Revolting The Cycling Independent

This one is partially inspired by a question from listener Oliver Beckers and partially by the deaths of Rick Froberg, Gary Flloyd and Steve Albini, and partially by the #MeToo movement and partially by the complicated business of consuming art in the information age. This week we’re talking about what makes great art and what to do when the artist proves to be much less than perfect.

Ain’t it just the case that you reach these points in your life where you think you have some things figured out, you can see the way forward, and you feel hopeful and optimistic, but as sure as the sign rises in the East, chaos comes to scatter your sanity to the wind. We’ve both been having a bit of a time lately, and here’s how we're dealing with it.

This is a show about Steve Albini, who is probably really dead, despite both of us hoping the news of his passing was some elaborate prank he was pulling. When people think about the pure ideals of punk rock, they usually think of Ian MacKaye first, but they should probably be thinking about Steve Albini. Not only did he record a lot of records you love, but he did it in the most honest, straightforward and honest way possible, and the world, not to mention the music world, will be poorer for his absence.

We musta said and done some pretty not cool stuff to deserve the level of negative physical consequences doled out by daily life lately. Today we'll talk about the possibility that there actually is justice in the universe, or whether we're just ignoring the normal warning signs of age that getting rad isn't quite so rad anymore.

Listen, not everything has to be so literal. You don’t have to talk about your heart to express your love for another human being. Maybe that’s why Candace left you. You’re boring and predictable. Today, we’re talking about ways to open your mind to new music.

Roughly half the people on the planet are women, and a very high percentage of them are smarter, funnier, more beautiful, wiser, and more emotionally stable than a high percentage of the other half of the people, all of this notwithstanding the people who are neither nor or both. At any rate, this week we’re talking about the women who have lifted us up where we belong.