What Am I Making Podcast

Emma Swift found her way to Nashville by way of the mid-sized, but isolated city of Wagga Wagga, Australia. In high school, she fell hard for the myriad female singer songwriters that were ascendant in the early 1990s. At university, Emma discovered the world of alt-country, and she began to soak up the artistry of iconic singers like Linda Rondtstadt and Emmylou Harris. 

Emma has always appreciated the interpretive talent of singing someone else’s songs. It was one of the things that first drew her to heroes like Rondtstadt and Harris. Those song selections were almost as important as the way they were performed. As much as she knew she wanted to write songs, she also knew that she possessed an interpretive talent.

Her work as a recording artist in the States received increased attention for her 2020 album of Bob Dylan covers, Blonde On The Tracks. The album, produced by Wilco’s Pat Sansone is a luscious paean to the emotional side of Dylan’s catalog. On, Blonde On The Tracks, Emma wears those songs, as she puts it, “like a Bob Dylan shaped dress”.

In September of this year, Emma will be releasing her brand new album, The Resurrection Game. The record is a laconic, gorgeously rendered collection of dreamy, alt-folk that conjures feelings of Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Judee Sill, and Fairport Convention. 

While the record is a beautiful, immersive experience, it was not a smooth road from nascent idea to finished product. In the midst of making the record, Emma suffered a seven week breakdown while in her native Australia. It would take nearly a year of recovery for her to emerge as something close to the person she was before the breakdown. Emma admits that there were moments where she wondered if she would inevitably become a different person than she had been before the breakdown. Thankfully, after a long stretch of treatment and an amazing outpouring of love and support from family, friends, and fans, Emma finds herself well once again.

I sat down to speak with her on the eve of her massive house concert tour where she will be playing 29 shows over the course of nearly two months. We chatted about the romantic notion of driving across America, and the ways that speaks to our fifteen year old souls that first found Kerouac, and On The Road. Emma finds herself thrilled to be headed out on the road to play the songs from her new album each night, because as she puts it, “music is best when shared.’

Emma and I admit that we have no penchant for work/life balance, and we discuss the shapeshifting ways that technology is constantly changing the ways that we make and release our artistic projects. We talk about ways to fight the loneliness epidemic, why artists have to see their work as a small business, and Emma shares her theory that regular people renovate their bathrooms, while musicians just make another record.

Here now is my talk with the terrific Emma Swift. Enjoy

Cheers,Matty C

Writer Luc Rinaldi first came on to my radar when I noticed the headline for his newest piece in The Walrus. The article, titled The Death Of The Middle Class Musician, is a dire and detailed look at the economic landscape for roughly 99% of artists making music today. Rinaldi begins the piece by focusing on the story of a critically and commercially successful Edmonton rapper known as Cadence Weapon. In full detail, we see the production and distribution costs for Cadence Weapon pile up with little monetary compensation in return. 

Despite having millions of streams and winning major awards, Cadence Weapon still found himself unable to even pay the rent from his music. In fact, for most of his career, he has found himself deeply in debt to record companies. It is just one story in an industry beset with obstacle after obstacle for almost any artist without Taylor Swift size fanbases. Much like the rest of our day to economy, the streaming economy is favoring those scant few artists with all of the power and money while exploiting and underpaying the rest of the artists making music simply out to see a fair value paid for their work. The billionaires win again. 

Luc and I discuss the impact that the big three labels - Sony, Universal, and Warner Music - are having on the rest of the musical economy. This trio of companies holds an overwhelming percentage of the recorded music in existence, and as such are focused on squeezing the shareholder value of their existing product, and are far less concerned about new artists making a living. And at one point or another all three of these companies have held a sizable stake in Spotify. It is an incestual beast that we independent artists are fighting against. 

We delve into the current realities for the middle class musician, including the shocking rises in costs to touring since before the Covid outbreak. Once successful and financially viable acts have now been forced to shutter operations altogether because there is no longer a viable financial model for them to make a living. Luc shares the story of beloved Toronto band Tokyo Police Club who recently hung it up because they could no longer make ends meet as a functioning band. 

There is an obligatory portion of discussion centered around AI art and music and how it will inevitably influence and shape the culture. It’s an issue we cannot seem to get away from at this moment. Luc and I both find hope in the way that artists of all ages are already eschewing AI creation as an easy way out for lazy creators. We both remain hopeful that true artists will continue to make things with their hands and their hearts. Neither of us are ready to let an app write our next song or compose our next essay. 

Luc reminds us of the value that artists have by sharing their work, even in a world that may not pay them back in dollars right now. We cover a few ways that we can support independent and emerging artists as fans, and Luc talks a bit about the new book he is currently working on about the impact of smartphones on our culture. 

This is a dense and enlightening conversation with a writer and thinker who sees the world and the value of art and music in fascinating ways. Here now is my talk with writer and musician, Luc Rinaldi.

Cheers,

Matty C

Patrick Hicks never expected to become a Tik Tok star. He first opened his account in response to his wife suggesting a 30 day creative challenge; The couple had already produced a short lived podcast together, and while it garnered just a handful of downloads for each episode, it provided a much needed creative outlet. Without that pod as a regular endeavor, Patrick’s partner suggested that perform a creative task with accountability every day, for thirty days in a row. 

As Patrick considered how he would engage with this challenge, he wondered if he could create a Tik Tok account that told interesting stories from throughout music history. It seemed likely that no one would watch, but if he kept it up for 30 days, Patrick would have a small basket of content and it would give him the opportunity to be creative every day. 

And so, he posted his first video which got a scattering of views, and then he moved on to day two. Within just a few days, the views began to pile up. By the two week mark, he had hit a million views. Soon, individual videos were being viewed tens and hundreds of thousands of times. He even attracted the attention of massive artists like Green Day. Today, he finds himself with more than half a million followers on Tik Tok. 

During our conversation, Patrick and I cover his shocking success on Tik Tok and the doors that success has opened up for him, including a pitch to MTV in which he was told, “We’re not making any music content right now.”

We discuss how it took hundreds of strangers telling Patrick that he was a good storyteller for him to begin to believe it himself. He shares his process of finding these detailed and hidden stories and talks about the ways that he looks for new angles and perspectives with each artist that he covers, even making it a point to share at least one rarely known fact about each subject. 

Patrick even shares a pair of his favorite stories here that cover the wild tale of the man known as the Mexican Elvis and the way he was catapulted to stardom by the grace of a warden, a famous actress, and sheer luck. We discuss where Patrick would like to take his work in the future, including long-form video work like a TV show or documentary series that would allow him the resources and time to tell these stories in a more in-depth fashion. 

This is a great discussion with a man who found unexpected fame by simply telling the stories from rock and roll that fascinated him. Come join me now for a chat with rock historian, storyteller, and Substacker, Patrick Hicks. 

Cheers,

Matty C

Subscribe now to Patrick’s podcast, The Guest List wherever you get your pods.

My guest this week had his life irrevocably changed in the early hours of one morning in 2014. While he slept in his bed, a SWAT team descended upon his home and dramatically swept him into custody for what he describes as a “series of comprises: moral compromises”.

While we cannot get into the exact details of his crimes, Mr. Decarceration - whose identity was carefully protected during our chat - acknowledges that he made errors for which he needed to atone. However, he also describes the way in which Federal investigators hit him with a figurative sledgehammer as they presented him with a series of possible charges and potential prison sentences that included decades behind bars. 

D, as he kindly allows me to refer to him during our chat, speaks openly about life in prison. He walks us through the process from court to full-time lock up, and shares the circumstances under which inmates are allowed to watch film and TV, a pursuit which helped Mr. Decarceration to manage his eight and half years in custody. 

Mr. Decaceration describes using movies as a Trojan Horse for him to more deeply discuss the logistics of our massive prison system via his excellent Substack, From The Yardhouse To The Arthouse. Since his release, he has set to watching as many films from his years of incarceration as he possibly can. By viewing and writing about these films he shares his experiences not only of the cinema itself, but the essay also serves as a window into a portion of life that D may have missed during the time he was behind bars. 

The Zimmer Amendment, a 1990s era piece of prison reform legislation is a regular whipping boy for D, and rightly so. The law prohibited inmates from accessing a number of cultural items from the prison library system, including any films rated R. D tells us how the law is never interpreted with consistency from one prison to another, and he talks about the ways in which it prevents inmates from accessing cultural items that might enhance their rehabilitation. 

For close to ten years, Mr. Decarceration went from arrest to a series of jails, prisons, and halfway houses to emerge a so-called “free man” with only a love of movies and a felony record to show for it. Now his love of film is chronicling an untold chapter in the lives of the more than 2 million Americans locked within our nation’s prison systems. That number accounts for 25% of the prisoners on the entire planet, despite the fact that the United States makes up just over 4% of the world's total population. 

Come join us for a chat about video stores as self-education, the glory of HBO Free weekends as a kid, and seeing the outside world as a separate planet whilst locked away. This is an amazing conversation about movies, humanity, penitence, and purpose. I sure hope you dig it. 

Cheers,

Matty C

JL Cauvin found solace in humor at a very young age. Growing up in the Bronx with a Haitian immigrant father and a commanding mother, JL’s childhood was filled with love, but was anything but calm. Life at home was volatile, so at a young age, JL began to make his mother laugh as a means of breaking the tension. Humor was a temporary, but effective salve against a life that was, at times, rife with difficulties.

Even a young JL could see that humor was nothing more than a band-aid placed on a much larger problem, but the comedy helped to make life more manageable and reduced the stress of the family’s economic struggles, and the strains between his parents. 

After college, JL took his academic acumen to Georgetown Law School, where for the first time in his life he felt as though he might not be able to hack it. He shares a heartwarming story about confiding those fears to his father, and the surprisingly supportive response he received. Ultimately, JL would finish his law degree and then turn to pursue a career in comedy. 

During our chat, JL talks about the ups and downs of his comedy career, and delves into the genesis of the “JL Jinx” a running gag in the Cauvin universe that features tales of JL’s bad luck in showbiz. The origin story for the JL Jinx begins with a big break and a headlining comedian. It ends in a shocking death.

JL had always had a keen ear and talent for impressions, but after finishing second place in a stand-up competition at the beginning of his time in comedy, he shelved his terrific impression work for 14 years. Thankfully, he re-engaged with his impression work and perfected his version of Donald Trump that began to catapult his career during the pandemic. Unfortunately, the algorithms at Twitter and Facebook punished JL for his send ups of Trump, and immediately upon finding a massive audience, he once again saw the JL Jinx rip his luck away as his audiences on social media dwindled.

Still, JL presses on with his comedy career, a full time law gig, and a possible run for Congress next year. He is also going to begin airing new episodes of his terrific podcast, Rain On Your Parade in the coming weeks. Be sure to subscribe now. 

Amongst the humor, we also discuss the housing crisis, and talk about the Priest who first convinced him to try his hand at stand up. JL wonders if being the funny guy in the room makes you everyone’s acquaintance but nobody’s friend. And I even get the chance to ask President Trump a few questions about his plans for arts funding in the United States during his regime.

This conversation is thoughtful, hilarious, and wide ranging, very much like the mind of JL Cauvin. I sure you hope you dig it.

Cheers,

Matty C

There is a musical moment happening in and around Los Angeles right now. It’s not a revival of the Laurel Canyon days, nor is also it a new iteration of the hair metal craze that dominated the mid-1980s. In fact, this musical moment defies definition and classification because it is wholly unique.

Across the greater LA area, young bands have been staging DIY house concerts for their friends, their classmates, their neighbors, and themselves. This is not a new idea. However, these young creatives have set the old ideas about house shows on their ear, and in so doing have started a revolution around Los Angeles.

These shows are largely sober affairs, and are overwhelmingly attended by high school aged kids. More than half of the attendees, perhaps even two thirds of these showgoers are female; something heretofore unheard of in underground rock circles. The shows are genre agnostic as hosts and fans welcome music of all types and varieties. It is not at all unusual to see a punk band, a solo singer/songwriter, and a hip-hop act all on the same bill.

I sat down to chat with writer and filmmaker Paul Covington, his daughter Ainslie Covington, and Keith Myers, a friend and filmmaking partner of Paul. They have been working to document these bands and shows for their forthcoming film, Backyards. They joined me to discuss their work on the film and to give me a better sense of this exciting new movement coming out of Los Angeles. 

These shows are routinely drawing 75, 100 and 150 people a night. Attendees pay a nominal cover charge of something around five bucks to see a slate of bands perform. And many of these bands perform with abandon. A large number of these artists are attending performing arts schools in the area, and so the level of talent and showmanship are both unusually high. 

It takes a multi-layered army to create a genuinely impactful culture. The scene in LA has proven that it might have staying power as the influence of the scene extends beyond just the bands making the music. While the foundation of the scene is the music, there are other elements of influence at work in this youth-driven Los Angeles DIY scene.

In addition to the musical nature of these shows, there are zines teaching advocacy and FOIA rights. This community of show-goers are also unified in their rejection of past prejudices such as body image or choices of personal presentation. Ainslie describes the scene as “almost like a family”.

Listen in to learn the story of how a cadre of a young creatives is rejecting the virtual, temporal culture in which they have been raised to manufacture an entire scene dedicated to music, culture, and the expression of their generation’s vast creative output. Backyards will not only afford us the opportunity to watch a dozen of LA’s great young artists in action, it will document a generation finding its voice in one corner of the globe. 

Join me as we learn all about the scene that may just be the next great movement in American music. 

Cheers,Matty C

P.S. We’re releasing this pod on a non-traditional release day to allow folks the opportunity to support the Backyards film and to do our part help the team raise the necessary funds to complete post-production on the film. Please support the Backyards project today.

In the early 2010’s, after two decades of writing about music, Carl Wilson became fascinated by why people loved what they loved. As he delved into the anthropology of taste, he set about writing a book on an album by the French-Canadian cultural icon Celine Dion, an artist who is often derided in circles of “serious” music criticism. 

Eschewing his own prejudices of Dion’s work, Wilson set about finding the deeper reasons that artists like her connect so intensely with a large number of fans, yet their work is so often seen as nothing more than pablum by the critical class. In exploring Dion’s career, Wilson unveiled some of the inherent classism that exists within cultural criticism, and how it affects what we listen to and why it may or may not seem culturally relevant.

Our discussion of Celine Dion serves as marvelous centerpiece for a discussion on the state of culture, commentary, and capitalism in the digital age. Carl and I delve into the philosophy of poptimism and contrast that with the more male dominated world of indie-rock snobbery. We note that our tastes become more enriched as we break down these sorts of cultural stereotypes. As Walt Whitman once put it, “Be curious, not judgmental.”

During our chat, we walk through some of the places where we derive and shape our cultural tastes, and Carl reveals that we have far less control over our own taste than we might think. In addition to being shaped by our parents, and our friends, we are inundated with cultural input from media, our geography, our work life, corporations, neighbors, and much more. 

As our world becomes ever more connected, at least in virtual terms, subcultures are being sucked up into the mainstream at an incredibly quick rate. No longer is there time for a subculture like hip-hop, skateboarding, garage bands, or punk to blossom in the underground before becoming a household name. 

We also hit upon the “pop will eat itself nihilism” of popular showbiz culture. We talk about the oncoming impact of AI for creators, and Carl reminds us that in the end, audiences are almost always more discerning than we give them credit for. This is a fascinating conversation about the very nature of our tastes and where they come from. 

Cheers,

Matty C

Cole Haddon describes living and working in the film industry in Hollywood as a daily life of believing that you are on the verge of winning a sort of lottery. At any moment a script that you’ve written might be greenlighted into a multi-million dollar project. The next big break always feels just one lunch, one meeting, one sympathetic producer away. It is intoxicating, but it can be crushing.

Before he ran off to Hollywood to chase a dream, Cole Haddon grew up in Metro Detroit the son of hard working but practical parents who failed to see the economic potential of their son’s ability to tell stories. Early on, Cole began to realize that even though Michigan was home, it was not a place where he fit in, or felt at home. 

He spent his early twenties jumping around to a variety of opportunities before bullshitting his way into a job writing about film for the Detroit cultural weekly, Metro Times. With a made up name, a single unpublished film review and some serious resumé padding, Cole charmed his way into a paying gig writing about film and music. After a year at the Metro Times, Cole then stuffed his meager belongings into a beaten up Kia and headed west. 

In the intervening decades, Cole has written novels, sold scripts and even created a network TV show that he wound up loathing. While we don’t dive deep his ten episode Dracula series that appeared on network TV in the States and the UK, Cole does confess that he sees almost no revenue even when viewers stream his old show. 

This topic sets off a lengthy discussion about the state of filmmaking for creators and the shrinking economic spaces in which they must continue to try and find work. Cole talks at length about how the film industry has destabilized itself - at least in part - by not investing in younger writers and creators. As such, there is now seemingly a dearth of seasoned talent available to produce new and interesting works with any knowledge of how the actual machinations of productions operate. 

In the age of streaming, whether it’s film, tv, music, or ebooks, the average consumer has been conditioned to believe that content should be ubiquitous, filled with an overwhelming number of titles - and most of all - it should be incredibly cheap. Cole points out that this system removes the humanity and ingenuity of the people who bring these works of art to life. 

We hit upon the unending clash of art versus commerce, and how it might be hitting its lowest point ever. Cole explains the bottle neck of distribution for indie filmmakers, and this story helps to illustrate just how incredibly difficult it is for new, original work to get made and to be seen. 

This is a fascinating look at film and culture in the 21st century with a man who has been making and writing about these artforms for more than twenty years. It’s a wide ranging discussion that is realistic about the current state of visual storytelling in the digital age, and somehow still hopeful about what the artform is capable of accomplishing. 

Cheers,

Matty C

When my longtime friend and musical sherpa Todd Stonehouse handed me his copy of Secret Stars, the Greatest Underdogs Of The Rock n Roll Era, he grinned and said, “You are gonna love this.” Just looking at the ten bands listed on the book jacket, I knew I had found one of my new sacred texts. 

Inside the blazing red cover lay chapters on Nick Drake, Robyn Hitchcock, Elliott Smith, Big Star, and more. These were my secret stars too! I’d not only found someone writing about these bands in any way, I had found someone writing about them as the oughta be pop gods I knew them to be.

While Matt Berenson has had a long career as a film producer, it makes great sense that he and I would connect over his music writing, specifically his writings focused on genius that never quite gets its proper due. As I dragged my copy of Secret Stars across the Moroccan countryside a couple of years ago, each chapter felt like another piece of evidence as to why this writer and I should hang out, be friends, and be talking constantly about cool shit. 

Essentially, that was what I wanted my chat with Matt Berenson to be like for this show. I wanted to capture the exuberance of sharing a new band with a new friend, and talk of unveiling those secret stars and helping them to burn a shade brighter. 

Inside our chat, you’ll get to hear Matty C and Matty B explain the fours Ps of rock and roll: Pop, Punk, Psych and Prog, and we discuss doubling down on the stuff that we dig. Matt and I also talk about early XTC, and we acknowledge that Van Halen still very much rules. 

My original conversation with Matt was so fantastic in fact, that I wound up splitting it into two chunks. On today’s episode, we’ll dive deep into our conversation about Matt’s book and some of our favorite secret stars. This conversation is almost music exclusive, and covers Matt’s work as a music writer and fan, but doesn't touch on his day job as a film producer.

After you finish up with this chat, you can go back into the archive and find Episode #021 of the What Am I Making Podcast, where Matt and I continue this conversation. We run down the details of Matt’s career in film and his thoughts on the current state of cinema; and we hit upon how much it has in common with the music industry and why streaming is changing everything for creatives and creators everywhere. 

So dive in with a couple of nerds obsessing over obscure discoveries, indie rock demi-gods, and why Tom Waits has the perfect celebrity life. Enjoy. 

Cheers,

Matty C

I have admired the work over at New Bands For Old Heads since my early days here at Substack. The conceit is pretty simple; take a snippet of old, often familiar music and then use it as a reference point to find new artists currently working in the same sonic vein.

Gabbie, the woman behind New Bands, does a marvelous job of taking a few seconds of a song by a band like New Order and turning it into a recommendation for an artist like Preoccupations. Not only is Gabbie incredibly adept at pulling great new music out the algorithmic ether, she’s also a gifted writer. New Bands For Old Heads is consistently a great read for a music fan of any stripe. 

During our conversation, we talk about Gabbie’s experience growing up in a house of immigrant parents and the soviet bard songs she listened to and learned to love as a youngster. In discussing that artform, Gabbie even begins to wonder if her love for it clouded her ability to appreciate American folks artists like Bob Dylan. We also hit on what a lightning bolt the ‘You Oughta Know’ video by Alanis Morrisette was for a girl of just nine or ten. 

In our chat, Gabbie and I delve into what she refers to as “nostalgia mining” a sort of avenue to find ways to point people in the direction of interesting new artists. I confess to Gabbie that in middle age my appetite for new sounds is severely lacking; a condition that I have already written about here at WAIM. We also talk about how our tastes change and how they even become muted as we get older. 

Gabbie talks openly about being a woman writing about the male dominated world of rock and roll. We talk about mansplaining, cover the occasional ugliness of the comments section - which she says is less severe on Substack - and she shares a shining example of fragile masculinity. You’ll also find talk about the feral nature of Gen X youths, confronting the mortality of our parents, and how you’ll never be able to keep politics out of art.

And of course, we cannot talk about music for an hour in the 21st century without having to handle the albatross of Spotify. Gabbie and I go over some of our shared qualms with streaming and we confront the reality that we are not going back to a physical media landscape, and why that is a good thing. There is a load here to love including a quartet of music recommendations from Gabbie to get your summer listening kicked off on the right foot. 

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Matty C