The ODcast Podcast

Oscar and Dylan sit down with three of the members of Chicago hardcore/metal band Through N Through. They discuss what it was like growing up in the Little Village neighborhood, going from playing backyard shows to touring across the country. Dylan asks some recording and songwriting questions, while Oscar grills the band about AC/DC connections (or lack thereof) and their go-to foods to eat while on the road.

Oscar and Dylan get back to their roots with a good old fashioned album review episode. This month, we listened to Brazilian singer Liniker and Mexican singer and violinist La Bruja de Texcoco – two trans artists pushing the boundaries of songwriting and performance in their respective genres. As always, we attempted to cover one song by each artist, which was quite a challenge this time! Oscar is embarrassed by his Bruja cover but Dylan thinks it's not bad! You be the judge.

The topic for this episode was discussing our five favorite guitar players, along with playing a little bit and listening to recordings of the stuff we're not good enough to play. Our selections run the gamut from nylon string Latin players to modern fuzzy shredders and some folky artists in between. Along the way, Oscar and Dylan reflect on what made them pick up the guitar in the first place.

The first movie ODcast was born when Oscar challenged Dylan to choose a "non-horror horror film" that impacted his life in some way. Oscar did the same, resulting in this rare comparison of Luis Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel" and Shunji Iwai's "All About Lily Chou-Chou". Strap in, because it's a long one. Movie talk starts at 37:13 (I know, we're sorry) because we spend half an hour answering a listener's questions and dissecting the creative process.

This is a very musical episode! We cover Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" AND sing a Swiftie ODcast theme song within the first four minutes, so if you have an irrational fear of our singing voices, be warned. Our review of "Midnights" is a bit more rambling than usual and I'll blame the fact that we were both kind of sick when this was recorded, but the sleepy vibe might make a good ASMR. Or you can just listen at 1.25x speed.

Oscar's pick for this episode was comparing Björk's first solo album, Debut (1993), to her most recent album, Fossora (2022). We examine what makes Björk such a unique and compelling artist, along with some detours into French literature, our thoughts on heavy music, and a heartfelt story about vinyl.

The topic for our third episode was chosen just days before Kanye's anti-Semitic tweets shocked the world and effectively cancelled him. Recorded in the wake of that, we had no choice but to address his comments, but the intended focus of the episode was on Ye the musician, comparing his 2004 debut The College Dropout to his most recent album inspired by his late mother, Donda (2021). This episode also marks the start of a grand ODcast tradition of covering a song by the topic artist, as we close out the episode with All Falls Down with a little help from Brett and Brooke.

It's episode two, so what more pressing subject could there be than comparing Bob Dylan's 2020 album "Rough and Rowdy Ways" to our respective favorite Dylan albums. You'll also witness the birth of the first ODcast musical theme, which was improvised impromptu at the end of the episode.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The audio gets better after the first 30 seconds. This was our very first episode (recorded back in September 2022), so things got off to a laid back and loosey-goosey start. We eventually talk about every album in the Smashing Pumpkins discography, but first we talk about podcasts we like, the problem with social media for teachers, and Danny Trejo?