Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E15: Robert Scheffler

Robert Scheffler, photo by John Matthews

Robert Scheffler is a New York City-based singer-songwriter who released his third full length studio album Truce on June 26, 2025 for digital download, streaming and limited edition CD. Scheffler was a regular in downtown NYC clubs Mercury Lounge, Arlene’s Grocery and the Bitter End including shows with his band A Million Pieces. But the time came when Scheffler took up a job as a research editor and writer for a national magazine. Eventually the lure of songwriting pulled Scheffler back into the world of music but like many a songwriter he had to figure out what he would have to say in a crowded milieu with thousands of artists vying for attention. Without a band the challenge was even greater. But Scheffler found his inspiration in part when filing through his old CD collection and stumbled upon a promo disc for Warren Zevon’s Life’ll Kill Ya given out at the record release party. He tried Zevon’s workmanlike approach to songwriting but once he abandoned that more methodical approach the songs came together. The new album is about people navigating agreements between each other, socially and in their relationships with the world. The record also explores in poetic fashion loss of friends and of hope and the pain of connections coming apart. The music has a folk and Americana flavor but of the vibrant yet pastoral variety with immediacy and a spirit of intimacy like Scheffler is hooked into universal human experiences.

Listen to our interview with Robert Scheffler on Bandcamp and follow the artist at the links below.

robertschefflermusic.com

Robert Scheffler on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E14: The Whimbrels

The Whimbrels, photo by Mark Richards

The Whimbrels released their eponymous debut album on June 27, 2025 via Dromedary Records. The band has in its membership luminaries of the experimental, avant-garde, post-punk and No Wave scene of New York City with credits including playing with The Glenn Branca Ensemble, The Swans and J. Mascis. Between racks of guitars in alternate tunings and unconventional arrangements the band’s new record is somehow both accessible and challenging, filled with gorgeous, left field melodies, discordant atmospheres and dissonant soundscapes. It’s like noise rock abstract jazz with real attention to songcraft. Arad Evans is the primary songwriter as well as vocalist and one of the group’s guitarists and he’s been in more than a few of the great improvisational and experimental guitar bands in NYC since 1980. Norman Westberg many may know as one of the main guitar wizards in Swans for over 35 years but his fascinating ambient solo albums are worth visiting. Guitarist Luke Schwartz is a composer who also played with Glenn Branca but also with ambient legend John Hassell. Matt Hunter on bass and vocals is a co-founder of New Radiant Storm King but has performed with J. Mascis & the Fog, King Missile, Silver Jews and SAVAK. Steve DiBenedetto is mostly known as a painter but his work as a solo musician and with Airport Seven among other projects are highlights of American experimental music. Drummer Libby Fab is a member of Paranoid Critical Revolution and was the technical director of Glenn Branca’s Symphony 13: Hallucination City. Produced by Jim Santo, the record will resonate deeply with fans of its members various musical endeavors but also the textural tonalities of Mission of Burma, the enigmatic soundscapes of Nicholas Jaar and the exotic tonal exercises of Savage Republic. The album is now available as 12” LP, digital download and on streaming platforms.

Listen to our interview with Arad Evans and Norman Westberg on Bandcamp and follow The Whimbrels at the links below.

thewhimbrels.com

The Whimbrels on Instagram

The Whimbrels on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E13: Meatwound

Meatwound, photo by Wallace Boesch

Florida’s Meatwound came into being circa 2014. Threading together strands of hardcore, noise and sludge rock, Meatwound’s mutant sound is a little like what might be described as psychedelic noise power violence with caustic vocals and seething guitar work driven by almost mechanistic rhythms. The group’s new album Macho (out now on Threat Collection) reveals a band that seems to be tearing in all directions with its sharp-edged sonics and a left field sensibility in fusing heavy and aggressive music. The cover in its bright and dark pink is a send-up of the concept of “macho” and the songs are infused with a sense of humor and the absurd. With titles like “Frank Stallone,” “Obese Variants,” “Pig, Tu” and “Barking Dog As Plot Device” it’s clear that Meatwound while making music that can be taken seriously don’t take themselves too seriously as artists. Think something like Killing Joke doing a collaborative album with Napalm Death.

Listen to our interview with Meatwound vocalist Daniel Wallace on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below.

meatwound.com

Meatwound on Bandcamp

Meatwound on Instagram

Meatwound on Facebook

threatcollection.com

Threat Collection on Instagram

Threat Collection on Bandcamp

Threat Collection on TikTok

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E12: Knox Chandler

Knox Chandler, photo courtesy the artist

Knox Chandler made a name for himself as a musician with bands and artists like The Psychedelic Furs, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Cyndi Lauper. He also performed with, recorded, arranged and produced for REM, Depeche Mode, Grace Jones, Marianne Faithful, Natalie Merchant, Tricky, The Golden Palominos and others. He spent ten years living in Berlin, Germany where he developed a technique called “Soundribbons” in which iPads are used to process and manipulate guitar signals to produce uniquely evocative soundscapes often incorporating field recordings and interactive visuals for live performance. In Berlin Chandler also earned a post-graduate degree in education and served as the head of the guitar department at BIMM College. On May30, 2025 Chandler released his debut solo album The Sound. Rather than the usual type of musical album, it is a set of deep field ambient and otherwise cinematic mood music paired with a visual memoir in book form depicting his shift from urban to rural living where he currently resides in the New Haven, Connecticut area. The vividly rendered collection of images and paintings are served well by the methods Chandler used to process and craft the music and vice versa.

Listen to our interview with Knox Chandler on Bandcamp and connect with the artist at the links below.

knoxchandlermusic.com

Knox Chandler on Instagram

Knox Chandler on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E11: Jeffery Broussard and The Nighttime Syndicate

Jeffery Broussard, photo from Bandcamp

Jeffery Broussard grew up in a musical family in Lafayette, Louisiana. His father Delton was an accomplished musician and his mother Ethel performed a cappella juré music in the home. The younger Broussard started playing drums in Delton Broussard and the Lawtell Playboys when he was eight years old but went on to play the accordion as his main instrument in his teens. Jeffery formed his own band Zydeco Force very much informed by the music he came up playing and the group while not a touring act released seven albums between 1990 and 2004. Broussard decided to create a more musically traditional band with his next project Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys in 2005. In 2025 the musician and singer released the debut album of his new outfit Jeffery Broussard and The Nighttime Syndicate. Bayou Moonlight released via Fairgrounds Records May 23 on 12” vinyl, digital download and for streaming. The new record reflects Broussard’s charismatic and vital performance style with vibrant and passionate delivery that has made him a Zydeco-nouveau start with an ear for taking the traditional forms and giving it a spirited form.

Listen to our interview with Jeffery Broussard on Bandcamp and follow him at the links below.

nighttime-syndicate.band

Jeffery Broussard and The Nighttime Syndicate on Instagram

Jeffery Broussard and The Nighttime Syndicate on Bandcamp

Jeffery Broussard and The Nighttime Syndicate on Fairground Records

Jeffery Broussard and The Nighttime Syndicate on Facebook

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E10: Charming Disaster

Charming Disaster, photo by Shervin Lainez

Charming Disaster is a Brooklyn-based duo who have developed a style that has been described as goth-folk. But Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris seem to have a knack for crafting deeply imaginative pop songs with an experimental and theatrical flair. Their latest record The Double released on May 16, 2025 on vinyl, CD and of course digital platforms. As with previous efforts the band explores concepts in its songs this time through the vehicle of songs dealing with an alternate reality where magic is a feature of life, time travel, the flora taking over civilization and a re-imagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The album deftly incorporates elements of fantasy and science fiction in telling engaging stories and of left field adventure and of struggling with depression and transforming tragedy into something more productive. Utilizing ukulele, guitar, foot percussion and beautiful vocal harmonies Charming Disaster’s dark cabaret style is the kind that transcends genre and musical era with an immediacy that instantly draws you into its unique creative vision.

Listen to our interview with Charming Disaster on Bandcamp and follow the group at the links below.

charmingdisaster.com

Charming Disaster on Facebook

Charming Disaster on Instagram

Charming Disaster on YouTube

Charming Disaster on Bandcamp (to order vinyl and get a download)

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E09: Charlie Kendall of METALSHOP

Charlie Kendall’s METALSHOP has re-launched in 1995. From 1984-1995 the original run of the syndicated radio program was a well-curated show that broadcast on more than 250 radio stations across the country. It featured interviews with heavy metal and hard rock musicians across a broad spectrum of fame and notoriety. The new weekly show incorporates original feature segments into its new content and will showcase new and classic music and interviews and presented with the same gritty accessibility that made the original show a true touchstone for that music. The new show can be heard online on demand on its Mixcloud account and on the air in select markets.

Listen to our interview with Charlie Kendall on Bandcamp and follow METALSHOP at the links below.

charliekendall.com

METALSHOP on Facebook

METALSHOP on YouTube

METALSHOP on Facebook

METALSHOP on Instagram

METALSHOP on Twitter

METALSHOP episodes on MIXCLOUD

METALSHOP Merch

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E08: MikelParis

MikelParis, photo by Alex Russel Sax

MikelParis is perhaps best known these days as a keyboard player in the rock band O.A.R. but for many years he was also a cast member of the STOMP touring show as well as working with Pink, Train, The Dan Band and Jewel. All along MikelParis has developed his “GuitarDrumming” style of playing acoustic guitar. It combines his technique for playing piano, his honed sense of complex rhythms into a fluid and endlessly evolving sound that incorporates intuitive and expressive improvisation and songwriting acumen. His latest, and fourth, album GuitarDrumming 01 has the musician bringing in peers and friends like Vernon Reid (Living Colour), G. Love and Of Good Nature. The sound is richly varied and at times is reminiscent of 90s Peter Gabriel as the latter further integrated non-Western rhythms into his pop songcraft. The album released on March 28, 2025 on 12” vinyl, digital download and streaming services via ZP Records.

Listen to our interview with MikelParis on Bandcamp and follow him at mikelparis.com.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E07: Best of 2024


This is the much belated year-end-best list that Brian Tallman and I have been doing since 2024 but these picks are of course for 2024. Not definitive, just a sampling that is manageable and it’s a deep dive in various recording situations so the sound will switch up some. Brian is an attentive music fan near my own age who still gets into new music with great enthusiasm and while we share a love of post-punk, shoegaze and some mainstream pop our tastes different enough that hopefully this conversation and selections are interesting. The Spotify playlists are linked below. I would prefer to use a different platform but it’s the one for now that is easy enough for listeners to plug into and hear all the songs without the need for a lot of formatting.

Best Shows of 2024 Playlist

Best Songs of 2024 Playlist

Best Albums of 2024 Playlist

Most Anticipated Albums of 2025 Playlist

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E05: Detention

Detention (back left is Kevin Shields), photo courtesy the artists

Kevin Shields enlisted in the Coast Guard when he was 17-years-old. But as fate would have it he was stationed in Alameda, California as he was growing tired of 70s rock and learned about punk. That post allowed him the time to go to Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco a few nights of week to witness firsthand the excitement of early West Coast punk acts Dead Kennedys, DOA and Black Flag among others. When he got back home to New Jersey in 1981 he had all the inspiration he needed to start his own band so he recruited his brothers and himself bought a bass that he would eventually learn to play. Their band Detention was a raucous and wiseacre bunch whose first show at Raritan Manor was hosted by Matt Pinfield when he had his first radio DJ stint at WRSU at Rutgers. The police busted the show. But the band went on to record several of its songs many of which were filled with an irreverent spirit but others with more than a touch of social consciousness. Detention put out a self-produced, self-titled album in 1985 before breaking up. But the band’s legacy continued in college radio and beyond up to now with the wonderfully humorous and tasteless “Dead Rock ‘n Rollers” single. Its cover art has been endlessly imitated and the song itself in the realm of “Take The Skinheads Bowling” as an underground classic. The single and choice cuts from the self-titled album as well as unreleased material was released on vinyl in 2024 as Dead Rock ‘n Rollers on Left For Dead Records.

Listen to our interview with Kevin Shields on Bandcamp and visit the Left For Dead Records for more information and to order the vinyl.

leftfordeadrecords.com