The Self Portrait Gospel :: Podcast

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, American film director, writer, producer and son of Bill Pellington, an All-Pro linebaker who played for the Baltimore Colts, Mark Pellington crash-landed in the music industry as an MTV intern only a couple of years into its dynamic development in the early 1980s. The industrious artist began blending unused clips, bits, and lyrical leftovers from music videos for his experimental music series "BUZZ" in the spring of 1990, and would eventually venture into the weird and wonderful world of grunge and the alternative afterlife.

Throughout his career, Pellington has directed music videos for Pearl Jam (including their groundbreaking single "Jeremy"). R.E.M., Jungle Brothers, U2, De La Soul, Foo Fighters, and Public Enemy, among several others. Eventually stepping into the directorial spotlight with films such as the 1997 cult classic "Going All The Way," "Arlington Road," and 2002's "The Mothman Prophecies," Pellington's career is as legendary as some of the folks he's worked with over the years.

Longtime member of Nashville's beloved Lambchop and Silver Jews, multi-instrumentalist, and southern gentleman Tony Crow has been sharpening his tonal tools and wild weapons of melodic magic for almost half a century. We could have talked to the veteran musician about Lambchop for an hour and a half; maybe one day we will, but we stayed the course as he pulled back the creative curtain to reveal his precious participation in the Joos from 2001-2009 on albums: "Bright Flight," "Tanglewood Numbers," and "Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea." On this episode of "And The Nights Were Perfect, Too," Crow stops by to talk about how he initially met Berman and the gang, the golden days of Nashville, Chattanooga, Lambchop, "Bright Flight" anecdotes, hot chicken, Titans, and much more.

Maybe you've seen his work while endlessly doom scrolling through the mundane matrix that is social media, or maybe his intense illustrations have pierced through your portable phone and into you're eyes as you gaze out the window, hoping the world isn't what you see on Instagram. Jesse Duquette is a brilliant illustrator based in the Windy City who's earned the title of Meta's most "shadowbanned cartoonist" since meticulously meditating on this abusive administraion since 2017. On this episode of The Self Portrait Gospel Podcast, we sit down with Duquette to talk about his early influences: underground comics, National Lampoon's Magazine, counterculture creatives, music, and of course, politics. Neither of us is "political"; we're simply trying to express and understand the times we're living in.

Drummer extradordinaire Brian Kotzur, one half of the mighty Nashville duo Country Westerns, and Ultra Frog, among several other groups, and projects, first joined the Silver Jews a few years before the band recorded its fifth studio album "Tanglewood Numbers," back when the late great Steve McNair, who earned NLF Co-MVP, three Pro Bowl selections, and led the Tennessee Titans to Super Bowl XXXIV was still alive, and well walking the Earth's precious green field turf. Over the next five years, or so, the band went on their first major tour across the US and Europe, and eventually to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during the filming of the documentary "Silver Jew" in the summer of 2006. Eventualy releasing their final album "Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea," the band played their very last show in the New Year of 2009 at the infamous Caverns in McMinnville, TN, before disbanding into the evaporating ether of space and time, leaving behind the lyrical legacy and poetic presence of Berman's soulful singing spirit for future generations.

We're joined by Nick Sutton, who famously played Tummler, for this two-part episode to explore the endless enviroments of an atmospheric apocalypse where character and personality complete and revolutionary relationships. Sutton is based in Portland, OR, where he provides endless services to folks who've fallen on extremely hard times; instead of turning his back on these individuals, as society has time and time again, Sutton and his team invest in them by building them up instead of tearing them back down. In many ways, this ties into Gummo, and what better way to start a conversation than by talking about the real thing.

An intimately inspired continuation of 2024's beloved "Somthing In The Room," "Materia," which was released just this past weekend on Domino, is a melodic meditation on the ghostly harmonies of the past, present, and future, and how expressing a lyrical language to the community can heal time's endless wounds better than any over-the-counter medicine on the market. LA-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter has carefully crafted her soothing songbook for two decades and has grown closer to her medium with each new release. Like staring directly into the sun, Holter's discography is an adventurous alphabet that speaks of the human experience, and we're here for it.

When delving into the unparalleled universe of David Berman, you've probably run across the name Gate Pratt several times in your research. A fundamental fixture in our poetic pursuit to better understand the melodic mysteries and artisitc attitudes of the late great David "Cloud" Berman, Pratt attended UVA in the mid-1980s as an architecture student, where he met Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich (Pavement), Kylie Wright, James McNew (Yo La Tengo), and several others. It's here that some of the group would go on to establish the infamous house band collective Ectoslavia.

While occupying the infamous "Red House" on 14th Street near the school's campus, which served as a creative conduit for the local community for decades, Pratt takes us through the meditational mist of memory where he first met Berman and formed a relationship that would last over four decades. Having written songs with Berman and even toured with Pavement in Europe back in the day, Pratt's academic ability to explore the realms of recall truly allows listeners to imagine that they were there in the year 1987, tuning into a late-night radio show after a night of partying, or studying only to hear the airwaves slither through you and your roommates' ears as the narrative of the night continues to unfold in the prime of youth.

Journalist, documentarian, scientific researcher, and transcendental trailblazer in psychedelic phenomenon, Hamilton Morris has explored spirituality and the esoteric ecosystems of enlightenment around the world for nearly two decades since the publication of his first article, "The Magic Jew", in 2008. Since then, he's established himself as one of the world's leading psychoactive drug journalists, publishing dozens of atmospherical articles for VICE, Harper's Magazine, Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, and hosting the Hamilton Morris podcast.

We chat with him briefly about the counterculture movement, the legalization of drugs, and its intense impact on society and the population, to say the least, during the ongoing "War on Drugs" and prohibition, as well as his current research on 7-OH (7-hydroxymitragynine). Check out his YouTube channel and subscribe to his Patreon for further explorations into the never-ending narrative and revolutionary research of the psychedelic experience.

Some of you may have kept up with our series "The Burning Never Ending Magic Podcast" - A Sun City Girls Story, so we'll start there with our most recent guest on the "And The Nights Were Perfect, Too" - A Silver Jews Podcast, Matt Hunter. Born, and raised in Phoenix when groups like J.F.A., Meat Puppets, Poet's Corner, and of course, the Sun City Girls, to name a few, creatively controlled the sun-baked culture of the "Valley of the Sun", Hunter immersed himself in the local scene before eventualy connecting with our poetic protagonist, David Berman, in later years. A lot of you may already know about Hunter and his work with the New Radiant Storm Kings, which he started with fellow bandmate Peyton Pinkerton, who also participated on the Silver Jews' 1996 masterpiece "Natural Bridge".

Named after the 215-foot horizontal limestone structure in Rockbridge County, VA, where the Cedar Creek once flowed, Hunter takes us through the secret backroads of where the album was recorded in a once-old gun manufactoring warehouse in Hartford, CT, in 1996; the band followed Berman's legendary lead into the atmospheric aether where romanticism, religion, geographical gestures, and vibrant visuals of America's lyrical landscape peaks the interest of the most iconic individuals to reflect upon its beauty. "Natural Bridge" is a classic that even Joyce, Steinbeck, and Kerouac would find themselves listening to for an epidural of endless enlightenment.

Born in Reading, PA, in the spring of 1963, Chris Stroffolino is an American poet, scholar, writer, multi-instrumentalist, and author, among many other things. His creatively confident career in the arts has spanned four decades, from literature to music to publishing poetry to appearing on the Silver Jews' 1998 masterpiece "American Water". Having met Berman in the early 1990s, the two poets immediately conected on both a lyrical and a spiritually sophisticated level, setting the tender tone of a friendship that would last for decades.

In this episode, we sit down with Stroffolino to talk about how he initially met Berman, working alongside Stephen Malkmus, Mike Fellows, TIm Barnes, and others on the band's iconic third album, their virtual correspondence over the years via email, and his last creative credit with Berman on Purple Mountains' 2019 classic. Over the last year or so, Stroffolino has suffered from a stoke, so we would like to include his GoFundMe in the description of this week's episode for anyone who would like to donate or support his efforts and financial goals during these rather difficult times.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/sa222t-support-chris-journey-to-healing