The Soundtrack Series

Mo is the author of the revered novel Every Anxious Wave--which is the best of everything having to do with music and time travel. Not to worry, we cover all of this--what shows we'd go back and see, what moments in life we'd undo (or redo), and of course, 120 Minutes.

Isaac Oliver is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir (in other words--one of NPR's Best Books of 2015) Intimacy Idiot. So who better to talk to about music in our dating lives--when it's our best friend, when it's our armor, when it's the sorceress that summons the object of our desire. (And when it's the thing that makes us say ridiculous stuff like that.)

Aline Brosh McKenna is the co-creator of the musical smash Crazy Ex Girlfriend. So we talk about musicals--creating them, being in them, and the times you can't help but live your life by them.

Storyteller (and former talent agent) Sandi Marx talks about the time she was--then wasn't--Pat Benetar's ass double, and how sometimes giving up your dreams is the greatest thing ever.

Comedian Brooke Arnold tells us about her upbringing in a fundamentalist organization where music was forbidden, how she found music anyway, and what it's like to be years behind everyone else when it comes to knowing anything about The Beatles.

Music in this Episode:

Do-Re-Mi - Original Cast of The Sound of Music

Beat It - Michael Jackson

This Joy - Vernessa Mitchell

Daydreams About Night Things - Ronnie Milsap

Girl - Tori Amos

Aneurysm - Nirvana

Oh Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison

Lazarus - David Bowie

Oh My God - A Tribe Called Quest

Wannabe - Spice Girls

Amy Hobby is an Academy Award nominated producer for her work on the documentary What Happened, Miss Simone. So yeah, I ask for a little "insider peek" at all the Oscars pregaming rituals, but then we really get into it--and talk what went into making this incredible film, what she learned (that we could all learn) from Nina Simone, and how important it was to let Nina tell the story of Nina.

Filmmaker Michael Feld visited every city Huey Lewis mentions in "The Heart of Rock and Roll" and made a video of it (both loved and hated by the Internet at large--but what isn't). So of course we talk about every little detail that goes into doing something like this, all to pay homage to one song and check the pulse of rock and roll throughout America.

Karaoke! Only harder! Talking live karaoke with Joe McGinty--renowned musician and the man behind piano karaoke at Sid Gold's Request Room in NYC--who tells us what it's like to be the guy who makes our rock n' roll dreams come true...if only for the length of one song.

Think of a band you love. Now think about what it would be like to actually join that band. This is what musician Jenny Harder did, when she went on tour with Gogol Bordello in late 2015.

Music in this episode:

We Are All Illegals - Outernational

Oh Come On - The Julie Ruin

Boys Wanna Be Her - Peaches

Sally - Gogol Bordello

Think Locally, Fuck Globally - Gogol Bordello

The Passenger - Siouxsie and the Banshees

Mind Your Own Business - Chicks on Speed

Leeds United - Amanda Palmer

Tryouts for the Human Race - Sparks

Halfway State - Mico

You probably know someone who has been an extra in a movie or on TV, but do you know someone who does it for the Metropolitan Opera? Thinking you might not. Julia Wiedeman talks about her work as a supernumerary at the Met and the frustrations of gracing the most famous stage in the world, only to be invisible.