The Steer: Recent Episodes
Jeff Alessandrelli, Joshua James Amberson, Karleigh Frisbie Brogan
Hosted by Joshua James Amberson, Karleigh Frisbie Brogan, and Jeff Alessandrelli in Portland, Oregon, The Steer features leading musicians talking about their favorite writers and books and leading writers talking about their favorite musicians and albums. Conversations often go elsewhere and following each talk is a playlist of songs or sounds discussed during the interview. New episodes drop every two weeks.
We talk to writer Chris Harding Thornton about her debut novel, Pickard County Atlas, out this week on MCD Books. We discuss overrated bands, noir, life as an opera major, working at a record store in the 1990s, what our families think about our writing, and the books we hate.
Some songs to accompany our talk with novelist Chris Harding Thornton and her new novel Pickard County Atlas. Tracks from PJ Harvey, Jesus Lizard, The Jam, Pulp, His Hero Is Gone, Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five, Rocket from the Crypt, Meat Beat Manifesto, Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Dogg, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and George Jones.
We chat to Matthew Kallman of the band Real Estate about ordering records from paper catalogs in the '90s, adaptability, music biographies, the cultish earnestness of The Blue Nile, instrumental music, Real Estate's new album The Main Thing, and his work as music supervisor for the new HBO miniseries I Know This Much Is True.
On our bonus Halloween episode, we ask: What is Halloween music? Is Halloween music actually spooky? And, if not, what makes music spooky? To figure out the answers to these questions, we discuss and listen to everything from goth to surf, horrorpunk to horrorcore rap, old-time music to modern outsider artists, singing saws, theremins, and novelty songs.
A replay of our conversation with Portland-based writer, musician, and visual artist Dao Strom. We also get caught up with her about her evolution as an artist in the time since this interview and talk about her new book Instrument, as well as its companion album Traveler's Ode.
Superstar Oregon essayist Elena Passarello discusses what it’s like to write and think deeply about Elvis Presley in 2020. We chat about her short-lived attempt to be the world’s first prominent female Elvis tribute artist, find out how to sleep in Elvis’ childhood bedroom, and learn all about her SECRET VEGAS WEDDING. We also consult Public Enemy, Gillian Welch, Nick Cave, and Lester Bangs for their thoughts on the so-called King of Rock & Roll.
Songs to accompany our chat with essayist Elena Passarello and her writing project on Elvis Presley. Within: deep-cut songs by Elvis, songs about Elvis, songs written for (or almost performed by) Elvis, and songs we wish Elvis would have lived long enough to cover.
Songs from our conversation with novelist and short story author Chelsea Bieker. Nina Simone, Reba McEntire, Blink-182, Selena, and more.
Our conversation with Portland writer Chelsea Bieker about her new novel Godshot, and her upcoming short story collection Cowboys and Angels. Within: lost mothers, the power of Nina Simone, Blink-182 t-shirts, the pelvic floor.
Our chat with Portland journalist and music writer Santi Elijah Holley. We talk about his upcoming Bloomsbury 33 1/3 book, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Murder Ballads, as well as his book-in-progress on the Shakur family and the history of black liberation movements. We also take a deep dive into the folk ballad "Stagger Lee."
Some songs to accompany our chat with journalist and music writer Santi Elijah Holley on his upcoming 33 1/3 book, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Murder Ballads. Four essential versions of the folk ballad "Stagger Lee," as well as 2Pac, Gil-Scott Heron, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Reintroducing The Steer and introducing our new co-host Karleigh Frisbie Brogan. Joshua and Karleigh discuss friendship, pandemic writing, upcoming guests, new music recommendations, and the importance of college radio in the 1990s
Some tunes to accompany our reintroduction to The Steer, and the introduction of our new co-host Karleigh Frisbie Brogan. Songs from (in order) Brittany Howard, Aldous Harding, Babytooth, Greentea Peng, Frances Quinlan, Soundgarden, Allison Crutchfield, Morphine, Waxahatchee, Steve Young, Sara Renberg, Freedy Johnston, Yaara Valey, and Ora Cogan.
Music from the Bill Carty episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Gang Starr, Tierra Whack, Frank Ocean and Yo Yo Ma, among others.
Joshua and Jeff talk to Seattle-based poet Bill Carty. Topics discussed include: writing under the joy/ pressure of having two young children, the mastery of Gang Starr, growing up in Maine, and his 2019 poetry collection Huge Cloudy, nominated for the 2019 The Believer Book Award in the Poetry category.
Music from the Stephen Steinbrink episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Dear Nora, Prefab Sprout, Lake and Stephen Steinbrink, among others.
Jeff and Joshua talk to Oakland-based indie-pop songwriter Stephen Steinbrink. Topics discussed include: Olympia, Washington; audio books; the kindness of LAKE; stained glass refurbishing; therapy; psychedelics; Arthur Russell; and why short stories are the best tour read.
Music from the Margaret Malone episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Erik Satie, John Coltrane, The Notwist and Juana Molina, among others.
Jeff and Joshua talk to Portland short story writer Margaret Malone, author of the PEN Hemingway finalist book People Like You. Within: writing rituals, anti-comparison living, the magic of the live reading, the wizardry of Juana Molina, and the imagined height of Bill Callahan.
Music from the Andre Perry episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Mobb Deep, The Grateful Dead, Sasami, Kendrick Lamar and Brittany Howard, among others.
Joshua and Jeff talk to Andre Perry about listening to Kendrick Lamar live in Iowa City, making music in San Francisco, the nuances of The Grateful Dead, co-founding the Mission Creek Festival, and his debut essay collection Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now.
Music from the Kyle Morton episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Tracks from Kyle's solo album What Will Destroy You are featured, as well as a few from Kyle's band Typhoon.
Joshua and Jeff talk to Kyle Morton, Typhoon frontman Kyle Morton and noted solo musician, about reading history; growing up in Salem, Oregon; the nuances of good lyric writing, among other far-flung topics.
Joshua and Jeff talk to writer and performance artist Gabrielle Civil about Prince, Bjork, Solange, how to both define and come to terms with success, and her new bookExperiments in Joy, longlisted for the Believer Book Award in the non-fiction category.
Music from the Gabrielle Civil episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Prince, Digable Plants, Bjork, Nina Simone and Solange, among others.
New Steer co-host Joshua James Amberson and Jeff Alessandrelli discuss the upcoming season of their music/writing podcast/radio show The Steer.
The Steer says goodbye to Season 1 of the show and talks about what's coming up in Season 2.
Music from the Mathias Svalina episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include UUVVWWZ, Boyracer, FKA Twigs and Shudder To Think, among others.
Jeff talks to Mathias Svalina, poet and proprietor of the Dream Delivery Service, about deodorant, Michael Crichton, Mary Roach, Virginia, bicycling, solitude, being a college radio disc jockey, traveling vs. staying in one space mentally and physically, and music. A lot about music. At the end Mathias also reads some of his “choice” dreams—stick around for it.
Jeff talks to ambidextrous author and artist Felicity Fenton about 21st century social media stratification and the potential for freedom, why Yoko Ono deserves all the praise she gets and then some, and how traveling can paradoxically make an artist feel a greater sense of home. Listen until the end when Felicity also reads from her amazing essay User Not Found!
Music from the Felicity Fenton episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Yoko Ono, Sonic Youth, Liquid Liquid and Love, among others.
Music from the Patty Yumi Cottrell episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Fiona Apple, Casino Versus Japan, Aphex Twin and Bill Callahan, among others.
Jeff talks to acclaimed novelist and 2018 Whiting Award winner Patty Yumi Cottrell about fantasy league basketball, growing up in the suburbs, and giving Fiona Apple some possibly unwanted marijuana after a soul-stirring concert. Stay tuned until the end when Patty also reads an excerpt of an essay about cats!
Jeff and Sunny talk with PDX writer, editor and Propeller Books publisher Dan DeWeese about Sade, George Michael, what the term oppositional defiance means both generally and in terms of his own life, and why he can’t listen to Travis Scott too loudly when his son is in a one mile vicinity of him.
Music from the Dan DeWeese episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Pink Floyd, Travis Scott, Sade and Willie Nelson, among others.
Music from the Maxine Hong Kingston episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. All of the songs are from Joe Kingston's album "Songs for Trixie."
Maxine Hong Kingston, winner of the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal, reveals a life without music, having no feeling for the sounds that mysteriously thrilled everyone around her, devoting her ear instead to seeking out the rhythms of literature, penning nine books including The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts*. It wasn’t until her son Joe developed as a musician that she began to revisit the many songs she had walked past but never touched. She and her husband Earll Kingston join Sunny in the studio.
Music from the Elisa Gabbert episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Interpol, Peter Gabriel, Ratatat and Miley Cyrus, among others.
Jeff talks to Elisa Gabbert about her new book The Word Pretty, cancel culture, karaoke, growing up in Texas and nostalgia-as-musical-memory, among other topics.
Jeff talks to long time Fence Magazine editor Charles Valle about the details of editing a literary journal for 15+ years, musical taste as one grows older, and the cultural experiment that is Ian Svenonius, among other far-flung topics.
Music from the Charles Valle episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include The Spinanes and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Music from the Jenny Chu episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Alan Menken and Mariah Carey.
Portland-based writer and activist Jenny Chu talks with Sunny and Jeff about growing up as a restaurant baby and what that term means exactly, her love of Disney musicals, and the nature of nostalgia vis-à-vis romantic and familial relationships.
Ed Skoog jaws with Jeff and Sunny about New Orleans music and New Orleans life, how and why he started playing banjo, Big Star, and the myriad of direct and indirect musical references in his amazing poetry collections Mister Skylight, Rough Day and Run the Red Lights.
Music from the Ed Skoog episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include The Dixie Cups, Aaron Neville, Ernie K-Doe and Irma Thomas, among others.
10,000 Maniacs--Because the Night
Nirvana--Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920-22): I. Allegro / Maurice Ravel played by Nigel Kennedy & Lynn Harrell
Black Sabbath--Black Sabbath
PJ Harvey--In the Dark Places---Live at Sydney Festival
10,000 Maniacs--Because the Night--3:39
Ane Brun--All My Tears--2:06
Thom Yorke--Analyse--Live (2006)
Patti Smith Group--Because the Night
Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel talks to Sunny and Jeff about her recent essay collection Fear Icons, how as a child growing up in a conservatively religious home Ozzy Osbourne was a near stand-in for ol Saint Nick himself, and what a “shadow text” is vis-a-vis the framework of Fear Icons.
The music that John Beer talked about, as heard on KZUT 99.1 FM LA. Tracks include: Ellen Arkbro - Three, Ellen Arkbro - For Organ and Brass, Eve Egoyan - Simple Lines of Enquiry Movement 10 & 11, Sarah Davachi - for piano, Sarah Davachi - for voice.
Poet and pub quiz player extraordinaire John Beer, whose poetry collection "The Waste Land and Other Poems" won the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, talks about his eclectic tastes in music, a brief life in Berlin, and the importance of poetry critics. He's a busy man but "sometimes," he says, "I just sit and listen to music."
Jamondria Harris' EP "meroitic," plus tracks from Alice Coltrane and Cocteau Twins. As heard on the radio episode of our show, broadcast on 99.1 FM Los Angeles.
Interdisciplinary artist Jamondria Harris talks about growing up in the vastness of Texas, how Alice Coltrane impacted their life, and their sound art including the work they do under the name meroitic. Jamondria also reads an excerpt from their new collection "quaerere," out now from Magic Helicopter Press!
Acclaimed author and former frontman of the grunge/not-grunge band Dungbeetle, Sam Lipsyte talks about his early successes and failures, his surprise love for teaching, getting an award from President Ronald Reagan as a kid, and his new novel Hark, published by Simon & Schuster.
Music from the Sam Lipsyte episode, as heard on Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Also, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem talks about overcoming failure.
Tracks from musicians talked about during Wendy's interview, as heard on dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles.
Poet and essayist Wendy Bourgeois talks about growing up working class, shoe shopping, conservative relatives, her love of minor key country & western music, and her new book of essays "The Devil Says Maybe I Like It," published by Propeller Books.
A track from the Pogues, then music from Willy's bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines.
Critically acclaimed novelist and musician Willy Vlautin ("Lean on Pete," "The Motel Life") talks about growing up in Reno, Nevada, writing his early work at horse tracks in Portland, Oregon, and how much a brief encounter with Pogues-singer Shane MacGowan meant to him. His band, The Delines, is currently touring their newest album The Imperial.
Music by Dao Strom, music talked about in her interview, and tracks that are particular favorites of hers. Full playlist on our website.
Born in Vietnam, Dao Strom grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where she first began writing and thinking about the world as a beautiful place yet filled with contradiction. She talks with us about learning to play music in Iowa City, how she maintains her creativity from project to project, Cat Power, and why people are occasionally surprised by her love of folk and country music. Strom's latest book is You Will Always Be Someone From Somewhere Else and, recording as The Sea and The Mother, her latest album is a 6 song EP entitled Sense.
In addition to her own creative work Strom is also a founding member of She Who Has No Master(s), a collective of women writers of the Vietnamese diaspora, co-director of a PoC library collective/social engagement project, De-Canon, and the editor of diaCRITICS.
Music that Janice Lee talked about in her interview.
Russian Circles--Harper Lewis
Scarlett O’Connor--Black Roses
(from TV show "Nashville")
Godspeed You! Black Emperor--Storm
Scarlett O’Connor & Gunnar Scott-- When The Right One Comes Along
(from TV show "Nashville")
Mihály Víg--Old
Russian Circles--Youngblood
Janice Lee talks about her secret dance performances and how the music of "Godspeed You! Black Emperor" carries her through writing sessions. Lee is the author of KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011), Damnation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Reconsolidation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2015), and The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016). She is Founder & Executive Editor of Entropy, Co-Publisher at Civil Coping Mechanisms, Contributing Editor at Fanzine, and Co-Founder of The Accomplices LLC. After living for over 30 years in California, she recently moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon where she is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Portland State University.
Musician (and writer) Laura Gibson discusses the nature of her MFA experience at Hunter College, the role author Colum McCann has had on her writing life, New York City living vs. Portland living, screenplays, and her new album Goners.
Acclaimed author Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, Fortress of Solitude) talks about making art while the world is on fire, writing female characters, his life-long love of music, and of course, his newest book, The Feral Detective, published by Harper Collins.
The music played during our interview was taken from Lethem’s list of music for his novel from the always excellent Large Hearted Boy.
Further music writing by Jonathan Lethem:
Jonathan Lethem on the Music of his Life
Being James Brown
The Genius and Modern Times of Bob Dylan
The Ecstasy of Influence
Legendary poet Eileen Myles discusses their relationship with nostalgia, shares memorable readings, talks about dealing with fans and press, and Elliott Smith and The Beatles, among other musical artists.
National Book Award winning poet Justin Phillip Reed talks about growing up in the south, metal shows, The Deftones and why the character Ruby Rhod of "The Fifth Element" is Chris Tucker's career-defining role.
Gina talks about growing up in Saginaw, Michigan, life in Philadelphia, and the music and shows that have been a part of her life.