Queen City Sounds Podcast – Page 2 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E22: Latter

Latter is an experimental noise rock band from Chicago with vocalist Meredith Haines and drummer Jon Alvarado at its core. The project came about when Haines moved from Philadelphia to go to graduate school and wanted to start a heavier and more confrontational kind of band and Alvarado, a member of indie pop band Beach Bunny, aimed to join something more aggressive. Originally a four piece before songs cohered the fledgling group shrank to a duo and named itself Latter. The new lineup quickly developed songs and recorded its 2024 debut album the raw and confrontational My Body Is My Sickness, an album that skewers abuse, offers incisive self-examination and exults in bold vulnerability. The album was recently reissued on vinyl following the release of the 2025 EP What Lives Inside Me, a set of songs that sets fire to misogyny and the ways culture and capitalist civilization seems to render everyone disposable in various ways. It’s gloriously ferocious noisy post-hardcore awash in caustic distortion yet not without an undercurrent of melancholic atmosphere in moments. In Spring 2025 Latter went viral when Haines shared a live version of “I Don’t Owe You” on TikTok seeming to tapped in to an experience many have shared in the aftermath of a toxic relationship by articulating those feelings with poetic precision.

Listen to our interview with Meredith Haines and Jon Alvarado of Latter on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below. See Latter at the Ghost Canyon Fest in Denver, Colorado at the Hi-Dive on Saturday, August 23, 2025.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E20: Scorplings

Scorplings is a noise rock/post-punk trio from Denver that started in 2023. The group quickly wrote and recorded demos it uploaded to Bandcamp beginning in June 2024. Along with its subsequent demos it was recorded at Scorplings’ rehearsal space and studio the Spaghetti Warehouse The band jokes about how its members met via music classified ads and longtime Denver indie rock musician and songwriter Bryon Parker (Accordion Crimes, Raleigh, Simulators) seemed to find his future bandmates out of a mutual interest in math-y post-rock band Slint as well as like-minded artists. Andres had recently moved from Los Angeles and drummer Dan had come to Denver from Chicago while Parker from the East Coast in the early 2000s but all finding a community in Denver for a type of left field punk rooted in jazz and angular song structures. At the same time one hears an instinct for informal atmospheric elements in the vein of a slowcore band and the unconventional pop song structures and melodies reminiscent of Yo La Tengo. There is a cinematic aspect to the songwriting like it’s inspired by the pacing and dynamics of classic movies. Fans of classic Chicago noise rock and DC post-punk will find a great deal to appreciate about Scorplings’ core sound.

Listen to our interview with Scorplings on Bandcamp and follow Scorplings on Instagram. Catch them live at Ghost Canyon Fest on the first night, Thursday, August 21 at What’s Left Records in Colorado Springs.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E19: The Problem With Kids Today

The Problem With Kids Today, photo courtesy the artists

The Problem With Kids Today is a punk and power pop trio from New Haven, Connecticut. The group’s sound bursts out of narrow genre with great exuberance, demonstrating an affection for and kinship with 1980s Kiwi rock, the more rambunctious and noisy C86 contingent, the unvarnished pop sweetness of Sarah Records bands like East River Pipe and Sugargliders, the Siltbreeze roster and earlier icons of tuneful ramshackle rock and roll rebellion like The Jam, The Who and The Replacements. The group is set to release its third album Take It! on August 22, 2025 via their own In The Shed Records imprint on CD, digital download and through streaming services. The album represents the band, having had its brush with more “professional” studios and its first tour under its belt, returning to its roots recording in its cleaned up and revamped shed-turned-home-recording-studio with friend Joe LeMieux. The resulting album has a scrappy charm and irrepressible enthusiasm with songs that have the punk spirit but a sound that incorporates a myriad of influences that fans of Tyvek, the more melodic side of Times New Viking and Parquet Courts at its most raw will appreciate greatly. In the interview we discuss where the band came from and its origins in the unique DIY scene in Connecticut where its members met and developed into the purveyors of melodic punk pop it has become.

Listen to our interview with the members of The Problem With Kids Today and follow the group at the links below.

The Problem With Kids Today on Instagram

The Problem With Kids Today on Facebook

The Problem With Kids Today on Bandcamp

The Problem With Kids Today on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E18: doubleVee

Oklahoma City-based duo doubleVee is comprised of former Starlight Mints frontman Allan Vest and his wife Barbara Vest who have been releasing some of the most imaginative pop songs going since starting to work on and release music in 2012. The Vest’s have a deep background in music and music culture with Allan writing scores for film and television and Barbara working in radio and producing the nationally syndicated film music program Filmscapes. Starlight Mints were one of the last, great indiepop bands out of that great 90s tradition that included artists out of and connected to the Elephant6 Collective. You can hear that level of compositional and aesthetic sophistication in the music of doubleVee. All of the project’s songs involve a fusion of imaginative storytelling and emotive melodies and an emotional immediacy and intimacy that truly sets the music apart from a lot of modern music. Their music videos reveal an eye for making something that feels like someone dispensed with the usual methods of production and made something accessible like a video a good friend with creativity and cinematic talent would make to share with an immediate social circle. The music of doubleVee invites you to step out of mundane normalcy into something more vital and fun.

The new doubleVee EP Periscope at Midnight, with eye-catching art by Grant Fuhst, is being released on July 25, 2025 digitally and on CD. It’s a kaleidoscopic journey to fantastical places through the lens of everyday curiosity pursued to stimulate the mind and the senses. For the EP the Vests wrote four new tracks and re-imagined a couple of older Starlight Mints songs “Submarine Number Three Vee” and “Maybe Tonight [What’s Inside of Me?]” and brought to all the songs an orchestral power pop sensibility lends each a cinematic aspect that give a dramatic dimension to the songwriting. Fans of XTC and The Apples in Stereo will find much to like about doubleVee’s creative pop songcraft.

Listen to our interview with doubleVee on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below.

doubleVee.net

doubleVee on Bandcamp

doubleVee on YouTube

doubleVee on Facebook

doubleVee on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S5E16: Willie Nile

Willie Nile is a a New York-based singer-songwriter and guitarist who released his twenty-first album The Great Yellow Light on June 20, 2025 on CD, 12” LP, digital download and streaming via River House Records. Nile moved to NYC in the early 80s in time to catch the early and classic days of the city’s punk scene and by the time of the release of his 1980 debut album the musicians on the record included Jay Dee Daugherty (Patti Smith Group) and Fred Smith (Television). Then as now Nile’s uplifting songs struck a chord with his literary turns of phrase and the spirited delivery. That debut record was released on Arista Records after Nile met Clive Davis and that same year Willie Nile foud himself joining The Who on their 1980 summer tour. But following the release of his 1981 album Golden Down Nile’s career was stalled by legal problems and he didn’t return to the music world until later in the decade. Nile became a bit of a songwriter’s songwriter and had a fan in Bruce Springsteen who invited him to share the stage with the E Street Band in 2003 at Giants Stadium and Shea Stadium. Interestingly enough, though, Nile really his his stride as an artist from 2009 onward when he seemed more prolific than his entire earlier career with highly acclaimed albums along the way. The new record is brimming with passion and compassion and striking for Nile’s charismatic delivery.

Listen to our interview with Willie Nile on Bandcamp and follow his exploits at the links below.

willienile.com

Willie Nile on Facebook

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 S5E13: Meatwound

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 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 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