The DR & the DJ

This week’s guest is Guy Maddison. Guy is not only the multi-band, multi-instrumentalist bass player for the mighty Mudhoney, he's worked as a registered nurse at Seattle's Harborview Medical center for the past 20 years. At the height of the pandemic, Guy was re-assigned to Covid-19 management duties that ran the gamut from initial patient testing to overall staff safety. Guy takes us through the stress & adversity the hospital had to maneuver through the pandemic & why their work is truly a team effort. John, Amy & Guy also discuss the difficulties nursing in a pandemic had on his personal life, both with family, & his second love, Rock n Roll.

We open this episode with two stories from the car. First, John hits the wall of frustration in traffic after all but one of his routes home is blocked off by either a broken bridge, a draw bridge or road maintenance. Luckily, Amy is in the car with him to talk him down & show him the light to stressless driving. Second, John & Amy share their separate experiences in dealing with, witnessing, & committing.... roadkill. 

John & Amy have a friend who's a Monk. Find out why they call him the "rebel monk" & what's its like to have him & 11 fellow monks at the house for a 4-day visit. Amy shares her view on forgiveness & how the "& both" philosophy can help us find empathy & joy in life. 

 As always, John & Amy remind us that We're Not Alone. 

This weeks featured music is Mudhoney & The Bricklane. Theme song Micheal Lerner. 

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Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

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Today's Prescription is for new music because discovering new music is a life-saving activity. Think of all the music that's yet to be made. Think of all the shows you've yet to attend. Think of all the words that have yet to be sung or spoken that may speak to you. 

 The first thing I want to prescribe is the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.

This 8-piece brass ensemble consists of eight sons of the jazz trumpeter Phil Cohran (CORE-IN). Their music style ranges from hip hop to jazz & funk. They call it "Hypnotic NOW music." As brothers growing up, they would have rehearsals in their living room where they would wake up every day at 6am & play their horns before school. They got their name performing in train stations for daily commuters. They were called "hypnotic," & that's where that came from. Their new release is called "This is a Mindfulness Drill" & this track "Soon it will be fire" featuring Moses Sumney may just be my favorite song so far this year. 

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 The next artist I want you to listen to every day is Ambar Lucid & her new EP "Get Lost in the Music." Ambar who was born in NJ to a Dominican Mother & Mexican Father started singing at the age of 5, she is totally self-taught on piano, guitar, & Ukulele. Left high school for LA to pursue music & sings in both English & in Spanish. The title track is one OF the jams of the summer. It’s a nod to 60's psychedelica with a push for self-love & empowerment & its catchy as hell.

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 Your third remedy for a lack of discovery is Amythyst Kiah (KEE-AH). She's just released her debut album "Wary & Strange." A mix of roots & old time music, she also performed as a member of Our Native Daughters (who by the way is someone you should look up). Black Myself earned a Grammy nomination for best American roots song & won song of the year at the Folk Alliance International Awards. 

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 That's three out of a thousand I could recommend to you. Start there & stay close to the DR&DJ podcast. You can also follow me on Instagram @Djjohnrichards to keep up with me & these other 997 artists I didn't have time to mention here. Also follow us @thedrandthedj & send us questions & comments, we'd love to hear from you!

-John

The DR & the DJ

Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

Get on John’s Record Club List for all the best vinyl recommendations and community events.  

Let’s talk about human connection.

 It’s no surprise that the global pandemic has created an opportunity for a large percentage of the population to live in isolation. This includes those living alone & those living with others. In both cases, we have been cut off from regular interactions with many people whether strangers or those we love. People are lonelier than they have ever been.

 Though many of the precautions & stay home orders may have been necessary to keep us safe from a contagious & deadly virus all year, it hasn’t been without emotional consequence.

 Isolation increases loneliness & loneliness has been proven to increase all-cause mortality in a population. When we think of all-cause mortality, we think of things like blood pressure or smoking, but we don’t think of the lack of human connection as a contributing factor.

 Research has proven time & time again that we heal better & faster when we have community. When we have human connection.

 Humans need connection & I’d argue that it is as fundamental to our survival as food, water & shelter. We need each other. We need our flock, our herd, our pack.

When we are faced with a solution to our health struggles… a clear path to wellness, & we don’t seem to get well, despite there being an adequate treatment protocol, research has discovered that the top reasons for this involve trauma, lack of support- whether economically or socially, being fearful of change (even if for the better), and also a lack of purpose in life. Those who have a clear purpose, plenty of support economically & socially & a willingness to change, tend to heal up faster.

 Our culture continues to focus on individuality & personal uniqueness. While I would say this is important for people to find their personal truth & do everything they can to be true to themselves as a path to health, we also need to acknowledge that we barely can exist without each other. Fundamentally our brains are wired to work as a group.

Feeling connected to other human beings engages our parasympathetic nervous system. It helps us feel safe. It engages the part of our nervous system we use for digesting food, resting & even mating or having sex. It is fundamental to health & healing. When we don’t feel connected to other humans we often do not feel safe & instead feel a need to flee, escape, or even fight. This is our sympathetic or “fight or flight” nervous system engaged.

 Here’s something we can do to see how strong & flexible our nervous system is:

 Place two fingers on your pulse- either your carotid pulse in your neck or your radial pulse at your wrist. Take a deep breath in. Hold for 2 seconds, then exhale slowly, not forcing the air out. Did your heart rate increase when you inhaled? It should’ve. Did it decrease substantially when you exhaled? If the variation between the two is more pronounced, the more flexible our nervous system is. In other words, the more we can switch between perceived danger or actual danger & actual safety & human connection.

 Feeling disconnected? Maybe just start by listening to your favorite song. What do the lyrics say? What about the song makes you feel connected? Remember, someone wrote that song. Another human being. Part of your pack. Reach out to someone you love. Let them know you love them. They may need the connection as much as you do. And finally, find one thing you can do daily to find human connection. Maybe it’s 10 minutes of playing with your child, or a walk with your spouse, or maybe it’s finding that 3rd place- somewhere to hang out & connect to people that is not where you live or where you work. One step at a time.

 You are not alone. 

Amy

The DR & the DJ

Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

Get on John’s Record Club List for all the best vinyl recommendations and community events.  

This weeks guest is CEO of Sub Pop records & good friend of John & Amy, Megan Jasper. Megan tells us how she landed in Seattle & at Sub Pop in the late 1980's. John & Amy & Megan discuss sexism in the music industry, the importance of exercise in dealing with grief & the role passion plays in keeping a small business afloat for over 30 years. Megan also tells us  why pets of all shapes & sizes have brought great pleasure to her life.

This episode opens with Johns experience of how a simple errand across town can turn into a vomity & bloody Seinfeldian experience. Amy gives us her perspective on diet culture, how it specifically targets women, & how changing the conversation from calorie counting to nourishment is a healthier option for personal nutrition. 
 
This weeks featured music is by Chai.   Their new record Wink is out now on Sub Pop Records.  
 
As always, John & Amy remind us that We're Not Alone. 

https://thedrandthedj.com/

Music by Chai. Theme song by Micheal Lerner.
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Today's prescription is for new music to discover. 

When I have been at my lowest of lows & needed something to keep me going, new music has always been a life saver. I can't imagine not waking up & discovering a new band or a new song nearly every day. I think about that live show I might miss or the telling of a friend about an amazing band or in my case, playing it on the show.  

I want to alert you to three new things you might not know about, all very different, all very new. The first one is from France, they are called "La Femme." They have been around since 2010, releasing their first album in 2013. Their music has been described as synthetic & hypnotic, mixing coldwave, punk, dance & pulling from musical influences from Velvet Underground to Kraftwerk. Their third album Paradigmes, introduces them to an international audience & this song "Divine Creature" is one of my favorites.

 The second one is Indianapolis band "Karate, Guns and Tanning.” First off, one of the weirdest band names which means one of the better band names out there, this band you can't tie down to one genre. Its goth, its riot grrrl at times, it’s got a 80s vibe at others & at the heart of it is energy with empowering lyrics & a record that is a fun ride start to finish. Here's the song "BadLands" from their "Concrete Bleach" Album. Dave Lingquest of Pattern Magazine describes their music as "enough attitude ammunition to suggest its the lost soundtrack to the 1994 film "Natural Born Killers"

 The last one is Italian shoegaze band "New Candys.” Hailing from Venice, this band may be new to you but they've been making music since 2008. Described as dark modern rock n roll, fans of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or Ride or the Jesus & Mary Chain will LOVE their new record "Vyyvd".  Here's my favorite off the new record, "Twin Mime."

That's three things you should track down right now & as we see what a world without live music is & how much we rely on music to get us through tough times, if you want to support bands go to their bandcamp pages & support them more.  Streaming is fine but backing these bands is how they keep making music & YOU keep discovering it. - John, The DR & the DJ

John & Amy open this episode with a few ridiculous stories of wedding ring mishaps. We also get their view on the symbolism of a wedding ring & what to do with a ring from a past relationship.

This week’s guest is Nicole McNichols, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the University of Washington Department of Psychology where she teaches The Diversity of Human Sexuality. Nicole tells us why & how she found herself teaching one of the universities most popular courses & why sex education is important for all stages of life. John Amy & Nicole discuss the significance of touch & physical connection & why it may be more important than ever. They also talk about the role that pornography & BDSM can play in sexual health & how sexual stereotypes permeate purity & pop culture. Amy tells us how masturbation is a healthy facet to a relationship, how stress can reduce our libido. This weeks featured music is by Spirit Award from their record Lunatic House.

As always, John & Amy remind us that We're Not Alone.

The DR & the DJ 

Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

Get on John’s Record Club List for all the best vinyl recommendations and community events.  

This week on Amy’s B-sides to Health we talk about the bugs we live with. There are over one million bugs that live on & in us! This includes bacteria, fungi, protozoa & viruses. Ever heard of E.coli? You've probably heard of it in a negative way, such as food contamination. We have E. coli that live in our colon! So long as the E. coli is in the colon we are good! If it makes its way to the urinary tract.... hello Urinary tract infection! If it makes its way into the blood... NOT GOOD.

In this episode, we focus on the bugs in our gut. The bugs that live in our digestive tract. This is called our gut microbiome. Having a diverse & balanced microbiome is key to health! It influences nutrient absorption, & thus nutrient deficiencies, the state of our immune system, food intolerances, & even autoimmune disorders! Scientists are finding that autoimmune diseases are highly influenced by our gut microbiome & in fact they are finding evidence that the gut microbiome may have more influence on autoimmune diseases than DNA! This is still being researched.

So what happens if we don't have a diverse & balanced microbiome in our gut? This leads to dysbiosis. Our immune system is not functioning well, our autoimmune disorders flare, we can develop food sensitivities & even our hormone health is disrupted. There is even a strong link between having a diverse & balanced gut microbiome & one's ability to survive cancer treatments. This is a heavy area of research currently. People with more diverse & more balanced gut microbiomes have better prognosis.

So how to keep that gut microbiome healthy? Eat lots of fiber! It's the preferred food of our gut bugs! They love vegetables, onions, leeks & garlic as some examples. Cut back on processed sugars & alcohol. Some of the bugs LOVE the sugar & alcohol so much that they grow too much & crowd out other helpful bacteria! Remember we want diverse & balanced! No overcrowding!

While it might alarm you that you have over a million bugs who live on & in you, make friends with them! They are integral to your health!

 Amy

The DR & the DJ

 Nothing in this email is meant as medical advice. Ask your own doctor about this & anything you read in emails from The DR & the DJ.

Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

Get on John’s Record Club List for all the best vinyl recommendations and community events.  

In episode 6, we open with John & Amy's take on our smart phones ability to "hear" us & why funny sex may lead to a funny child. Amy also shares the horrific experience of being caught in the act by one of their children. 

This weeks guest is guitarist & lead vocalist of The Lumineers, Wesley Shultz. Long time friends, John, Amy & Wesley catch up after over a year of not seeing each other & find out what Wesley's been doing in his non-touring home life. They discuss the power of productively & how it is key to psychological health & how cell phones & social media control our lives. Wesley shares his experience of recording the covers record Vignettes & why he thinks breaking down a song to the bare bones can expose the essence of the initial songwriting seed. He also tells us how much joy sharing his music brings him & why the role of empathy is important in song writing. Last, John & Amy give Wesley a lesson in organizing vinyl. 

 John & Amy share their favorite rock shows & what it meant to both their relationship & their relationship with their kids. They also give us a little veteran advice on the best & healthiest way to see a show so everyone involved can have a great time.

 This weeks featured music is by Jeremiah Fraites from his record Piano Piano.

 As always, John & Amy remind us that We're Not Alone.

The DR & the DJ

Music by Jeremiah Fraites, Theme song by Micheal Lerner. Listen to more podcasts at Ruinousmedia.com

Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

Get on John’s Record Club List for all the best vinyl recommendations and community events.  

This week’s prescription is for the funk & for the soul. 

As we head into the warmth of the spring & the summer & light at the end of this pandemic tunnel, we need to start thinking about getting our groove on & I have three bands I want to prescribe for you to play loud, play proud & never sit still to. 

The first are the pride of Seattle Washington, the True Loves. Beginning in 2014 as a jam band between three of the city’s best players drummer David McGraw, bassist Byant Moore & I believe the best guitar player in this city, Jimmy James has turned into a 7 piece that never disappoints. Their new record out on May 28th is called Sunday Afternoon. Here’s one of the first singles from it, Did it Again. Here’s some more True Loves from the new record, a song called “Yard Byrds”

Now, let’s keep it in the Jimmy James family. Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio which also features Jimmy on guitar have a new release out “I Told You So.” Here’s “Cold as Weiss.” Their soul-jazz “feel good” vibe is THE perfect soundtrack for summer, their live show is always a party & their live sessions have over 7 million views on You Tube for good reason. Their mix of 1960’s organ jazz may remind you of Jimmy Smith, here’s their tribute to Jimmy called “Jimmy’s Groove.”

My third recommendation is for you to find you some Menahan Street Band out of Brooklyn & get their first release in a decade “The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band”, this is my favorite from it called “The Starchaser.” The members of this band have played with Sharon Jones, the Budos Band, Antibalas & others & is well worth your time. Here’s another one from them, “Snow Day.”

Alright that’s three bands that bring the funk & the soul & I recommend you also play these on vinyl from beginning to end, the way one should listen to music & support the bands. 

 John

The DR & the DJ

Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

Get on John’s Record Club List for all the best vinyl recommendations and community events.  

Episode 5 opens with an update of John & Amy's bar, Life on Mars. They share their experiences of trying to operate & re-open a business during the pandemic & the financial & safety issues that come along with it. John also tells us the real difference between being a local TV personality vs. a popular radio DJ. 

 We hear how John & Amy organize & pull off their child's Minecraft themed birthday party three months late & what happens when you send your child to school with peanut butter puff cereal. 

This week’s guest is one of rock n roll's greatest drummers, Janet Weiss (Quasi, Slang, Ex-Sleater-Kinney). In late 2019, Janet was in a severe car accident, leaving her physically broken & wondering whether she would be able to play again & what life was going to look like for most important thing in her life, music. She shares her six months of recovery & how it was only made possible by the enormous outpouring of support from fans, friends & family. Now that she's back at the kit, Janet tells us why every performance needs to be a one-of-a-kind experience & why following your passion is key to feeling like your true self. 

 Amy gives us her thoughts on the power of community support in recovery & how the pandemic uniquely disabled family & friends from supporting their loved ones in need. She also tells us what is was like to have a blood purse rupture in the hospital. 

This week's featured music is Quasi.

 As always, John & Amy remind us that We're Not Alone.

The DR & the DJ

 Music by Quasi. Theme song by Michael Lerner. Listen to more podcasts at Ruinousmedia.com 

Join Dr. Amy’s community and get her libido boosting recipes and more midlife health tips at Craft & Clinic.

Get on John’s Record Club List for all the best vinyl recommendations and community events.