The Lydian Spin

Mishka Shubaly is a nonfiction writer and storyteller known for essays on addiction, recovery, endurance, and reinvention. After earning an MFA in fiction from Columbia University, he toured as a musician before returning to writing. His seven Amazon Kindle Singles all became bestselling titles, praised for grit, dark humor, emotional honesty, and vulnerability. Each summer, Mishka teaches a nonfiction writers workshop at Yale Summer Session, helping writers refine their craft.

This week's episode features a conversation with critic, Byron Coley, whose work has covered experimental music and independent culture. Byron discusses Now Jazz Now, the newly published, fully illustrated 270-page softcover book edited by Eva Prinz, with a preface by Neneh Cherry and an afterword by Joe McPhee. Now Jazz Now brings together the perspectives of Mats Gustafsson, Neneh Cherry, Joe McPhee, Thurston Moore, and Byron, compiling personal archival selections of recorded works that orbit free jazz and free improvisation. Structured around 100 essential releases presented chronologically—but explicitly rejecting hierarchy or competition—the book foregrounds album art, labels, liner notes, and collector reflections as lived history rather than canon. Byron discusses record collecting as a lifelong practice, the cultural conditions that shaped free music, and the idea of listening as an act grounded in curiosity, memory, and freedom.

Stand-up comedian Ben Roy is also an actor, writer, podcaster, and musician. He began his career in Denver, developing his stand-up at Comedy Works, and has since appeared at festivals including Just for Laughs, the New York Comedy Festival, and South by Southwest. His television credits include HBO's Funny as Hell and Comedy Central's Adam DeVine's House Party, Corporate, @midnight, and This Is Not Happening. Ben is a co-creator, writer, and star of the truTV series Those Who Can't, which ran for three seasons. He hosts the podcasts 97.9 The Rat Race on the All Things Comedy network and The Grawlix Saves the World. In addition to comedy, Ben is a musician and serves as the lead singer of the pop-punk band SPELLS.

Photo Maurice Nunez Harley Flanagan began performing in the city's punk scene at age 11 as the drummer for the Stimulators. In the early 1980s he founded the Cro-Mags, a band widely cited for its influence on later hardcore, punk, and metal groups. His memoir, Hard Core: Life of My Own, frames his career within the broader evolution of New York's punk and hardcore movements. Harley has also been active in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for decades, directing the kids' program at Renzo Gracie's New York academy. In recent years he has continued recording and performing while participating in film work and public discussions of mental health.

Martin Atkins's three decades in the music industry in nearly every aspect of record production, gives him a rare perspective on the music business past, present, and future. After early success as a drummer with Public Image Ltd. and later work with acts like Killing Joke, Ministry, and Nine Inch Nails, he launched his own projects including Pigface and the influential Invisible Records. He has since become an author, speaker, and educator, sharing his expertise at major conferences and now teaching music business at Millikin University. A father of four, he lives in Chicago with his wife, Katrina.

  Longtime friend and collaborator of Lydia and friend of The Lydian Spin, Jasmine returns to the show. She is a filmmaker and artist who wrote letters to Aileen Wuornos and later conducted a filmed interview with her on death row in 1997. Jasmine's footage appears in the new Netflix documentary Aileen: Queen of Serial Killers; Wuornos had asked her to record her story before the execution to provide an account she felt the media had misrepresented. Jasmine is working on her own documentary, which is currently in progress. Jasmine and Lydia have also collaborated on the documentary and Artists Anxiety Depression and Rage.

Excepter is an experimental music collective formed in Brooklyn in 2002. John Fell Ryan (sometimes called "Jeff") founded Excepter and has remained a central member, providing vocals, synths, and electronic instrumentation. Lala Harrison Ryan has been involved in the group since at least 2006, contributing vocals, programming, keyboards, and flute. 

Paul Roessler is a musician and record producer based in Los Angeles. Active since 1978, he was part of the early L.A. punk scene and played keyboards with band including The Screamers, Twisted Roots, 45 Grave, Nervous Gender. His work includes solo albums such as Abominable, Curator, and The Drug Years, as well as collaborations with artists including Nina Hagen and Mike Watt. Paul is currently a producer at Kitten Robot Studios and is the brother of musician Kira Roessler and son of underwater photographer Carl Roessler.

Carlo McCormick is a pop culture critic and curator living in New York. He is the author of numerous books on contemporary art and artists and has lectured and taught extensively at universities around the United States. His writing has appeared in Aperture, Art in America, Art News, Artforum, High Times, Spin, Vice, and countless other magazines.

Chris Connelly is a Scottish-born musician and writer whose career spans from the industrial and post-punk scenes of the 1980s to a wide range of solo and collaborative projects. Beginning with Rigor Mortis (later Fini Tribe) and continuing through Revolting Cocks, Ministry, and Pigface, Chris's work is an exercise in constant reinvention and movement between genres. His later solo work, including Whiplash Boychild, Shipwreck, and Blonde Exodus, reflects a shift toward melodic, literate songwriting, while his books and collaborations, such as The High Confessions, demonstrate his continuing interest in music as narrative and experimentation.

Gary Lippman is a writer, artist, and attorney. He has worked with New York's Innocence Project and is the author of the acclaimed new book I Wish Therefore I Am. His play Paradox Lust ran off-off-Broadway in 2001, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and VICE. Gary's visual art can be found at apocalippy.com.

🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ Dave Naz played in various LA punk bands including Chemical People, Down by Law, and The Last touring the USA and Europe from 1985 til1997, until an exhibition featuring Larry Clark, Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus, inspired him to pick up a camera. As a photographer his work revolves around the varied identities and personae of our time. His photos have appeared in GQ, Maxim, Stern, and Salon. Several of Naz's photos appear in the artwork of Richard Prince. He has published 17 books with the 18th on the way.  

🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/tsd1975) Shane Embury is longtime bassist for the grindcore/death metal band Napalm Death, which he joined in 1987 and has remained with ever since. In addition to Napalm Death, he has been involved in numerous side projects and bands across the extreme metal spectrum, such as Blood from the Soul, Lock Up, Brujeria, and Venomous Concept. Before his bass‑career, he played drums in early death metal and grindcore efforts like Warhammer and Unseen Terror. He lives in Birmingham and is an enthusiast of horror, science fiction, and comics. 🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ The Lydian Spin is more than just a podcast—it's a living archive of raw conversation, radical thought, and unfiltered voices. Week after week, Lydia Lunch and Tim Dahl dive deep with artists, musicians, and cultural agitators who refuse to be silenced. But keeping this archive alive takes time, energy, and resources. If you've ever been moved, inspired, or challenged by the conversations on The Lydian Spin, consider giving back. Your donation helps us cover production costs, keep the episodes free and accessible, and continue amplifying the voices that matter. Click the link above or go to https://paypal.me/tsd1975

🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/tsd1975)   Inspired by a lifelong obsession with poetry and prose, Harlow Crandall channels his obsession with literature and rock music into the release of his new album, Better a New Demon, recorded with the support of Peter Manktelow, Meadow Wyand, and Justin Pallini. As a Ph.D. candidate working in one of America's largest music archives at Middle Tennessee State University, he's presently completing a book tentatively titled The Architects of Punk & No Wave: The Literary Impulses of the New York Underground in the 1970s. The project explores how punk and no wave pioneers from Richard Hell to Lydia Lunch established a new aesthetic and subculture from the wreckage of the 1960s and their own literary aspirations, and it documents their response over the next decades to the changing cultural currency of New York's mythic decade.  🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ The Lydian Spin is more than just a podcast—it's a living archive of raw conversation, radical thought, and unfiltered voices. Week after week, Lydia Lunch and Tim Dahl dive deep with artists, musicians, and cultural agitators who refuse to be silenced. But keeping this archive alive takes time, energy, and resources. If you've ever been moved, inspired, or challenged by the conversations on The Lydian Spin, consider giving back. Your donation helps us cover production costs, keep the episodes free and accessible, and continue amplifying the voices that matter. Click the link above or go to https://paypal.me/tsd1975

Budgie (born Peter Edward Clarke) is an English drummer recognized for his work with Siouxsie and the Banshees (1979–1996) and the percussion-driven project The Creatures (1981–2004). He  lost his mother at age 12, and that early loss becomes a central theme in The Absence: Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer, where he also writes candidly about his marriage with Siouxsie Sioux, struggles with alcohol, and the power dynamics in both his personal and musical life. His drumming is praised for being offbeat, tom-tom-intensive, and for bringing melodic and rhythmic invention rather than just keeping time. 🎙️ Support The Lydian Spin 🎙️ The Lydian Spin is more than just a podcast—it's a living archive of raw conversation, radical thought, and unfiltered voices. Week after week, Lydia Lunch and Tim Dahl dive deep with artists, musicians, and cultural agitators who refuse to be silenced. But keeping this archive alive takes time, energy, and resources. If you've ever been moved, inspired, or challenged by the conversations on The Lydian Spin, consider giving back. Your donation helps us cover production costs, keep the episodes free and accessible, and continue amplifying the voices that matter.

Paul Cantelon grew up with music in his blood—his mother played trumpet in the Philadelphia Symphony, his father was a preacher. A prodigy on violin, he debuted at UCLA's Royce Hall at 13, then studied piano across Geneva, Juilliard, and Paris. At 17, a bike accident left him in a coma and wiped out his memory; he had to relearn music from scratch. He went on to co-found the band Wild Colonials, release solo piano albums, and score films like The Diving Bell & the Butterfly, The Other Boleyn Girl, and W.. He's also written for silent film classics like Battleship Potemkin.

Shawn "The Defenestrator" O'Connor is a founding member and drummer of the St. Louis band Yowie. Outside of music, he works as a clinical psychologist. Shawn is also something of a luddite, aiming to be the last adult in America without a cell phone.

Pamela Des Barres, born in California, emerged from the 1960s Los Angeles rock scene as both participant and witness. Introduced to Captain Beefheart in high school, she soon immersed herself in the vast Los Angeles demimonde, befriending and dating musicians from The Byrds to Led Zeppelin. With Frank Zappa's guidance, she co-founded the performance collective the GTOs, documenting her experiences in diaries that became the foundation of her seminal memoir I'm With the Band. She later married rocker Michael Des Barres—also known to television audiences for his role as the assassin Murdoc on MacGyver. Pamela herself went on to publish multiple books and establish a career as an author, teacher, and chronicler of rock history, in her role as the definitive voice of the "groupie."

Comedian Eddie Pepitone, dubbed "The Bitter Buddha," blends caustic humor with existential musings, delivering performances that ricochet between volcanic rants and self-effacing confessionals. A veteran of New York's improv scene and a familiar face on television—from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to Bob's Burgers—Eddie's work straddles the line between working-class outrage and oddly serene insight. Offstage, he channels his restless wit into podcasts, social media, and quirky web series, carving out a singular space in comedy that is equal parts fury and philosophy.

Shannon Sky is a poet, author, photographer, publisher, and activist born in Chicago. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.  Shannon is an off the radar, gender queer, underground poet. She previously worked in electoral politics, successfully advocated for juvenile justice reform laws in Chicago, lobbied Congress to fund public health care, and currently consults on green environmental projects.  She is the founder of Latter-day Beat Books. A world traveler, Shannon has explored all 50 states and 35 countries on four continents.