My guest today is director Rian Johnson, which is exciting for me, because I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since seeing his first feature film, Brick, in 2006. Since then, he’s made six more feature films, including Looper in 2012; Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2017; the murder mystery Knives Out in 2019; and his most recent movie, another in the Knives Out series, Wake Up Dead Man, which is already out in theaters, and comes to Netflix on December 12. I talked to Rian about a piece of music that had a profound impact on him, which was the overture to Das Rheingold by Richard Wagner.

footnotes:
“Kill the Wabbit”
“La Traviata”
Focus Features
The Brothers Bloom
Opéra Bastille
Ring Cycle
J. R. R. Tolkien
J. J. Abrams
Terrence Malick
Nathan Johnson
Bayreuth Festival Theatre
Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music by Alex Ross

Twitter

Facebook

Email

My guest today is Demi Adejuyigbe. One of the things that makes Demi so special is how hard it is to summarize him in an intro like this, because he has so many talents and applies them in so many different ways. He is a standup comedian, with a brand new one-hour special out on Dropout TV. He co-hosted the podcasts Gilmore Guys and Punch Up the Jam. He’s a screenwriter who wrote on TV shows like The Good Place. He’s famous on the internet for his parody songs, spoofing artists like Will Smith and Lana Del Rey; and for his September videos, where, for years, he made increasingly elaborate videos of himself, dancing to the Earth, Wind & Fire song. And he used the popularity of those videos to raise over a million dollars for charity. He’s also directed several music videos, including one that he made for one of my songs, back in 2022. And for this episode, we’re talking as much about a music video as the song within it. And that song is: “You Only Live Once” by The Strokes.

You can buy or stream “You Only Live Once” here.

You can watch Demi’s new special, Demi Adejuyigbe is Going to do One (1) Backflip, here.

footnotes:
Guitar Hero and Rock Band
First Impressions of Earth (album) – The Strokes
“Red Light” – The Strokes
Warren Fu
Zabriskie Point, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pink Floyd, and Jerry Garcia
“I’ll Try Anything Once” – The Strokes

Twitter

Facebook

Email

My guest today is Chef David Chang. He founded Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2004. That was just the start of his incredible career – he’s opened several restaurants, winning awards and Michelin stars along the way, and becoming a fixture in the upper echelon of food. He’s the host of the Netflix shows Ugly Delicious and Dinner Time Live, as well as his own podcast, The Dave Chang Show. For this episode, I talked to Dave about the song “I See a Darkness.” It’s the title track on the album by Bonnie “Prince” Billy, aka Will Oldham, which came out in 1999. Later, Johnny Cash would cover “I See a Darkness” in 2000, as a duet with Will Oldham, as part of Johnny Cash’s acclaimed American series.

You can get Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “I See a Darkness” on vinyl or digital here.

footnotes:
Anthony Bourdain
The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
Darkness Visible by Will Styron
Eat a Peach by David Chang
I See a Darkness – the album by Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Twitter

Facebook

Email