Welcome to Original Material. I’m Gemma Syme, and each episode I ask my favorite musicians to share three songs that blew their minds in high school, three words that described their teenage selves, and one track every young person needs to hear today.

Introducing Today’s Guest

Prepare yourselves, ladies. By popular demand, I am sitting down with the magnetic Tender Moonlight.

In this episode, we step back into a formative era of early internet exploration—from dial-up 56k Limewire downloads to deep-diving into international music forums like the Mars Volta chatrooms to crack the code of complex time signatures. We also discuss his deep, enduring love for the aggressive, uniform-wearing grindcore—including the story of how he ended up with a custom karaoke track for his favorite song. Plus, we look at his sudden pivot into the glossy, smoky, primary-colored world of 80s Italo-disco, and how a low-bitrate YouTube video completely birthed the "dad aesthetic" performance art of Tender Moonlight today.

Chapters:

0:00:00

00:01:24 What were three words that you would use to describe yourself as a teenager

00:04:03 How did you discover new music in high school?

00:07:06 Song #1: Sabot - "Tracking"

00:10:24 Song #2: The Locust - "Anything Jesus Can Do I Can Do Better"

00:14:11 Song #3: Roger Meno - "I Find The Way"

00:18:36 One song all teens today should hear: Just keep going. And go to your local record store.

Stream or buy the tracks featured in the podcast here: https://www.tunemymusic.com/share/jp2rFz6Afp

https://www.instagram.com/realtendermoonlight/

https://myspace.com/thanksforthename

https://instantfantasy.bandcamp.com/

https://www.sunreturn.co.nz/

This podcast is for educational purposes. Any opinions and all that jazz is the hosts only, and not their employers and such.

Created, recorded by Gemma Syme

Edited by Daif King