We also have a super-special, bonus interview with Tony Rolando; founder of the pioneering modular manufacturing company, Make Noise.

It is required listening for anyone interested in the industry of modular synthesis, both the current exemplar of independent music manufacturing and experimental music:

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Moogfest — the 4-day festival celebrating electronic and experimental music in Durham, NC — wants attendees to be intelligent music consumers. Unlike your typical mega-festival, which attempts to numb the minds of audiences with a roster of market-tested, unprovocative mainstream acts, it provides an event where music is contextualized in culture and framed by dynamic discussion, self reflection, and collaboration.

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Last year, we found ourselves smitten with Moogfest; the 4-day, Durham-based, electronic music-centric festival. So it is without hesitation that we (your host, Lindsay Hogan and synth-literate contributor Alex Tebeleff) made plans to return and report on this year’s festival. But before we dive into the avant-garde sets, artist lectures, activist workshops, and tech installation that define Moogfest, we wanted to have a conversation about the 2018 lineup, our most anticipated shows, and the changes and challenges the festival faces this year.

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In this episode of Talking Like a Jerk, I invite back my panel of journalists — Bryce Rudow and Marcus Dowling — to discuss the disruptions, for both artists and listeners, caused by the dominance of Spotify and other music streaming services.

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The music journalist with integrity is a modern rarity beset by obstacles: the slow death of their industry, defensive hostility from artists, and the easy temptation to lower their standards in the name of potential virality.

So, for this episode, I invited prolific writer Marcus Dowling and RN Editor-in-Chief Bryce Rudow to join me in choosing a recently-published piece of music journalism/writing that either exemplifies the under-appreciated diligence of talented music writers orexposes the journalistic flops and cheap editorials that get published in our current era of hyperbolic clickbait and media commodification:

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Late December and early January have become so plagued with excess retrospections and perfectly-adequate "best of" lists no music fan could possibly keep up with them all. Thus, the Talking Like a Jerk braintrust (Editor-in-Chief Bryce Rudow and I) decided to let our personal 2017 superlatives cool on the rack for a bit before yanking them out of the hype oven.

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In Part Two, we lighten up, keep it musical and eclectic, and share our favorite artists, songs, and live shows from the past year in the 202:

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In Part One, we discuss the daunting challenges to making art in this city in 2017, including the recent changes to DC’s media landscape, fluctuating audience engagement, and the struggle to provide responsible context for the city’s musical past and present:

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In the 21 years since Pitchfork’s launch, the Chicago-based music website has crafted itself into an essential outlet for criticism (and discovery) of independent music. Forging their own style of editorial authenticity through overly-passionate and often irreverent reviews of your favorite band — and eventually branching out into the curation of music festivals, coverage of mainstream artists, and the publication of more diverse music-related content — its influence has grown exponentially, to the point that it was brought under the Condé Nast media empire back in 2015.

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Immediately after LCD Soundsystem announced their rumored yet ultimately unexpected return in early 2016, the Random Nerds dance-punk braintrust — composed of Editor-in-Chief Bryce Rudow, contributing writer and editor Justin McCarthy, and I — wrote passionately about the emotions and consequences their reunion yielded. But now, after 18 months of festival headlining shows, sold out Brooklyn gigs, and quietly growing skepticism from critics and audiences, we finally have a new album: american dream.

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