Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah is the percussionist and vocalist behind African Head Charge, the experimental dub project he co-founded with legendary studio wizard Adrian Sherwood in the late 1970s. With dozens of albums to his credit, he’s been established as an influential and singular performer with a sound all his own. Today I’m speaking with Bonjo about how he found his musical and spiritual calling in the Poco churches of Jamaica in his youth, how an encounter with Fela Kuti changed the course...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

On this year's final installment of highlights from the Scherler Sundays live series, headlining act Gun Outfit is a twangy , dreamy rock band that started in Olympia in the mid-aughties, and relocated to Los Angeles several years later.  Carrie and Dylan still have family around these parts, so they brought their kid up to visit with the kinfolk, along with the rest of their crew as they share some favorites from their catalog and surprise with a handful of new tunes.  Amps For Christ is the...

In this eighth installment of highlights from 2023’s Scherler Sundays live series, we have another all-Olympia showcase.  This time, we hear performances and stories from Morgan and the Organ Donors, XOHNO, and Chance of Ghosts. The MODs feature Sara Peté's soft dreamy vocals and rhythmic 60s garage riffs, with "Wildman" James Maeda weaving in subtle guitar complexities, all held together by COCO's Olivia Ness and Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail on bass and drums. You may have seen wife and husband...

Recorded at the beginning of the 2020 lockdown, this remains one of my favorite interviews in the last five years of working on this project. Tjinder Singh’s Cornershop has been a long-standing go-to band in my rotation since I came across them on MTV in the mid nineties, watching back-to-back videos for “Sleep on the Left Side” and their ubiquitous hit “Brimful of Asha.”  Since then, they have continued to release tons of great singles, albums and collaborations.  It’s a tasty mix of Punjabi...

 In the seventh installment of highlights from this year’s Scherler Sundays concert and interview series, we’re getting another healthy helping of Olympia, WA rock and roll music. First up is Riley Kendig and his newly christened Magenta Sextet in their first public appearance, performing fully-realized arrangements of tunes off his excellent debut bedroom pop cassette entitled “Yr Car.” Next up, local power trio UK Gold takes the stage for a blistering onslaught of urgent post-punk...

On July 23rd, 2023 a meeting of the minds occurred behind the Carnegie Library in downtown Olympia, WA.  Pat Maley and Mary Sharp (formerly of Oly rock duo Little Red Car Wreck) arrived with their new band Guidon Bear to warm up the grassy knoll for Anna Oxygen, who has lived in New York for almost twenty years, and Tae Won Yu + Rachel Carns, better known as Kicking Giant.  In between all the music, I spoke to the five of them about their glory days in the 90s Olympia punk scene, and got...

It's a bonus episode! Here's a little radio piece I made back in January to promote a Blind Boys of Alabama concert here in Olympia.  The gospel singing group has been in existence since 1939 or so, with its members changing over time... you know, like Menudo, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band or the London Philharmonic.  I spoke with Ricky McKinnie, who's been in the group since 1989.  He tells me about his background in gospel music, his own experience of blindness, the group's latest Grammy...

This is the fifth installment of highlights from this year’s Scherler Sundays concert and interview series. Today’s show was recorded on July 16th behind the Carnegie Library in Olympia, WA and features performances from San Diego band The Gift Machine and Hot Rush, plus Joshua James Amberson reads from his latest book “Staring Contest.” The Gift Machine is returning to Low Profile, after being featured way back on episode 7. Their latest album is called “Consolation Prize.” This episode was...

Karl Blau makes his fourth appearance on Low Profile- first as featured guest back on episode 29, and then taking over the show producing interviews with Temple of Bon Matin and Hermit Thrushes.  Now episode marks his first appearance on the program as a live performer, with a smoking hot quartet behind him.  After the performance, we discuss his goings on in Philadelphia and back here in the Pacific Northwestern United States.  Good thing this was an early show, he had to head to a gig down...

The movie "Dreamin' Wild," about the unlikely and belated fame of Donnie and Joe Emerson, is released in theaters today. It stars Casey Affleck, Beau Bridges, Walton Gogging and Zooey Deschanel.  Today I'm sharing my interview with the real Donnie and Joe, along with their parents Don Sr. and Salina Emerson.  They spoke to me from their parents' farm in Fruitland, WA.  Enjoy!

Alice Stuart was a singer-songwriter from Washington Sate.  She passed away yesterday. In celebration of her life, here is Rob Smith's interview with Alice from 2021.  This episode is a cross-release between Low Profile and Rob's podcast, Welcome to Olympia.  Rob also produced this one, be sure and check out his show if you like what you're hearing. Love eternal to Alice and those close to her.  I'll be cooking dinner tonight in the crock pot we got from her yard sale a couple of years ago....

Recorded live on 07/02/2023 from this year's Scherler Sundays concert series, prog-pop trio Heatwarmer returns to Low Profile in person performing a handful of songs from their latest album "It's A Nightmare" and catches up on what's been going on since the geographically dispersed group's previous appearance on this show. Olympia honky-tonk mainstays The Purple Shadows kick this event off with a hearty helping of original cosmic American music.

 On today’s show, Jason Traeger of the Traegermethod podcast is filling in for me as host, presenting performances and conversations with Olympia synth rock artist Doctor Sleep and Tacoma rapper Ralph Reign. Interestingly enough, both of these guys incorporate a Nintendo Game Boy into their distinctly different sounds. This episode is being cross-released on both Low Profile and Traegermethod via the podcast universe. If you like one show, you’ll probably like the other, and there’s a lot of...

This is the season eight premiere of Low Profile!  This season is gonna be coming at you every Friday for the next couple of months, and it’s all pretty fresh stuff.  Right now we are in the middle of Scherler Sundays, a weekly concert and interview series hosted by 3 Magnets Brewing in downtown Olympia.  If you’re in the area, it’d be great to see you there, every Sunday at 3pm through August 13th.  This is the first one, recorded on June 18th 2023.  First up is a puppet theater troupe from...

The band Generifus from Olympia is kind of a big deal- the group’s unassuming founder, Spencer Sult, is gifted with a poignant, understated sense of delivery. Active sincew the mid-aughties, he continues his long-term project writing songs that reflect his personal take on every day Monday in interactions with nature, society, music, and probably business. Generifus has a new album out called Rearrangel- it came out a week ago as of the release of this episode. Spencer joins me today along...