The band Danielson started when Daniel Smith worked with his siblings to satisfy a requirement for his senior thesis three decades ago. If you’re not familiar with their music, one thing you’ll notice throughout today’s show is that nobody else sounds anything like them. Daniel and I are talking today about the thirty-year evolution of the group, why he sings the way he does, how the group incorporates visual art into their work, producing records for others (including friends of the show Soul-Junk and Hermit Thrushes), creating the soundtrack to the film Electric Jesus, a new album in the works via Joyful Noise Recordings, collaborations with Sufjan Stevens, Half-Handed Cloud, Kramer, Jad Fair and so many others. Since recording this interview, Danielson has released a short film for their song “Come and Save Me” directed by Chris White that stars Fred Armisen and features previously unused lyrics by the late Larry Norman. Daniel spoke to me from his studio in New Jersey.

Low Profile is supported by you on Patreon and also receives in-kind support from these independent Olympia businesses:  Schwart’z Deli, San Francisco Street Bakery, Old School Pizzeria, Rainy Day Records and Scherler Easy Premium Shitty American Lager from Three Magnets Brewing Company.

Instagram: @lowpropodcast

Facebook Community: Low Profile Listener Hub

Support this show: patreon.com/lowprofile

Illustration by Jack Habegger

Scherler Sundays (live episode tapings + free concerts) is happening again in Olympia for Summer 2024, visit scherlerbeer.com for updates!

Mayo Thompson is the founding member of The Red Krayola, an experimental rock group that has existed in various formations since 1966. He’s collaborated with The Raincoats, Pere Ubu, and the Fall as a record producer, is an active visual artist, and has recently published his second novel, “After Math,” a sequel to 2020’s “Art, Mystery” (both available via Drag City Publishing). Mayo joins Low Profile to discuss the unconventional processes of several Red Krayola albums, his lone solo album “Corky’s Debt to His Father” and its recent live embodiment, his experience as a writer, a long-standing collaborative relationship with the conceptual collective known as Art and Language, and working with others including Lora Logic, featured on the previous episode.  The interview is conducted by a panel featuring returning cohosts Dylan Shearer and Jack Habegger teaming up with Markly to tackle this heavyweight guest.

The unedited interview is available for supporters at patreon.com/lowprofile

in this episode:

The Red Krayola “People Get Ready, The Train’s Not Coming” (00:02)

The Red Crayola “Hurricane Fighter Plane”  (08:30)

The Red Crayola “Freeform Freakout no. 3” (15:05)

The Red Crayola “Transparent Radiation” (16:32)

Mayo Thompson “The Lesson” (18:25)

The Red Crayola “Coconut Hotel” (25:03)

The Red Krayola with Art and Language “Ergastulum” (34:02)

Mayo Thompson and the Corky’s Debt Band (live) “Worried Worried” (35:53)

The Red Krayola with Art and Language “The Milkmaid” (39:13)

The Red Krayola “If S Is” (45:57)

The Red Krayola “Bad Medicine” (51:43)

The Red Krayola “Breakout” (55:12)

Low Profile is supported by you on Patreon and also receives in-kind support from these independent Olympia businesses:  Schwart’z Deli, San Francisco Street Bakery, Old School Pizzeria, Rainy Day Records and Scherler Easy Premium Shitty American Lager from Three Magnets Brewing Company.

Instagram: @lowpropodcast

Facebook Community: Low Profile Listener Hub

Support this show: patreon.com/lowprofile

Illustration by Jack Habegger

Scherler Sundays (live episode tapings + free concerts) is happening again in Olympia for Summer 2024, visit scherlerbeer.com for updates!

Markly brings his weekly pub trivia game "Questionable Music" to the radio in this exciting segment from the new two-hour Patreon release featuring Markly Morrison and Jack Habegger being interviewed by KAOS station manager DJ Jonny H.

Full show available at patreon.com/lowprofile

Play Questionable Music in-person at Three Magnets Brewing Company in Olympia, WA, Monday nights at 6:30.

Friend of the show Sean O’Hagan returns to the Low Profile to discuss “Hey Panda,” the first release from The High Llamas in eight years. When we last spoke in 2021, he had dropped the High Llamas moniker and forged a new path under his given name, embracing more contemporary influences.  In the years since, he’s recruited Llamas new and old to reroute the course of the band he’s led since the early ‘90s, and invited exciting guest performers to come along for the ride. “Hey Panda” is out on March 29th from Drag City Records. Today Sean explains the process that led to this album, collaborating with Bonnie Prince Billy and Fryars, recent production and arrangement work with other artists, and a bit of the contemporary music he’s been getting into lately.

Once upon a time in England, a teenager named Susan Murphy brought her saxophone to audition for a new punk band called X-Ray Spex- a group that was not looking for a sax player. Despite that fact, she made the cut, and like her fellow new band mates, she adopted a stage name: Lora Logic was born. When her tenure with the band was unexpectedly cut short, a friend with a studio encouraged her to forge her own path, and in 1979 the underground scene was introduced to her next project Essential Logic- a groove-laden and experimental sort of progressive punk rock. Somewhere along the way she became a Krishna devotee and let her music career take a back seat, re-emerging on occasion with a new set of songs. Nearly 50 years after it all began, Essential Logic is back with a new album called “Land of Kali,” and a box set called “Logically Yours.” Dylan Shearer co-hosted this episode, and we spoke with Lora at length about everything- how it all began, how things have changed, her nuanced collaborative relationship with X-Ray Spex vocalist Poly Styrene, why she plays the sax, her travels to India, and collaborating with her daughter on the latest iteration of Essential Logic. Lora also shares a favorite vegetarian recipe.

James Spooner is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist from Southern California. He grew up as one of two black punk rockers in the small town of Apple Valley, and he wrote a critically acclaimed graphic novel about his experience called “The High Desert,” released in 2022, twenty years after the release of his groundbreaking documentary “Afro Punk.” When I read the book, I found it so moving that I immediately reached out to him and invited him to be a guest on this Afro Punk, The High Desert, Black Punk Now!program. James joined me for a live interview in Olympia at the Capitol Theater after a screening of his film, and we discussed his experience growing up as a black punk in the desert, the avenues that led him to direct his first film, being the father of a Gen-Z black punk, his career as a tattoo artist, and his new anthology book “Black Punk Now,” which was edited by Spooner and Chris L. Terry and came out last October.

Low Profile is supported by you on Patreon and also receives in-kind support from these independent Olympia businesses:  Schwart’z Deli, San Francisco Street Bakery, Old School Pizzeria, Rainy Day Records and Scherler Easy Premium Shitty American Lager from Three Magnets Brewing Company.

Instagram: @lowpropodcast

Facebook Community: Low Profile Listener Hub

Patreon (donation-based bonus content+goods): patreon.com/lowprofile

About fifty years ago, three brothers started a garage band in Detroit. Their sound was forward-thinking and ferocious, and their band name – Death – played no small part in killing their music career. That didn’t stop them from doing what they loved, in private, where they amassed dozens of songs that have yet to see the light of day. Their debut album For the Whole World To See was recorded in 1973, but was never released until 2008 when one of the singer’s sons discovered the group’s lone single. Since then, a documentary has been made about the group, and several more albums have been released. Today I’m speaking with vocalist Bobby Hackney about the group’s genesis, reformation, and the music he and his brothers made during the nearly three-decade interim. He also shares about his love for reggae music and his new book Vermont Reggae Fest - The Power of Music. Death has a new split single on Drag City Records with the band Rough Francis. That group’s guitar player, Julian Hackney, helps introduce today’s episode.

Low Profile is a part of the Ruinous Media network. This show is supported by you on Patreon and also receives in-kind support from these independent Olympia businesses:  Schwart’z Deli, San Francisco Street Bakery, Old School Pizzeria, Rainy Day Records and Scherler Easy Premium Shitty American Lager from Three Magnets Brewing Company.

This episode was edited by Rose Neilsen

Episode artwork by Jack Habegger

Instagram: @lowpropodcast

Facebook Community: Low Profile Listener Hub

Patreon (donation-based bonus content+goods): patreon.com/lowprofile

Who smoked more: academics like John Cage, La Monte Young and Vladamir Ussachevsky- or the underground scenesters, like Glenn Branca, Arthur Russel and Laurie Anderson?

Why is turntablist Christian Marclay on the cover of "Transfigured New York," but not in the book, even though she interviewed him multiple times? Could AI design be to blame?

How did the old guard of "New Music" feel about the commodification of computer-based music production four decades ago?

In the 1980s, Brooke Wentz hosted a radio show in the middle of the night that focused on experimental music, which was developing all around her in New York City. Over the course of a decade, many of the artists Brooke played on that show would join her in the studio. Her journalism days are through, (now she works on the business side of the industry) but she has just released a book with selected interviews back in the day called “Transfigured New York: Interviews with Experimental Artists and Musicians," available now from Columbia University Press. This may be a bit of a shock to you, but I’ll say it- I’m a big fan of oral history interviews, and I’m a big fan of experimental music. I’m pleased to feature Brooke and her work here today, which includes a couple of clips from her interviews (with Morton Subotnik and John Lurie, respectively). She joins me today from a working holiday somewhere in Mexico.

The artwork for this episode is a drawing by my kid Camille, based on a photo from "back when" sent to me by today's guest. Terrific. Many thanks.

Low Profile is stoked to be a part of the Ruinous Media network. This show is also supported directly by you on Patreon ( patreon.com/lowprofile ) Low Profile also receives in-kind support from these independent Olympia businesses: Schwart’z Deli, San Francisco Street Bakery, Old School Pizzeria, Rainy Day Records and Scherler Easy Premium Shitty American Lager from Three Magnets Brewing Company.

More on the book: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/transfigured-new-york/9780231558631

Instagram: Brooke @seven_seas_music and Markly @lowpropodcast

Facebook Community: Low Profile Listener Hub

Patreon (donation-based bonus content+goods): patreon.com/lowprofile

When I started this show five years ago, I made a short list of artists I wanted to feature.  Near the top of that list was the British musician Vashti Bunyan. Vashti Bunyan released her beautiful album “Just Another Diamond Day” in 1970, and it was almost immediately buried in time.

 She’d had her fair share of disappointment in the music business and walked away from it altogether, until some three decades later when people like me discovered her music for the first time.  Suddenly, Vashti was in demand, and her music career was back on track.  In her recent memoir, “Wayward” from White Rabbit publishing, she chronicles her early days in the pop music world, collaborations with members of The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, her unbelievable horse and wagon journey throughout the UK that inspired her first album, and her unlikely return to the music world. Vashti speaks with me today from her home in Scotland.

This the Season 9 premiere, and also the first episode since Low Profile has joned the Ruinous Media Network. It was produced by Markly Morrison, edited by Rose Nielsen, with artwork by Jack Habegger.

Low Profile is supported by you on Patreon. The program receives in-kind support from Olympia, WA independent businesses San Francisco Street Bakery, Rainy Day Records, Old School Pizzeria, and Three Magnets Brewing Company.