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Talkhouse

Patrick Haggerty is the leader of the band Lavender Country.
(Photo Credit: Isabel Dresler)

Patrick Haggerty

Music

Lavender Country’s Patrick Haggerty Talks with Paisley Fields

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Dean Wareham is a musician (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean &amp; Britta) and a writer. His memoir, Black Postcards, was published by Penguin. You can follow him <a href="http://www.deanwareham.com/">here</a>.
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Dean Wareham

Dean Wareham interviews Pete Kember, aka Sonic Boom

Bright Light Bright Light has been a staple of the international LGBTQ+ music scene for over ten years, having released three prior albums and touring as both a solo artist and as support alongside pop royalty like Elton John, Cher, Erasure, Ellie Goulding, and Scissor Sisters. He also collaborated with Elton on his 2016 banger “All In The Name” which he also performed with the music legend on The Graham Norton Show.
His new album Fun City is out September 18 on his own label YSKWN!, in partnership with Megaforce Records and The Orchard, and it will serve as not only a stellar collection of expertly crafted &#8217;80s-inspired dance-pop, but also as a musical love letter to the LGBTQ+ community. The album boasts a veritable “who’s who” of LGBTQ+ major-players and allies who serve as collaborators, including (in alphabetical order by first name) Andy Bell (of Erasure), Big Dipper, Brendan MacLean, Caveboy, The Illustrious Blacks, Initial Talk, Jake Shears, Justin Vivian Bond, KAYE, Mark Gatiss, Niki Haris &amp; Donna De Lory, and Sam Sparro.
For the past four years he has curated, hosted and served as the DJ for regular afternoon dance parties (which he affectionately calls the “Romy &amp; Michele&#8217;s Saturday Afternoon Tea Dance”) at Manhattan’s Club Cumming and Brooklyn’s C’Mon Everybody. Aside from using his music as a powerful platform for equality, he has also actively fundraised for The Trevor Project, Ali Forney Center, Hetrick-Martin Institute, ACLU, and Elton John AIDS Foundation over the years.
(Photo Credit: Warren Piece)

Bright Light Bright Light

In Conversation with Jake Shears and Rod Thomas

Matt Sharp launched The Rentals in 1995 with The Return of The Rentals while Weezer was on hiatus between the Blue Album and Pinkerton. The album spawned the hit “Friends of P” and the project became Sharp’s full-time gig departing Weezer after Pinkerton’s release in 1996. The Rentals&#8217; official fourth LP, a sci-fi themed, 16-track double-album opus Q36 is out now, featuring contributions from Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Ronnie Vannucci Jr. (The KIllers) and Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, Mercury Rev, etc.). Over the past quarter century the amorphous group has featured contributions from Petra Haden (That Dog), Maya Rudolph, Damon Albarn (Gorillaz/Blur), Tim Wheeler (Ash), Donna Matthews (Elastica), Miki Berenyi (Lush), Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig (Lucius), Patrick Carney (The Black Keys), amongst many others. With Q36 Sharp takes the collaborative nature even further, creating new merchandise items for every single with visual artist Ivan Minsloff and connecting with the community at HITRECORD.org.

Matt Sharp

The Way We Get By: Matt Sharp Is Loving the Escapism of ZeroZeroZero

Dougie Poole is a country musician and songwriter based in LA. Coming of age in Providence, Rhode Island he dabbled in heavier and more experimental music before maturing into a country auteur. He writes earnestly about his experience (life in the big city, heartbreak in the digital age) and approaches country music with honesty and a deep respect for the genre&#8217;s traditions. His latest record, At Tubby&#8217;s, is out now on Wharf Cat.

Dougie Poole

A Country Oddball Roundtable

Sondre Lerche is a Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter and film score composer from Norway. His album Patience is out now. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/SondreLerche">here</a>.
(photo credit: Marius Hauge)

Sondre Lerche

Sondre Lerche In Conversation with Van Dyke Parks

Here’s Some Great Music to Buy on Bandcamp Today

Varsity came to fruition one night in 2013 when several Chicago musicians gathered for a &#8220;salon night&#8221; where friends shared stories and songs. Singer-keyboardist Stephanie Smith was set to perform solo, but was quickly drawn to the sound of guitarists Dylan Weschler and Pat Stanton and asked them to join her. Shortly after their first performance as a trio, they recruited Jake Stolz on drums and his brother, Paul Stolz, on bass to fully round out their sound and become the quintet that they are today. Varsity played shows in the Chicago area the following year and spent one weekend at Chicago&#8217;s Public House Studio to record their debut self-titled LP released in March 2015.
Varsity has since found success in the growing indie-pop space. The powerful driving vocals of singer/keyboardist Stephanie Smith over infectious guitar melodies and exciting rhythm has them frequently sharing bills with artists including American Wrestlers, Alvvays, Courtney Barnett, The Hold Steady, and Car Seat Headrest. The band has further explored and developed their sound across a variety of digital releases—often two complementary singles at a time —that have earned rave reviews and a growing audience with millions of plays on YouTube and Spotify.
(Photo Credit: Alexa Viscius)

Varsity

The Way We Get By: Varsity Has Gotten Really Good at Identifying Mushrooms

Named &#8220;One to Watch&#8221; by BBC tastemaker Annie Mac, Kat Cunning (aka Katrina Cunningham) is an actor and recording artist with a degree in concert dance. Cunning, who prefers to be gender neutral, made their television debut in HBO&#8217;s The Deuce starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal, playing Franco’s love interest, Christina Fuego. They currently co-stars in the NETFLIX YA hit TRINKETS as Sabine. TRINKETS will see its second season this year.
A rising voice on the NYC arts scene, Cunning opened for recording artist LP on their sold out North American tour in late 2019, performed on Broadway in &#8216;Dangerous Liaisons,&#8217; Cirque Du Soleil&#8217;s &#8216;Paramour,&#8217; Punch Drunk’s  ‘Sleep No More’ and was a featured performer in Refinery 29&#8217;s sold out 29Rooms exhibit with famed artist Juno Calypso.

Kat Cunning

The Way We Get By: Kat Cunning Is Just Letting Emptiness Happen

Martin Courtney is the singer-guitarist of the Brooklyn band Real Estate, whose fifth album The Main Thing was released earlier this year. Like every other musician on the planet, his band’s touring hopes were dashed by the pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped him from working. The band has recently launched their augmented reality “Quarantour,” which can be experienced by visiting <a class="c-link" href="https://slack-redir.net/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Frealestatequarantour.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-b2345888-2af2-46ab-881d-cef22bdd9c6f">realestatequarantour.com.</a>
(Photo Credit: Jake Michaels)

Martin Courtney

Martin Courtney (Real Estate) on Being a Quarantine Dad and Music Life in Limbo

Andy Jenkins is a musician based in Richmond, Virginia. His latest album, Sweet Bunch, was released in 2018 via Spacebomb Records.

Andy Jenkins

The Way We Get By: Andy Jenkins Borrowed Ninth Street Women From the Library Before It Closed

The composer/electronic musician/healer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s new album The Mosaic of Transformation on Ghostly International is the follow up to the critically acclaimed 2017 album The Kid.
For her, expressions found in the physical body&#8217;s relationship to sound and color became the foundational frequency of the new album. A bright, sensorial glide through unbound wave phenomena and the radiant power discovered within oneself, with a distinct healing quality to it that existed long before society’s recent shift. Katilyn continued to explore the endless possibilities of electronic instruments as well as the shapes, movements, and expressions found in the physical body&#8217;s relationship to sound and color. It is this life-guiding interest that forms the foundational frequencies of the new album.  While writing and recording, she embraced a daily practice of physical movement, passing electricity through her body and into motion, in ways reflecting her audio practice, which sends currents through modular synthesizers and into the air through speakers.
Not a dancer by any traditional definition, she taught herself improvisatory movement realizing flexibility, strength, and unexpectedly, what she calls “a visual language” stemming from the human body and comprised of vibrational shapes. Understood as cymatics, as she says, &#8220;as a reference for how frequencies can be visualized,&#8221; much like a mosaic.
(Photo Credit: Chantal Anderson)

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