We'll edit for the moment that I think Jimmy Buffett's real missed business opportunity could have been something called Jimmy's Buffet (just trays, warmers, cheeseburgers, presumably. Margarita machines). Admittedly, some of these episodes are excuses for us to take a ball peen hammer to the material, and there's some of that exercise here, but th…

Let's just get something incredibly obvious out of the way up top about this episode - there was a hiatus in between the time Ryan selected this LP and the time we were actually able to convene and record it, and by contrast, Fontaines DC are actually hyper prolific, meaning, by the time we laid this bad boy down, they had turned out an additional …

So, to be obvious about it, we talk about Canada here, like a LOT. Entirely too much. The Guess Who will do that to you. All of the usual and a few unusual bits are trotted out. We are aware, and we are fond of Canadians. But the deep dive in this case is kind of unavoidable. Apologies to all the Gords north of the border. Maple! For all my friends…

Marc Bolan went out like a Roman candle or a speed bump or in some such way an incandescent rock star dies at twenty-nine, and left in his wake a glitterbomb of glam stardust and swagger a mile wide and a few albums deep. It's hard to overstate his impact: T Rex enjoyed a run from 1970-73 where they charted like the Fab Four. Eleven singles in the …

I'm not sure what that has to do with the band 10 cc exactly, what with their high highs and low lows, the same band capable of trotting out a perfect all time classic like 'I'm Not In Love' along side some sort of song about Minestrone (which somehow actually charted). 'I'm Not In Love' alone could have made for a solid hour of chatter, what with …

Let's say you have a band. It's mostly you, though you bring in a rotating cast of characters to help you fill it out. You don't love touring, but do love snapping together pop punk ditties with a surgical top-down-in-the-summertime sonic aesthetic. You tend to pair these with dada-esque videos, and somehow it makes sense. Though it's your act, you…

A quick search online provides many examples of the extreme torture, pain, and suffering inflicted by the heavy metal device known as the Iron Maiden. It's legendary status puts fear into the eyes of even the strongest of humans and caused the slow, excruciating death of thousands. You will also find pictures of a large 19th century iron coffin dev…

At this point it feels almost antithetical to what we're worrying about in 2022 to talk about the pandemic, like we’ve come to regard it as some sort of distant, fuzzy memory. The scourge wasn't that long ago, and if you judge by my last trip to the supermarket, some folks are still sweating the outcome. A few months back Ryan and Mark and I put to…

It is tempting with Marvin Gaye to start with the last chapter. To skip ahead to the tragic end, dog ear the page, and work backwards. But that robs us of a certain sense of who he was at his epiphany, a competitive and deeply original talent who shone in the spotlight, bucked the trends that made Motown buckets of cash, and crafted what Ryan terme…

My daughter, Lucy, and I discuss the definition of art, our fears, what we like about ourselves.... and much more. This is the last episode of season 2. Thanks again for listening .... and enjoy! Support this podcast at any $ amount and receive exclusive content. Patreon support click here. Check out these sponsors that make this show happen: The B…

Given time, pressure, and the varied perspective that arrives with age, we can be forgiven for re-imagining the opinions we formed in our halcyon days. But as long as music bears the burden of snapping us back to the moment when we first made its acquaintance, it feels, if only for a brief time, like we haven't aged a day. Ryan's friend Daniel Rich…

Shane Key (a writer of songs) and I discuss many stories including bringing kids into the family, loving your wife, and how to make end's meet. He shares a song. And a special surprise guest appears at the end of the show. Thanks for listening .... and enjoy! Support this podcast at any $ amount and receive exclusive content. Patreon support click …

Discussing Dungeons and Dragons, accents, and Wikipedia wormholes with an Aussie patriot poet named Danny "The Jet" Becker. He is a teacher, a poet… Australian-born and raised world traveler. We talk about accents, what makes us curious, Tinder, American patriotism, Wikipedia wormholes, and Dungeons and Dragons. Teaching, and the process of poetry.…

In this episode I talk with Cyril Jefferson -- change-maker, city councilman, and friend. We discuss kids' bedtime, loss and grief, gangs, community-building, how he met his wife (she was fly!), band geeks, and high school choral performances. Thanks for being a part of this.... and enjoy! If you enjoy this podcast and it provides value in your lif…

In this episode actor and writer Jen Bartels and I discuss authenticity, tenacity, being your own "storefront," mental health, insulin, television shows getting canceled, defining "success," Louboutins, sports, and being kind to yourself. Jen and I went to high school together, and that (probably) had no (or very little) impact on her current succe…

Charlie Martin's pandemic experience has been much like the rest of ours, until it wasn't. Martin, one half of the having-an-indie-moment act Hovvdy, spent much of the first two COVID years huddled up with his Mrs, tethered to extended family from afar, until they deemed such time safe (or safe enough) to venture out. Imaginary People, Martin's sol…

So let's just start with the obvious: we don't know where the scarf is. We don't know if the legends about said scarf are real, nor do we have insight from various Gyllenhaals as to the status of the aforementioned scarf, and we don't know with certainty that Taylor Swift, when you break up with her, is contractually obligated or otherwise driven t…

Jon Esser and I discuss sweet-talking dogs, fear, what’s best for kids, 90s grunge, Jesus, and how we define “neighbors.” If you enjoy this podcast and it provides value in your life, please consider joining the private group that makes it happen. Check out these sponsors!! The Budding Artichoke Instagram / Facebook Flywheel Press Instagram Guest p…

A man waits 6 months (she claims it is 5 months) for a response from a stranger. He claims that he knew he would marry her before they ever met. A tale of love, research, and patience. Check out these sponsors!! The Budding Artichoke Instagram / Facebook Flywheel Press Instagram Guest promotion from Anonymous sponsor: Growing High Point Instagram T…

Friend shares about kids, life with panic, obsessive-compulsive behavior and how policing changed him. Check out these sponsors!! The Budding Artichoke Instagram / Facebook Flywheel Press Instagram Guest promotion from Anonymous sponsor: Growing High Point Instagram The Friends We Meet is produced by Evan Blackerby & Human People Creative Instagram…

It's pretty common in our collective rear view to gaze upon the halcyon days of early March 2020 and chuckle about our earnest belief that this COVID thing? We'll be past it in a couple of weeks. Of course now, in a story that's been beaten into a fine mist, we know the pandemic had other plans. It is with tongue planted firmly in cheek that I sugg…

Lifelong friend shares what it feels like to be a new dad. I apologize for something. Voicemails from the past I can't delete. More music from an exceptional musician. Check out these sponsors!! The Budding Artichoke Instagram / Facebook Zack Allison Design Website Printology Press Website / Instagram / Facebook Yellow Truck Coffee Co. Website / In…

A greasy watermelon amongst warriors. A writer finds his voice, learns confidence in humility, and kills his darlings. Another love song. Bleh. Kidding. Featuring: Scott Blackburn (@scottblackburnwords on Instagram) ________ Brett Thompson on lead guitar (@brettmorganthompson) ZJ Cunningham on bass (@itszj) Thanks to 83 Custom Coffee for letting us…

A love story. A boy finds his lost dog. Phone call to dad. The ballad of "Never and Always." Featuring: Jose Abreu Instagram / Facebook Shane Key Instagram / Facebook Check out these sponsors!! The Budding Artichoke Instagram / Facebook Zack Allison Design Website Printology Press Website / Instagram / Facebook Yellow Truck Coffee Co. Website / Ins…

Av Mark Couvillion

It can be difficult to recall on occasion that Willie Nelson is more than just the proverbial Kevin Bacon of country music: true, he's recorded with everyone, true, he's become revered beyond his wildest dreams among a large swath of the American music loving public, and true, he once managed to wrangle his way out of trouble with the IRS, in part,…

It's a weird byproduct of doing this podcast that occasionally —and I realize that this idea is counterintuitive—finding a record square in the midst of all of our collective sweetspot may affect our banter when we lay down the show. It's rare when it happens, but it happens. We ran into an interesting set of circumstances with Barrie and their ini…

Mixtape shows are funny (beyond whatever shenanigans actually happen during the taping itself): you tend to think about the songs you're going to add to the show via the unique prism of that song's application to a given theme. For our Labor Day Mixtape Show, we decided (cleverly? You decide-) that we'd bring to bear songs specifically about Work, …

At some point during the week before we laid down this episode, one of us circulated a Honda scooter ad starring Miles Davis from the 1980s. If you've ever seen it, it's more or less...terrifying, which is a helluva thing to accuse of a Honda scooter commercial from the 1980s. Miles could be well and truly ominous when he wanted to be, even when (s…

I don't really know how to explain this other than the way that I'm about to, but the first time I heard In The Meantime, I had a pretty good idea that this track was pretty much the best that Spacehog had to offer. And I don't mean that it's because the song is a transcendent masterpiece, a triumph to eclipse all of their others. It sounded, for l…

So to be completely fair (and you'll notice this straightaway), there's an elephant in the room in this episode. We ran into a weird situation - Mark actually left his usual recording array at home accidentally, and we decided to soldier on rather than go home and get it. The result is a sort of weird "conference call" quality to the broadcast (a f…

It's hard to escape your own predispositions, and come to think of it, that's probably why we call them that. We each bring the tapestry of our unique experience into the ear we lend to a record, and it's as important as the record is itself in determining our ability to fall for it. Music can be a complicated bundle, but falling in love with an ac…

Long before he found himself wandering around emitting, out loud, sounds associated with brain cell loss, Ozzy Osbourne leapt into a solo career that, one might competitively say, is more responsible for his legacy than his work in Black Sabbath. Oh sure, some things remain constant - he still doesn't linger in the recording studio - and he’s surro…

By now the Jenny Lewis story has been told far and wide: child actress becomes indie darling, and is anyone really surprised when she assembles an allstar team to pull together her latest record (helmed by Beck)? Probably not. But behind the polished veneer of her most recent release, a few of us wonder if she's been comfortable too long. Too many …

Adam and the Ants, perhaps the birthplace of the of the Sexy Revolutionary War Guy costume, is our focus as we welcome back our full complement of goofballs back into the fray. There's lots to discuss - Malcolm McLaren, dream journals, Jerry Reed comes up for some reason, and a girl who is reviewing all of the LPs in her husband's "Stupid Record Co…

Pinning down the Roots' legacy isn't quite as simple as acknowledging their current role slow jamming the news on The Tonight Show: in fact, before they were invited into our daily national households, The Roots had to first shake folks up. Things Fall Apart became the ascendant touchstone for a band that always had chops but never felt dangerous -…

Generally speaking, most super groups aren’t that Super. They tend to trend toward a collective of famous parts that almost never eclipse the sum of the whole. As a result, most of these efforts come off looking like what they are, vanity projects that draft off of the disparate fog of fame. Not so with boygenius, the clever by way of earnest monik…

After a time there is a conventional wisdom that Bands become Brands, and all too often (we'd wager most of the time), if you think critically about what a band is called, it's typically a total disconnect against the name (no one really expects, for example, Arcade Fire to canvass precisely that). Which brings us to Superorganism, an originally fa…

All three members of Flasher grew up in the Washington, DC area, a metro recently referenced in one review as both 'beautiful' and a 'clattering hellscape' pretty much in the same paragraph. It's safe to say that it's a complicated place to come of age, and as of recently, they still hadn't actually quit their day jobs, all three of them continuing…

In this episode, we discuss one of several eponymous albums by the Velvet Underground. This is the one with them sitting on a dingy couch. There's some solid tunes on here and then, there's not. Definitely a departure from 1968's White Light/White Heat with John Cale being replaced by Doug Yule and several songs that could use further editing. The …

After a 2 month hiatus from the show, we decided to kick things back into gear with another mixtape. This go around, Kevin suggested we select songs that we love from motion picture or theatre soundtracks. It's always fun to share songs that we're familiar with and hold a special place in our catalog. ##In This Episode:## Survivor - Eye of the Tige…

Being the grandson of the progenitor of 20th Century Country doesn't give you a free pass to the music hall of fame–unless we're talking about the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum in Nashville, it probably gets you a couple of free tickets there–but one thing it apparently give you is an incredible genetic tendency toward extreme musical talent. W…

It's difficult to really compare Ariana Grande to other female pop and R&B starlets of recent history; part Mariah, part Brittney, part Christina, part Pete Davidson, but none of these at the same time. It's safe to say the past couple of years haven't been necessarily smooth sailing for the 25 year old. Still, she sings. And walks and breathes lik…

We had limited purview. Bandwagonesque was the record we knew, framed by the apparently unforgivable historical fact that any band with any album might edge Nirvana's Nevermind for an Album of the Year designation. That happened. Some still haven't gotten past it. Voting on things brings controversy. But this isn't that album. It's not even that ar…

If enigmatic, sprite-like-delivered vocals, with a layered, hypnotic musical bed is your bag, then we've we over here at Somebody Likes It have got you hooked up this week. We took a turn at Beach House's 2015 release Thank Your Lucky Stars, a kinda-easy shot for all of us over at podcast-central. Without giving away too much, I'll just add that na…

Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding may have written some of the best songs of the 70s, 80s, and 90s that most people have never heard. They teetered on commercial superstardom for years and potentially could have gotten there had it not been for Partridge's crippling stage fright that caused the band to stop touring in the early 80s. Heading to the …

"She's my...Vertical Smile!...oh, wait let's change that to Cherry Pie". Yeah, that's right. Because of stupid Corporate Overlords not respecting the free speech rights of Warrant, we will never get to hear the genius they originally had in mind when they set music to tape back in 1989. They originally wanted this album to be called "Vertical Smile…

Oh Matador Records, you of your indie darlings and slack ingenues and legends scrawled upon the walls of rancid LA apartments...Matador, you're at it again. Welcome to the Hype Machine. With the release of Snail Mail's Lush, we teeter headfirst into the prodigious mind of Lindsay Jordan, who writes dually about love as social triviality and distant…

This episode, while Producer Mark was away in Barcelona, we tackled Parliament's Watership Down Mothership Connection. Parliament - Mothership Connection A Few Minutes With [Journey - Separate Ways][2] A Current Affair [George Clinton - I'm Gon Make U Sick O'Me][3]Av Shane Bartell, Kevin Newsum, Ryan Newsum, Mark Couvillion

It's difficult to gaze back upon Elliot Smith's career and not see all of it, even the highlights, through a lens tinted with melancholy. Such may be the way that it goes with turbulent exits from this mortal coil, but Smith always let rays of sunshine filter through his musical tumult, and so goes From A Basement On The Hill, one of those great al…