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Doctor Rob Collier is a Beatles/Paul McCartney scholar, an educator, composer, performer, and heck of a bass player.  Some of his current projects are Beatles Bass Lines and a Patreon page for bass/music education Jason has listened to a lot of Radiohead and McCartney.  The two friends have a thoughtful conversation about this 2005 album, where it fits in Paul's entire catalog, the impact of Nigel Godrich's production, lyrics, how to become a better bassist, what Rob has been up to, and a lot more. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Instagram: beforethestream linktr.ee/beforethestream

Swedish singer/songwriter Peter Morén (Peter, Bjorn, and John) joins the podcast to talk about Elvis Costello's 1989 album Spike and Peter's new SunYears album The Song Forlorn.  Jason and Peter talk about how Peter got started with Elvis Costello and Spike, making albums, lyrics, collaboration, how ambitious albums can remain coherent, and much more.  The talk transitions to Peter's career and process, and the making of The Song Forlorn. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Instagram: beforethestream linktr.ee/beforethestream

Soul Asylum again? And their new album from 2024? When Jason and Rob Collier saw that the title of Soul Asylum's new album quoted the movie Airplane! they knew they had to follow up on their previous episodes about Grave Dancer's Union and Let Your Dim Light Shine.  Do you have to have heard the album to enjoy this talk? Definitely not. And don't call me Shirley. Rob and Jason play the Dave Pirner lyrics game, consider other quotes from Airplane! and what kind of album titles they might've made, talk about Soul Asylum's evolution, and get into details from the album.  Rob also talks a bit about his current and future projects, including more educational and Beatles-related material on his YouTube channel. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream   linktr.ee/beforethestream

Al Melchior of You, Me and An Album joins the show to talk about U2 and their 1983 album War. Al saw U2 in concert around the time that War came out and it made a huge impression on him.  Jason and Al discuss memories of U2, the evolution of their fandom as the band continued on, the performances on War, what makes albums cohesive, and a lot more. Jason was recently a guest on You, Me and An Album talking with Al about Radiohead's Kid A: listen here Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Instagram: beforethestream   linktr.ee/beforethestream

Just a quick little update to let you know that Jason talked about Radiohead's album Kid A on the podcast "You, Me and An Album" with Al Melchior.  You can listen to the episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts. Al has had a ton of great guests and discussed a lot of great albums if you don't know the podcast.  Al and Jason also talked a bit about Jason's album The Grand Routine and the history and future of this podcast. I hope you'll give it a listen.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream   linktr.ee/beforethestream

A Safe Place is out. It's the 3rd single from Jason's forthcoming new album The Grand Routine.  Great friend of the show Rob Collier joins again to talk about the song, how it was written, songwriting, production, Andrew Carlson's bass playing, music marketing, etc etc.  The two friends also try to define what type of music Jason's music is, what Soft Rock is, if lyrics matter at all, and more.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream linktr.ee/beforethestream

The 2nd single from Jason's forthcoming LP is out now.  Singer-songwriter/drummer/multi-instrumentalist/producer Anthony LaMarca of The Building and The War on Drugs joined Jason to talk about the song and the album.  The two friends and longtime cohorts discussed production, tracking at Peppermint Studios in Youngstown, OH, tempos, Anthony's sweet guitar solo on this song, the definition of the term "shralping", why the album took a long time to write and record, whether the demos are better than the album versions, songwriting, and a lot more.  Plus, there's a bonus post-script detailing another of Jason's awkward interactions with a musician.  Awesome contributions were made to this song by: Anthony Andrew Carlson Gary Rhamy D. James Goodwin Rob Collier Heather Woods Broderick Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream   linktr.ee/beforethestream

The 1st single from Jason's forthcoming 2nd LP is out!  The song is called In the Quiet Golden Hour, and Jason talked all about it with Andrew Carlson, who played bass and guitar and sang on the track.  The two friends talk about recording at Peppermint Studios in Youngstown, OH, with Anthony LaMarca and Gary Rhamy. They talk about all the other people that worked on the song and album. They analyze the track and the original demo of the song while sharing lessons they learned on this session and talking about production, arrangement, songwriting, lyrics, etc.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream   linktr.ee/beforethestream

We are back!  The grand return of Before the Stream features Jason and Natasha Alexandra talking about Tori Amos' 1994 classic album Under the Pink. Jason tries to guess Natasha's defining 3 songs from this record before the two friends and musical colleagues dive into the full album, whether spirits help with songwriting, storytelling vs. marketing, 30-year anniversaries, the 90s, production, and so much more. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream   linktr.ee/beforethestream

Rob Collier made his first appearance on the show back in episode 4 to talk about Soul Asylum. Now he's back to talk about their 1995 album, Let Your Dim Light Shine. It's impossible not to talk about Dave Pirner's lyrics. But Rob and Jason also talked a lot about music production (Butch Vig produced this record), songwriting, arrangement, and much more, going song by song while interspersing games, jokes and anecdotes.  They finished up with some more games, a dramatic reading of a review (of the complete Soul Asylum lyrics book), and the first ever edition of Dramatic Music Tweets on Before the Stream. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream linktr.ee/beforethestream

Jason and Brian Kantor continue and conclude their conversation about The Cardigans' 1996 album First Band on the Moon.  The two friends analyze each song on the record while sharing thoughts on production, arrangement, creativity, Black Sabbath, and more. They even dramatically read a couple of bizarre reviews for this album.  Brian then shares what he's been up to at The Soundry, and with Sound For and other bands, and more.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream linktr.ee/beforethestream

Nina Persson of the Cardigans is interviewed in this episode!  Brian Kantor returns to talk about The Cardigans' 1996 album First Band On The Moon.  Brian is friends and erstwhile bandmates with Nina, so they recorded a conversation about the album that we listen to on this episode.  Jason and Brian talk about drum sounds, bass note choices, dark lyrics wrapped in happy-sounding songs, if "Happy Meal II" is actually a happy song, the differences between this album and other 90s alternative hit records, and much more. We'll be back soon with Part 2 of the conversation. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream linktr.ee/beforethestream

We're talking about Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York song by song. Host Jason Bemis Lawrence did this one by himself.  It gave Jason a chance to ruminate on the song Something in the Way, play some guitar, sing a little, address some of the common topics about the song and the differences between the Unplugged performance and the version on Nevermind, lyrics, and a lot more.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream

Chris Towers of CBS joins the podcast to count down our rankings of the full-length albums by the band The National in anticipation of a new National album in April.  Jason Bemis Lawrence is the host and once had his parody song played on Chris' podcast, as Jason mentions. You can hear Chris and his colleagues listening to it and commenting here at 39:50 into the podcast. (It's a Spotify link, but hey if you can easily find that episode in their extensive backlog elsewhere, please let us know) Chris and Jason talk through how they got introduced to The National and what the band means to them before discussing the band's catalog and ranking their albums worst to best.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream

D. James Goodwin is back on the show.  We're taking a break from the Nirvana series to ask Dan some questions about his process of learning and engaging with the world via social media, technology, etc, before getting into R.E.M's 1992 album Automatic For The People. Dan had mentioned his deep emotional connection to the album on his previous appearance so we decided to dig further into it. As usual, we talk lyrics, production, songwriting, the specific qualities and characteristics of each band member, and more.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: [email protected] Twitter: beforethestream Instagram: beforethestream