The Music Book Podcast

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The Music Book Podcast

Marc Masters

72 episodes

1 week ago

On this episode, Marc talks with Bill Janovitz, author of "The Cars: Let The Stories Be Told," published in September 2025. It's a deeply researched, deftly crafted story of the Boston band, led by Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr, who started peppering the charts with hits from their self-titled 1978 debut album, and kept making great music and selling tons of records for the next decade. Drawing on extensive interviews with the group's surviving members Elliott Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Rob...

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Music Interviews

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On this episode, Marc talks with Bill Janovitz, author of "The Cars: Let The Stories Be Told," published in September 2025. It's a deeply researched, deftly crafted story of the Boston band, led by Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr, who started peppering the charts with hits from their self-titled 1978 debut album, and kept making great music and selling tons of records for the next decade. Drawing on extensive interviews with the group's surviving members Elliott Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Rob...

Show more...

Music Interviews

Episodes (20/72)

The Music Book Podcast

072 Bill Janovitz on The Cars

On this episode, Marc talks with Bill Janovitz, author of "The Cars: Let The Stories Be Told," published in September 2025. It's a deeply researched, deftly crafted story of the Boston band, led by Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr, who started peppering the charts with hits from their self-titled 1978 debut album, and kept making great music and selling tons of records for the next decade. Drawing on extensive interviews with the group's surviving members Elliott Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Rob...

2 weeks ago

48 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

071 Joe Bonomo on Writing Essays About Music

On this episode, Marc talks with Joe Bonomo, author of "Play This Book Loud: Noisy Essays," published in May of 2025. It's a collection of pieces Bonomo wrote for various publications, primarily the website The Normal School, covering a wide range of music subjects and formats. Among the topics explored are the Cramps, the Who, the Stooges, the Jam, an exploration of the history of the song "Tobacco Road," a delving into a early 70s compilation sponsored by Dick Clark, and even a thorough exa...

1 month ago

46 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

070 Sahan Jayasuriya on Die Kreuzen

On this episode, Marc talks to Sahan Jayasuriya, author of "Don't Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen," published in August of 2025. It's a thorough look at the band who began in the early 80s as one of the most vital and unique hardcore groups, but quickly evolved past that tag toward mixture of punk, metal, and proto-grunge that influenced many indie-rock bands of the 90s. Sahan tells the Die Kreuzen story through interviews with band members, people who worked with them and helped ...

1 month ago

53 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

069 Ellen Koskoff on Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music

On this episode, Marc talks to Ellen Koskoff, author of "Bittersweet Sounds of Passage: Balinese Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music," published in July of 2025. It's a fascinating look into a specific kind of gamelan music in Bali that is an essential part of cremation ceremonies, performed by village members who don't even consider themselves musicians. Koskoff learned to play this music herself by living in Bali and joining in with ensembles there, revealing a tradition that is unlike anythin...

2 months ago

50 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

068 Pat Blashill on The Birth of Texas Punk

On this episode, Marc talks with Pat Blashill, author of "Someday All the Adults Will Die!: The Birth of Texas Punk," released in September of 2025. It's a narrated oral history of the early days of punk in Texas, exploring the many bands and figures who created a distinct strain of punk rock in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, including Big Boys, the Dicks, MDC, and Butthole Surfers. Pat weaves the voices of musicians, journalists, venue runners, fans, and more to paint a picture of...

2 months ago

40 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

067 Ian Thompson on the 70s French Underground

On this episode, Marc talks with Ian Thompson, author of "Synths, Sax, & Situationists: The French Musical Underground 1968-1978," published in August of 2025. It's a detailed history of a group of French rock bands who, inspired by the protests and civil unrest of May 1968 as well as psych rock and free jazz, broke with convention to create some of the most original music of the 70s. The best known of these groups were Gong, Magma, and Heldon, all of which Thompson covers in depth, but h...

3 months ago

55 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

066 J. Hoberman on 1960's New York

On this episode, Marc talks to J. Hoberman, author of "Everything is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde--Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop," released in May of 2025. It's a fascinating, real-time history of the art coursing through New York City in the 1960s, with vivid descriptions of plays, concerts, events, political movements, and all other types of creative moments. Hoberman, the legendary former film critic at the Village Voice, tells his tales in an excited rush of de...

3 months ago

45 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

065 Audrey Golden on the Raincoats

On this episode, Marc talks with Audrey Golden, author of "Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats," published on July 15, 2025. It's an innovative and thorough biography of the crucial UK band the Raincoats, told through an unconventional structure which divides their history not into eras, but "lives" - those of the band members, their supporters, and the people they inspired. As Audrey writes, "I consider this book–constructed from a Raincoats material archive built by Ana, as well as an...

3 months ago

51 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

064 Jason Schneider on "Hey Joe"

On this episode Marc talks with Jason Schneider, author of "That Gun in Your Hand: The Strange Saga of ‘Hey Joe’ and Popular Music’s History of Violence," published in June of 2025. It's a fascinating look at the way the song "Hey Joe" has weaved its way through music over the course of the past six decades, from its origin in the hands of a singer and guitarist named Billy Roberts, through its height of fame when covered by Jimi Hendrix, through numerous different covers, interpretations, an...

4 months ago

42 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

063 Brian Anderson on the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound

On this episode, Marc talks with Brian Anderson, author of "Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection," published in June of 2025. It's a detailed and compelling tale of how the Grateful Dead, over the first decade of their existence, continually created and expanded their own sound system into a gigantic tower of speakers known as the Wall of Sound. Scores of techs, roadies, and other fascinating figures worked on this monstrous array of gear, which...

4 months ago

56 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

062 Dean Van Nguyen on Tupac Shakur

On this episode, Marc talks with Dean Van Nguyen, author of "Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur," published in May of 2025. It's a fascinating look at the socially-conscious life of rapper 2Pac, developed while growing up around radical black activism, particularly that of his mother Afeni Shakur of the Black Panther Party. This includes a thrilling opening section which serves as a kind of miniature history of the African-American left in the 60s, 70s, and beyond.&nbs...

5 months ago

52 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

061 Niko Stratis on Dad Rock

On this episode, Marc talks with Niko Stratis, author of "The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman," published on May 6, 2025. It's a memoir of Stratis's many experiences and life changes, explored through music that has greatly affected her, with each chapter focused on a specific song. Stratis expertly mixes her own story with the stories of these songs and how those two things intertwine, along the way carving out her own definition of Dad Rock that speaks to who she is, who her own dad is, and h...

5 months ago

45 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

060 Jon King on Gang of Four

On this episode, Marc talks with Jon King, author of "To Hell With Poverty / A Class Act: Inside the Gang of Four," published in April of 2025. It's an engaging, fast-paced memoir by the lead singer of legendary UK band Gang of Four, whose classic lineup also included guitarist Andy Gill, drummer Hugo Burnham and bassist Dave Allen. King's tales of his youth up through the formation of Gang of Four and the four albums they released between 1979 and 1983 are written in the present tense,...

6 months ago

51 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

059 Lisa MacKinney on the Shangri-Las

On this episode, Marc talks with Lisa MacKinney, author of "Dressed in Black: The Shangri-Las and Their Recorded Legacy," released in March of 2025. It's a thorough history of the 1960's group comprising sisters Mary and Betty Weiss and twins Mary Ann and Marguerite Ganser, best known for their hits “Leader of the Pack” and “Remember (Walking in the Sand)." MacKinney started this project 20 years ago as a graduate student, gradually unearthing almost every possible detail about this fas...

6 months ago

46 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

058 Matthew Shipp on his Collected Writing

On this episode, Marc talks with Matthew Shipp, author of "Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings," published in April 2025 by Autonomedia. It's a collection of essays, poems, tributes, obituaries and more. Shipp, best known for his piano playing (solo, in collaboration, and with the David S. Ware quartet), presents much of what he's learned and contemplated over decades as an artist, touching on inspiration, improvisation, language, and many other big ideas. As he writes, "I don't ...

7 months ago

46 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

057 Mark Doyle on John Cale's Paris 1919

On this episode, Marc talks with Mark Doyle, author of "John Cale's Paris 1919," published in February of 2025 as part of the 33.3 series of short books on individual albums. It's a fascinating examination of John Cale's 1973 album, which Doyle approaches along the theme of "ghosts," with chapters on "The Ghosts of New York," "The Ghost of Dylan Thomas," "The Ghosts of HIstory," and "The Ghosts of Christmas." As Doyle writes, "If you are looking for some systematic explanation of the songs' m...

7 months ago

45 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

056 S.H. Fernando Jr. on DOOM

On this episode, Marc talks with S.H. Fernando Jr., author of "The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap's Masked Iconoclast," released in October of 2024 by Astra House. It's a thorough and thought-provoking biography of the legendary rapper, writer, and producer known best as MF DOOM. Fernando delves into the mystery of DOOM's work and life while also capturing the magic that his music conjured. As Fernando writes, "As a complex character who cherished his privacy, DOOM's very nature precludes...

8 months ago

48 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

055 Eric Shade on the Bangles

On this episode, Marc talks with Eric Shade, author of "All Over The Place - The Rise of The Bangles From The L.A. Underground," published in January of 2024. It's a super detailed, comprehensive biography of the Bangles from the childhoods of each member up to the present day, as well as a compelling depiction of the LA scene, especially the Paisley Underground, that they grew up from and are still really a part of. Eric has been a Bangles fan since he was a kid and the amount of knowledge a...

8 months ago

42 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

054 Angela Jaeger on her Punk Diaries

On this episode, Marc talks with Angela Jaeger, author of “I Feel Famous: Punk Diaries 1977-1981,” released on February 4th, 2025. It’s a compendium of her diary entries when she was a teenager living in New York and London, going to see punk bands at CBGB’s, Max’s, Tier 3, and many other places. Jaeger seemingly saw and met every band around, forging friendships with the Cramps, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, X-Ray Spex, the Raincoats, and the Clash, among many others. Her diary entries rush w...

9 months ago

47 minutes

The Music Book Podcast

053 Donna-Claire Chesman on Emo Rap

On this episode, Marc talks with Donna-Claire Chesman. She’s the author of “Crybaby: The Artists Who Shaped Emo Rap,” published on January 21, 2025. It’s a fascinating look at a genre that grew up from the Soundcloud underground to become wildly popular, focusing on artists like Atmosphere, Lil Peep, Yung Lean, and Juice WRLD. “Crybaby” does justice to a musical subculture that’s more complex and rewarding than you might realize. As Donna-Claire writes, “The history of Emo Rap is imperfect, a...

9 months ago

52 minutes