(Editor’s Note: BGS is proud to announce the addition of Only Vans with Bri Bagwell to the BGS Podcast Network! Read more about our newest podcast coming on board here.)
In the latest episode of Only Vans, Texas country artist and host Bri Bagwell chats with friend, mentor, and famed lead singer of Cross Canadian Ragweed, Cody Canada and his wife/manager Shannon in the bus, covering a wide variety of topics like racial injustice, partying, the metal music scene, and shifting priorities after having kids.
I love going for bike rides. It helps me reconnect and recenter myself. I’m almost always listening to music when I go out for a ride. Sometimes it’s heavier/angrier stuff to help me process and burn some things off, sometimes it’s completely instrumental to help me think, but most of the time it’s laid-back music – because if there’s one thing I am not, it’s laid-back. I’m almost always anxious and neurotic. Biking around and listening to a playlist like this helps me remember to take it easy, to breathe.
Sometimes I get messages from people who say my music helps them to do that, but I don’t sit around listening to my own music. Even though that’s a lovely thing to hear, I can’t engage with it in the same way. I can’t, for example, go and listen to my new album, Evergold (released April 26 on Nettwerk Records), to help me calm down, so I’m stuck making playlists like this for myself. Oh well. I hope this playlist helps you to relax and enjoy the ride, even just a little bit. – Joshua Hyslop
“Small Town Talk” – Bobby Charles
I love this song. I think it’s hard to listen to it and not imagine being on a bike ride, just meandering around some neighborhood on a lazy sunny afternoon. To me, this is the perfect place to start. Great artist. Great album.
“AUATC” – Bon Iver
Sometimes, you listen to a song at just the right time. Something about the lyrics or the melody just clicks with you in the moment. I’m not even 100% sure what this song is about, but my god, what a melody. The slightly sped-up vocals, the communal feeling to it all, it just has something that pulls you in.
“Lay down Martha, lay all that alabaster down, there’s no master, help will surely come around.” Who’s Martha? Why is she carrying alabaster? I don’t know, but I sure find myself nodding along.
“Box #10” – Jim Croce
I debated choosing another Jim Croce song, maybe something a little happier for this “chill bike ride” playlist. But to me, this song sounds like when the sun first comes out after the rain. It’s a little bittersweet, but most of the good stuff is.
“One of These Days” – Bedouine
I found this song when the album I was listening to ended and Spotify just started playing something else. I ended up pulling over and adding it to my own riding tunes playlist. I don’t know Bedouine outside of this, but I’m excited to spend more time with her music.
“Nantucket Island” – Willie Wright
I got the idea for the theme of this playlist, because one of my all-time favorite shows is/was High Maintenance on HBO. The Guy is always biking around, smoking a joint, delivering his wares, and getting a small snapshot into the lives of his many varied customers. It’s so good, and so human, and so lovely, and the music was always incredible. This track was in one of the episodes and I made special note of it, as well. When you’re done listening and reading all this, go watch some High Maintenance.
“Wish I Had Not Said That” – J.J. Cale
This song came out in 1981. The number one song in the USA at the time was “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes. Thank god for J.J. Cale.
“Scumways” – Michael Nau
I found this artist by watching Amoeba’s wonderful YouTube show, “What’s In My Bag?” I can’t remember who mentioned him, but his music’s in regular rotation for me, now. This whole album could’ve easily been the entire playlist. It’s a great riding or driving album.
“Down the Line” – Joshua Hyslop
Yes, okay, I know. It’s one of my songs. I think it fits the overall feel here, but we both know there is NO way I would put one of my own songs on my own bike ride playlist. Alright, moving on.
“Fata Morgana” – Kikagaku Moyo
Easily one of my Top 5 desert island albums. This record could also easily have been the entire playlist. It may seem a little out of place on the first listen through, but when I was younger and I’d make a mixtape for a girl I liked, I’d use an instrumental song as a bit of a palate cleanser, especially if there’d been a few super laid back songs in a row. Anyway, here I am all these years later, giving away my secrets and trying to romance you all.
“Gimme Some More” – Labi Siffre
It’s upbeat, it’s happy, it’s a perfect sunny day bike ride song. Plus, singing along and getting to say “Sock it to me” at the break makes me feel about 10 times cooler than I’ll ever actually be.
“None of Us” – Fruit Bats
This song embraces a certain kind of humility and self-awareness that really appeals to me. I could sing along to, “None of us have seen it all” on repeat forever. The entire last minute of this song kind of perfectly captures the emotional landscape I was thinking of when I came up with the idea for a chill bike ride playlist.
“Caterpillar” – Cassandra Jenkins
Just a lovely way to close things out. Say you’re out riding, and you’re on your way home, but you know the playlist is going to end before you get there; this is the perfect song to have playing on repeat until you get there.
A deep reflection born from a time of the extreme silence and noise of the pandemic, Kaïa Kater’s new album, Strange Medicine (out today, May 17), digs into the feelings society tells us not to feel, imagines healing and revenge from abuses, and reckons with themes of racism and sexism of the past and today. While the undercurrents are heavy, the arrangements are gentle and flowing, juxtaposing our expectations of what we think it means to process the darkness in life with the truth that many emotions can exist simultaneously.
Written from home in Montreal, Strange Medicine takes us on a cathartic journey imagining characters interwoven with parts of Kater and parts of the world she observes. Drawing on inspiration from artists like Steve Reich, Brian Blade, and Johnny Greenwood and partnering with Montreal-based producer Joe Grass (The Barr Brothers and Elisapie), she took a different musical path than in the past.
Leaning into her primary instrument, banjo, Grass and Kater built the framework for each of the tracks slowly, starting with bedroom tracks and expanding to include arrangers like Franky Rousseau (Andrew Bird, Chris Thile) and Dominic Mekky (Caroline Shaw, Sara Bareilles) and musicians Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, Paul Simon), Robbie Kuster (Patrick Watson), and Phil Melanson (Andy Shauf, Sam Gendel). Kater spoke to BGS via Zoom.
Hi! How are you?
Kaia Kater: I’m okay! A couple of days ago I dropped my phone directly onto my laptop screen and it cracked. I had to go to Apple. So I am without a laptop, but thankfully have my 10-year-old iPad, bless her!
Apple is coming in clutch. Also, Apple product destroying Apple product is kind of funny.
Yeah, it’s an Apple-on-Apple hate crime. It’s terrible. I feel so weird about it. But I have AppleCare, which is good.
With the couple of sentences that you just said it’s no wonder the Department of Justice is looking into Apple as a monopoly. Vertical integration. Well, how are things going other than Apple problems?
The record is out in a week, so I’m excited. Thank you for doing this piece. I never take any press for granted, especially after the pandemic, when things were so terrible and hard.
What a weird time. Is that when you started writing this record?
Yeah, pretty much. I wrote my first song in April of 2020. We finished the record in 2023. So I would say like 2020 to 2022, was the writing window.
This album is a pandemic baby!
It is. Yeah, I’m proud of my little pandemic baby. Born out of a lot of feelings of stasis and confusion, but also just so fun to record. I think that there’s a lot of grief in the lyrics. But you can still vibe to sad songs, especially when they feel groovy. So that was the intent.
So when did you start recording it?
Let’s see, we went in to record in October of 2022 but the official recording days were preceded by a ton of demo days. So throughout 2021 and into 2022, I would go to my co-producer Joe’s studio in Montreal. We would just track stuff and either bring people in or ship the songs out to people and pay them a demo fee and have them kind of like splash around and see what their interpretation of the song was. That was kind of like how we selected personnel. I think we had a pretty strong idea of what we wanted to do by the time we got into the studio, which is so different from other projects I’ve been part of and other records I’ve done.
How was it different?
I guess, with the pandemic, I had the blessing of time, which I never had before really. With Nine Pin, I recorded on my winter break from college in my senior year, and then Grenades was done from start to finish in two weeks. And so with Strange Medicine, it was about two years. There are advantages and drawbacks to that. It is very easy to start second guessing some choices that you’d made in the previous calendar year, but I think it was to me such a novelty to be able to write and then listen back, and send the arrangement to someone and have them send their work back. It was so much more thoughtful because we had the time to do that.
That makes total sense. So you started writing it during the pandemic. What was your writing process like? Did you have ideas that you came into the lockdown with, or were you processing things in real time?
Well, originally I was like, “I’m never gonna play banjo again.” I don’t know what I was thinking. I think I was trying, to a certain extent, to escape my roots, transform, or do this phoenix thing. Where people are like, “Whoa! She was a banjo player and now she’s an electronic pop musician.” That was maybe a facet of my mid-20s to late 20s, having that crackling feeling that all the different paths your life can take feel like they’re narrowing. And so you’re kind of like fighting against that and going, “No, I still can transform again, musically.”
Really what led me to write more songs on the banjo, especially for Strange Medicine, was that it was really comforting to me. I think I went back to it after wanting to spread my wings. Once I was alone in a room I was like, “What do I want to do right now? I just wanna play banjo.” And for a long time that’s all I did. I didn’t really write. The songs trickled in bit by bit. But you know I definitely gave up that idea of trying to metamorphosize in the way that I thought I was going to. I think I did it in a different way.
Can you talk a little bit about what it meant to be in Montreal writing this record and just in general? What influence did the town have on this particular record? And how does the music community there influence you?
Well, it’s very experimental there. And there’s a kind of freedom and risk-taking. People are not afraid to have things fail or to have things not quite work. Even now, I’m sort of deconstructing the idea that I grew up with, this idea of what a songwriter is, which is that you work really hard at your craft, you play the song down. And the way that you improve every night is how you perfect and tighten the song as much as possible. I’ve been getting into this idea of improvisation.
I don’t know if it’s because the rent is cheaper there, so you don’t have to hustle as much. I just felt so much more space to play around.
While we’re on the subject of Montreal, you collaborated with Allison Russell on “In Montreal” about your shared hometown. I was curious since Aoife O’Donovan is from Massachusetts and you’re talking about witches on “The Witch” – was that a purposeful choice?
No, but that occurred to me about a week ago. I was making dinner, and I was like, “Wait. Aoife’s from Massachusetts!” It must have been in some way subconscious. I kind of see people as the roots that they’ve grown from. And definitely, when thinking about the features I wanted, I wanted it to make sense with who that person is. For example, with Taj Mahal, he’s who I learned about the black roots of the banjo from first. He was doing that in the ‘60s, and he has a lot of Calypso and Caribbean influences and heritage. Bringing him into a song about a Caribbean revolutionary felt like, “Well, of course.” I even wrote him a little letter explaining the song, because he’s 80. He doesn’t need to be on anybody’s record. And so I was like, “Let me tell you what the song is about, and maybe you’ll want to sing on it.”
That’s so cool. And how did the collaboration on “The Witch” come about?
Aoife has always been really supportive of me as a person and as an artist, going back to 2017. She’s kept me in mind for a lot of things and she’s suggested me for opportunities. She’s also really community-oriented. She’s very cognizant of supporting women musicians and young musicians. I’m a mega fan of hers.
I had written “The Witch” and I thought she would sound great on it. Fast forward to the end of the process, when all we had left to do was harmony vocals and I was really nervous to ask her because I think I was scared to get a no. But I’ve been practicing. You have to ask, because if you don’t ask you don’t receive anything. I texted her, and she immediately responded yes without even hearing the song. Then she laid down all these like really intricate harmony parts. She’s a genius.
Your voices are beautiful together. It works really well. And the Massachusetts thing — it’s perfect. While we’re on the subject of that song, what connects you to the stories of these women who were accused of witchcraft or adultery and were punished for it?
To me, it is the juxtaposition of having this perceived power in the minds of men as being capable of influence, capable of seduction and luring, and superseding a man’s high intelligence and thoughts of himself and overtaking will power. But then, when women were accused of being witches, their already limited power just absolutely disintegrated and they were executed by mobs. I was thinking a lot about these kind of polar ideas of women having so much power over men, but then we’re struggling to be taken seriously in a workplace or struggling to feel like we are on equal footing.
I think sexism and racism today are much more insidious – as are homophobia and transphobia. It’s so palpable. Being able to give voice to someone in history who may meet a different fate; maybe they try to kill her, and she’s like,”Ha! I survived. And now, aren’t you scared of me?”
The influence came from a lot of different places; the witches from Macbeth, and the Roald Dahl witches. They are all in our popular consciousness to a certain extent, and I think we have a fascination with them.
Absolutely. Let’s talk about the song “Floodlights.” It reminded me of Joni Mitchell for two reasons. One is the sonic palette and the orchestration reminded me of her. Second, I saw a video of her recently and she was talking about how a good song should make a listener think of themselves rather than of her. That’s obviously an objective idea, but this song, though focused on a romantic relationship, reminded me of some of my own, but also friendships and working relationships and how the dynamic of one person’s power over another can be so incredibly detrimental. But there is hope and life on the other side of that. It is a special way you tell the story in a cafe where the protagonist is feeling herself rise over a past love for the first time. I was wondering if you find that you have clarity around power dynamics yourself as you grow older as the protagonist does?
I’ve recently turned 30. And to me, that seems to be the absolute blessing of your 30s, that you have this kind of clarity and understanding of who you are and what you are willing and not willing to tolerate. That song itself is about an age-gap relationship that I was in. We had an 11-year age difference. I was super young. I was 18 or 19 when we got together, and this whole conception that I had was, “I’m mature and I’m actually better than the other women my age, because I have someone who is super mature and who thinks that I’m interesting. I’m also better than the women his age. There’s something special about me,” like I felt chosen.
That was such a powerful feeling at that time when so much of my self-esteem was dependent on what other people thought of me. Slowly, through the course of this relationship, I realized that he chose me, but not for the reasons that I thought I had been chosen.
I mean he was a walking red flag and I just did not trust my intuition to understand that. This wasn’t a good scenario, and now, on the other side of it, at 30, I couldn’t imagine dating a 20-year-old. There’s an inherent power dynamic there. I wrote the beginning of the song two years before I finished it, because in the beginning, I couldn’t think of an ending. I couldn’t have seen him at a bar (which really happened) and just been scared and left. I wanted to give the protagonist a better ending than that.
It sounds like you did a lot of processing on this record through your writing, like maybe you released some frozen anger. I think most women can relate to that in general, because we are so often encouraged or told to suppress that emotion. I was wondering how your relationship with anger and revenge evolved and shifted through the creation of this album?
I think therapy seems to be a theme in a lot of artists’ albums these days. I didn’t realize how much anger I carried until I went to therapy. I had always grown up thinking that any kind of anger is debasing yourself. You’re losing power and you’re not being your highest, most evolved self.
Every time I got angry, I felt like I’d failed to access my more evolved emotions. It was through therapy that I learned that anger is, in many ways, necessary. We are refusing to be treated a certain way.
I think adventuring through these ideas of revenge where it’s like, “Well, what if I don’t choose forgiveness? What about that? Why do I have to be the peaceable one? Why do I have to be the one to absorb all of your violence, and then somehow process it out so that we’re good?” I have to say, it was really fun to write these lyrics and not shy away from some more violent imagery, especially in “The Witch.”
I heard someone say something like, “Anything that’s human is mentionable. And anything that’s mentionable is manageable.” I think singing it out is so nice because it’s mentionable. It’s manageable.
Speaking of, this is a great segue. How does it feel to perform these songs live?
It feels really good. It feels vulnerable too, having lived with them so long during the pandemic. It’s interesting to start sharing them with people. I have this ritual where the day before a single comes out, I listen to the song on a walk. And I’m like, “Okay, this is the last time this is gonna be only mine.” I think that ritual has really helped me. It’s a really personal album in a lot of ways for me.
I’m looking forward to trying it out in many different configurations, continuing the idea of play that we started out with this record, and seeing the different ways it can evolve and change.
Two long-time collaborators, cellist Francesa Ter-Berg and violinist Flora Curazon, Fran & Flora, have bonded over their obsession with ancient music, rooted in Eastern European and Jewish culture, for over a dozen years. Together and separately, the English musicians have been studying with teachers of ethnomusicology in places like Transylvania and Romanian. There, they took in the music as well as the cultural influences. That’s not to speak of their higher musical education, Francesca holds two masters in music (including in contemporary improvisation from the New England Conservatory of Music) while Flora trained at the Royal Academy of Music, London. They break down the benefits of each learning style and how it impacts their creative process. They also get into their love of klezmer music and the importance of portraying cultural heritage while remaining modern.
We also talk about how as female musicians, they are expected to do absolutely everything and excel at it while people still talk about whether or not you smile on stage. They share “There’s a very deep thing in there that has affected our choices as a band in order to keep it safe and healthy within ourselves.” Their latest album, Precious Collection, features a couple of original tunes, but it’s mostly new and unique arrangements of traditional Klezmer and Yiddish songs. Don’t sleep on the smokey translation that Flora shares of the song “Little Bird” and stick around to learn who is the better roommate. All in all, great conversation with wonderful people who create bonkers music that’s rich in tradition and layers.
Artist:Alisa Amador Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts Song: “Heartless Author” (featuring Madison Cunningham) Album:Multitudes Release Date: June 7, 2024 Label: Thirty Tigers
In Their Words: “Alisa has so much poise, playfulness, and honesty in her writing, with the most velvet voice. It checks so many boxes for me. I loved getting to sing and play guitar on this song.” – Madison Cunningham
“I love this song. I love it because it acknowledges all of the uncertainties and pain of life and it shines compassion on all of it. ‘It’s okay not to know.’ It was such a joy to sing this one with Madison Cunningham. She learned it right then and there in the studio, and her voice says so much.” – Alisa Amador
Track Credits: Written by Alisa Amador and Zia Amador Produced by Tyler Chester, Daniel Radin, and Alisa Amador Recorded by David Goucher, Tyler Chester, Daniel Radin, and Dave Brophy at Paperchaser Studio in North Hollywood, Brighton Hills West Studio in Watertown, and Studio Solitaire in Somerville
Artist:Malachi Graham Hometown: Portland, Oregon Latest Album:Caretaker
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
The Portland release show for my new album Caretaker in January was both surreal and sublime, in the best way. It was a month and two days after I had emergency brain surgery, necessitated by a rare blood infection called Lemierre Syndrome. I had only just regained use of my left side in rehab, I wasn’t allowed to lift more than 10 pounds or bend over and there was a historic ice storm in Portland just starting to thaw. Honestly, it was a little absurd to play the show and keep the date, but it didn’t feel reckless, because I had a community to catch me. Bandmates who insisted on lifting my gear, physical therapists who taught me how to play guitar again, a loving partner to change the bandages on my head, incredible parents who housed me and my band through the ice storm so we could all practice together, and so many supportive faces in the audience.
Caretaker is about trying to hold it all together, on behalf of other people, whether they ask you to or not. It’s about how that gets messy, about when that’s generous, and when that’s self-serving. My health crisis turned the meaning of the record on its head for me and taught me to receive care myself, to fall apart and trust I’ll be held. I tumbled into the web of care we weave for each other, that catches us when we least expect to need it. My friends, my family, my partner, and my bandmates were all there for me in every way that night. It was hard to make it through the songs without weeping with gratitude for being alive. I’ll never forget it.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
I read once that the four qualities of excellent songwriting are texture, detail, wit, and truth. My very favorite songwriters are masters of all four — artists like Aimee Mann, Loretta Lynn, Eef Barzelay, Anna Tivel, and Jolie Holland.
Another art form that’s a study in the same principals? Miniature making! Lately I’ve been enthralled by dollhouse building and the creation of tiny worlds. Miniature artists pay attention to the smallest details that make something feel realistic and truthful, even if a scene is an imaginary place. The very act of building something tiny in meticulous detail is inherently whimsical and a bit absurd. It requires sharpness and ingenuity, and a scale of thinking that’s totally different than the day-to-day.
All of that feels akin to songwriting for me. I got to dabble in miniature making myself in the new music video for my song “We Made a Home,” which I built and filmed in a little yellow dollhouse at 1:12 scale. My favorite part was hand-building the tiny lifelike details of a cohabitating relationship in decline, from mini Rainier Beer cans, to mini self-help books, to mini dirty dishes. I also made a tiny Ear Trumpet Labs microphone case. (When I’m not making music, I’m the business manager at Portland microphone workshop, Ear Trumpet Labs.)
N.B., miniature making takes a lot longer than songwriting.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me?”
This has been an evolution for me. My early forays into songwriting felt more driven by an observational, sometimes academic curiosity, influenced by poetry, history, and family stories about my matriarchal ancestors. My first EP, Selfish, includes songs inspired by the 1934 Hays Code, Marconi’s theories of radio transmission, and my grandmother cleaning out the eaves of her house. I wrote and learned a lot from other people’s perspectives before I’d experienced much life myself. I still enjoy writing from other people’s perspectives as a practice in empathy and curiosity, but I find that my most emotionally resonant songs have more to do with my own experiences. It takes a different kind of bravery and vulnerability to write in the first person, and that has felt scary to do sometimes. On songs like “Montreal” and “Before Pictures,” even if the exact thing that’s happened to the narrator hasn’t happened to me, there’s a deeper truth or feeling I’ve experienced that I can get at best through a fictionalized story.
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
Don’t be afraid to get weirder! My friend Jamie Stillway, a masterful guitarist and fearless sonic explorer, told me this about six years ago and it really stuck with me. I was feeling a bit trapped in particular instrumental and songwriting styles, because I assumed it was what people wanted to hear from me. I used to keep my musical selves neatly divided; I play and write in a synth pop band called Small Million and as a solo songwriter under my own name, and when I was younger I was more afraid to blend those worlds or explore the space between them. My musical start was all in folk and Americana music. The tradition and depth of songwriting in those genres is still a huge inspiration to me, but I’ve tried to give myself permission to be more faithful to a song and a feeling than to any genre in particular in my arrangements. The track “As Is” was written as a straight-ahead country song, but we recorded it played on an electric guitar looped backwards, played by two people at the same time with a screwdriver as a slide. A team of magical friends and collaborators helped me rip my songs apart and put them back together again to make them so much better, stranger, wilder than I ever could have imagined.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
Truth be told, I’m a bit of an indoor kid, so I guess… the air. But really, sincerely, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the air around me and inside of me, and how I interact with it through my breath. In singing, in practicing mindfulness, in both movement and stillness, breath is the element that calls me home into my own body. That helps me to remember that the body itself is an element of nature, and our breath is the place where the wild elements of the air and the self meet.
I often find myself exploring themes of both the body and the breath in my lyrics, as a window to intuition and self-trust, on songs like “Wonderful Life” on Caretaker, or “Be Wrong” and “Lightswitch” on my last Small Million record, Passenger. This really came full circle in my recent health crisis when I found myself on heavy oxygen in the ICU, and breath became something even more precious and sacred to me. My lung capacity as a singer really ended up saving my life— I’m still unpacking my gratitude and awe of that.
As humans, we have a history of turning to story for comfort, direction, and preservation – a way to keep the present alive in the future. Story can be found in books, poetry, song, and our minds and mouths.
This playlist starts with our song, “Once Upon a Time,” which was born of our turning to story in the deep uncertainty of early 2020, and is the opening track of our recently released, eponymous album. In this Mixtape, we feature songs that incorporate or allude to books, authors, poetry, or story, written by artists that inspire us to write our truest stories. – Ordinary Elephant
“Once Upon a Time” – Ordinary Elephant
When the world shut down in March of 2020, we found ourselves one show into a two-week Australian tour. After scrambling to get home, the quiet hit and the processing of a new world began from our Louisiana porch, deeply feeling the human instinct to turn to a sense of story when faced with intense uncertainty.
“Always a Little Less Time” – Justin Farren
“So I guess that’s always been the story of you and I.” Justin paints pictures with the specifics that draw you in and let you see yourself in his songs, then cuts straight to the truth. The impermanence and the importance of our time here. This song guts us, in the best way, every time.
“Nothing at All” – Clay Parker & Jodi James
“I’ve got books stacked on the bedside table, that are gonna make me well and able, but the light in my room is still burned out,” Jodi sings, as one of our favorite duos spins an ethereal tune of rejection and resolve.
“Walking Each Other Home” – Mary Gauthier
One of our favorite songs of Mary’s. Achingly beautiful, it details the uncertainty of a relationship ending, but also speaks to the broader idea of the unknown. “I don’t know how this story’s supposed to go,” she sings in the chorus, as it’s hard to know when we’re living it. But there is clarity and acceptance that “we’re all just walking each other home,” helping each other find our own stories.
“Under My Fingers” – Wes Collins
Wes is one of those writers who takes you places you didn’t know you needed to go. Both with his words and with his music. This song follows a writer’s thoughts, even alluding to the scarcity mindset that can sometimes take hold of creatives. The fear that it won’t last and the solution of surrendering to the pen.
“Paperback Writer” – The Beatles
The Beatles were Pete’s first musical love, showing up in his life around sixth grade and giving a wealth of melodies and harmonies to soak in. He studied guitar through their songs, which span so many genres, it was easy to get lost in their catalog for years.
“Windmills” – Mutual Admiration Society
The story of Don Quixote twisted into a song by one of Pete’s favorite songwriters, Glen Phillips. This song first appeared on Toad the Wet Sprocket’s 1994 album, Dulcinea. This version is from an incredibly underrated collaboration between Glen and Nickel Creek. Both of these artists changed Pete’s musical world, Glen being one of the first songwriters that he really dug into and in this collaboration, Nickel Creek introducing him to the world of acoustic music.
“Hemingway’s Whiskey” – Guy Clark
Guy Clark’s use of simple language to tell deep truths is unparalleled in the modern songbook. Here he salutes his admiration for another legendary writer, toasting with a drink, and reveling in the difficult work it takes to be a writer of that stature. Guy’s songs are revelations.
“I Ain’t Playing Pretty Polly Anymore” – Dirk Powell
We have the choice to perpetuate stories or let them die off. Some traditions continue to enrich our lives, but it’s important to realize when we’ve moved past them and when it’s time to draw the line between cautionary tale and normalizing certain types of violence. As someone steeped in tradition, Dirk makes an important statement about what songs are able validate, and that we can choose not to continue singing certain ones.
“The Other Morning Over Coffee” – Peter Mulvey
In remembering a conversation with a friend, Peter recalls talking about having lived lives “so full of poetry and adventure that if we died right then and there it would have been fine.” It’s a goal we can hope that some part of us is always aiming for. As the song unfolds, it becomes a perfect reminder that we’re all moving through the same world, the same bigger story, despite the difference in our details.
“Velvet Curtain” – Anna Tivel
Anna’s songs are movies, thick with imagery and emotion. She’s one of those writers who you’re thankful is walking this earth at the same time as you. This song shows us that sometimes there are words that need to be heard, and sometimes you’re unknowingly the one singing them.
“Billy Burroughs” – Jeffrey Martin
Jeffrey’s work tends to knock your socks off, right out of the gate. His rich voice and insightful command of language immediately demands your full attention. His background of teaching literature melds with his own writing here.
“Tailor” – Anaïs Mitchell
“When he said that my face he’d soon forget, I became a poet.” One of our favorite songwriters, Anaïs has a way of weaving a story that hits you in the softest spots. Here she spins a gorgeous warning of how easy it is to let others define our story, and that we can learn to tell our own if we remember to listen to ourselves.
“The Prophet” – Ordinary Elephant
Crystal came across a copy of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, gifted to her by a dear friend 20-something years ago. The bones of this song were hiding between the dog-eared pages, a discovery of self-love through returning to reminders of a love gone.
“Everything Is Free” – Gillian Welch
“We’re gonna do it anyway.” In lyric, and in delivery, Gillian shows us the power of song and story to persevere. Her voice and style are singular, and are always a welcome reminder to find comfort in the unique and truest version of ourselves.
Billy Bragg joins hosts Lizzie and Cindy on board Cayamo to talk about songwriting, social justice, punk rock and, of course, The Little Guy (Bragg’s nickname for Woody Guthrie). In our interview, we talked about Billy using humor as a way to connect to his audience, so that he can bring up his political activism – such as fighting for transgender rights, the importance of unions and abortion rights. It’s interesting to hear how he wants the Americana audience to remain as relevant as he does. Billy talked about his place as a British artist in the genealogy of folk music and how working on Mermaid Avenue with Wilco allowed him to be a part of the folk tradition.
He also shares how he overcame anxiety as a teenage musician. Standing in front of a crowd playing with his friends in a band really boosted his confidence. Meanwhile, the old school “stiff upper lip” of British culture created an emotional barrier between Billy’s and his parents’ generations. The older generation grew up with the cultural heritage of separating oneself from any emotion. When Billy was a teen, his father was dying. The doctor recommended not telling the patient or talking about it at all. Several decades later, his mother insisted that everyone talk to and about her terminal cancer diagnosis.
Bragg also gets into the merits of socialism, why nostalgia rubs him the wrong way and his favorite English treat. Spoiler: It’s marmite. Gross.
Sadie Gustafson-Zook is a detailed songwriter, pulling together collages of images and ideas and stitching them into melodies and lyrics. I met Sadie in 2019 at Club Passim, a renowned folk venue in Cambridge, Massachusetts known for promoting generations of great folk music. I was studying in Boston at the time, surrounded by incredible developing artists. Sadie was one of them, alongside Liv Greene,Jobi Riccio (featured before on Out Now), and Olivia Barton, another queer artist who came through the Club Passim folk scene and is now gaining traction.
We are excited to share our interview with Sadie the same week she releases the incredible new album, Where I Wanna Be (available May 10). Their thoughtful writing, pure voice, and creative guitar lines are sure to impress. Many of the songs on the album have a lullaby-like feel enhanced by Sadie’s soft voice and soothing melodies.
This month, Sadie is touring the Midwest with Brittany Ann Tranbaugh, who we also featured on Out Now earlier this year. They are powerful songwriters and performers alone, but seeing both artists in one show is a treat that you don’t want to miss! If you’re in the area, be sure to catch their tour through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Indiana.
What’s your ideal vision for your future?
Sadie Gustafson-Zook: Ideally, I would be able to keep doing what I’m doing, but slightly more of it. I think my music offers something special and I would like for more people to hear it. At the same time, I really do like living at least part of the time as a normal person who is in their house and has a cat and is a part of their local community’s life – so maintaining a sense of balance is definitely something I’m passionate about.
Right now, my ideal vision would be to play 100+ fun gigs per year (I’m not really interested in gigging for the sake of the grind – I mostly want to have a good time and hang out with people I love); continue teaching privately and at music camps (I’ve been really lucky to be able to do this at Kerrville’s Song School, Kentucky Music Week, and this summer I’ll be at Ossipee Valley’s String Camp); spend a lot of time in nature and with my family; and keep absorbing so I have things to write about.
Why do you create music? What’s more satisfying to you, the process or the outcome?
I create music because I think it’s fun to sing and play instruments and I like writing about my own life in a way that other people can relate to. Personally, I like being able to organize my thoughts into a nugget that is shaped like a song and that helps me sort out my emotions. And then socially, I love having the opportunity to share those songs and feel a broader sense of connection with people around me – and people who I don’t know! So, I think the process and the outcome are both things I really enjoy.
Do you create music primarily for yourself or for others?
In college, I was a voice major and I spent four years singing operatic arias. I didn’t initially think this was what I was going to spend my college years doing, but once I started singing in such a big and full-body way, I had a really fun time experimenting with the extremes of what sounds my body was capable of producing. But when I performed these songs written by classical composers I didn’t feel very connected to the essence of the music. I sang it for myself, because it was fun (and probably also because I wanted people to pay attention to me), but I wasn’t assuming that my performance would touch something deep in someone else.
Since then, I have shifted towards writing and performing original music. I enjoy writing songs that are fun to sing and I write based on what I’m going through and what I need to talk about. Ironically, this feels like a more communal act than performing music that someone else wrote. I have the greatest chance of connecting with an audience over a shared experience if I’m speaking directly from my own experience, and ultimately my biggest goal is connection.
You shared about maintaining a sense of balance between being in the music industry and living in a home, with your pet, surrounded by community. Many artists and music-industry professionals have a challenging time with this. How have you built a sense of balance between these things? Do you have any words of advice for others working through the same challenges?
I’m very privileged to have an affordable living situation right now thanks to moving back to my hometown in the Midwest and having my parents as landlords. This freedom has made it possible for me to pay my bills exclusively with music-related work, which helps keep morale high in the music department. So I just want to preface everything else I say with the acknowledgement that it’s a lot easier to feel balanced when I’m not constantly worrying about money. While my situation is a privilege, I also know that not everyone would want to leave their music city hub and move in across the street from their parents in Indiana! Ha!
In terms of time balance, I’ve been testing out the way it feels to have music plans that take me away from home for one(ish) week each month, with some longer exceptions in the summer. That has been a nice way to not get too antsy at home, while also giving myself time to do more administrative work and be present in my town between tours. My first year of living in Goshen, I was pretty lonely and spent most of my time online, which honestly was horrible. I was really craving more in-person connections, so this year I’ve been digging into local activities as well as being really intentional about seeing my songwriter friends’ shows when they’re in a nearby city. Even when I don’t feel like leaving my house or driving a few hours away to see someone, I’m almost always happy that I did.
Your music is so descriptive, thoughtful, and well-crafted. What was the process like for you to write these 10 songs on the new album?
Thank you! The majority of these songs were written when I was living in Nashville in the spring of 2022 and then also when I was traveling around, sleeping in my car that summer. I had just had a breakup in Seattle and had to figure out where I wanted to live and between those two major changes I had a lot of processing to do! I also was spending a lot more time alone than I was used to and I felt like I had a lot of pent up creativity that came out really fast. Then there are also a few songs that I wrote once I was starting to feel a bit more settled in my hometown, as memories from my past kind of overlaid on top of my newer understanding of myself. Those came out more like steady drips throughout the end of 2022 and into 2023.
What inspired you to write Where I Wanna Be? What does the album mean to you and what do you hope others will take away from this collection of songs?
Although the album is called Where I Wanna Be, thematically the songs are more about who I wanna be and what I need to change in order to be that person. When someone asks, “How are you?” it’s easier to talk about geographical location (“I’ve been traveling a lot!”) as a substitute for emotional location (“I’ve been feeling really ungrounded”), especially when everything is in flux.
Each song, in its own way, speaks to who I want to be; I want to be someone who is free and expansive, who knows what makes me happy, whose identity reflects who I know myself to be, who is a part of a team/community, who doesn’t give my power away, who is consistently and historically queer, who trusts myself, who speaks up for myself and takes accountability, who feels at home in my geographical location, and someone who maintains a sense of curiosity in the midst of uncertainty. And that’s basically the whole album.
I think that’s why the album feels so intimate. Though I wrote this collection of songs for my own processing, I know that a lot of people go through this process for themselves, so I’m happy to lend my own experience to folks who might find it helpful.
The title track of the album, “Where I Wanna Be,” includes the lyric, “Every year I drive around, scope out the towns, thinking is this where I wanna be found.” I am curious if you feel a sense of the “grass is greener” in another town? I feel like this is a huge theme, especially among young adults, the idea that we may feel more fulfilled in another place.
Even if I daydream about moving, I find that I feel pretty aware of what I’m missing out on (in a positive and a negative way), and that helps with not over idealizing certain places. I know about the realities of living in Boston, or Brooklyn, or Nashville, or the PNW, and so all things considered, I’ve chosen to live where I am and visit those other places.
Sometimes I still daydream about living somewhere else, but mostly what I find myself imagining are the different communities I could be a part of. I’ve gotten little windows into different communities through meeting people at festivals and conferences, which are mysterious liminal spaces where people who live in different places gather together. They don’t represent an actual location where I could live permanently. And I think it’s helpful for me to remember that when I start feeling like I should move. Likely I’m imagining somewhere that doesn’t currently exist. Not that we couldn’t start an artist commune, though.
Who are your favorite LGBTQ+ artists and bands?
God, more like who isn’t LGBTQ+! [Laughs]
Spencer LaJoye, Flamy Grant, Jean Rohe, Liv Greene, Jobi Riccio, Singer & the Songwriter, Cloudbelly, Lindsay Foote, Olivia Barton, Joy Clark, Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargraves, Olive Klug, Jane O’Neill, Brittany Ann Tranbaugh, Elisabeth Pixley-Fink, Adrienne Lenker, Taylor Ashton, Eliza Edens, Rachael Kilgour, Emily King, Judee Sill, and tons of obviously bisexual woman performers who aren’t publicly out.
For anyone reading this who might not be out of the closet, were there any specific people, musicians, or resources that helped you find yourself as a queer individual?
Although I’m bisexual, reading the Lesbian Masterdoc was very helpful as a way to sort through my past, draw connections between memories and feelings, and generally deconstruct the idea that being straight was the only option for me (compulsory heterosexuality). I also really loved reading Katie Heaney’s book, Would You Rather, and The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg. (In addition to following every cute queer person I found on Instagram.)
What does it mean to you to be an LGBTQ+ musician?
I often feel like performers are treated kind of like inspirational court jesters, where we’re being the weird, thoughtful, creative ones, and the normal people come to shows to live vicariously through us. Honestly, it’s pretty similar to how queer people break boxes and live expansively just by being ourselves (except that queer stories are often suppressed and not amplified). So, if I have the opportunity to have a platform and the power to influence my audience, I want to take that responsibility seriously and show up as my fullest self so they can see that it’s possible for them as well. I love being a queer musician and knowing that by just being myself, I might be helping audience members learn more about themselves as well.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
In 2016, I was attending the Rocky Mountain Song School and was a part of a partnered songwriting class where each participant told their partner a story from their life and then the partner would use that story as a songwriting prompt. My songwriting partner told me about his career trajectory and how someone advised him to get an entry-level job at the local venue that he wanted to play. So he got a job as a busboy at this venue and then progressively worked his way up, eventually becoming tight with the booker until he was selling out shows with his name on the marquee.
Although he wasn’t giving advice per se, I kept this story in mind when I moved to Boston after college and I got a job working at the box office of Club Passim. Regardless of career prospects, I think it’s a really good idea, for community building purposes, to become a regular wherever you want people to know you. For me, in working at Passim, I was hanging out there all the time and it was inevitable that I met a ton of super cool people who are doing really great things and now I feel pretty well-connected.
What are your release and touring plans for the next year?
This year is a big one for me! I’m (obviously) releasing this new album, Where I Wanna Be, and I actually have another recorded project scheduled for the fall! Tour-wise, I have been upping my booking game and will be touring around the Midwest in May with Brittany Ann Tranbaugh (we’ll likely be around Wisconsin and Minnesota when this article is published), the West coast in October with Jean Rohe, and the Northeast in November, and a lot of other spots in between! I’ll be teaching at a few songwriting and music camps as well, which I love to do. So I think it’ll be a great year!
Artist:Charlie Overbey Hometown: Cerrillos, New Mexico Latest Album:In Good Company (out July 26, 2024) Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): “Punk Rock Spy In The House Of Honky Tonk” (courtesy of Lemmy of Motorhead)
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
In 2016 I was touring with Blackberry Smoke and we were playing The Fillmore SF. As I walked up to the microphone, the magic of the Fillmore ghosts overtook me and I just stood there caught in the moment. I could hear the crowd getting louder and louder, but I was deep in the history of it all and then all of a sudden – I popped out of it and said, “Sorry, folks! I was having a Fillmore moment!” That crowd got louder at that moment than I had ever experienced! I think I’ll remember that moment even when I can’t remember my name anymore.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
The night my Father died I sat down and wrote “This Old House.” The emotion one feels in such deep despair and loss is hard to put to song or on paper. The fact that I have never played it live and have a hard time even hearing it solidifies for me the depth of “This Old House.”
Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?
Genre is a tricky thing – as artists, we all want to avoid that word and focus on writing from feeling and heart, delivering whatever comes from there. I have a long history and background in music from rock to punk to country and I tend to write with all of that mixed in, which in the music “business” is not favorable. They say, “You have to fit into a genre” or “People need to know how to classify you to have any success.” This could explain why I’m still a struggling musician, because I don’t steal from other writers and I don’t commit myself to a “genre.” I just do what I do. When I was a kid, my favorite local punk band, The Tazers, had a song called “Don’t Classify Me” and I guess at heart I’m still a young punker, semi-growed up, with an acoustic guitar and a killer band behind me.
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I have always loved the depth, emotion, and songwriting of Barry Manilow. I have seen him 5 times in the first 4 rows. I am a pretty solid Fanilow and have never been shy or closet about it.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
I would love to sit at an all you can eat taco bar for hours listening to Raul Malo play guitar and sing.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
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