Our cartoonist recounts how his obsession with the band started — and the greatest advice he never gave.

Jeffrey Lewis Talks His 19 Years of Yo La Tengo Fandom

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Chastity Belt’s energy is like a circuit, circling around the silly and the sincere. Tongue-in-cheek shit-shooting and existential rumination feed into each other infinitely.
Theirs is a long-term relationship, and that loop sustains them. That’s a creative thesis in and of itself, but isn’t that also just the mark of a true-blue friendship?
The band talks a lot about intention these days — how to be more present with each other. The four piece — Julia Shapiro (vocals, guitar, drums), Lydia Lund (vocals, guitar), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals, guitar) and Annie Truscott (bass) — is nine years deep in this, after all. It seems now, more than ever, that circuit is a movement of intentionality, one that creates a space inside which they can be themselves, among themselves. It’s a space where the euphoria of making music with your best friends is protected from the outside world’s churning expectations. It’s a kind of safe zone for the band to occupy as their best selves: a group of friends who love each other.
Their fourth record, Chastity Belt, comes out of that safe space. With the luxury of spending several weeks in the studio with Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, Chastity Belt was able to experiment. The result is their most sonically developed and nuanced record yet; one that’s not only a product of, but a series of reflections on what it means to take what you need and to understand yourself better.

Chastity Belt

Music

Mood Board: Chastity Belt’s All My Friends

Foot Ox is an experimental folk band from Portland, Oregon, originally formed by songwriter Teague Cullen in Tempe, Arizona, in 2007.

Foot Ox

Stephen Steinbrink is a songwriter, producer, and visual artist. He has released nine critically acclaimed albums of experimental pop music and has collaborated as a producer and session player with artists including Boy Scouts/Taylor Vick, Dear Nora, Gia Margaret, LAKE, and Girlpool.

Stephen Steinbrink

Stephen Steinbrink and Foot Ox Reminisce About Tempe DIY

GracieHorse is a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter. Her latest record, L.A. Shit, is out May 19, 2023 on Wharf Cat.
(Photo Credit: Giraffe Studios)

GracieHorse

Sometimes as a leader, sometimes as a sideman and collaborator; sometimes as an invisible musician but you&#8217;ve heard him: the chest-high bass drum thump, the tightly paired flight of guitars in odd harmony, the disorienting shift in time and texture that resolves itself into song. Chris Cohen has plied the inside and outside folds of pop musical possibility since at least 1978, when he first set infant drumstick to skin at the tender age of three, initiating decades of sonic experimentation across multiple bands and nearly a dozen recordings.
(Photo Credit: Kate Dollenmayer)

Chris Cohen

GracieHorse and Chris Cohen Are a Little Superstitious

Michael Cormier O&#8217;Leary is a composer, musician, and songwriter based in Philly, who leads the East Coast-spanning ensemble Hour. The latest Hour record Ghost Bridge is out now on Dear Life.

Michael Cormier-O’Leary

Mood Board: Hour’s Ghost Bridge

Your favorite musicians, filmmakers, and other creative minds one-on-one. No moderator, no script, no typical questions. The Talkhouse Podcast offers unique insights into creative work from all genres and generations. <a href="https://pod.link/Talkhouse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Subscribe now</a>, and explore more illuminating shows on the <a href="https://talkhouse.com/category/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Talkhouse Podcast Network.</a>

Talkhouse Podcast

Eugene Mirman is probably best known as the voice of Eugene Belcher on the animated comedy Bob’s Burgers, but he’s also a veteran of the alt-comedy world with many albums and countless live performances under his belt. He’s the subject of It Started As A Joke, a documentary about the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, and his song with Lucy Wainwright Roche, “How Do You Lie To Your Child About Santa,” is now available to stream and as <a href="https://prettygoodfriends.com/merch/vinyl-christmas-card-how-do-you-lie-to-your-child-about-santa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">limited-edition vinyl</a> via his label, PGF Records.

Eugene Mirman

Robyn Hitchcock is one of England&#8217;s most enduring contemporary singer/songwriters and live performers. A surrealist poet, talented guitarist, cult artist and musician&#8217;s musician, Hitchcock is among alternative rock&#8217;s father figures and is the closest thing the genre has to a Bob Dylan (not coincidentally his biggest musical inspiration).
Since founding the art-rock band The Soft Boys in 1976, Robyn has recorded more than 20 albums as well as starred in Storefront Hitchcock an in-concert film recorded in New York and directed by Jonathan Demme.
Blending folk and psychedelia with a wry British nihilism, Robyn describes his songs as &#8220;paintings you can listen to.&#8221; His most recent album The Man Upstairs is a bittersweet love letter to a vanishing world. Produced by legendary folk-rock svengali Joe Boyd (Pink Floyd, Nick Drake) the album was critically acclaimed by Mojo, Uncut and The Quietus.
(Photo credit: Laura Partain)

Robyn Hitchcock

Podcast

Eugene Mirman Talks with Robyn Hitchcock on the Talkhouse Podcast

Horse Jumper of Love is a band from Boston, MA. The 10th anniversary edition of their self-titled debut is out now on Run For Cover Records.

Horse Jumper of Love

Horse Jumper of Love and Shallowater Invent a New Kind of Bass

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867: Inside the 2026 Eater Awards with Nadia Chaudhury: 44 Cities, 55 Winners, Zero Regrets

Sheryl Crow

1021. – Rhett Miller

I WANT TO LIVE A PEACEFUL LIFE II

Born and raised New Yorker Jeffrey Lewis leads a double life as both a comic book artist and a songwriter, and tours the world with his indie-rock-folk-art band. His latest record, The EVEN MORE Freewheelin&#8217; Jeffrey Lewis, is out now.
(photo credit: Sonya Kolowrat)

Jeffrey Lewis

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Lou Turner is a writer and musician (Styrofoam Winos, Ryan Davis &amp; the Roadhouse Band, MJ Lenderman, and others) based in Nashville, TN. She is the author of Twin Lead Lines (Third Man Books, 2025) as well as the editor of Quarter Notes, a literary magazine with a musical ear. Turner’s third solo record, Strangels (out Nov 6th via SPINSTER) was named “her most creatively complex and ceremonious concrete body of work to date” by The Self Portrait Gospel.
(Photo Credit: Trevor Nikrant)

Lou Turner

Anne Malin Ringwalt is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. What Floods and Strange Power! are out now as a joint release from Inside the Castle and Dear Life Records, with recognition from the Poetry Foundation. The recipient of the Excellence Fellowship at UNC Greensboro, she is currently pursuing a PhD in English while teaching at the North Carolina Governor&#8217;s School.