Beginnings Andy Beckerman

On today's 14th Anniversary episode, I talk to MacArthur Genius Grant-winning author Jonathan Lethem. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Jonathan at first thought he was going to be a visual artist until some existential realizations about class and art in college in the early 1980s left him disillusioned. He dropped out, hitchhiked to California and started writing while he worked as a clerk in used bookstores. In 1994, Harcourt Brace published his first novel Gun, with Occasional Music, and since then he's written a dozen more - just a sampling: Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, The Feral Detective - as well as a number of short story collections, and this is just scratching the surface. Currently Jonathan is the Roy Edward Disney Professor of Creative Writing and Professor of English at Pomona College, and his most recent book, Brooklyn Crime Novel, was published last October by HarperCollins, and like everything else Jonathan writes, it is great!

This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter. Check out my free philosophy Substack where I write essays every couple months here and my old casiopop band's lost album here! And the comedy podcast I do with my wife Naomi Couples Therapy can be found here!
 

On today's episode, I talk to composer and artist Arnold Dreyblatt. Originally from New York City, Arnold is part of the second generation of New York minimal composers, having studied with Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, and Alvin Lucier. His first album Nodal Excitation was released in 1982, and since then, he's recorded almost a dozen more, including 1995's Animal Magnetism, which was released on Tzadik. Based in Berlin since 1984, Arnold was Professor of Media Art at the Muthesius Academy of Art and Design in Kiel, Germany for almost a decade and a half and is currently deputy director of the visual arts section at the German Academy of Art. His most recent album Resolve was released last August on Drag City, and it is fantastic!

This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter. Check out my free philosophy Substack where I write essays every couple months here and my old casiopop band's lost album here! And the comedy podcast I do with my wife Naomi Couples Therapy can be found here!
 

On today's episode, I talk to musician Evan Dando. Attending the CommonWealth School in Boston in the early 1980s, Evan met Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz, and in 1986, they formed The Lemonheads. The band released three great albums on Taang!, but it wasn't until after signing to Atlantic and releasing It's a Shame About Ray in 1992 that the band broke through. While there have been numerous ups and downs, personnel changes, a six-year hiatus, during which Evan released a wonderful album under his own name, The Lemonheads have endured through the decades. They've recorded a number of new singles, and starting in early February, Evan will be touring across the US!

This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter. Check out my free philosophy Substack where I write essays every couple months here and my old casiopop band's lost album here! And the comedy podcast I do with my wife Naomi Couples Therapy can be found here!
 

On today's episode, I talk to musician Tanya Donelly. Originally from Newport, Rhode Island, Tanya founded not just one, but three, incredible 20th century bands. As a teenager in the 1980s, she formed Throwing Muses with her step-sister Kristin Hersh and performed with them through 1991. During this same time, she founded The Breeders with Kim Deal and co-wrote the first album Pod. Tanya left both groups though to form Belly, where she was the principal songwriter and frontperson. Their first album Star was a huge hit, although the group then broke up after their second album, which started Tanya's solo career. Since then, she's released numerous albums and EPs on 4AD, performed again with Throwing Muses & Belly, and contributed to more albums than I can possibly list here in a short bio!

This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter. Check out my free philosophy Substack where I write essays every couple months here and my old casiopop band's lost album here! And the comedy podcast I do with my wife Naomi Couples Therapy can be found here!
 

On today's episode, I talk to composer Doug Bielmeier. Originally from Buffalo, Doug started out playing in indie rock bands before shifting his focus to composition, which he received both bachelors and masters degrees for. His music has been described as an "extension of Xenakis’s early electroacoustic tape pieces", and his albums include 2017's Betty and the Sensory World, 2018's Costa Mesa Rocking Chair, and 2019's Beast of Bodmin Moor. Doug also holds a PhD in education and is a professor at Northeastern University in Boston. In addition to this all, Doug is the creator and host of The Process, a podcast that focuses on the creative process for experimental music. His most recent album Music for Billionaires was released by New Focus Recordings at the end of October, and it is great!

This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter. Check out my free philosophy Substack where I write essays every couple months here and my old casiopop band's lost album here! And the comedy podcast I do with my wife Naomi Couples Therapy can be found here!
 

On today's episode, I talk to filmmaker J. Blakeson. Originally from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, J. started out making low-budget shorts of his own. This eventually led to him being able to make a slightly larger film, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, in 2009, starring Gemma Arterton and Eddie Marsan. Over the next 14 years, J. wrote and directed many other films and TV shows; some highlights include the Gunpowder miniseries for BBC One/HBO and 2021's I Care a Lot for which Rosamund Pike won a Golden Globe. Most recently, J. wrote and directed the Disney+ series Culprits, which just debuted last week, and it is wonderful!

This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow me on Twitter. Check out my free philosophy Substack where I write essays every couple months here and my old casiopop band's lost album here! And the comedy podcast I do with my wife Naomi Couples Therapy can be found here!