Today, Nelson Gullett and Sloane Spencer get into one of the best parts of being a music fan: the stories that songs create along the way. The tracks we love often become tied to specific moments, memories, and people, and that’s exactly where this conversation starts.

This episode moves between reconsidering nostalgia and new music discovery. We talk about the lasting emotional pull of music from The Jayhawks via Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman, while also shining a light on newer favorites from River Shook and Ismay. Along the way, our guests, a retired radio programmer and current radio host, bring plenty of insight, unexpected stories, and a few moments that might have you rethinking what makes a song stick with us.

Whether you’ve spent years exploring Americana, live for indie rock discoveries, or are simply looking for your next favorite artist, there’s something here for you. We’ll share the records we can’t stop playing, celebrate a few overlooked gems, and dig into why certain songs keep finding their way back into our lives. If Yaz, R.E.M., and American Aquarium are all in your rotation, this episode is for you.

Pour yourself a drink, settle in, and join us for a Pride Month conversation about music, memory, and the thrill of finding something you can’t wait to play again.

Pin Our Tastemaker Playlists

• Apple Music
• Tidal

Focus Musicians for this Episode

• Blue Mountain
• Ismay (Avery Hillman)
• The Jayhawks
• River Shook
• Vandoliers
• Yaz/Yazoo

Musicians, Bands, TV, Events, Record Labels, etc Mentioned

• Aldous Harding
• Amethyst Kiah
• American Aquarium
• Andrew Sa
• The Americans
• Americana Awards
• AmericanaFest
• Blake Tallent
• Bloodkin
• Bloodshot Records
• Blue Highway
• Blue Rodeo
• Bob Dylan
• Bob Mould
• Cary Hudson
• Chuck Mead
• Dave Matthews Band
• Dolly Parton
• Dylan LeBlanc
• Edery Bazzini
• Fleetwood Mac
• Gillian Welch
• The Groove
• Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
• Hymn for Her
• India Ramey
• Indigo Girls
• Iris DeMent
• Jason Narducy
• Jenni Rose
• John Stirratt
• Kathleen Edwards
• Kevin Gordon
• Laurie Stirratt
• Lucinda Williams
• Mandolin Orange/Watchhouse
• M.J. Lenderman
• Michael Shannon
• Mightmare
• Mike Mills
• Mike and the Moonpies/Silverada
• Mon Rovîa
• Nancies.org
• No Depression
• Olivia Wolf
• Otis Gibbs
• Peter Buck
• Phoebe Bridgers
• Radiohead
• Ralph Stanley
• Ratboys
• The Reckless Strangers
• R.E.M.
• Red and the Paper Flowers
• Sara Bareilles
• Sarah Shook and the Devil
• Sarah Shook and the Disarmers
• Scott Miller
• S.G. Goodman
• Sun Volt
• Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
• Trombone Shorty
• Tyler Childers
• U2
• Waxahatchee
• Webb Wilder
• WDVX
• Wilco
• WMOT
• Wyatt Ellis
• X
• XM Cross Country

Venues & Recurring Events Mentioned

• 40 Watt Club
• Blue Plate Special Performance Stage
• Blue Plate Special
• Record Store Day
• Summer Nights Concert Series
• Tennessee Shines
• Yee-Haw Brewing Co.

The Regulars in this Episode

• Nelson Gullett
• Sloane Spencer

Chapters

• 00:00 - Introduction to the Dive Bar Music Club Podcast
• 06:18 - The Jayhawks and Their Lasting Impact
• 19:16 - Discovering New Music: River Shook and Ismay
• 23:33 - The Influence of Music and Poetry on Songwriting
• 34:49 - Discovering New Music: The Journey of Vandoliers
• 45:50 - The Importance of Integrity in Music

Recommended If You Like

Dive Bar Music Club, 90s alt rock, emerging songwriters, touring songwriters, Americana music, live music shows, WDVX Radio, summer concert series, Webb Wilder, bluegrass artists, music playlists, eclectic music, indie music recommendations, music discovery, Nashville music scene, local music scene, new music releases, music nerds, music interviews, music festivals, Dive Bar Music Club podcast, Americana music podcast, indie rock podcast, alternative country music, alt-country bands, Americana artists, music discovery podcast, new music recommendations, Waxahatchee, MJ Lenderman, The Jayhawks, Rainy Day Music, Blue Mountain band, River Shook, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Ismay, Half Truth album, AmericanaFest, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, WDVX Radio, Blue Plate Special, Knoxville music scene, Webb Wilder, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Iris DeMent, Wilco, Son Volt, REM, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Jason Narducy, Michael Shannon REM tour, Athens Georgia music, 40 Watt Club, Bloodshot Records, Vandoliers, Jenny Rose, American Aquarium, Kathleen Edwards, Tyler Childers, SG Goodman, Mon Rovîa, Ratboys, Amethyst Kiah, Wyatt Ellis, Dylan LeBlanc, indie folk music, roots music, bluegrass artists, singer-songwriter podcast, live music stories, music nostalgia, record collecting, Record Store Day, vinyl culture, music fandom, concert memories, underground music, independent artists, Southern music, Nashville music scene, Asheville concerts, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, folk music discussion, country rock, roots rock, music interviews, emerging artists, favorite albums, music recommendations 2026, best Americana albums, indie music discovery, alternative music culture, music nerd podcast, low-key high-taste music podcast

Welcome to the Dive Bar Music Club podcast, where the guest hosts drop in and out, but the opinions are always passionate and the playlists loud.

It's like cheers if everyone at the bar had a strong take on 90s alt rock or a suspicious number of burned CDs.

Around our table, you'll find an emerging touring songwriter, a former cult band favorite whose work since then is even more interesting, a portrait photographer with a not so secret metal penchant, a record store owner who learned about Swifties the hard way, a retired folk singer who regrets nothing, and a zine maker with more cool music projects than we can count.

We're all just here to share what we're currently obsessed with and maybe convince someone that, yes, that weird Icelandic synth folk band is worth a listen.

Okay, that last one's probably me, Sloan Spencer.

It's Dive Bar Music Club.

Low key, High taste happy hour for music nerds.

Well, hey, y'.

All.

Welcome to Dive Bar Music Club.

I am Sloan Spencer, sliding on into the booth for a summertime edition of the Loki High Taste happy hour for music nerds.

Hanging out today with Nelson Gullett from WDVX Radio in Knoxville.

It's gonna be just the two of us today, which is super fun.

We've got fantastic tunes to share with y' all this week, and I'm excited.

A little.

Mostly new stuff, but a few oldie but goodies, including one that I just completely missed and I don't know how I did.

And Nelson can probably tell me that.

What I should have known originally.

Have you been.

We'll find out.

Yeah, I'm doing all right.

Went to several shows since the last time we spoke.

Oh, cool.

We've reopened the Blue Plate special performance stage at wdvx.

So we've.

We've had a lot going on.

We've started a couple summer concert series and we've just, you know, trying to stay in the music, trying to keep up with everything because it's summer is festival season.

Everyone gets the new music out so they can tour and go play the shows.

And there's.

There's a lot to follow for sure.

What's been memorable for you in the live, things you've gotten to see in the last little bit.

Well, I'm going to save one that I think we're going to talk about a little organically cool later in the show.

But we just hosted Web Wilder at one of our.

Oh, yes.

Summer nights concerts here at wdvx.

So he came with his little power band and we had a Big crowd at this outdoor theater.

There's a brewery in town.

Yeehaw.

That has a big outdoor stage and a TV screen and like a turf area for kids and dogs to run around.

Nice.

And once a month we get in there and do a live radio show.

And last month in May, we had Webb Wilder and a local band playing with.

We've got another couple local bands coming up this month with Red in the Paper Flowers and a young bluegrass artist, Ederey Bazzini.

But we go through every month.

A lot of times it's bluegrass.

We're going to have Chuck Mead and the Royal Hounds at the end of the series to kind of bring a rockabilly feel.

But it's.

It's a free concert.

People just come in and we usually have a great time.

Web, of course, has been around forever.

Web, one of the voices that introduced me to Americana music when he was a DJ back on the old XM Cross country channel.

Yeah.

And he's still doing the DJ thing in Nashville on wmot.

And you know, we just, we all put our glasses on and we rocked out with Webb Wilder for a night.

That's so awesome.

My brother and I went to see Webb Wilder back in the 80s and we could only afford one T shirt, so we used to share the T shirt and.

And the biggest fight I think we ever had was when I went off to college and who got to keep the Web Wilder T shirt.

My daughter sold merch at the show that night for Web and it was a busy table.

I believe it.

Yeah, I believe it.

I gotta say, I'm a big fan of having your kids help sell merch.

Mine.

The first time my son got to do it was for Bloodkin with Bobby Keys and Trombone Shorty.

And it was just like a life changing night for him.

That could be a life changing night for anybody.

That's a lineup.

Yeah.

It was nice to have a kid in there slinging some stuff because I.

Not as effective as he was.

That's awesome.

Yeah, but we've, you know, we're just, we're staying busy all through the summer with, with festivals and shows.

And I mentioned the, the Blue Plate Special.

The WDBX Blue Plate special, that's our daily live show.

We usually do it Monday through Saturday in downtown Knoxville.

But the, the building we're in for most of those shows was being renovated from January through mid May.

And we finally got back in there toward the end of May.

We brought in Wyatt Ellis.

He's another young bluegrass artist, teenage mandolin player.

He's Been on the Grand Ole Opry several times already, and we had over 100 people just show up at noon and in our tiny little visitor center space.

Cool.

Kick the series back off.

And we're doing that daily now as we record this.

I think India Raimi is coming tomorrow.

Oh, nice.

And we just.

We have local artists, we have people who are traveling through that maybe it's their first time on the radio, but we have folks like India who' played several times.

Andrew Saw came by last week, who I may talk about in a future episode.

Country crooner out of Chicago.

So, yeah, we're staying busy.

Lots of live music coming our way these days in Knoxville.

That is so cool.

I'm so glad that you're back in your regular space.

It's really a special thing that Knoxville has that so readily available right there in that whole downtown section.

It's just as a tourist, it's always like, wow, this is so cool.

Yeah.

And if you've never been, we'd love to have you.

It's free usually in the visitor center.

Fridays, we're down the road at a pizza joint, but it's always free at noon every Monday through Saturday.

And if you've never seen it, there's tons of videos on our YouTube page, too.

Yeah, it's a very cool vibe.

I can attest to that, as someone who literally just walked in there one day.

So very, very cool.

So, Nelson, you always have great music to chat about, and you and I have a lot of alignment and just sort of interesting, interesting thoughts on how music goes and what has been in your ears late.

Well, let's start.

Where should I start?

I'll tell you what.

I mentioned a show that I went to that I said we would talk about organically.

I went to see Waxahachie and M.J. linderman in Asheville back in April, and that is what is leading me to talk about the Jayhawks today.

Okay, lead me there.

Which is a bit of a jump, but.

So we went to see Katie and Jake Waxahachie and MJ Linderman at the Thomas Wolf there in Asheville, my daughter and I, and we didn't really know.

Was it a full set from mj?

A full set from Waxahachie?

We didn't know what the setup was.

It turned out to be pretty much an acoustic song swap.

Cool.

Katie and MJ were seated the entire show.

They had a guy playing banjo and keys and another guy playing steel and lead guitar, and they just kind of traded songs the entire evening.

But they threw in a few covers along the way as well.

There was a Gillian Welch tune, some Lucinda Williams, Iris Dement.

And they get to the encore and they played this song from the Jayhawks that I'm going to talk about today.

All the right reasons.

That's just always been a big favorite of mine.

So this is fascinating.

When I saw photos and stuff that people were posting from going to that tour of mj, Lunderman and Waxahachie together, and I saw them seated there, I was like, huh, how's this gonna go?

And so you're the first person I know who's actually who was able to go to one of the shows.

What an interesting approach, especially when both of them have really reached kind of a, you know, a level and a status that you might not have expected maybe even four years ago for them.

Well, you know, obviously they've.

They've worked together in the past, so this.

The tour kind of makes sense.

Sure.

But like I said, we thought we were getting maybe a full show from.

From each or like a, you know, co headlining kind of thing.

It made sense when Katie walked out for the show and I guess she had announced at the first stop the night before, she's maybe five or six months pregnant at the time.

Yes, yes.

So that.

That kind of led to the more seated acoustic environment, and it turned out to be just something pretty special that we weren't really expecting.

That is really cool.

There was a bat that flew around for maybe half of the show.

It took a minute.

The audience saw it before the performers did.

So they would be in the middle of a song, just in the middle of a verse, and massive applause.

And you could tell MJ was confused, like he didn't know what was happening.

And then they realized that, oh, when that happens, that means the bat has come back out on stage.

But it was just a really cool night, a cool show.

But this song from the Jayhawks, I recognized it immediately.

Rainy Day Music was one of my favorite records when it came out, gosh, over 20 years ago now.

My daughter did not recognize the song and she couldn't understand why.

I was getting kind of misty and tearing up hearing this song in the theater.

But this is a song.

She was living in Knoxville.

I was living in Kentucky and hosting an Americana show there.

This is one of the songs that I would play when I knew she was tuning in and listening.

I don't know what day it is I can't recall the seasons All I know is I'm loving you for all the right reasons.

Oh, man.

And it's just.

It's a song that has meant a lot to us over the years.

It's meant a lot to me.

I had no expectations, obviously, of hearing that song that night, especially sandwiched in between, like, Abandoned from Lucinda Williams and, you know, the other covers that.

That they were throwing out there right before she's leaving you at the end of the night.

So it was just a cool night and got to explain this song to my kid and kind of look back on this album one more time.

That, again, was a big, big part of my life 20 years ago.

My.

My 20th wedding anniversary is this year.

Wow.

Congrats.

Yeah.

This is one of the songs that we played at our reception.

So, you know, when a song stays in your life like that for decades, it's cool to hear it randomly in other places.

Absolutely.

So, you know, I have mentioned many times that there are certain elements of altcountry.

Well, just basically mostly all of the early parts of altcountry that I just completely missed.

So how did you originally end up as a fan of the Jayhawks?

I.

You know, when.

I even had.

There was a thread on the old Dave Matthews Band message board that I was frequenting the nancy's.org that talked about altcountry music.

Jayhawks were just one of those bands right there with.

With Wilco and, you know, several others that I made a point to check out as this is someone I need to know about.

So I.

You know, I started with Tomorrow the Green Grass and just kind of worked from there.

And this record actually came out while I was heavy into my early Americana DJ phase.

And I think I probably have played every song off that record on the radio.

That's cool.

That's cool.

And so, you know, when you have a band like that that's been part of your life for a really long time, for some reason, one of their songs bubbles back into your life randomly, whether it's like walking through the grocery store or hearing it played with MJ Lunder and Waxahachie, how does that.

Do you feel differently about the music?

Hearing it in.

Not exactly retrospect, but like, in a.

You know, we're always moving forward in a new part of life.

Does it hit differently now?

I mean, it's an interesting question.

I mean, certainly when you're not expecting it, like, it's one thing to pull out a record and just put it on and say, I want to think about this for a while.

But, you know, I think you're.

It kind of takes you back to who you were when you became a fan of it.

I mean, obviously the song we're talking about here, like I said, it takes me back 20 years to dating my wife and living in different states and how would we connect?

And I'm on the radio from like 7 to 11 o' clock every night.

So we can't just have those nighttime phone conversations.

So that was how we communicated.

But music from a past era, it's one thing to hear a, a rap song on the radio from when I was a kid and hear them talking about, you know, we're here in the nine nickel.

That was 30 years ago now.

Right.

So it just kind of takes you back to, you know, who you were, who you were around, what was happening.

I'm not great with placing things in a linear.

Like my memories.

I can't always place a memory to a specific.

This happened at this year and this.

But I remember this Jayhawks record because I think that was like my first end of year.

These are my favorite albums.

That's.

I always have that one placed.

So it does take me back to a very specific, specific time.

Yeah, I'm always thinking about, particularly songs that like, I forgot I love and when they hit me, especially out of the blue.

So, like, I'm very much that person that will go dig out a record I haven't listened to in forever and then obsessively listen for a few days.

But it's that, oh, right, I love this.

And I'm a totally different person now.

But also I really like that aspect of music.

I was mentioning when I was asking you about the Jayhawks, that I have this massive, massive gap of about 10 years musically.

And I was kind of hit with that about a band this last week.

I don't really know how it came up.

My husband does not listen to his music in any sort of order.

So when we drive in the car back in the old Twitter days, I used to have an ongoing, like many tens of thousands thread about my husband's random rock.

And so he just puts everything on random.

Whatever is in his phone is in.

There's no order whatsoever.

So I mean, we will go from like New Order to Dolly Parton to who knows.

But it popped up with.

Blue Mountain is a band I completely missed.

I never.

I didn't catch them at all.

And I should have.

They started in like, 91 in Oxford, Mississippi.

Like, complete overlap with stuff I loved and just never, never saw them, never heard them, don't know their name.

And this song Lakeside popped up and I, which is one of their later tunes, and I was like, this sounds like X to me.

How do I.

Because the way their vocals interplay.

And I was like, how did I miss this band the first time through?

Just curious, because you have a much broader knowledge of that era.

Are you familiar with Blue Mountain at all?

Carrie Hudson and Laurie Stewart?

I mean, I'm familiar with them on the level that I know they're there.

And I think I've listened to Dog Days, their debut album, probably several years ago, but I think their biggest output was there in the.

In the mid to late 90s, which was.

Right.

Yes.

Before I kind of got into all of this and got it.

Passing knowledge.

But, you know, when I listen to the song you submitted it, it reminds me that I need to probably go back and hit Dog Days again.

I know that's a record that was in the library at my old station, and I'm sure I've played them once or twice in the past, but I just.

I don't have that connection to them either.

Yeah, you know, we're kind of both discovering a band this time around.

Yeah, it was kind of fun because, like, as I read about them, I was like, okay, well, I obviously know Carrie Hudson and Laurie Steerrett, I don't know by name, but John Sterrett's sibling.

So, like, the connections are huge.

And when I posted it online, many, many of my music friends were like, yeah, man, Dog Days is one of my favorite records ever.

And I was like, I don't know how I missed this, but I completely missed this the first time through.

So it was fun.

I went back and I listened to their entire catalog from beginning to end, and I was just like, blue Mountain, go.

Like, go re.

Listen.

It's older, but for me at least it very much has that more Southern take on those early days of altcountry.

And because of that speaks to me a little bit more.

So I didn't really connect with the Sun, Volt, Wilco, Jayhawks, end of altcountry at all.

And in retrospect, I've gone and listened to a lot of it, but it didn't speak to me at all the first time through.

So the fact that I missed Blue Mountain, I'm kind of like.

I try to stay fresh on music, but also I'm like, I need to fill those gaps.

Especially when there's a band like this that I'm like.

I would have really loved them.

Well, the Tupelo Tree, it was kind of my entry point.

First time I got offered a shift hosting an Americana show, I turned it down because I thought it was country music, and it was right.

That I was hearing on mainstream country radio.

So I kind of had to find that entry point.

And it's.

Americana is such a weird place because people do come to it from.

From different ways.

The.

For sure.

The punk rockers, the bluegrassers, the folk, the blues.

To my mind, the Americana format, the stuff that works best there, it isn't the purest form of folk or bluegrass or punk or whatever.

It's the stuff that kind of borrows and blends and meshes things around a little bit.

So there's no wrong answer to.

What's your favorite early Americana band?

Or where did you come in with a band like Blue Mountain 2?

They're.

I always get a little bit confused because there's all these blue bands.

There's Blue Mountain, there's Blue Rodeo, there's Blue highway, the bluegrass band, even.

Yes.

I'm looking at one of the streaming services right now at Blue Mountain's catalog, and randomly, there's a bluegrass record in here from a different band called Blue Mountain.

Yep.

And it all gets kind of jumbled, and, you know, it's like Scott Miller has four different entries on Spotify and.

All the different Scott Millers.

There's two other Scott Millers that kind of get brought into his catalog.

So you.

Right.

You got to pay a little bit of attention and kind of weed out what you're looking for.

But, yeah, I definitely need to go back and spend some more time with this.

I hear you.

I hear you.

I was just kind of.

I was pleased to find.

Not pleased that I missed it, but pleased to find it.

And it was fresh and new, even though it's not fresh and new.

One of the other things that I love about getting to chat with you is that you are way better about staying fresh on newer music by nature of what you do, but also your interests.

And you got a couple Other artists this time around, that one I've seen live and one I've never heard of.

So tell us more about what you've been listening to.

Well, the two new artists that I brought this week we can kind of talk about together in a way.

River Shook and Ismay are the other two artists that I brought in.

I think it was the.

Oh, cool.

The two of them.

And maybe Dylan LeBlanc was on that show.

But river, probably a lot of people know they used to front Sarah Shook and the Disarmers.

Going back further, Sarah Shook and the Devil.

There was a project during COVID called Nightmare that was kind of an indie rock thing that.

That river did.

This is River's first project under that name.

River Shook, kind of a solo project album.

I think it might be out by the time this is heard.

I've only heard a few songs from the record to this point, but basically this is River Shook going out on their own.

The song I chose is if We Got A Chance.

It's not the first single from the record, but it's the.

The first song that was put out there.

And it's similar to that Disarmers sound, but it really is primarily just River Shook and.

And their partner Blake Talent doing almost everything on the record together.

It's a cool new spin for river and I hope this gets them a lot of attention because this is an artist I've been following for a long time.

We were playing that debut Disarmers record at WDVX before it got picked up by Bloodshot.

We had already been playing it for like a year at that point.

Yeah.

So river is always happy to come through and do stuff for the radio station.

I actually interviewed them about a month ago.

They were coming to town to play show and we talked about this record.

Oh, cool.

And they were telling me just how cool it is to have.

This is their thing now, like River Shook.

I hope people make the jump and the connection and.

And follow river into this new project.

Because sometimes when somebody leaves a band or even we see things like Mike and the Moon Pies change their name to Silverada.

It's.

It's hard.

It takes a minute, you know.

Mandolin Orange became Watch House.

It takes a minute for fans to kind of follow and realize when a solo artist breaks out from a band.

Absolutely.

So I just wanted to make sure that people know this is what you've been listening to if you were a fan of Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, this is that same sound, that same vibe, maybe just with a slightly different spin.

Yeah.

And they are fantastic live.

I first saw them live back in the same era, before that record Back in the Day got picked up by Bloodshot and somewhere in North Carolina, maybe Haw River Ballroom.

I'm honestly not too sure that's their home tour.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, it was up in that area.

I'm positive.

They were so good live.

And so this is really just an extension of creatively of where they've been for a long time.

And I'm excited to see River Shook be able to be out there with this record and bringing new fans in, hopefully.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing the new project.

Like I said, we've spoken about it, but I haven't heard it yet.

So I'm really looking forward to when it comes around.

And then the other artist that I spoke about, Ismay, as we're recording this, that album is coming out in just a couple days.

So by the time people hear this, their record will be out and available.

But Ismay is the creative name of Avery Hillman.

And if that last name sounds familiar, that's the Hillman family that originated the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.

Yes.

So Avery's grandfather was kind of the driving force behind that festival.

Avery's sibling, Olivia Woolf, is an artist.

Their dad plays in a band from.

From out in San Francisco.

Their dad was on the Blue Plate special earlier this year with.

With his band, the Reckless Strangers.

So it's.

Yeah, it's a musical family and Ismay is.

Is just a fascinating project.

I had them in the studio about a month ago as well, talking about this new record that's on the way.

The new record, by the way, is Half Truth, and it'll be out by the time people hear this.

But Ismay got into poetry.

Oh, cool.

Before this record.

And they about it's a new songwriting process.

They'd always written music lyrics together.

A lot of the songs on this album started as poetry and then were edited or fit to the music afterwards.

And there's a little bit of different production on this album.

Like we hear on the song I Brought Forth American Flag, but it still is May talking about some of the same topics.

There's a lot of nature on this record.

This song is about finding and adopting a wild stallion.

And this is a kind of a true story.

Ismay adopted this horse and tried to break it and bring it in and had dreams of being the horse at the start of the rodeo that carries the flag and does all that.

But the.

The horse wasn't able to be broken.

So Ismay says it lives out on the back 40 now, just.

Just being a horse.

But Ismay's put out a couple records, and again, this is another step forward and.

And that whole family.

Olivia put out a great record a couple years ago, Cosmic Appalachian Radio.

Their dad is.

Is doing some cool stuff with the reckless Strangers.

And Ismay 2 recently produced a documentary and a podcast series about Lucinda Williams.

Oh, cool.

Is pretty interesting.

Like, kind of tracing Lucinda's roots and talking to people who played with her early in her career, trying to uncover.

I think they uncovered some early live recordings that had never been released, so.

Oh, very cool.

Yeah, Ismay is a pretty fascinating character.

And again, another album that I look forward to people finding when it comes out here soon.

That's very cool.

You know, I was thinking about the whole poetry versus lyrics thing back from, you know, Kevin Gordon, right?

Mm.

Okay.

So Kevin Gordon has like, a master's or PhD in poetry, something to that effect.

And many, many, many years ago, when I first interviewed, Kevin was talking about, you know, that poetry is not lyrics and lyrics are not poetry, but they are related.

At the time, Bob Dylan had just gotten the big award for us poet or something.

And Kevin was a little irked because he was like, you know, lyrics and poetry are not the same thing.

And I like how you framed this of how Ismay works and that they have the poetry and then make them lyrics, but delineating that there is a transition to make one the other.

Well, they even talked about the.

You can work in a different meter in poetry.

You can try different rhyme schemes.

If you even have a rhyme scheme, it doesn't have to be verse, chorus, verse.

And some of these songs are kind of set up that way.

Some of them, you listen and they feel like they have the more traditional kind of arrangement.

But all of that apparently came after and, you know, just a new artist that I'm kind of excited about and wanted to share with people.

Yeah.

So it's funny, I have a little, like, personal beef about certain types of music, and it's a structural thing.

So I had this irritation for a while that people who were musicians in certain parts of the country would move to Nashville and immediately all followed the same song structure and no matter what their genre was.

And it drove me bananas.

And I've kind of gotten over it at this point.

But it was, you know, sometimes creativity, those parameters and structure helps you Say what you want to say because there are rules and limits.

And sometimes the rules and limits limit what it is you want to express.

So I don't have the same strong feelings I used to about that, but I think about those things a lot.

Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel it when I'm putting my radio show together every week.

I fall into a rhythm and this set happens here and this is what I say at this point, and that's fine.

And I have places where I can expand on things as well.

But it is.

When you listen to an artist, there are some artists that every song kind of sounds the same.

Right.

You know where it's going to go, you know how it's going to jump and move.

And then there are artists.

I think you and I can always bring it back to REM where you know, there were three different guys writing the music and they all had their different things.

And then Michael would come in and only write the lyrics after he heard the music.

They would switch instruments from time to time just to keep from getting tied down to the same thing.

You know, they never wanted to make the same record twice.

They almost didn't want to make REM Records at one point.

So, you know, that experimentation.

And when I got this first track from, from the new Ismay record, American Flag, I had heard their previous record, I had seen them live.

I expected a certain structure and sound and.

And what I got with, with that song especially was this kind of funky drum beat and this new style of production that was nice, a little bit different for them and.

And that drew me in and I reached out and got to hear the rest of the record.

And we got Ismay in the studio to play some stuff for us.

And you can definitely tell from one record to the next when an artist has taken a chance or made a new choice and tried something different.

Definitely.

I love that.

I love that.

One of the things we joke about is how we all choose the songs that we choose each time around.

And I'm always the wing it person of whatever randomly ended up in my stash of music lately.

And I'm kind of a vibes person when it comes to my personal choices in music.

And things just hit me and I'll get on kicks about various things and I'll go down ADHD rabbit holes for periods of time and then I won't listen for a year.

And I ended up on a couple of different, very, very different music kicks recently for totally different reasons.

And one was I decided to change the way I alphabetize My records, which of course that's necessary.

Yeah, right.

Like super important, like color coding things in your pantry or something.

Totally not necessary, but I had to do it.

So I randomly found a box of some of my cassettes.

And I don't listen to any of my cassettes anymore, but if they are not fried from living in my car in the 80s, I do still have many of them.

And I found both my record and my cassette from Yaz Yazoo of Upstairs at Eric's.

And I had forgotten that not only was the band known as Yazoo everywhere except the US and Canada, Yazoo elsewhere, Yaz here.

I had forgotten that the track list was slightly different on the two different ones.

And so I just ended up on this obsession.

I used to listen to that cassette from beginning to end, over and over and over and over and over and over.

And when I revisit Yaz, I listen that way still.

And it's not a musical project that I really ever listen to.

Just a song.

And the song that when I was listening, my husband was like, I don't think I know that song.

And it was situation.

I was like, how do you not know this?

He said, I don't know, but you always just listen to the whole thing through.

And so we just ended up having this whole conversation about this song, which is funny for a band that I never listen to songs.

I only listen to that one record, sort of a. I don't always like electronic music.

I don't always listen to old stuff.

And I just was back down the Yaz rabbit hole big time.

And coincidentally, Alison Moye is touring right now for the summer.

And I'm thinking I might see if I can get some tickets for later this month.

And somewh.

I would say that would probably be worth it.

Yeah.

You know, Yaz is a band for me that I'm kind of the opposite of your husband.

I knew this song, obviously, like, I had heard this one.

And as I go through, like, I know songs from the catalog, but I was four when this record came out.

Okay.

So I don't think I could have identified it as.

Oh, that's the band Yazz.

I discovered them probably about 10 years ago.

Did you ever watch the show on FX, the Americans?

No, it was a spy show.

Matthew Reese and Keri Russell are Russian spies embedded in the US the pilot is set on the day of Reagan's inauguration.

Living and working in the US for over a decade.

At this point, they have children, they're living normal lives, but also they're recruiting Other spies and doing these high, you know, dangerous missions and stealing plans and doing all this.

It's a weird show because they set it up to where the quote unquote, bad guys are the protagonists.

And you follow them as they're doing these terrible things.

You know, they're having people killed and doing whatever.

But then they go home and they make dinner and they get the kids off to school and have the parental conversations.

So it's Sopranos for the.

For the spy game.

Kind of sounds great.

But there is a storyline in one of the seasons where Matthew Reese's character is trying to endear himself to a younger person on the show.

And Yaz is the soundtrack of that story.

Oh, how interesting.

And so that's kind of where I picked up on.

Okay, what is this band and what's the story behind it when you submitted this song.

I have now started an Americans rewatch.

Yeah.

And yeah, it's an amazing show with great musical cues throughout the series.

The opening action scene of the pilot is set to tusk by Fleetwood Mac.

Fabulous.

There's a University of Southern California marching band.

Yeah.

It's that drum beat that kind of drives the action.

The finale of the series.

There's a U2Q that is perfect in like the.

The climax, the emotional climax of the series.

I'm gonna watch this whole thing.

A really cool show.

Huh.

And it's, you know, there's some graphic spy stuff, but it's really well done.

The creator was an ex CIA operative.

They had to clear all their scripts with the government before they could shoot kind of situation.

Interesting.

But.

But yeah, yeah.

That's where I found this band.

And listening to this is taking me back into that world again.

Huh.

So this is fascinating.

I am not a TV or movie watcher at all.

So when I don't have those cultural touch points that normal people do.

So this is the kind of thing that would tie me in to get me to watch it.

So thank you for the suggestion.

I'm absolutely gonna do that.

I do have tv.

I. I have to learn how to turn it on.

It's on the Disney's and the Hulus.

Okay.

That's good to know because literally I'm not even sure I know how to turn on our television.

But I can figure it out.

Yeah, it's a fun show.

Totally.

Oh, I love when music supervisors do such a great job tying in music that ought to fit.

But it also sticks out so badly when you're like, nope, that can't work there or something is anachronistic without intent.

This show does a pretty good job, especially in a few key places.

Cool.

What a great suggestion.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's funny, like as I was saying, I get on these.

I get on these kicks with different bands and one of my other kicks lately because I knew this new EP was coming out is Vandeliers.

I love Vandeliers.

I just was trying to describe them to my husband before we listen the first time because we had pre ordered their previous full album.

Yeah, I said they're like the best shit kick in Texas party band you've ever seen.

And he goes, okay, I'd probably like that because we don't align on all of our music and they are just fantastic.

And Jenny Rose had this EP that has just.

It's all just come out afterglow this week and the lead song that I heard was Girl on the Run and just fantastic continuing.

I've seen this band live maybe three or four times and they just.

They are so much fun live.

And they have really managed to grow over their last full length and this EP while still maintaining who they are.

You're not like, whoa, this is a new band, Vandeliers.

I just love them.

Yeah.

It took me a minute actually to get into the Vandeliers.

It was.

It was seeing them live actually for sure.

They played the backyard at the Groove one year at Americana Fest.

That little tiny record shop.

Yeah, that place was great.

That I don't think is there anymore.

No, sadly gone.

That place was amazing though.

But they played and I remember kind of standing back to the side of the stage, kind of off in the alley like Otis Gibbs was there and a few other folks.

And we were kind of having a conversation, but we just kept getting pulled into to the set and ended up watching the Vandeliers and yeah, their last full length record, Life Behind Bars, that was tremendous.

I played that quite a bit.

I actually missed this EP when it came out on Friday because I had already heard a couple of these songs.

Yeah.

And it didn't click with me that this was.

I thought it was like a reissue or something.

And I had other new stuff to listen to, so I didn't really focus on this.

But like there's another song on here together We Will Sink or Swim.

That is one of those anthemic we're all in this together kind of songs that again, I've known for a few years now.

So I kind of skipped over the EP and then when you sent it to Me, I was looking at it a little more closely, and this song, Girl on the Run, I don't think it's autobiographical for Jenny by any means, but it certainly is a song that was inspired by some things that they've been going through or she's been going through recently.

Certainly I read a bit because I don't want to ever speak for anybody else, but I did read what Jenny Rose has put out about this particular song, and she did say, like, this is not specifically autobiographical, but it's certainly her feelings that I associate with.

And I have experienced the emotional arc of as I am being myself fully and authentically in the world.

And.

Yeah, so funny.

Regarding getting into Vandelayers, I have two friends in music who I just super respect their taste.

We don't agree on everything, but when they really, really recommend a band to me, I will listen two or three times, even if it doesn't hit me at first.

And Vandeliers was.

Was one of those bands actually, several years ago, and they were like, look, stop listening to the record.

Go.

And this was three or four records ago at this point.

They were.

They were like, go to a show, then we'll reconvene.

And I was like, okay, I'm sold.

Like, I was the second song in.

I'm like, yep, this is my new, like, one of my favorite live bands ever.

They are so, so, so good life.

See, you were that person with me for American Aquarium.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You need to see them live for.

Sure, because you would.

You had been talking about them, and I think you came to a festival here in town one year that they played.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

I did.

I remember walking down the sidewalk talking to you, and you're like, I'm gonna go see American Aquarium.

And I'm like, yeah, I don't really.

I don't know them.

I'm gonna go see something else and.

And eventually I got to see them again at Americana Fest.

And it was right around the time the Wolves record came out.

Oh, yeah.

And so, you know, you are the person that were like, no, go see this band.

Try again.

You're gonna love it.

Right?

And they're one of my favorites now, for sure.

Yeah.

It's funny how that happens sometimes.

There is this folkie band called him for her that was similar for me.

Their recordings are just a little too unusual for me, which is weird, because I'm the person who brought all this super strange music to this.

But I love them live.

And so now their recordings totally are a Thing I love, but I. I guess I just had to see how they were doing it for it to speak to me.

I'm not really sure.

They had like a weird homemade guitar kind of thing.

Is that.

Is that the band I'm thinking of?

Yeah, it's like a duo and they have like a.

The guy where plays like a one man band sort of multi instrument drum kit thing and there's xylophones and homemade cigar box guitars and all kinds of crazy stuff.

So I think it's because I couldn't associate the sound.

I couldn't figure out where the sounds were coming from.

And so seeing them, it just all kind of came together for me.

And now they're one of my favorite like alt folkie bands.

You know, music discovery is.

You never know what, what's gonna hit you, where it's gonna come from.

That's so true.

That's so true.

So what else have you had going on or do you have coming up?

Summer's always an interesting time because it's like there's too much to actually achieve.

Yeah.

Right now we're in the just trying to buy tickets to all the concerts we want to see kind of phase.

We've been having this conversation.

I've been trying to keep up with text messages from a few different places.

I think my daughter just bought Phoebe Bridgers tickets.

Woo.

Woo.

So I have to go see what that financial hit is here in a little bit.

We're trying to track down some other shows.

Sara Bareilles is on tour.

My wife really wants to go to that.

Yeah.

You know, the Indigo Girls are touring again later this year.

How many more times is that going to happen?

So we're right.

Personally, we're trying to track down some things and kind of plan our summer and fall around some shows.

But you know, at the station, like I said, we've got the daily live shows happening again.

We have our summer concert series.

We just had Amethyst Kia and her band playing at the outdoor show on Saturday.

I just want to say you're the reason I know Amethyst Kia and thank you so much for that because I love their music.

So amazing.

Brought the full band.

Wow.

I didn't get to stay for the show because we've got some family things going on, but it's one of the first times we've had like a big encore request from the crowd.

The story I was told was that Amethyst was like, I don't have any more songs prepared.

And the road manager ran up to the front of the stage and was like, you can play this one.

You can play this one.

And kind of forced an encore for everybody at the Amethyst is amazing.

Great interview.

They'll talk forever with one.

I love that.

But, yeah, I was so glad we got to bring that show in, you know, just.

Just trying to take in what I can.

Americana Fest is coming up in the.

In the fall.

There's a lot of stuff to get ready for for that.

All of those award nominations just came out a few weeks ago.

Monrovia, who we talked about the first time I was on the show, he got a couple of nominations mentioned on the show, got nominations at the Americana awards.

Kathleen Edwards, S.G. goodman, Tyler Childers.

So if you listen to this podcast, you.

You're kind of up to date with.

With some of the.

Some of the things that are going on out there in the world, for sure.

Yeah.

Like, I was scrolling more like the indie rock end of things recently when people put out there, like, you know, best songs of the year so far sort of list.

And Aldous Huxley, who was on our.

We mentioned on the past episode, and Rat Boys, both recommendations from Kim Ware have made a number of lists.

So I was like, kim, you are on it.

Rat Boys seem to be kind of everywhere here lately.

Oh, one other thing that I got to do recently that you will kind of be interested in.

I got on the phone with Jason Narducci not that long ago.

Oh, okay.

All right.

We have to do the whole sidetrack here.

All right.

Tell everybody who Jason Narduzzi is, and then I want to know all about this.

So Jason Narduzzi, and we've talked about this a few times on the show, too, plays with Michael Shannon in the big REM Covers tour project that they're doing.

The actor Michael Shannon, Jason Narducci, he's played with Bob Mold.

He's played with tons of folks through the years.

He recently did a tour where he played living rooms and other small, intimate settings.

And a friend of mine here in town, the guy who kind of helps us keep up the WDVX website, hosted one of those shows.

Cool.

And I ran into him at record Store day and was like, you know, you should, you know, give Jason my phone number and we can talk about the show and kind of maybe drum up some interest here.

And he made it happen.

So Jason called me a few days before that show was going to happen.

We talked about.

He kind of started doing these intimate shows during the COVID time period where you would play people's backyards.

And he told some stories about that.

He's written a book about some of his experiences.

The book is good through the years, but I did have to turn the conversation to the Michael Shannon gig.

And that night at the 40 Watt Club in Athens that you very graciously got me into a couple years ago,.

I am the impulse friend at all times.

Yes.

Yes.

When I'm at my desk at 9am in Knoxville and get a phone call.

Call that says, how fast can you get to Athens?

I made it happen.

But he told me a story about that night.

I was telling him my experience of being in the back of the crowd and looking and seeing, like, Peter Buck walking around the side of the stage and, oh, there's Mike Mills over there.

And there was that point in the show where all four members of REM Were on stage with Michael Shannon, Jason Narducci, that whole crew.

And Jason said, peter just.

Peter Buck just leaned over into his ear and said, do you know how many millions of dollars we have been offered to do what we're about to do?

And we're just doing it for free.

And just.

It just made me realize how.

I mean, I already knew, but.

But how special was that night?

Yeah.

This band that has turned down every overture to reunite, do a reunion tour, do whatever, but they're just so.

Their integrity and their.

We said, this was it, this was it.

We have no interest in becoming a nostalgia act.

Yep.

But for that one night, really, two nights there in Athens, I guess they.

They did it just because it was a cool thing to do.

Yeah.

And Jason was kind of the impetus for that and couldn't have been nicer if you get the chance to see one of these intimate shows.

Apparently he does a solo mandolin cover of you Are the Everything.

There are some videos of that floating around.

So, yeah, that was a big highlight of the last couple months for me.

That is really cool.

Yeah.

I got to know who he was as an individual during those Covid videos that he was putting out, but in retrospect, knew because of the connection to Bob Mold.

So then I was like.

When the REM Thing started coming around, I was like, ah, you know, I'm going to be on this because I am also a super fan.

Yeah.

Those nights really were just absolutely incredible.

And I haven't been to every single one of the ones, but I did, and I've talked about this on a previous episode, I did hit up a couple different locations for the one that happened this year.

And it was fascinating to me to get to see them in different places because the audience connected so differently to the music.

All positive, but just very different.

And I find that just as interesting as the music itself.

Yeah.

The.

The Athens REM crowd is its own.

It's its own thing.

Very much so.

Yeah.

It was good for me, and I mentioned this on the previous episode.

It was good for me to go to the Chapel Hill show where the Post IRS Records catalog spoke much more deeply to the audience.

And that was good for me to stop being a jaded first five Records only person.

Yeah, well, I.

You know, I always play an REM Song at the end of my show.

And I've been doing a series where I've.

I've played every song in the catalog of the studio releases and I've made it through new adventures in hi Fi.

That's cool.

So my next album is up.

Wow.

And that's a.

That is a different era of the band.

It's certainly the least Americana leaning for.

For most of that stretch.

So I'm kind of.

I'm having to think about how I present some of this stuff and I'm just gonna keep going through it because, I mean, it's.

Bob Dylan goes electric.

It kind of is.

And the first song on up is probably my least favorite song in their catalog, even though I love that record.

Airport man is just this drone of four minutes that.

It's never been a song that's.

That's caught with me.

But I'm gonna present it and try to build a set out of it and see where it goes.

So I'll start that in a few weeks and then it's on to Reveal and Around the sun.

And we'll just keep.

Keep going right on through it until we get to the end.

But I've made it through 10 records so far.

And Chronic Town, we did.

So that's incredible.

I'll just.

I'll keep it rolling.

We've mentioned it a bunch about.

About that you have your show on wdvx, but you can listen to this if you're not local.

Explain to people how that works.

Yeah, so, I mean, we.

Then I get pushed back a little bit.

But we have archives on our station that stay up for two weeks.

You can listen to the show that way or you can just tune in to the whole station.

The Blue Plate special, that's all streamed live.

Every day.

Those videos are live on YouTube every day.

And we keep all of that stuff archived.

So we have dedicated bluegrass show in the morning.

We have our Friday night blues show.

We have a classic country show on Thursday nights.

We get into all the corners of the music, and then during the day, it's that core mix of we can go from Ralph Stanley to Waxahachie to whatever we want to do in between.

And I have my little corner on Wednesday night where I try to play a bunch of new music.

I try to keep a diverse playlist.

I met a fan at a Blue Plate show last week.

She was visiting from Austin with her husband.

Cool.

And came up to talk to me at the merch table.

And when I introduced myself, she's like, oh, I listened to your show on Wednesday nights.

You play more women than any DJ I've ever listened to.

I agree with that.

You do.

And that's something that I try to do, but I don't talk about it when I'm on the air.

As you know, I'll say on the air, I'm trying to do a diverse playlist, but I don't promote that.

I want it to be just a normal thing that happens.

Like, you can play women back to back.

You can have half your playlist be a female voice.

You can play artists of color on the country bluegrass station.

And when someone comes up to me just organically and was like, hey, I noticed this and I like what you're doing.

That made me feel pretty good for a few days.

You are the kind of person that I describe as secretly subversive, and I mean that in a good way.

I can't be overtly subversive, so I know.

Well, and I get it, though, because, like, it's that sort of thing that, you know, not all of us can push forward what is right in the same way.

And we all have different approaches.

And I think if you are expertly skilled with crafting music, that you could completely miss the point.

Or you can be like, aha, I see what's going on here.

And that's really important in the spaces that you walk in.

And, you know, I think we, several of us, as part of this podcast, have different ways of doing that in the worlds in which we work.

And so I personally find that really valuable.

Well, you know, this show today, we talked about two non binary artists and a trans artist, really, with bringing it up.

It was just part of the conversation.

Yeah, and I've done it that way before, too.

I've played a set of 10 artists in a row who fall somewhere on that gender spectrum.

And I don't go into the set saying, here's what's coming.

I'll play the music.

And as I back announce, I'll say, hey, that was so and so, and this is who they are.

So maybe if there's a person who is not inclined to hear that artist, well, now they've already heard it, and what if they liked it?

Now that they know what they've liked, maybe that opens their ears a little bit.

Yeah.

Let me rope you in with music, and then hopefully this helps open your mind.

I mean, I've been there.

I grew up in a small, sheltered town.

I had beliefs that were kind of instilled in me just by the air that I breathed, where I was.

I remember distinctly when Michael Stipe kind of publicly addressed who he was for the first time, and I had to have that reckoning of, oh, this is my favorite artist.

Like, the music they made is still the music that I love.

So it was seeing a musician and a performer that I had already connected with, say who they were, and then, you know, went off to college and met people and had experiences, and, you know, your world can only open up if you let it.

Totally.

And, you know, maybe you don't always see someone holding that door for you, but that's.

That's what I try to do in a.

What.

How did you describe it?

Secretly subversive.

Secretly subversive.

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah.

And, you know, there are different ways to shine the light on people who.

You deserve it.

And look, I still play lots of dudes in cowboy hats, too, so there's room for everything.

Absolutely.

Well, Nelson Gullett, I really appreciate your time, and I always love to get to chat music with you.

And, you know, we still could probably do a whole REM Podcast sometime.

Not.

Not gonna twist your arm on that, but maybe just a special episode of Dive, our music club.

That actually would be hilarious.

We should do that because, you know, Charles is also a mega REM fan, but he's also not.

Not of the same opinion at all times, which I love.

Yeah.

So that would be.

All right.

Stay tuned, folks.

This might happen someday.

We.

You take irs.

He can have I Got it first five Warner Brother Records.

And I'll come in with the.

The back third.

Honestly, this would be perfect.

It's not my favorite, period.

But I. I've.

I'm deep enough into it that I think we can have that conversation.

I'm going to pitch Charles on this.

We're going to do this in some way.

Stay tuned, listeners.

And if y' all really, really wanted to make this happen, put it in the comments, and then we'll just elbow Charles into it.

So cool.

Take care.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Thanks.

Loan that's last call at Dive Bar Music Club.

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It See y' all next time for the low key, high taste happy hour for music nerds.