When I started thinking about experimental mindsets, I started looking for examples of that mindset at use in real life. I wrote something about Detroit. Detroit has always fascinated me, just like Moscow (weird how we get drawn to certain places or scenes isn’t it?). It went something like this - Detroit is THE example of how a city was blindsided by technology transforming an industry to which it had sold its soul. It's population declined by almost two-thirds in just 60 years and the...

One of the wonderful things about an experimental mindset is that it gives you the willingness and desire to be not just open to other ways of living and approaching your life – whether that be your work, your hobbies, your relationships - but to actively going to find those other ways. In terms of music, this could be being bringing in different musical styles, influences, instrumentation and collaborations with people that you might not ordinarily gravitate towards – basically getting out...

Elisabeth Elektra has lived with and through change, uncertainty, improvisation and transformation – the sort of things that today’s world throws at us. She gained her degree in experimental music and visual art, so she has got used to throwing herself into strange creative situations. She’s always pushed herself outside of her comfort zones and this gives her creativity this constant flux and fluidity. I love the experimental and esoteric ethos that underpins her creativity and gives her...

Marissa Paternoster is doing too many amazing things to be defined by any one of them – she’s best known for her music in the Screaming Females, a band whose whole ethos of self sufficiency, open mindedness, strong integrity and ability to evolve without ever not being the Screaming Females I just love, she writes phenomenal melodies, harmonies and lyrics both with the band and on her own – do check out her solo album Peace Meter for a masterclass in how to write perfect songs – she makes...

Dedicated to the memory of Matt Evans. "Brixton is God" Brix Smith is a rock legend. Her life story is as inspirational as it is turbulent. It’s inspirational because of that turbulence and how she’s navigated it all. From growing up in LA and starting her first college band Banda Dratsing, to moving to Chicago and joining The Fall in 1983, branching out with The Adult Net,  becoming a TV fashion commentator and a stylist, starting a fashion business with her husband Philip, writing a book...

Matt Black is half of the magnificently innovative and renegade DJ + multimedia pop group Coldcut, co-founder of Ninja Tune, one of the world’s leading electronic music labels and a beacon for the independent music spirit and creator of the brilliant sample instrument Jamm, and Pixi a visual synth instrument. Amongst other things! “Sound is living data, like DNA. Just as information wants to be free, not fixed, sound can be fluidly mixed, mutated, and recombined in infinite ways so the mix...

It's a great privilege to have conversations like I do with so many talented and amazing humans, each of whom is making their mark through their music and other creative projects. Today's conversation is one of those. Gena Rose Bruce is a phenomenally talented Melbourne-based artist who has just released her sophomore album Deep Is The Way. The title track written and performed with Bill Callahan will attract lots of attention – and rightly so, because it is truly beautiful piece of work...

Louise Distras has always made her music with a progressive mindset.  New visions, new influences, new collaborations and new ways of doing things. I think she’s challenged the way that we behave when we're on our own and when we're part of groups and also the way movements have a tendency to institutionalise themselves the longer they exist and create unspoken rules for how we live our life, how we make music, what we sing about and how we sing it.  It's interesting to explore why...

Three things struck me about Billy Nomates when I first heard her work - vulnerability, humanity and what a bloody exciting talent. I first saw Tor perform live when she supported the Sleaford Mods at the 100 Club in September 2020. She played with such charisma - perfectly DIY, raw and defiant intensity with gallows humour vulnerability, it was a perfectly razor sharp crossover that gave me a feeling that she is giving herself a massive amount of freedom to musically do whatever she...

“There’s a world outside if you want it” …. …. this lyric from Jesse's 2015 song Oh Sheena kinda sums up his desire to find the positive in life, to make the best out of the good times and the tough times. Jesse Malin is someone who embraces all sorts of influences to produce a music that is full of honest emotion, humility, positivity and that slice of life storytelling – and I think that’s what makes him so relatable.  He cut his teeth in New York’s hardcore scene and has been a...

It's the early '80's and I'm going through one of many identity searches. I was always drawn to the non-conformers, even though I conformed in many ways. Therein lies a struggle. Music was obviously a massive part of that identity search and the early 80s kinda gave me the chance to experiment with clothes (usually atrocious) and music (stuff that is still with me today and stuff that was as atrocious as the clothes).  The Belle Stars were part of that identity searching. They formed in 1980...

Thank f**k for Starcrawler   When I first heard their debut album around 5 years ago and I was like, well, this is what the world’s been waiting for. A good dose of Hollywood underbelly, a bit of glam, a bit of punk rock horror, a bit of No Place for Old Men and a huge dose of heart.  Starcrawler were just feeding me all of this charisma, swagger, aggression, melody, pretty much like a parent feeds their baby a gigantic chocolate pudding. Well, maybe not all parents….   Their third album,...

Today's special guest is Kelly Ogden! Kelly, together with her husband Luis, started The Dollyrots for a bit of fun whilst college students in Florida. They then decided to take the leap of faith and make the band a full time gig, moved to LA and have been on an epic journey playing their brand of music that is chockablock full of melodies, riffs and pure joy that Ramones, The Muffs and Joan Jett would be proud of. I'm so grateful to Kelly for being so open in sharing her formative...

Sam Quartin is the guitarist and vocalist for THE BOBBY LEES. They're one of my favourite bands, rooted in punk, the blues, the garage and a big old dose of weird. Live, they are a tight, ball of wild, nihilistic claustrophobia that comes and finds you and detonates in your face. They're free of inhibitions and straitjackets and this just feeds into the crowd. It's proper rock n roll, respectful of the past but very much for today. They've just announced their new album, Bellevue, to be...

The Butthole Surfers didn't play the UK that often back in the day. And when they did, I missed them: damn that shit English Pennine weather! One of life's regrettable moments. So, 35 years later, the Butthole healing process continues and I finally get to talk to the legendary Pinkus from his home near Asheville, NC. And what a great chat we had and I'm pleased to report that I'm healed. We're talking about Meth Mountain and it's younger brother Hillbilly Hill, 1970's cartoons, communal...

Steve Hillage is one of music’s greats - a great musician, a great innovator, a great free thinker and great experimenter whose achievements and career is just one whole wall of inspiration for doing the things that excite you and on your own terms. It's a terrific conversation, talking about how family circumstances dictated that he spend a lot of his early childhood in his own company, the inspiration that he got from Jimi Hendrix and Syd Barrett, how Kraftwerk changed his focus towards...

As I'm writing these show notes, I'm listening to The Minutemen's History Lesson Part 2 which opens with this wonderful line: "Our band could be your life". For me, this succinctly captures what Mike Watt is about and what music is about…... One day, way back when, a 13 year-old D. Boon jumped out of a tree and landed in front of Mike Watt. Looking him in the eye, he said "You're not Eskimo".  "No, I'm not Eskimo", was Watt's perplexed response. This chance encounter would lead to the...

The powerful precision, swing, rhythmic and melodic inventiveness of Sam Fogarino, drummer with the mighty Interpol, sets him apart from most drummers.  I feel truly privileged to have been able to talk to Sam ahead of Interpol's show at Primavera Barcelona and ahead of the release of Interpol's 7th studio album since the seminal Turn On The Bright Lights, called The Other Side of Make-Believe. If the singles released so far are anything to go by, we're gonna see a further evolution of their...

Sub Pop Records is still the most totemic symbol of alternative music, 35 years after it was first formed by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in Seattle.  It’s roster over the years is like being a kid in a sweet shop – Mudhoney, Dwarves, Hole, J Mascis, Sleater-Kinney, The Mary Chain, Moor Mother, The Vaselines…..oh, and a band that never quite made it…..I think they were called Nirvana. I don't suppose anyone's heard of them…… Megan Jasper started as an intern back in September 1989 and...

Everybody should listen to Ron Gallo, not just because his music is so bloody exciting, eclectic and innovative, but also because his emotional intelligence is through the roof. As Ron has said himself, searching to find out who you truly are can mean some beautiful moments, but also some terribly dark moments. I love the fact that he sees the difficult stuff as opportunities and that feelings and thoughts are temporary - it's true, right? Listen and watch to this as Ron talks about his...

Punk’s blast might have faded but its impact didn't. By 1978, a new guard was taking over, one that was meshing together exciting sounds and influences and creating exhilarating music for the open minded, for the outsiders and for the curious. The Bush Tetras have taken their own place in history and it's kinda fitting that they formed and created their art in NYC. They sounded and looked fantastic then and they sound and look fantastic now. They fused soul, dub, funk and dance with stabbing,...

Hurricane G is the amazing singer of a band that is in this exciting renegade maelstrom that is happening in Austin, Texas. Böndbreakr are crossing over musical influences and styles bringing together punk rock, metal, thrash, hardcore with a dash of psychedelia and a lot of commentary that addresses the pain and grief that that society inflicts on marginalised communities, in particular on the lives of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. This is another of those open, from-the-heart and...

Two of my favourite things about this podcast:  1.     I get to meet some amazing artists, sometimes by design, sometimes by chance and really understand what makes them who they are 2.     I get to see how these artists have evolved over the years. Kid Moxie has been releasing music since around 2008 and her musical evolution is fascinating.  From the sweeter pop of her debut Selector, thru to 2014’s 1888 and 2016’s Perfect Shadow – both really exciting pieces of work with these huge...

By day, Sam Grant is responsible for producing some of the most intense, bone crunching yet life affirming riffs for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. Also by day (and probably also by night sometimes), he’s an artist and a producer who has built Blank Studios, a top recording facility in the North East of England. Talking about these kind of side hustles and projects is a big thing on I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee, so to hear that Sam is unleashing his own musical side project, Rubber Oh, onto...

One positive thing that I’ve taken away from the past two years is how big a role music plays in creating strong human connections. And there’s not just the music, but the touring is especially important for just that physical connection. Artists meeting fans, fans meeting artists. Like-minded people brought together by the music, by what they have to say through that music. Common, strong bonds. I first met Jess Finlayson in 2017 when she came touring from Australia with her band at the...