The Third Story with Leo Sidran

Sociologist and musician Howard S. Becker is 90 years old. While he is best known for his contributions to the sociology of deviance, sociology of art and sociology of music (his book Oustiders from 1963 was one of the first and most influential books on deviance), he also spent many of his early years playing piano in taverns, saloons and even strip clubs.

As a young man in Chicago, while attending the University of Chicago in the 1940s he also studied piano with the legendary jazz pianist and teacher Lennie Tristano, and performed with local players of the day including Lee Konitz and Bill Russo.

In 2009 Becker published "Do You Know…?" The Jazz Repertoire in Action, a book he co-wrote with his friend, colleague and fellow academic-musician Robert R. Faulkner. In it, the two discuss and describe how songs are passed on from person to person and how working musicians' repertoire survives and evolves.

I spoke with Howard in his apartment in Paris (he spends part of every year in Europe, where he has become something of an academic celebrity in recent years) last November. We talked about how in his day live music was a function of geography, strong union leadership, and cheap beer, and why jazz is like philosophy (the only money is teaching).

This conversation is a companion to the Mobtown series of episodes from 2017, and it features an introductory conversation between my and my father, Ben.

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Madison, Wisconsin in the 1960s was one of the most radicalized university campuses in the country. It was a center for the kind of counter culture that has come to feel like a cliché today. There was plenty of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, sure. But there was also political activism, civil rights, environmentalism.

Because of the University of Wisconsin, thousands of young people move through Madison and take the values of the city with them when they leave.

Earlier this summer, The Madison Reunion brought over one thousand people with ties to Madison in the 60s back together for three days of meetings, discussions and panels, held at the University of Wisconsin's Memorial Union. The event was billed as "a party with a purpose" and had the feeling of both a nostalgic walk down memory lane and a reignition for a generation of activists who were referred to by journalist Jeff Greenfield as "the long ago young".

Although I wasn't in Madison in the 1960s, it is fair to say that I'm a byproduct of that time. My parents met there in the mid 60s and I grew up in Madison in the shadow of the revolution, part of a generation that was raised to feel that we had just missed something major.

So at the Madison Reunion, I moderated a panel of three other Madison natives, all of whom left Madison after high school, to talk about the impact of the city, the values and the Madison-state-of-mind on their lives, careers and overall point of view. Ben Wikler (Washington director of MoveOn.Org), Anat Shenker-Osorio (writer, researcher and communications specialist) and Dan Kaufman (musician and journalist) joined me in conversation.

While the panel began with a simple overview of what it meant to come up in the 80s and 90s in Madison, it quickly moved into more contemporary questions of working with the media today and what the legacy of the 60s might be in a modern context.

By the end of the conversation, I was slightly overwhelmed by how much work there is to do in order to stay ahead of (or just in touch with) the way political and cultural messaging is manipulated today. But I was also highly encouraged and inspired just hearing the three panelists talk. As long as Ben, Anat and Dan are out here fighting the good fight, making sure the right messages are being communicated, and telling the important stories, there is hope.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! And now you can also listen to the podcast on Spotify!

What is there to say about guitarist Lage Lund that hasn't already been said? Not much. And plenty.

Lage has been a fixture on the New York jazz scene since moving here in the early 2000s as a "skinny kid from Norway with dreads". The dreads are long gone, and there is very little about him today to indicate that he grew up in a small Norwegian city (Skien) where he had to take a three hour train ride to Oslo to buy the latest jazz albums, and that before he was one of the most creative and virtuosic guitarists of his generation, he was a frustrated skateboarder with no place to skate "vert".

A regular in the "Rising star – Guitar" category in the Downbeat Critic's Poll, he has been hailed by Pat Metheny as a favorite young guitarist, and is "all music and all soul" according to Russell Malone - one of the judges who awarded Lund top prize in the 2005 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. Of Lund, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel once said, "Of the younger cats, Lage is THE one. He's a wonderful player. Scary actually!"

Acclaimed as one of the finest guitarists in jazz, Lund has performed and recorded with artists like Ron Carter, Mulgrew Miller, Wynton Marsalis, Maria Schneider, Carmen Lundy, David Sanchez, Seamus Blake and many others.

He is currently preparing three new projects: "Lage Lund Lonely Band" The upcoming release "Party Of One" has Lund covering all parts in each aspect of the process: writing, arranging, performing, recording, producing as well as directing music videos; a new Criss Cross release of all original material, written for and developed by his longstanding quartet consisting of Sullivan Fortner, Matt Brewer & Tyshawn Sorey. And a duo album with pianist Bryn Roberts.

Lage came over recently to talk about who influenced him, where he's looking when he plays, when he discovered that guitar doesn't suck, how musicians communicate, what happened to swing, and why jazz musicians drink natural wine.

This Episode also features an extensive introduction by my guest co-host for the week, singer/ songwriter Joy Dragland. Joy also happens to be married to Lage.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! And now you can also listen to the podcast on Spotify!

Talking to Brendan B. Brown about his life and music is like talking to a dozen guys at once. There's the singer-songwriter - the guy who wrote the hit song "Teenage Dirtbag" and created the band Wheatus nearly 2 decades ago, and who has been riding that wave ever since. This is the guy who writes brilliant, provocative, genre bending pop songs, and who tours stadiums in the UK and Australia.

There's the kid who grew up in a "lobster town in decline" on long island in the 80s and was sent to an all boys high school an hour away because his parents panicked after a satanic murder took place in the woods behind his house. This is the guy who ultimately ended up moving into the extra house on his parents property, building a work-live space and staying there well into adulthood.

There's the gear geek - the one who wants to know about each microphone, guitar amp, drum head and compressor used on all the records he loves. This is the guy who remembers every piece of equipment he ever bought and can explain why he cares deeply for the kind of equipment that most people would find little value in.

There's the punk from the east village - the guy who spent the 90s at the Mercury Lounge and the Luna Lounge, attacking New York city with a raw, DIY "anti" attitude that he continues to carry with him to this day.

There's the music fan. (This is the episode in which more specific examples of music have been given than any other on the Third Story before.)

At the core, Brendan is a natural, self taught, self invented, homebody who seems to be firing on all cylinders at all times. He is intensely curious and passionate about what he does, what he thinks, what he thinks he does, and what he does about what he thinks.

I recently met with Brendan in his studio on Long Island - the same one where he has recorded almost all of his albums, and which happens to be on the property where he grew up. Here he talks about the power and responsibility of writing a hit song, what it's like to have your dreams come true, and how to recover when they don't.

The episode features an introductory conversation with my old friend and musical collaborator Joy Dragland.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! And now you can also listen to the podcast on Spotify!

Joe Goodkin was a part time singer songwriter, part time paralegal with a penchant for classical Greece and a sensitive side. After years of playing in bands he realized that the big record contract was not coming anytime soon and taking a band on the road was economically impossible. But he knew there was a place for him as a musical storyteller. One day, he dusted off a project he had started when he was just out of college, a musical companion to Homer's Odyssey, and started thinking about how to present it and himself in a new way.

For over a decade he's been touring the country singing a one-man original 30 minute musical retelling of Homer's Odyssey for audiences at revered institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, and many others, over 200 performances in 33 states.

Based in Chicago, Joe continues to write his own brand of quirky, emotive and highly personal stories about his experiences. His career is completely unique, and speaks to the possibility of carving out a niche as a musician today. Rather than throwing a wide net, he chose to control his own narrative. As he tells it, "in trying to make music for everybody you wind up making it for nobody."

Joe came to the Third Story headquarters recently to explain what it means to be a "modern bard", how to keep material fresh after playing it hundreds of times, and why the personal really is universal.

This episode features another great introduction with me in conversation with my wife, Amanda.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon!

"If you're not sad you're not paying very much attention."

Donovan Woods has a talent for writing songs that feel like "real life": Funny and sad at the same time, plain spoken and poetic in the same breath, nostalgic and hopeful at once. As he says, "Two opposing ideas can be true at the same time."

So it's no surprise that he named his latest album Both Ways.

He says that when he thinks about it, there's just "so much sadness". He says that he loves to watch an audience turn to mush, to make them feel comfortable and then slowly deliver the tragic sense of life. He says he does it by using "tricks of language" that feel familiar and colloquial. He says he developed his confessional style of songwriting, which is generally considered to be country or folk, by listening to hip hop as a kid growing up in Sarnia, Ontario.

There's a lot about Donovan Woods that makes him an outsider to the Nashville singer songwriter circles in which he often travels, but there's plenty that puts him right at home there. Particularly, a devotion to highly personal, narrative writing.

Despite all the tragedy, I think he's also one of the funniest writers around. Listening to his music, one is constantly toggling between tears of laughter and tears of sadness. At least I am. And talking to Donovan Woods is similar. He's very a pleasant guy, easy going, down to earth and funny. Sad funny, sure. Bitter funny. Excruciating funny. But funny all the same.

Although his songs are custom made to be performed by him ("people say I sound like I'm singing right in their ear") they have also been recorded by stars like Tim McGraw and Charles Kelley (of Lady Antebellum).

Donovan came to the Third Story headquarters recently during a run of shows and promotion for his new album. Here he talks about writing songs that feel like real life, the big scam of success ("by the time you get the thing you always wanted, you feel like you deserve it"), how to make it in Nashville, and why Wisconsin is the state most like Canada.

This episode features an introduction by me in conversation with my wife, Amanda.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon!

Nate Wood is a drummer, bassist, guitarist, singer-songwriter, mixing and mastering engineer. Raised and educated in Los Angeles, he joined the band Kneebody in 2001 (along with former Third Story guest Ben Wendel).

Eventually Nate moved to New York where he has been a fixture on the scene for years, working as both drummer and bassist for the likes of Donny McCaslin and Wayne Krantz. In fact, it was Nate's love of the music Krantz was making that helped to motivate him to move east.

Nate is an extraordinarily gifted, natural musician. Although in recent years he has started to gain notoriety among musicians and hardcore fans, he's still (in my opinion) greatly underappreciated, particularly as a drummer. But that's starting to change now, in part due to his new project "Four" which features Nate playing drums, bass, keyboards and singing simultaneously.

Here he talks about why screwing around is so important to creativity, what's so special about 83bpm as a tempo, what ever happened to swing, and that ongoing Third Story question: should I move to LA? Because he's so multifaceted, this interview is filled with Nate saying "but that's a whole other conversation…."

The episode features a short introduction from me and Nate's old pal, pianist Randy Ingram. It's a great one. Enjoy.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon!

Larry Klein started out as a musician's musician before becoming a producer's producer. At a young age he was playing bass with his heroes in the jazz world, including a long and creative stint with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The way he explains it, Klein became more drawn to the world of songs, singers and popular music, and put off by the jazz insiders' insistence on what was and what wasn't "the real s*#t". As a session player he worked on some of the most classic LA record dates of the 80s and 90s (for the likes of Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Cher and Joni Mitchell) and seemed positioned for a life as a hired gun sideman.

But while married to his first wife, Joni Mitchell, Larry began producing records. Over the last 30 years he has become one of the most sophisticated, musical and thoughtful producers around, producing records for Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux, Melody Gardot, Herbie Hancock, Luciana Souza (who he is married to now) and many, many more. Klein has won Grammys for his work on Mitchell's Turbulent Indigo and Both Sides Now; and Hancock's River: The Joni Letters.

I've been a huge admirer of his for a long time. I love how he manages to make timeless records that also feel contemporary. It's a kind of magic trick that anyone who has ever tried to make confident, approachable music in the studio will recognize as much easier said than done.

I recently spent a morning with Larry at his home studio in Los Angeles. Considering how great his records sound, it should have come as no big surprise to me that underneath it all he's still just a huge music fan. Here he talks about the art and craft of record production, what is and isn't the real s*%t, why he often works with female artists, and the importance of good coffee. This one was a long time coming for me and I'm delighted to share it.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon!

Rapper, singer, spoken word artist, writer, and science nerd Dessa is an open book. As a young girl in Minneapolis, she dreamed of being a writer, and in high school she submitted essays unsolicited to the New Yorker. She refused to speak the Spanish own heritage (she's half Puerto Rican) and instead insisted on learning French. She was, in her own mind, headed for a literary life on the Upper East side of Manhattan. "The third martini and witty repartee" she says.

Life seemed to have other plans for her. She ended up channeling her love of language into a different outlet: rap. Dessa has been a longtime member of Minneapolis based hip hop collective Doomtree. Her résumé as a musician includes performances at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, co-compositions for 100-voice choir, performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, and a top-200 entry on the Billboard charts for her album Parts of Speech.

Eventually she was able to turn her success in music back towards her original passion: writing essays. She's been published by The New York Times Magazine, broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio, published two literary collections of her own, and is set to release her first hardcover collection with Dutton Books in the fall of 2018.

Her most recent solo album, Chime, brought together her songwriting with her longtime love of science (one of her first jobs was as a medical technical writer). She turned her own personal experience of heartbreak into a kind of science experiment, and let the process inform her songs. The result is extremely compelling and also great pop music.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! And now you can also listen to the podcast on Spotify!

Lorrie Moore is the kind of writer that inspires real devotion from her readers. She's best known as a writer of short stories, although she has also published novels and critical essays. See What Can Be Done, a collection of essays and reviews (many of which were originally published in the New York Review of Books) was published this month.

Lorrie is also a beloved creative writing teacher. She spent 30 years at the University of Wisconsin before moving to Nashville to teach at Vanderbilt University, where she still teaches.

I was eager to talk to Lorrie about a lifetime of writing, her process, how she thinks about teaching creative writing, and why music is so important to her. She's spending the year in New York and we met recently at her apartment in Manhattan to debrief.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review on iTunes and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! And now you can also listen to the podcast on Spotify!