Podcasts

Great wisdom.

I’ve been enjoying “What Is Politics?” and “Fight Like An Animal” lately, both leftist shows that deal with a lot of materialist anthropology and psychology.

― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Wednesday, April 27, 2022 7:26 PM (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

just wanna thank kingfish for this, "fight like an animal" became an immediate favorite. i've listened to most episodes at this point, some of them more than once. it has clarified my thoughts on a lot of things related to politics, activism, social organization, humanity in general...

Oh good, glad you dig it!

recommended episodes? seems heady.

i was hooked from the get go, he sets out his thesis in the first few episodes and then builds it out and explores various facets of it from there, but "genocidal mystics" or "what elephants can teach us about civil war" are early episode that might be a bit more approachable than the almost five hour three-part series he starts with. iirc he also gets a better mic at some point.

it's the kind of thing where you have to be interested in the content b/c the guy isn't an exceptional orator, he makes it clear he started podcasting as an expedient way to get his ideas out there and then was surprised at how much he enjoyed it. but he is a fascinating person with pretty incredible biographical details that trickle out in the course of him sharing what appears to be his life's work (e.g. raised in a cult, spent much of his life as a radical eco-activist, etc.)

I would personally recommend the eps Arnold recorded with Derick Varn of the Varn Vlog and Daniel from “What Is Politics?”, but I’m checking now if those chats are even available outside of paywall.

JUst discovered a podcast called Deep Focus which does look like it should be pretty i depth. Multiple 2 hour shows on artists a lot from the free jazz scene so place I'm starting is a 1hr 50 1st out of 3 episodes on William Hooker talking about Sunny Murray. Iwas looking up Loft Jazz on Spotify and couldn't see specific episodes on the scene so started going through artist names from the blurb for the book o the subject. Looks like it could be a treasure trove. Also covers people like Jeff beck, Jack Bruce and Steely Dan but loads 9n 60s/70s jazz by people who look like they should know a lot about things including William Hooker here.

The Books on Fire series on Caliban and the Witch which I am hoping to get to read soonish.
Which in turn directed me to a series called Seeing White from a couple of years ago.

actually whole Hooker on Murray thing is about 3 hours, not sure where i got the longer duration thing from. Looks good anyway.

thanks for the tip.

Seeing White was really good.

Sunset Sound Studios has a podcast - multi-part, hours-long deep dives on albums recorded there. Recommended if you're into tiny details on Prince and Van Halen albums!

Daily Beans is back on Spotify. Only just found out about it. AG had left in protest about Joe Rogan and set up MSW media as the main platform. I tend to listen to everything on Spotify still so hopefully good to see this, cos I kept forgetting to listen to episodes on a different platform and I can now set up playlist queues including it and transfer to my phone too..

Our fiftieth episode is live!

https://www.megaphonic.fm/bythebywater/50

And hey, want to see what a live recording of a podcast episode is like? Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6DK27zoiJE

(We're now fully up on YouTube as well -- audio only aside from that appearance! But a great way to showcase Jared's art.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videos

Sorry about the second link:

http://www.youtube.com/@By-The-Bywater

I've decided to finally get back into Cocaine & Rhinestones.
It's good, really good, but I have a couple of problems:
* I'm finding I still just don't care for a lot of country music, especially post-60s
* Everything about Tyler is in some way annoying.

His genius move remains putting up those complete transcripts if you just want to read 'em.

Recently enjoyed “Scamanda”

My only quibble is that I found the timeline somewhat confusing. But otherwise pretty compelling/crazy

xp I know but I want to listen to a podcast

spending this weekend listening to “Floodlines” a 2020 series from the Atlantic about Hurricane Katrina.

not sure how i missed it originally but wow. (Won the 2021 Peabody so obv I am v late to the party lol) it’s really incisive, mostly interviews w survivors and folks who were there in the thick of it, locals, reporters, officials. but with a really sensitive core that really honors New Orleans itself as a place. Vann Newkirk is a great host too.

I have been mainlining 2500 DelMonte Street - The Oral History of Tower Records. Capital-R Rockist and heavy on inside baseball talk and can often stray into a a therapeutic debriefs - especially when the guests talk about the end of the company. You could skip much of that, unless you want to know more about how 21st Century predatory capitalism works.

OTOH, the stories are totally insane. For starters, look for any episodes about the Sunset Blvd. store if you want to know more about situations like: Prince showing up and wanting to play a midnight show, Brian Wilson opening his bathrobe and peeing all over someone's Mustang convertible, Keith Moon really really wanting to drive the double-decker bus that's parked at the back of the lot. Don Rickles shows up to buy albums. So does Sinatra. So does the Shah of Iran. Iggy Pop is trying to make a collect call but the operator doesn't believe the name so Iggy is shouting "P-O-P POP"

Tower was the only record store I ever wanted to work at - all through the 1980s the El Toro store was my main hangout. An unimaginable number of times when is seemed that the best decision in life was to grab a carne asada burrito at Carmels at the other side of the parking lot and then walk it off inside Tower. I can detail, at length, my bike there from Laguna to get a copy of Scary Monsters when it went on sale. The hilarious pileup of fans when Pink Floyd's A Delicate Sound Of Thunder and Rush's Hold Your Fire were released on the same day. I saw the Dream Syndicate there in 1982. I wish I had video of the T.S.O.L. gig that was shut down by the cops. The 10pm to midnight crew played the best albums: The Dreaming, Avalon, Head Over Heels, A Kiss In The Dreamhouse, Big Science onandonandonandon. All of them I first heard on that monster 300W stereo system on demo from Pacific Stereo who conveniently just happened to be next door.

That line that folks use: we didn't know just how great it was? Good fucking grief...

meant to say A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, but 80s stadium Floyd can be bleary and interchangeable.

Serial/NYT’s new limited series The Rerievals is v harrowing, also really good

(trigger warning)

It’s about what happened to roughly 200 women patients at the Yale Fertility Clinic during what would normally be routine egg retrievals - a nurse (a fentanyl addict) **swapped out their fentanyl for saline** (and skimmed the fentanyl for herself) so these women experienced excruciating pain during and after their procedure

nightmare

it’s about the legal case/s that ensued, but also how doctors & healthcare system is so bad at listening to women in pain, and how women self edit their own painful experiences to ~minimize~ that pain

anyway it’s a tough listen but well worth it if you are inclined

Damn that sounds horrifying

it really is!

my sister in law is going through ivf and i know how stressful the retrieval was for her, so just thinking about these women dealing with all of ~that~ plus this insane, unimaginable pain and having to maybe address followup appointments etc like it’s just unreal

I heard the first episode when it was on This American Life and wanted to hear the rest, but not right away. So thanks for the reminder.

Is there a good podcast that is just people being interviewed about their life stories?

I listen to a meditation podcast and I realized that's 60% of what I enjoy about it, the interviewer will ask them questions about their life - often one question will get the interviewee talking for twenty minutes or more, no interruptions, no editing (that I'm aware of.)

Rick Rubin’s Tetragramatron podcast is kinda this - long form subject interview & he’s a very “get out of the way” interviewer so it’s not “chatty”. I’ve only cherry picked a couple of episodes based on the guests though.

I listen to loads of podcasts but nothing readily springs to mind, lukas. But that meditation podcast sounds interesting - what's it called?

The people interviewed are not normal by any means, but Love and Radio is all life story interviews with 95% of the interviewee’s questions removed + sound design added.

Chinaski, it's called Guru Viking, here's an episode I like (although I listen to the podcast rather than watching the YT versions): https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=QeInQkKyGYc

The quality of interviewees varies wildly, as you'd expect. I only know one of them who got caught up in a sex scandal but I'm sure that number will grow over time, given the population he's drawing from (dharma teachers usually.)

Other good ones, not all in the life story vein:

https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=gX0UtTH_rzY
https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=3UFVYAhLMps

Deconstructing Yourself is a similar podcast, fewer and shorter episodes but more consistently high-quality guests.

Blowback is back

Cheers lukas, both look really interesting.
On a similar note, Sharon Salzberg's Metta Hour is good. I really liked the interview with Mark Epstein: https://art19.com/shows/metta-hour-with-sharon-salzberg/episodes/8f354ef2-af54-4a09-8dcc-9b1ba6ed040a

It looks like Tom Smith has rebranded a load of episodes of his podcast Serious Enquiries Only into the early episodes of a new series called
Where There's Woke which is going to be an ongoing series looking at absurd Righy Wing and Middle Left scares based on the idea of wokeness.
Serious Enquiries Only will continue as a series of interviews with scientists and other experts. He's just been looking at some sci fi tropes with an Astrophysicist which has been pretty interesting.
I think I've just wound up relistening to a show I heard as a Serious Enquiries oNly shortly after he separated from his old podcast co-host after a scandal. He had to reclaim this show when teh female co-host distanced herself from him in the wake of his Opening Arguments co-host being separated from I think he is still using the podcast name. Thankfully spotify have stopped upping that podcast to me. That podcast had been on Cleanup on Aisle 45 which is now cohosted with Peter Strzok and AG from Daily Beans/Mueller She Wrote.

I can’t remember who recommended it, but We’re Not So Different (medieval history) is SO GREAT. Just friendly, incredibly knowledgable nerds discussing humeral theory, peasants, sex etc and crucially, not being annoying about it!

That said it is a little unbalanced.. I would like the guy to engage a little more.. but at any rate a great example of the “information straight into my veins” genre

Its one ive listened to for a while so i may have recommended it. Female presenter is doing stuff with History Hit too. & that has a numberof good shows on. Do love Kate Lister's Betwixt The Sheets too. I think shes appeared on that too.

The Ancients and Not Just The Tudors both have great episodes too

& I just listened to Angela Saini guesting on Patented talking about the Patrarchy.

Two great podcasts about made-for-TV movies are back after hiatuses with new episodes: Sam Pancake Presents the Monday Afternoon Movie - which kicked off its new cycle with a two-part episode looking at the 1976 film The Boy in the Plastic Bubble starring John Travolta - and Made for TV Mayhem Show with Amanda Reyes. Both highly entertaining.

ooh that medieval one sounds interesting, i will give that one a go

It was female presenter on Were not So Different that referred to The Guardian as TERF central which I don't think I'd heard before. May give her politics which is a large part of the perspective.

I can't remember either presenter's name offhand but I have listened to pretty much all of the show. Picked up on it a couple of years ago and have gone backwards as well as forwards . Leftist perspective on medieval and slightlyu later history . & it's all been pretty great.

I really like Media Eval too the one looking at medieval set films etc from a historical perspective . It's normally been pretty great though I don't really agree with the Little Mermaid with them. The main presenter has been busy with work so the show's been on leave for the alst few months hope it's coming back soon.

Also Let's Talk About Myths , Baby where a Canadian feminist looks back at mainly Greek legends which ahs been fascinating but I've fallen way out of sync with it over lasty couple of years after having largely caught up with it before that.

Got to give a big shout out for Deep Foucs on various jazz and improvised music. Playing back largely unheard tracks by a featured artist with commentary by a guest with some connection to the artist. I'm just listening to the 1st of a set of 3 on Wes Montgomery. I need to hear the one on Larry Young too.

Think I may have mentioned the show when i first found it a few months back but do keep hearing new performances on it.

Ok I take it back about We’re Not So Different. The woman is really grating on me. She’s a know-it-all, which is fine, because that’s the point of the podcast. But I wish she would just relay the information without all the “it be like that” Twitter-speak gumph, and I wish she weren’t so utterly pleased with herself

I mean, whatever. She’s great. She’s fine. She knows a ton. And that’s what I’m after. I can even get over the “, right?” thing.

i find she whips through details a bit fast for me at times

Eleanor's great. I even learnt her name now.
Also found out that I had a load of early episodes I still hadn't heard. Don't think I have listened to the Medieval Asia series or things before that. Did come in during the Historical materialism series and i think went back over the earlier stuff on Food. I thought i had gone back further but now still have a load I haven't heard. Listened to the Introduction episode a couple of days ago.

She introduces herself as an expert on the 14th century, the best century. I think I have enjoyed her when I've heard her.
Wouldn't mind catching some of her lectures.

Drapetomaniax a retelling of black US history as though it was dealing with current media. I just heard teh first episode and thought it quite fun. That was talking about Forest Joe a maroon outlaw.
I think each episode has guests in historic roles etc. Think I will listen to a few more of these.

just listened to the fifth season of leon neyfakh’s fiasco, a history of the aids crisis. i can’t recommend it highly enough. not usually a podcast guy but it really hooked me in, finished it in a day

yeah it was a+
moving & infuriating
the blood bank stuff was eyeopening, i only knew a little bit about that before

i gasped when the former member of act up's treatment action group were trying to block the accelerated release of the protease inhibitor triple cocktail. really interesting on the sociology of activism/science/medical ethics. i was largely ignorant of this history so a lot of it was major twists. fav episode probably the bath houses one tho

veg is thereany season you would recommend listening to next? should i start with slow burn?