, but four years later they are back with a new album The Bees, which is out on Paper Bag Records, and as usual, it's fantastic! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to TV writer and actor Andrew Farmer. Originally from Florida, Andrew is a recipient of the 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant, and his work has been produced at The Museum of Modern Art, Ars Nova, Playwrights Horizons Downtown, Joe's Pub, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Walker Space, Theater Aspen and The Yale School of Drama. As a podcaster, he hosted the long-running Forever Dog podcast Scary Stories to Tell On the Pod, and as a TV writer, he's written for Miracle Workers and the forthcoming animated show Praise Petey. This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.

On today's episode, I talk to TV writer Dan Erickson. Originally from Olympia, Washington, Dan earned a Masters in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School before moving to LA where he worked a number of day jobs and journeyman writing jobs for places like Super Deluxe and things like Spike's Lip Sync Battle Pre-Show. In 2016, his hourlong pilot, Severance, became the first TV script ever included on The Bloodlist, an industry list of the best unproduced scripts. This led to a meeting with Ben Stiller's production company, and eventually the show Severance, which is easily one of the best of the last decade. Its first season on Apple TV+ is just wrapping up, and it's already been renewed for a second! This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter.