Best Allen Epley Podcasts (2024)

1
Episode 180 - Timothy Showalter 1:42:07

1d ago1:42:07

1:42:07

In 2021, in full pandemic tilt, Timothy Showalter aka Strand Of Oaks, released a brilliant record in the vein of much of his stratospheric catalog called In Heaven (Dead Oceans) but decided not to tour on it, because that's what you didn't do during those heavy days; tour. Instead, he shut it all down. Stopped strumming and humming and stopped chec…

1
Episode 179 - Aaron Stone 1:17:49

17d ago1:17:49

1:17:49

As the frontman, face and heartbeat of his band My Epic, singer/guitarist Aaron Stone started his rock band long before he ever imagined having and wife and now 4 year old child and would never have believed his band would still be making music. in fact they're making music on a killer label, Tooth and Nail Records, with their newest LP Loriella du…

1
Episode 178 - Steve Lamos 1:19:45

1M ago1:19:45

1:19:45

U of I in Champaign / Urbana in the 90's was typical of many satelite college towns to big cities with a happening urban center, dive bars and house parties for the indie scene to procreate within. Drummer Steve Lamos' band American Football was one of the bands within that scene that made a record for Polyvinyl Records, played a few shows then bro…

1
Episode 177 - Chris Enriquez 1:14:11

2M ago1:14:11

1:14:11

Somewhere in the late 00's, drummer Chris Enriquez felt the familiar and invetible societal pull of many artists to finally "get a real job" after over a decade with his bands On The Might Of Princes, Long Island hardcore/emo heros, and Gracer after Princes disbanded. He left it behind and began working as a brand rep for PBR at a time when that br…

1
Episode 176 - Conan Neutron 1:27:49

3M ago1:27:49

1:27:49

There was a point maybe 10 years ago give or take, in which bandleader, frontman, guitarist, singer songwriter, podcaster and outsized personality Conan Neutron had a reckoning or awakening of sorts in regards to his bands and the dynamic within, which had taken a not-good turn. The Conan Neutron of today reflects on those regrets and missed opport…

1
Episode 175 - AC Paterra 1:22:09

4M ago1:22:09

1:22:09

Deep into the pandemic, drummer AC Paterra and his musical partner in Zombi, bassist-keyboardist Steve Moore also went deep; deep into the sounds and songs that created who they have become today as a pillar of Relapse Records, a label often associated with noisy artists. However the songs that moved AC and Steve over these covid days were the yach…

1
Episode 174 - Tristan Shone 1:20:11

4M ago1:20:11

1:20:11

Putting a band together for a younger Tristan Shone 20 years ago was not as easy as he thought it might be, so he used his knowledge of mechanical engineering and sense of tenacious autonomy to create his own instruments that would allow him to make live music on his own; Music without the use of traditional instruments like guitars and drums and b…

1
Episode 173 - Tim Kasher - Live at Fitzgerald's 1:11:34

5M ago1:11:34

1:11:34

Singer/songwriter/frontman Tim Kasher has been such a prolic maker of music over the past 25+ years with his bands Cursive and The Good Life and his solo records as his vehicles and conduits of creativity, so busy in fact that he has released a new album almost every year since 2000. Tim traveled from Los Angles to Chicago on Wednesday January 31st…

1
Episode 172 - Jordan Zadorozny Pt Deux 1:19:48

5M ago1:19:48

1:19:48

Multi-instrumentalist/producer/mixer Jordan Zadorozny created his one man band Blinker the Star in the mid 90's and made a huge splash with his 2nd album August Everywhere with Ken Andrews (Failure) behind the mixer. 28 years and 12 full length albums later JZ has released Animal Math (self-released), a highly enjoyable, forward-leaning and ambitio…

1
Episode 171 - Jay Ryan 1:32:33

6M ago1:32:33

1:32:33

Artist and musician Jay Ryan remembers the moment that he began to create the animal-based characters that inhabit his hand-printed concert and event posters that have become ubiquitous in the rock world; he was just out of college at U of I in Champaign and was bogging down and unable to finish a painting because of undiagnosed ADHD, so he began t…

1
Episode 170 - AE Holiday Wrap-Up Of 2023!! 25:49

6M ago25:49

25:49

Episode 170 of Third Gear Scratch, in which our hero, Alien Epilepsy waxes and wanes about this year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Twenty Three. It's been a year of triumphs and struggles which has seen AE release his first and only solo record 'Everything' (Spartan) and tour on it, create a new record with his band Shiner, their 6th, tour with his…

1
Episode 169 - Eugene S Robinson 1:01:21

7M ago1:01:21

1:01:21

Being a body-builder and MMA fighter, Eugene S Robinson was a bit of an anomoly as the charismatic front man for the band he founded OXBOW, and before that in Whipping Boy, a more traditional punk rock outfit in the early 80's. It's in his new book, A Walk Across Dirty Waters and Straight Into Murderer's Row: A Memoir (Feral House) that we learn ho…

1
Episode 168 - Rob Zabrecky 1:31:48

8M ago1:31:48

1:31:48

In 1993, Rob Zabrecky was certain he'd seen his future and that future was as a rockstar and frontman for local LA rockers Possum Dixon, his band that had just been signed to Interscope Records for a 3 record deal. But life is complicated. Indeed they had, by all accounts, a pretty great career as an "alternative" band with big tours and big produc…

1
Episode 167 - Greg Suran Revisited (orig Aug 9, 2019) 1:45:43

8M ago1:45:43

1:45:43

This is a pre-pandemic revisit to a previous episode from Aug 9, 2019 in which touring and session guitarist Greg Suran visited the TGS studios to talk about his globe-trotting experiences playing in his own Chicago-based band Cupcakes and BlueManGroup before joining The B-52's in which he still enjoys frequent gigs. He later joined Sunny Day Real …

1
Episode 166 - Tony Higbee 1:35:11

9M ago1:35:11

1:35:11

The 18 year old version of a now grown Tony Higbee would surely be pinching himself for who he shares stages with these days. As a highschool rocker from tiny Monmouth IL, he was a bass player and had evolved into a serviceable chording guitarist in college. It wasn't until he began writing songs in Atlanta with his band Simple Sick Device in the e…

1
Episode 165 - Jeffrey Babko 1:35:49

9M ago1:35:49

1:35:49

When this episode was recorded, the writers and actors strikes were both still going strong with no end in sight, so resident keyboardist for the Jimmy Kimmell Show, Jeff Babko, was able to find time in his normally very busy schedule to rap with me. In fact, the Kimmell show is just a piece of his crowded schedule, which includes being the touring…

1
Episode 164 - Ryan Patterson 1:27:27

10M ago1:27:27

1:27:27

When heavier-than-anything Louisville band Coliseum began to sense their time together was coming to a close around 2015, band leader and seed-writer Ryan Patterson started to get some glimpses of his next move but was struggling to find his voice within that sylistic change. It was a move from guitar-bass-drums based pummeling into synth-synth-bas…

1
Episode 163 - Salvation's Jason Sipe and Victor Riley 1:07:31

10M ago1:07:31

1:07:31

Jason Sipe and Victor Riley of Chicago's own Salvation make a particularly powerful and vicious form of music that many might assume descends from grunge music of the 90's. On the surface perhaps, but this mighty trio, with the help of Mr Mike Lust, a prodigious producer (Urge Overkill, William Elliot Whitmore, everybody in Chicago) and two-time TG…

1
Episode 162 - Ryan Raddatz 1:35:09

11M ago1:35:09

1:35:09

Writer / actor Ryan Raddatz has spent the last 20 years in LA carving out a career in TV and film, first briefly as an actor, before realizing that writing was his true calling. He spent years writing on show for CBS like the recent reboot of The Odd Couple and The Neighborhood with Cedric The Entertainer and dozens more that may or may not ever ge…

1
Episode 161 - Niko Wenner 1:24:29

11M ago1:24:29

1:24:29

Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Niko Wenner has been seeing life through a very different lens since the pre and post pandemic years brought him loss and big gains; his father died and went through a job change and saw some very tough times. But it also brought him a newborn child, his daughter, now almost 3 and has changed how he sees the worl…

1
Episode 160 - Jason Gagovski 1:29:47

12M ago1:29:47

1:29:47

In it's infancy, drummer Jason Gagovski's band Sweet Cobra, was always a 4 piece unit; a giant, crushing, throbbing and roaring missive of urgent importance. The move from 4 to 3 piece however was not their decision, as Matt Arluck had cancer that ultimately took his life, leaving them at a loss for a moment until deciding to move forward as a trio…

1
Episode 159 - Laurent Schroeder-Lebec 1:18:31

12M ago1:18:31

1:18:31

Laurent Schroeder-Lebec's love of heavy, ground-breaking, earth-shaking music is well established by his band Pelican and their diverse discography over the past 20 years. But somewhere around 2012 LSL began to feel the tug of a different calling; starting a family and supporting that family to the best of his ability, and that included becoming be…

1
Episode 158 - Jim Hanke 1:08:44

1y ago1:08:44

1:08:44

When Vinyl Emergency podcaster Jim Hanke was in school at UW Milwaukee with a double major in Communications and Journalism, he probably never dreamed that one of his future endeavors would be an answer to a question on the famous game show Jeopary. But that's what happened with Biscuits and Jam, a podcast he was producing for Southern Living Magaz…

1
Episode 157 - Travis Talbert 1:13:11

1y ago1:13:11

1:13:11

Travis Talbert has made the music biz his living, or maybe it's the music that made him do it. He's a touring and session pedal steel player and guitarist for other touring artists like Arlo McKinley but has also busied himself with his band Frontier Folk Nebraska and now more recently with his solo music as Mavis Guitar. He's been releasing music …

1
Episode 156 - Chris Neville 1:02:11

1y ago1:02:11

1:02:11

Chris Neville is a busy man; As the core member and founder of Tributosaurus, a collection of session killers from Chicago that regularly honor a certain artist or band with sold-out highly perfected tribute concerts featuring almost granular details of that artists recordings (i.e. 6 people to play a proper Rush concert), as a composer for a huge …

1
Episode 155 - Tim Rutili 1:14:43

1y ago1:14:43

1:14:43

Tim Rutili is not only from the influential and highly regarded art folk skronk rock band Califone, he in fact is that band. Certainly not to say he's not the only person who makes Califone Califone, indeed that band is more like a collective, often made of 15 humans or more for any given record, and it continues to involve many of the same talente…

1
Episode 154 - Gabe Larson 1:16:48

1y ago1:16:48

1:16:48

Gabe Larson was actually closer to his maternal grandfather than his paternal grandfather, Waldemar or Wally, the one he named his band after and most likely the man from whom he inherited a bit of his sadness and ennui. And it's this general bout with depression that plays a central role on his new album called Ruthless (Self-Released), an expansv…

1
Episode 153 - Jerry A Lang 1:07:47

1y ago1:07:47

1:07:47

The idea to rerelease a remixed version of The Badge, a notoriously anti-cop song, from Jerry A Lang's highly influential punkrock band Poison Idea's 3rd album Feel The Darkness (Vinyl Solutions/American Leather) was not exactly his. In this chat it becomes clear how a current Portland police officer approached him and the idea was hatched. In the …

1
Episode 152 - Sarah and Mario Quintero 1:10:51

1+ y ago1:10:51

1:10:51

Both Sarah and Mario Quintero of the post-everything band Spotlights have been guests on TGS previously, but never at the same time. It is clear that regardless of the music that they make together, beautifully crushing songs that push sonic boundaries with every release, these two are best friends and would be together even without this music. The…

1
Episode 151 - Santi Garcia 1:19:31

1+ y ago1:19:31

1:19:31

Producer Santi Garcia was just 12 years old when he approached the radio station in his town with an idea: his own radio show playing new music he loved. His exuberance and love of music led him to recording bands who came to him wanting to be recorded. He borrowed the only 4 track recorder in the small town north of Barcelona called St Feliu De Gu…

1
Episode 150 - Pete Stahl 1:28:47

1+ y ago1:28:47

1:28:47

DC punk icon Pete Stahl and his guitarist brother Franz were heavily influenced by their father who was in the biz in the 60's as a band manager. Pete has ridden his simple and profound love of music through a long life of traveling the globe not only as a musician with his band. the godfathers of the DC Dischord scene, Scream (featuring former mem…

1
Episode 149 - Rhonda Lyne 51:28

1+ y ago51:28

51:28

As Executive Director of the Midwest Music Foundation, Rhonda Lyne sees it as her duty to see through the vision of her friend and musician Abigail Henderson, a talented singer/songwriter with her band The Gaslights in the mid 00's. Abigail was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 and a benefit called Apocalypse Meow gave her and her husband Chris Mecke a…

1
Episode 148 - Stephan Hawkes 1:35:39

1+ y ago1:35:39

1:35:39

When Stephan Hawkes was but a teenager, he and his band at the time called Tibanna, made their first recording with Paul Malinowski of Shiner in the midwest, far away from his hometown of Portland OR. That band ran its course as bands do, but Stephan caught the bug for recording and fell in love with every part of the process. Not only is he a gift…

1
Episode 147 - Taylor Dupuis 52:35

1+ y ago52:35

52:35

Singer/actor Taylor Dupuis has had the same dream as many of us dreamers of living a busy and successful artistic life and she's definitely been living that nocturnal event out to a T. Her band Roanoke which she started with her then boyfriend Joe Beesley has just released their new EP called Wolf Motel (Kill Rock Stars) and it is a shining example…

1
Episode 146 - Alan Cage 1:42:56

1+ y ago1:42:56

1:42:56

After more than 15 years of drumming for Quicksand, Seaweed, Burn and before--and after that, Beyond, with a fair amount of storm and stress in the Quicksand years in particular, Alan Cage wanted to prove to himself that he could master something else in his life, completely unrelated to anything musical, and he did. For 10 years he had a successfu…

1
Episode 145 - AE Reflects On The Last and New Year 24:13

1+ y ago24:13

24:13

Big A is back from an end of year hiatus and takes Episode 145 of TGS to reflect on the year that was 2022 and some positive thoughts on the year ahead, 2023. Last year was tough for many people for many different reasons but we're all hoping for a fresh start moving forward, beginning with the release of AE's first and only solo record called 'Eve…

1
Episode 144 - Kendall Wind 57:29

1+ y ago57:29

57:29

Growing up in upstate New York, young Kendall Wind took piano lessons before migrating to bass guitar and leaning into The Rock Academy founded by School of Rock's Paul Greene. Her piano knowledge would later inform her bass and guitar playing in the band she put together at Rock Academy with singer Sam Quartin called The Bobby Lees, now on it's 3r…

1
Episode 143 - Van Wilks 1:13:40

1+ y ago1:13:40

1:13:40

Austin TX has evolved for better and worse over the past 50 years and Texas blues guitar rock legend Van Wilks has been witness to and in the middle of all of it. In fact the city named November 6th Honorary Van Wilks Day in 1997. Van gets much love from guitar wizards like Eric Johnson and Billy Gibbons, and songwriting masters like Christopher Cr…

1
Episode 142 - Jarboe 1:05:43

1+ y ago1:05:43

1:05:43

Right after Jarboe had migrated from the Deep South to New York in the early 80's, she saw Michael Gira and Swans perform and knew that was her destiny. Swans impact today is felt in bands like FACS, Godflesh, Neurosis, Isis and Napalm Death with Jarboe and Michael as the figure heads of Swans. Jarboe's career is 33 albums deep between solo work/co…

1
Episode 141 - John Lombardo 55:41

1+ y ago55:41

55:41

Many musicians, waiting for their new record to be pressed, have mused to themselves about starting a vinyl manufacturing business, but John Lombardo actually put a real plan together with 3 other friends to create Smashed Plastic here in Chicago. John pieced together this coalition from his life and times within the music business as a record stor…

1
Episode 140 - Ben Jorgenson 59:43

1+ y ago59:43

59:43

When Ben Jorgenson began to write a new record for his band Armor For Sleep, their first new music in over 10 years, his mind began to conjure a dystopian world, a post apocalyptic Earth with a museum that held pieces of the old world to remind us all of the past. It also happened that he was working through and dealing with a difficult divorce, an…

1
Episode 139 - Sarah Shook 52:17

2y ago52:17

52:17

The pandemic takes its toll on everyone in different ways and Sarah Shook is not unique in that it yielded a new record, but this music was a new sort of fruit from a fresh vine. Sarah's delivery and metrics have up to now hewed to an 'outlaw country' quilt but these songs stood out from their work with Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. They leaned towa…

1
Episode 138 - Patrick Fabian Revisited 1:14:47

2y ago1:14:47

1:14:47

AE goes back in the vault for a loving reexamination of his conversation on with actor Patrick Fabian (Ep. 37) of Better Call Saul as the high powered attorney Howard Hamlin. We talk about his time and tenure on BCS as that iconic series has just wrapped its final season, in which Patrick's character is central. There's even more poignancy and rele…

1
Episode 137 - Zach Barocas 1:34:33

2y ago1:34:33

1:34:33

When drummer Zach Barocas began to play with his legendary band Jawbox again in late 2017 to rehearse for some reunion shows, he wasn't sure exactly how that might play out given they hadn't been in the same room together for about 20 years. Turns out, it went so well they're still playing shows now and in fact will be playing Riot Fest in Septembe…

1
Episode 136 - AE REFLECTS (ON BIRTHDAYS AND COLLEGE-BOUND KIDS) 36:07

2y ago36:07

36:07

Our handsome host Allen Epley goes guestless for this episode to take time to reflect and wax on the state of his state of mind. It is the eve of his 54th birthday and the week before his twins fly the coop for college and leave their parents alone at home at once, both elated and broken; free at last or utterly rudderless. Raising kids is a danger…

1
Episode 135 - Ian Prince 54:17

2y ago54:17

54:17

Drummer Ian Prince couldn't have predicted that at this time in his life he'd be making music again with the same two men who he really needed time away from in 2004 when Houston had been on the road for long stretches. After Houston's implosion, he formed Story of the Sea with his brother Adam Prince to make several albums of high level song craft…

1
Episode 134 - Terence Hannum 1:25:19

2y ago1:25:19

1:25:19

Terrance Hannum, synth-ist and keyboardist in his darkly beautiful drone-core band Locrian, doesn't set out everyday to be the most creative human on earth, but more often than not, something does indeed get made. Between his job as a professor of 3D Printing and digital fabrication and his life in Locrian, he also manages to write award-winning fi…

1
Episode 133 - Stephan Howard 1:20:31

2y ago1:20:31

1:20:31

Stephan "The Kid" Howard was christened thusly by the old blues players he first began gigging with as a bassist when he was only 13 years old in Chicago, and introduced him to a universe of music and travel that changed his life in every way. His time as both drummer and baritone guitarist in the influential Chicago band Pinebender in the 90's put…

1
Episode 132 - Joe Sib 1:19:51

2y ago1:19:51

1:19:51

Comic Joe Sib is that rare human who takes new endeavors that might normally intimidate the rest of us as a challenge. His punk-rock band Wax struck gold in the early 90's with a hit song California and a video directed by Spike Jonze known as the burning guy running in slow-mo video, then parlayed the success from that band into starting Side One …

1
Episode 131 - Clayton Brown 1:07:21

2y ago1:07:21

1:07:21

Documentary filmmaker and my old homie Clayton Brown revisits the TGS confines for the 2nd time to chat about his new film in which he details the work of Doug Pagitt, an activist and progressive evangelical pastor who has been protesting current immigration policies by riding his bike along the US Border from San Diego to St Augustine. For this fi…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Allen Epley Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide