At long last, Jennifer and Brandon convinced me to organize a new Edgar Allan Poecast, our third (not second). If you don't know the deal, we take submissions from whoever (mostly noise musicians and those adjacent) to do readings of Edgar Allan Poe stories however they like, with whatever music or noise they can come up with, in whatever language they like.
There's not much else to say except a huge thank you to my cohosts for encouraging this and to everyone that submitted or even considered submitting. We'll do this again, so you have an entire year to consider your submission.
The line up goes like this:
Sara Century - Annabel Lee
Jennifer C. Martin w/ VODE (Arvo Zylo & Leslie Keffer) - The Conqueror Worm
The Gray Romantics - Buried Alive
Laura Squirrel - Alone
Just Josh - The Haunted Palace & Doomed City
T. Volpone - The Sleeper
Dame Smile Highlin' with HB(MB) - The Raven
Ileana - Berenice (in Spanish)
It's a great bunch of readings. We hope you enjoy. And if you want more, check out our feed for the previous two volumes or reach out to Brandon, Jennifer, or me on social media to acquire a copy of the tenth anniversary cassette of the Edgar Allan Poecast Vol. 1. You can also order a copy from my bandcamp, https://grayromantics.bandcamp.com/album/edgar-allan-poecast
Keep an eye out for cassettes or CDs of Vol. 2 and this year's episode.
See y'all next year. Or next month. Whenever we have another episode.
We've got PART 2 of our talk with now Philly, formerly Harrisburg, noise musician and... I guess he probably doesn't want me to say horrorcore rapper, but I've never heard him rap and I don't actually know what horrorcore means, so I guess I have no reason to say it anyway.
We talk more about noise, rap, touring, and Richmond, VA. I forgot to check out their other releases, so we open with a different track from Professor A's Kill Your Colonizers Volume 1 and close with a different track from Bison Squad's Death of Desire. But you still have time to go to http://woodroomcollective.bandcamp.com and check out some more (and purchase some on Bandcamp Friday).
We don't have another guest lined up, though we've got a few people we're reaching out to. So if you or someone you know wants to talk, send them our way.
OR!!!! Contribute to our NEW Edgar Allan Poecast! Any story/poem, any way you want to do it. We just wanna hear what people do. We also just put in an order for cassettes of the first one from 2015 and we'll be sending that out to its participants and anyone else who wants a copy until we run out. Also seeing about some bootleg t-shirts for participants in the new one. Email me: rob@undressingunderground.com
Oh yeah, and Brandon and I made a short film about seeing Dead & Co in Vegas.
K thx bye
We're back with another noise musician that Jennifer has no idea how to listen to. As he notes in the episode, I met Professor A while he was touring with his duo Bison Squad while we were all sleeping on Bucko Crooks's floor during his Milwaukee Noise Fest. If you're not familiar, this is when we made the noise quasi-doc The Arbitrary Art.
But this isn't about me and Bucko, this is about Professor A. I wanted to talk to him about the intersections of noise and revolutionary politics, but I had COVID and couldn't really follow a train of thought. But Brandon gets a ton of interesting info out of him about noise, touring, and what the hell's going on in Harrisburg.
We open with a track from Bison Squad and close with one off of Professor A's first Kill Your Colonizer tape. All of Professor A's projects can be heard at the Wood Room Collective Bandcamp page.
Also, we are doing a new Edgar Allen Poecast! If you want to contribute, you can reach out to me, Jennifer, or Brandon personally or on social media or email me at rob@undressingunderground.com. We're taking any stories or poems, any way you want to perform them. Everyone had a ton of fun last time and we think it came out really well, with a lot of interesting variety. If you need help finding collaborators, let us know and we'll hook you up. If you want guidance for a story or poem, we'll pick something out for you. This is all for fun, but we hope to hear from you.
And we're back with part two of our talk with the Questlove of Deerhoof, Greg Saunier. Like a Grateful Dead show, the second set is a little looser but also more to the point. We further discuss Deerhoof's accessibility, The Roots, Justin Theroux's 2007 directorial debut, Dedication, and some of Greg's other collaborations.
Music this time starts off with Treiglo Meddal - Na'i ddim talu!, a limited edition cassette that I was able to find on Joyful Noise's youtube after I realized all of my tape decks are broken. We close with Flower from Deerhoof's live album with avant garde jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough. I'm trying to keep Spotify from taking these down with copyright requests, so gotta go slightly obscure.
Do you have someone for us to talk to? Do you want to talk to us? Are you Justin Theroux and want to talk about your weird, butchered by Weinstein, but still enjoyable 2007 romantic comedy Dedication? Or do you want to record yourself reading Edgar Allen Poe stories with weird music for our 2025 Edgar Allen Poecast? Email me at rob@undressingunderground.com or on instagram or bluesky.
In the meantime, for more of Jennifer’s discussions on polyamory, communism, and Christianity, check out The Dirtbag Christian. For more from me, the feature from my video zine with the POTUS of Noise, Bucko Crooks, is on his YouTube. And eventually Brandon’s YA graphic novel on the history of skateboarding with AJ Dungo will be out on Flying Eye Books.
We’re extremely excited to present part one of our talk with the Phil Lesh of Deerhoof, Greg Saunier.
Deerhoof has been a favorite band of Brandon and me (Rob, the guy Greg keeps making fun of for saying dumb shit) for roughly 20 years. Although Deerhoof was an integral element of us becoming extremely cool dudes into challenging media that’s far too intellectual for most people, I think we all agree with Greg’s assessment of Deerhoof as a pop band. Seeing Deerhoof in concert is nearly as accessible as their greatest stylistic influence, the Rolling Stones.
That said, the show opens with an attempt to recreate the original edit of their first 7”, The Return of the Wood M'Lady. But we close out with one of Ty Segall's daughter's favorite songs, Panda Panda Panda.
Find more on Greg at Deerhoof’s website or follow his political rants on Instagram.
For more of Jennifer’s discussions on polyamory, communism, and Christianity, check out The Dirtbag Christian. For more from me, the feature from my video zine with the POTUS of Noise, Bucko Crooks, is on his YouTube. And eventually Brandon’s YA graphic novel on the history of skateboarding with AJ Dungo will be out on Flying Eye Books.
Also, we're putting out a cassette for the 10th anniversary of the Edgar Allen Poecast and we're doing a new one this year. For more info on participating in that or other guest suggestions, email me at rob@undressingunderground.com
Part two's up next week. Although we talked for two hours, we still didn't get a chance to ask about other members of Deerhoof, their new album, Greg's other projects, or how to pronounce Saunier.
It's Laura Squirrel's birthday and we're celebrating the only way we know how--doing whatever she asks us with this podcast feed.
Today we're presenting the first ever public release of Laura's fan fiction about the obscure 80s cartoon the Get Along Gang, which was on CBS for one season and was based on a line of greeting cards featuring anthropomorphic child animals that hung around a clubhouse built inside of an abandoned train or something.
She explains the context in the intro. I'm tired. I don't feel like rewriting what she said.
Music is by Laura's harsh noise wall project, Ghosts of Dead Tables.
Short one today, punctuated by some longer music clips, including the last(???) track to be released by The Smudge. He kept it going for 25 years and, as he noted in one of our last episodes, he just wants to shut the fuck up and pump gas for a while. Though I did see he's got some other gigs coming up as Cop Corpse or something. I dunno, keep up with his goings on at his Instagram @wjmartmke, unless he's currently threatening to delete it as you read this, in which case wait a few days and he'll be back.
The majority of this episode is dedicated to his thesis art exhibit in Milwaukee, opening tomorrow, Friday 3/28/2025. If you're in the area, go check it out. It genuinely sounds like a great and thoughtful experience. More on that at the Peck School of the Arts website. He's listed as, William Justice “Bucko Crooks” Mueller II.
He also notes that he'll be playing a bunch of footage we shot in Milwaukee and Fargo last summer. More on that and our corresponding zine, The Arbitrary Art, at my gumroad, which is what this long hyperlink you're currently still reading goes to. Or you can check the trailer first here.
We love Bucko, don't we folks? Go check out thesmudge.bandcamp.com for more. Hopefully his retirement is brief and he has hundreds of more albums for us before 2026.
And, of course, thank you, New Zealand.
I meant to upload this last week but I was in Australia losing my mind crossing the outback like the narrator of What's Rangoon to You Is Grafton To Me (which no one out there seems to know, let alone have any interest in ABC radio, TISM, Wake in Fright, Ozploitation cinema, that guy that walked around talking to people on the street on TV, or even the morning show I turned on upon arrival at my airbnb that was referring to orange and ham pizza as "Christmas Pizza" before segueing into cockroach milk). So anyway, here it is now.
President Crooks continues to go Bucko wild, necessitating at least one well meaning bleep from me and making Jennifer uncomfortable. He talks a bit about the history of noise, the types of noisers, Milwaukee's wild rap scene, and some other bits (Australians and their oppressively close sun got me calling everything "bits" now).
Pulled a couple of really old Smudge tracks from Bucko's Bandcamp, at least one dating back to the Galactic Intolerance Records days on archive.org. Check out the rest of what remains of his discography over at http://thesmudge.bandcamp.com
Also, check out the zine/documentary-ish thing we made about his Milwaukee Noise Fest and our trip to Fargo, the Arbitrary Art. Be the first to download or buy a copy at my gumroad http://thearbitraryart.gumroad.com or glance at the unlisted video Bucko put up that I generally pretend does not exist. Or if you're in Philly look for an unmarked DVD in a yellow sleeve that I occasionally drop in Little Free Blockbusters.
Today we have part one of our talk with Milwaukee's iconoclastic POTUS of Noise, Bucko Crooks aka the Smudge aka Billy War Haul and member of too many recording and performing projects to fit within the 4,000 character limit here.
Bucko comes out roaring, but he softens up a bit as we go along and Tells Us About His Work™ and how much he loves/hates academia and the liberal establishment. I actually forget what's in this episode vs. the second one, so you'll have to see for yourself. I don't even know what the purpose would be of describing it here.
But you can hear more of Bucko's music at his bandcamp. Also, we touch on it very lightly here, but we made a movie together last year. It's part of a larger zine, but you can see the "documentary" on his Milwaukee Noisefest and our trip up to Fargo Noise Fest at my gumroad page. The feature is free/pay what you wish, the whole DVD will cost you a few bucks and will probably take a couple weeks to get to you because I'll be in Australia for the week following me posting this. Also I'm out of copies and need to build more of the whole fry container thing.
We've got one last roughly 30-40 minute episode with the flying Frenchman himself, Liam O'Donnell. This time we talk more about God, but Liam also gives his thoughts on SEX, and PORN, and MOVIE PUNS.
If you enjoy listening to Liam pontificate on the frivolities of cinema, well, you're in luck cause he's got like 10 hours/week about this shit over on the Cinepunx Podcast Network, enough to spend at least one of your soulless working days thinking about something other than Elon Musk and whether you should eat your lunch at 10am.
Also be sure to dig back in our archives for our previous talks with his cohosts Josh Alvarez, who I ran into at a movie a couple months ago and mistakenly referred to as diabetic, and Doug Tilley. We'd also welcome them all back if they ask because we're terrible about soliciting guests. If you're still reading and do your own things, feel free to reach out to us about coming on too. We have no idea what's next.
We've got more of Liam. A lot more. Mostly him. Jesus, mewithoutyou, Philly. It's all here. Also he leaves to pee at one point.
Check out more of Liam at Cinepunx and Cinema Smorgasbord.
Want more about mewithoutyou and lefty christianity? Check out Jennifer's companion blog,mewithoutYou might be the reason I'm still a Christian.
Want something completely different from someone who lives in Philly but spent a few days in Milwaukee and Fargo? I put up my video zine I made with Bucko Crooks/The Smudge on gumroad,the Arbitrary Art. Available as a DVD, a full asinine little fry container thing with some additional ephemera, or a pay what you wish digital download.
One more episode with Liam next week whenever I have time again. I don't remember what we talked about, so it'll be new to both of us.
We finally wrangled Liam back to talk to Jennifer about God, mewithoutyou, and other stuff she's interested in, instead of being stuck listening to people name a bunch of noise musicians she's never heard of.
Liam, temporarily unburdened of his faustian bargain to have friends in his 40s but only be allowed to discuss movies, has a lot to say. Most of this episode is revolves around theology, but it does dip a bit into mewithoutyou and other bands out of Philly that I should know but don't because I've always been completely unmoored from this city I continue to gravitate to.
You can read and hear more from Liam on various podcasts on his and (former guest) Joshua Alvarez's Cinepunx blog and podcast network. You can also of course hear Liam on the various podcasts contained within he and recent guest Doug Tilley's Cinema Smorgasbord podcast feed. They're all fun and none of them are 4 hours long.
Also, we wanted to express again our deep sadness about the loss of Darryl W. Bullock and encourage anyone listening to at least check out our last talk about his books on the queer history of pop music, if not go an episode further back to hear him discuss some of the worst Christmas music ever recorded. We nervously joke a little about the circumstances, but it was a real shock and we still regret the fact we'll never be able to bring him back.
We were all deeply saddened by the news of Darryl's passing in the weeks after we first spoke to him. We all had a great time talking to him and were in reverence of the deep well of his knowledge and dedication to exploring the deepest corners of pop culture. After we had finished recording, we had all discussed speaking again in 2025, after he had finished his latest book, which he believed he would be finished later this year.
Our sympathies go out to his friends, family, and his husband, who he repeatedly referenced and clearly adored. We would also like to thank the person who reached out to us in the comments of our last episode to inform us of the tragic news.
In this episode we spoke at length about about the history of queerness in popular music, Darryl's books, and some of his other interests. His passion was palpable and we are so grateful to have had this conversation with him.
For more information on Darryl and his work, you can follow the links provided in WFMU's obituary, pasted in full below:
WFMU sadly lost one of its own this past December 23rd. From 2018 until early 2024, Darryl W. Bullock hosted 250 episodes of The World's Worst Records Show on the Sheena's Jungle Room stream. In addition to having a taste for Mrs. Miller records, Darryl was also a music writer who explored the relationship between pop music and LGBT issues in books like David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music, The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties, and Pop, Pride and Politics: Music Theatre and LGBT Activism, 1970–2021. You can hear Darryl's shows here, and you can leave a remembrance here. Rest in peace, Darryl, and thanks for sharing your music with us.
Today we spoke to WFMU DJ and one of the last great music blogspot writers, Darryl W. Bullock, about some of the awful Christmas music he's presented on his radio program and blog over the years. We play a few clips of some grating little nepo babies slurring their way through asinine lyrics about the moon, saccharine nonsense about Vietnam, and some just plain weird and funny little numbers.
We'll be back after the holidays with our second part, in which we dive a little deeper into Darryl's record collecting but also his latest career as a historian of LGBT/Queer music history. Brandon didn't tell us about that, so we were just listening to his radio show, but were excited to learn about his books David Bowie Made Me Gay and Queer Blues: The Hidden Figures of Early Blues Music
Last chance to hear Brandon's original theme song about Doug! But also, all of us speaking emphatically about bad movies, good movies, and about talking about movies. We touch a little more on Eric Roberts and Doug's other podcasting ventures and and and... I forget. Many things. We had fun. Hope you do too. Now we just gotta rope Liam on here.
And now all the other stuff I wrote the first time:
But, Doug Tilley's back! One of the first guests on this feed something like 9-10 years ago, he actually turned on this camera this time and told us all about Canada, Eric Roberts, 80s local news anchors in Detroit, and the other usual Doug Tilley things. This'll probably be three parts because we're not Blank Check and we respect you enough to not put up 3 hour episodes.
Check out Doug's main podcasting project at Cinema Smorgasbord with his buddy, Cinepunx cofounder (and former guest here) Liam O'Donnell. A spinoff or evolution or whatever of their original podcast, Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man, Cinema Smorgasbord covers a whole host of other actors and filmmakers that will make you tepidly exclaim, "Oh yeah, that guy(/lady)!" Or, if the last 30 years of Eric Roberts vehicles is too high budget for you, dig deep into the stone ages of podcasting with his 13-year-old(!) podcast No Budget Nightmares with his old friend Moe Porne. Can you believe that shit is still active? I suppose I can since these are the only movie podcasts I ever listen to.
Speaking of movies that look like shit, did I mention I made a thing with The Smudge (sort of) about midwest noise festivals? Well, you can look at the trailer for that here and eventually we'll have a DVD you can purchase.
This week we talk to Doug about Eric Roberts (natch), his early internet communities, making a short feature film on video in the early 2000s, and Newfoundland accents!
And now all the other stuff I wrote last time:
But, Doug Tilley's back! One of the first guests on this feed something like 9-10 years ago, he actually turned on this camera this time and told us all about Canada, Eric Roberts, 80s local news anchors in Detroit, and the other usual Doug Tilley things. This'll probably be three parts because we're not Blank Check and we respect you enough to not put up 3 hour episodes.
Check out Doug's main podcasting project at Cinema Smorgasbord with his buddy, Cinepunx cofounder (and former guest here) Liam O'Donnell. A spinoff or evolution or whatever of their original podcast, Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man, Cinema Smorgasbord covers a whole host of other actors and filmmakers that will make you tepidly exclaim, "Oh yeah, that guy(/lady)!" Or, if the last 30 years of Eric Roberts vehicles is too high budget for you, dig deep into the stone ages of podcasting with his 13-year-old(!) podcast No Budget Nightmares with his old friend Moe Porne. Can you believe that shit is still active? I suppose I can since these are the only movie podcasts I ever listen to.
Speaking of movies that look like shit, did I mention I made a thing with The Smudge (sort of) about midwest noise festivals? Well, you can look at the trailer for that here and eventually we'll have a DVD you can purchase.
I forgot while writing this that Doug said Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man got pulled from iTunes because of the name, so, there's your title.
But, Doug Tilley's back! One of the first guests on this feed something like 9-10 years ago, he actually turned on this camera this time and told us all about Canada, Eric Roberts, 80s local news anchors in Detroit, and the other usual Doug Tilley things. This'll probably be three parts because we're not Blank Check and we respect you enough to not put up 3 hour episodes.
Check out Doug's main podcasting project at Cinema Smorgasbord with his buddy, Cinepunx cofounder (and former guest here) Liam O'Donnell. A spinoff or evolution or whatever of their original podcast, Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man, Cinema Smorgasbord covers a whole host of other actors and filmmakers that will make you tepidly exclaim, "Oh yeah, that guy(/lady)!" Or, if the last 30 years of Eric Roberts vehicles is too high budget for you, dig deep into the stone ages of podcasting with his 13-year-old(!) podcast No Budget Nightmares with his old friend Moe Porne. Can you believe that shit is still active? I suppose I can since these are the only movie podcasts I ever listen to.
Speaking of movies that look like shit, did I mention I made a thing with The Smudge (sort of) about midwest noise festivals? Well, you can look at the trailer for that here and eventually we'll have a DVD you can purchase.
Hello, I'm very tired, so I'm sorry to be reusing the same description again.
Our old friend Sara Century is back to talk about her massive SCREAM zine, over 60 pages dissecting the themes of all six Scream films. It rocks. Everything Sara does rocks. I'm not really sure what else to say about it except it's worth your $14 for the physical copy with the cool, unique, handmade cover. If you can't afford that + shipping, then at the very least it's worth your $7 for the PDF version.
This is the first third of our talk. We like talking movies, particularly with smart people with smart things to say about them, so we're going even longer than usual. The conversation is wide ranging, as always, but Sara still packs in a ton of fun factoids and analysis on the series to whet your appetite for her zine. Go buy it.
I also did finally watch When a Stranger Calls Back and it's great. You can read Sara's piece on it here.
This was it for now. We have a couple of guests slated for the next couple months and we'll of course be back with the whateverth annual-ish Cease & Desistmas.
Also, I put up a trailer for my little movie thing with the Smudge about Milwaukee and Fargo Noisefests. You can see that here. More details soon.
Hello,
Our old friend Sara Century is back to talk about her massive SCREAM zine, over 60 pages dissecting the themes of all six Scream films. It rocks. Everything Sara does rocks. I'm not really sure what else to say about it except it's worth your $14 for the physical copy with the cool, unique, handmade cover. If you can't afford that + shipping, then at the very least it's worth your $7 for the PDF version.
This is the first third of our talk. We like talking movies, particularly with smart people with smart things to say about them, so we're going even longer than usual. The conversation is wide ranging, as always, but Sara still packs in a ton of fun factoids and analysis on the series to whet your appetite for her zine. Go buy it.
I also did finally watch When a Stranger Calls Back and it's great. You can read Sara's piece on it here.
Back next week with the final third.
Hello,
Our old friend Sara Century is back to talk about her massive SCREAM zine, over 60 pages dissecting the themes of all six Scream films. It rocks. Everything Sara does rocks. I'm not really sure what else to say about it except it's worth your $14 for the physical copy with the cool, unique, handmade cover. If you can't afford that + shipping, then at the very least it's worth your $7 for the PDF version.
This is the first third of our talk. We like talking movies, particularly with smart people with smart things to say about them, so we're going even longer than usual. The conversation is wide ranging, as always, but Sara still packs in a ton of fun factoids and analysis on the series to whet your appetite for her zine. Go buy it.
Back next week with the next third.