Episode 636
with Dulcé Sloan, Brian Lindstrom, and S.G. Goodman
Comedian Dulcé Sloan (The Daily Show) shares some anecdotes from her new book Hello, Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs, including how becoming fluent in Spanish as a kid turned her into the neighborhood's child lawyer; filmmaker Brian Lindstrom chats about his documentary Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill, which follows the short life of a 1970s folk singer who went from living in her car to the cover of Rolling Stone, before fading into obscurity; and singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman performs the title track from her album Teeth Marks. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share some under-appreciated artists nominated by our listeners.
Dulcé Sloan
Comedian and Author
Dulcé Sloan is one of the sharpest, fastest-rising voices in comedy. Bust Magazine calls her “comedy gold.” She was included in Variety’s prestigious Top Ten Comedians to Watch list, crowned “The New Queen of Comedy” by Slink magazine, and hailed as one of the “Ten Comedians You Need to Know” by Rolling Stone. As a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah since 2017, her segments have garnered millions of views. Dulcé stars as one of the voices on the animated FOX series The Great North, joining an ensemble of comedy heavyweights, including Will Forte, Jenny Slate, Nick Offerman, and Megan Mullally. When Dulcé’s Comedy Central Presents stand-up special premiered on Comedy Central, the New York Times included the half hour in their “Best Comedy of 2019” roundup. Her book of essays called Hello, Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs is about her childhood, comedy, and lessons she’s learned throughout it all. Website • Instagram • Twitter
Brian Lindstrom
Filmmaker
Brian Lindstrom is an award-winning filmmaker, whose previous projects include the documentaries Mothering Inside, which was instrumental in the advocacy movement which made Oregon the first state to pass a Bill of Rights for the Children of Incarcerated Parents, and Alien Boy: The Life & Death of James Chasse, an intense examination of police brutality in the death of a non-violent man experiencing mental illness. His latest film, Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill, captures the never-before-told story of folk-rock icon Judee Sill, who in just two years went from living in a car to appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone. The documentary charts her troubled adolescence through her meteoric rise in the music world and early tragic death, featuring interviews with Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Graham Nash, and more. Instagram
S.G. Goodman
Folk-Rock Singer-Songwriter
Heralded as an “untamed rock 'n' roll truth-teller” by Rolling Stone, S. G. Goodman gracefully pushes out a sound that is folky yet “gritty” and layered with ethereal vocals. Goodman’s 2020 debut album, Old Time Feeling, which tells a story of life in the South, was co-produced by My Morning Jacket’s frontman Jim James. Her second full length album Teeth Marks was released in 2022, which Pitchfork describes as “synthesized decades of Southern music into a singular vision.” Website •Instagram •Twitter
Show Notes
Station Location Identification Examination (SLIE)
This week’s station shoutout goes to KTNE in Alliance, Nebraska.
Best News
Elena’s story: “First-of-its-kind medical school in Cherokee Nation graduates inaugural class of doctors”
Luke’s story: “Much ado about nothing: world’s most relaxed people gather in Seoul for ‘space-out’ competition”
Dulcé Sloan
Dulcé’s book: Hello, Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs
We learned that artist and record producer Stevie B is Dulcé’s uncle.
Brian Lindstrom
Check out Brian’s most recent film: Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill
Brian’s co-director and friend, Andy Brown, showed him a video of Judee Sill performing The Kiss on the "Old Grey Whistle Test,” a TV program on the BBC (1973).
There was not a huge archive of Judee Sill’s life when they first started making the film. Brian says that this was the primary motivator in taking a first-person approach.
Chris Van Ness, a retired journalist from The Los Angeles Free Press, wrote an article (1972) on Judee Sill that Brian says was like “an oral history of her life up to that point.” Tracking him down later resulted in portions of the interview audio being used as a way for Judee to narrate the film.
S.G. Goodman
Listen to S.G.’s album: Teeth Marks
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Luke Burbank: This episode of Live Wire was originally recorded in June of 2024. We hope you enjoy it. Now, let's get to the show.
Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It is just going absolutely spectacular this week. Mostly because it's time for "Station Location Identification Examination". Are you ready to play?
Elena Passarello: Yes, I am so ready. I'm pumped.
Luke Burbank: This is the part of the show where I quiz Elena on a place in the country, Live Wire is on the radio. She's got to guess where we are talking about. I feel like you're might get it from the first hint. This place is the home of car henge, a replica of Stonehenge constructed with automobiles. It is north of this city.
Elena Passarello: It's somewhere in Nebraska. But I don't know. The guy's name is like Jim Reindeer or something like that.
Luke Burbank: His name is absolutely Jim Reindeer. My goodness. Okay. You're in the right state. It is Nebraska. It is a smallish place in Nebraska. So I may just give it to you. The second half of an Patchett's nineteen ninety seven novel, The Magician's Assistant, is set entirely in this place in Nebraska.
Elena Passarello: I don't know that. But I do love Ann Patchett.
Luke Burbank: When you form a group of people, not a disparate group—
Elena Passarello: Quorum, Nebraska.
Luke Burbank: Pretty close. Alliance, Nebraska, where we are on KTNE part of Nebraska Public Media. So shout out to everybody in Alliance taking a listen this week so we get to the show.
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX. It's Live Wire!
Elena Passarello: This week, comedian Dulcé Sloan.
Dulcé Sloan: The books called, "Hello, Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Jobs". I wanted to call it, "Don't Call It a Memoir. I'm only 39".
Elena Passarello: Filmmaker Brian Lindstrom.
Brian Lindstrom: She knew that that music saved her life and she really felt like she was put on this earth to share that music with the masses and saved their lives, too.
Elena Passarello: With music from S.G. Goodman And our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire. Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much. Elena Passarello Thanks to everyone tuning in from all over the country, including Alliance, Nebraska. We have a wonderful show in store for you this week. Of course, we've asked the Live Wire listeners a question we asked, Who is an underappreciated artist you think more people should know about? This is kind of in reference to Judee Sill, who we're going to be hearing about. Coming up, Brian Lindstrom made a documentary film about her. We're going to hear the listener responses in just a moment. First, though, it's time for the best news we heard all week. This. This right here is our little reminder at the top of the show. There is some good news happening out there in the world. Elena What's the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay. Sort of stretching may be best. The best guess is everybody is okay. All right. The story is okay. This is takes place in South Africa where at the beginning of the month, a 30 year old pilot for an engineering company named Rudolf Erasmus was flying for passengers in his little plane across South Africa. And he feels something off like this weird kind of breeze feeling. And he's like, What's happening? And he thought maybe his water bottle had spilled or something. He just feels this kind of weird tickle and he looks down and there is a four foot Cape Cobra circled around his feet in the cockpit. Yeah. And I went ahead and did some Wikipedia-ing because I was like, maybe it's one of those Garter snake cobras that you never hear about. Like, maybe I've just been.
Luke Burbank: That don't maybe exist.
Elena Passarello Nope. Wrong. The Cape Cobra is one of the two deadliest snakes in that region. It's also known as the Yellow Cobra. It's highly venomous. According to Wikipedia, it's quick moving and an alert species. So Rudolf Erasmus had this deadly. Nope rope, which is what my brother calls snakes.
Luke Burbank: As in, Nope, I don't want to mess with that rope.
Elena Passarello: Yep, exactly. At his feet. And he was worried that the snake was going to obviously bite him or slither back and bite some of the passengers. So he very calmly got on the intercom and said, Hey, guys, there's snakes on this plane.
Luke Burbank: Oh my goodness.
Elena Passarello: And the whole plane just fell deadly silent. It took ten minutes to find a place to land. And they did. And he got out of there and he was standing on the wing and he looked through the window. He pulled his seat back and the cobra was just curled into, he says, a nice little bundle underneath my seat. The good news is everybody got out. That pilot has nerves of steel. And here's the interesting thing. Once they got on the ground, they called a reptile guy and they couldn't find the snake.
Luke Burbank: No, this is like the much more scary version of something that happened at my house where I had a gardener snake, but I wanted to videotape it on my phone. And then it got into my like HVAC And it's still never been seen. The stakes are much lower in that situation, though I'd like to point out.
Elena Passarello: The snakes were also much lower because that story happened on the ground.
Luke Burbank: Exactly. This was at, what, 30,000 ft? Oh my gosh. Two things that could change your life real fast. A plane crash or a venomous snake bite. And these were both intersecting in the skies above South Africa.
Elena Passarello: As a potential to for right there. And the poor Rudolf Erasmus had to fly the same plane home afterward. So we just plugged up all the holes of his plane as best he could and to hold on home.
Luke Burbank: Sweet. My best new story comes from Seoul, South Korea, where they recently held the international spaced out competition. Now, this is not a race to space. This is a competition where what you are doing is you are trying to lower your heart rate to the lowest of anyone in the group without falling asleep. That's the biggie. You're not allowed to fall asleep. And they've done this in a whole bunch of different countries that happened to be in Seoul, South Korea, this year. But it's actually a really interesting idea was started in 2014. And it is just to really drive home the idea that just sitting and just being is not a waste of time at all. It's something that we should all be doing more of probably. And it's actually something that, you know, you could make a competition out of to really drive the point home, particularly in a place like Korea. In the article that I was reading, where there can be a lot of social pressure around school and there are people work really long workweeks to have a bunch of folks if you're like hustling through the town square in Seoul and you see a bunch of people sitting, by the way, it was raining, so everyone's covered in these like cool, like rain ponchos. The winner was Valentina Vilches, who's actually originally from Chile, but she's a psychology consultant. It does not list like what her heart rate got down to.
Elena Passarello: I wanted to know.
Luke Burbank: I know, right? It's like one beat per hour. Is that even healthy? When is it clinical death? I don't know.
Elena Passarello: When have you flatlined?
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I mean, that's the problem for me, is if I have to sit with my own thoughts and feelings quietly, it feels like a certain kind of death to me.
Elena Passarello: My heart rate goes up if I have to sit and do nothing, I just have a panic attack.
Luke Burbank: I think, though, that's the kind of thing that the more you do it, the better you get at it. People who do these, you know, silent meditation retreats and things like that, I think it's just it's a muscle like anything else. Mine is just very flabby, very, very flat feeling. The first prize was a trophy that was made sort of like Rodin's The Thinker, and then also the Pensive Bodhisattva, which is, I guess, a national treasure in. South Korea. So it was a gold statue that was kind of a combination of those two iconic figures. And Valentina took it home as something to aspire for. Honestly, if you're people like you and me. Who have a hard time with that.
Elena Passarello: A heart racing league. Good game. I guess it was a heart slowing league. Good competition.
Luke Burbank: That's right. That's right. Something that we could all probably use a little more practice on. So that's the best news that I heard this week. Let's get our first guest on now. She's been a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show since 2017, where her segments have garnered millions of views. Her Comedy Central Presents Stand Up Special was named some of the best comedy of the year by The New York Times. And her first book, "Hello, Friends!, Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs" is available now. This is Dulcé Sloan, who joined us on stage at Town Hall in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to Live Wire.
Dulcé Sloan: Thank you so much. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
Luke Burbank: You write in the in the beginning of this book, your new book, "Hello, Friends!", That it is for folks who read it a view into who you really are, not the version of you that they might see at a comedy club or on The Daily Show. What is it that you feel like you can say in this book about yourself that you don't feel like you can put out there in the other venues?
Dulcé Sloan: No, I always say what I want is just I just want to just to get just give people a chance to know who I was because like, I wanted to call because the book's called, "Hello Friends!, Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Jobs". I wanted to call it, "Don't Call It a Memoir. I'm Only 39" and, which is hilarious. And the publisher was like, we don't want to tell people what it's not. I was like, But that was funny. What are you talking about? Yeah. So I did get conned by my manager into writing this book because you was like, What made you write a book? And it was like obligations.
Luke Burbank: It's shocking how often that is what gets someone to write a book.
Dulcé Sloan: Yeah, I don't know if your manager likes to trick you into opportunities. No. And so I immediately called Michelle Buteau, and I was like, How do I do this? Because, you know, she has her book, "Survival of the Thickest" and is now a Netflix show. So she was like, well start with stories that are too long to tell on stage. So like, you got to have more context behind them. You just need more of a backstory. So I started there and then it was like, okay, well, some people would want to know about my childhood and then my time on The Daily Show. So that's how I kind of like planned everything out.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Dulcé Sloan about her new book, 'Hello, Friends!". You talk about your mom being very supportive of your the fact that you wanted to be in entertainment, that you wanted to be a performer. A lot of parents might say, well, try to figure out a, you know, a safer plan that was not your mom. You write she would help make your costume. She's very supportive, except for this one thing, which was color guard. Which she brought up fairly recently.
Dulcé Sloan: It was very odd. So it's so funny because, like, my mom would sometimes be backstage at shows and sometimes comics wouldn't go. So you're like supportive of, Dulcé, doing stand up. She's like, Yeah. And then would go, Can we have a hug? So and she's like, sure. They're like, Why? Because my mom hates this is so nice, which are supportive. But I think the reason my mom was supportive is because my uncle is Stevie B, so he's a professional singer.
Luke Burbank: We were roller skating to, "Because I love you". [Dulcé: Yes]. Here at Lynnwood Roll-A-Way. I was blown away that that your Stevie B is your uncle.
Dulcé Sloan: So he's my mom's youngest brother. So she has four brothers. My uncle Steve is the youngest of all the boys. And so I think because my uncle's been working as a performer lately, my entire life, since before I was born, it wasn't a wild thing to see is like, well, my brother did it and my brother's been successful at it. So let me be supportive because I think my grandma was supportive of my uncles. So it wasn't a wild thing in my family to be able to see. Yes. Like when I started, because I did theater all through school. And at one point I was like, be fun to like do color guard because it's, you know, twirling flags in a wooden rifle. I was like, be outside. And I thought my mom just didn't want me to be near the football team. That's what I thought it was because I started high school with dig up titties. I should have been way more popular. But even then, you know, boys respected me, so, I mean, not as much as they should have, but, you know, you still get in trouble the ways you get in trouble. Now, my mom above sitting in our respective cars in the driveway in our house in Atlanta, and my brother was like, I guess he was doing yard work. You just stand there, hold the rake. And I don't know why. I randomly asked my momma. I guess something came up. I was like, Momma, why did you not want me to do color guard? And again, I thought her answer would be because the football team, she was like, I was supposed to use my gas, but you to twirl a flag. What? And she's like, I was supposed to use my gas beam to swirl the flag. What kind of career opportunities was you going to get from twirling a damn flag? Not a salary position. What were you going to do? Go from office building an office building to raising a flag every morning? I got a full time job and it was just a 15 minute race. And me and my brother were like, What the hell is going on? And she said, No, it was better. We didn't have to spend my money to be able to twirl a damn flag. I was like, okay, thank you. It was a very interesting perspective because she was like, That's not a salary position. Raising up flags in front of buildings every morning and a fourth. And I was like, you thought, thought about that.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire from PRX we are at Town Hall this week talking to Dulcé Sloan, whose new book is, "Hello Friends!, Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day jobs". Stick around. We'll be back with more in just a moment. Hey, welcome back to Live Wire from PRX here at Town Hall. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. And we're very honored to be joined by Dulcé Sloan from The Daily Show and many other places, including now the new book, "Hello Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs", Something that you write about in the book, which I always wanted to make sure I was properly grasping, was You speak Spanish. But as I understand it, you're not because your parents were Spanish speakers. Now, this was just you spent your young life in Florida and just the environment and also elementary school was enough to teach you like fluent Spanish?
Dulcé Sloan: Well, when we moved back, so me and my mom are both born in Miami in the same hospital. I think I was born in the room above where she was born. And then we moved to Oklahoma. My brother was born, we moved to Colorado and we moved to Georgia. And all of that happened before I started kindergarten. And then we moved back to Miami in '92 after Hurricane Andrew. And so I was in the fourth grade and so like nine years old. So in Miami you take Spanish every single day. I picked it up immediately to the point by the time I was in the fifth grade, I was like helping translate stuff for my teacher. So I picked it up very fast. And then so she comment towards us like Dulcé, qué dice? and I was just like, uh you got a teacher meeting at 5:00 today. And also my teachers were like, because I think one of my teachers was Mexican on the teacher was Cuban. And so they're like, You're not going to sound like you're not going to have an American accent. You're going to be, uno, dos, tres, in this classroom. So we had to learn how to speak with an accent. And then we moved back to Atlanta. We lived in a like we moved back to Atlanta. We moved to Norcross. And my neighborhood is predominantly Mexican, recent immigrants to America. And so I would have to help my neighbors register their kids for school. One of our neighbors, her husband, got a DUI so that I had to like, I'm sitting there with a I'm like I'm sitting there with a Spanish and English dictionary. They're like, you don't know this? I said, This isn't even English.This is legal-ese. I'm not a lawyer. I'm 14. So like. Can we give me a second? Also talk to your husband. So but I went with her to get, like, her health insurance at work. And so I was always like helping my neighbors out. It was my minor in college. [Luke: Okay]. And then by the time I got into after I graduated, I was doing bilingual customer service. So I was telling people in two languages, we cannot pick your trash up. We're not turning your lights back on to you. Pay your bill. Selling cars. I managed autobody shop my last job. I was selling stucco.
Luke Burbank: You were doing all of this stuff as you were pursuing your career as a performer? I'm curious, you say in the book that a lot of people, particularly women, particularly white women in stand up, talk about having a really hard time getting respect and being taken seriously. You write that you did not necessarily feel that, generally speaking, that you felt respected or at least you felt taken seriously.
Dulcé Sloan: Here's a thing. When you're in a male dominated industry and most of them don't want to sleep with you, they let you do your job. And that's what it was. Most of these dudes didn't want to sleep with me, so then I just had to be a comic because I wasn't going to get the well, this guy was demonized and said that he because I had like, I also was like when I was doing awesome. You don't realize that like, stand up still is very divided racially because especially in like. Everywhere. But it's try to say it. And I'm like, no, it's the whole country. And so there's there is urban, quote unquote urban. So black rooms and then mainstream, which is white rooms. And so the styles of stand up is different. But also it's very hard as a woman to get into black rooms because they'll say, we already got one female on this show. We're not putting no more up. So they're very so it's like very just there is a fixed number of women that they're putting on shows. And so I was like, I can keep doing this or I can be at this one club all night hoping I can get up. Or I go to these white rooms. I'm still performing in a bar and I'm still getting paid in chicken wings. It's just who's making these wings, right? So aren't I just lemon pepper or buffalo is the question, right? So instead of waiting at this one club on a Tuesday, hoping to go up, I can go do two spots in these white rooms and know I'm going to get up. So for me, it was like, I'm just going where the opportunity is. And so I was able to go up more and white rooms because it wasn't there. They weren't treating the women as like this finite commodity. It was like, if you sign up, you go up. And so that's where I was able to go back and forth. But yeah, it literally is. They didn't want to sleep with me and so I didn't have to deal with a lot of the nonsense that some of the girls had to deal with.
Luke Burbank: You write about, Well, I mean, the name of the book is, "Dating, Destiny, and Jobs". [Dulcé: Yes]. And you you maybe don't really name names because you're being sort of creative with how you describe people, but you definitely, like describe teachers who you didn't like, who you felt treated you in a way that was probably racially motivated. [Dulcé: Absolutely, racially motivated]. A guy who you dated who I can't get out of my head. You said he was unfamiliar with going to the dentist and had, I think, fire breath.
Dulcé Sloan: No, no, no, no. I was his breath was fine.
Luke Burbank: Okay.
Dulcé Sloan: I don't Listen, when you write a book, you don't remember everything. It was 240 pages at all.
Luke Burbank: I'm wondering if people in the book have have seen the book or talked to you about the book.
Dulcé Sloan: Well, what's interesting is one of the guys in the book did message me on Instagram, but I don't think actually I know he did not read it. He was just saying, hey, I know he didn't read it because I think because, you know, some certain people don't read because I got a dream with you in it. I'm just like, you are. Ten years too late for this message. What do you say? But I do use different monikers for different people.
Luke Burbank: Was it the mechanic?
Dulcé Sloan: It was not the mechanic. The mechanic is very much married. I did have a very cathartic moment with the mechanic last year, as in when I met him. So we had been like talking for like two years when I started doing stand up and he would not come to any show, wouldn't come, didn't want to. I went back and forth with this man for almost 23 until I was like 31, right? And I moved to L.A. and then I'm in New York and. So now you. He's gotten married because he started the woman he married. He met as soon as I moved to L.A.. And so I am opening for Trevor last year.
Luke Burbank: Trevor Noah?
Dulcé Sloan: Trevor Noah. And he. He came to the show. And I didn't know he was at the show. And so my mom came and the show is over and I get a text from him. Am I you number not saved on the phone, but I know the number. And he was like, you had a great set. And I was like, where are you? So there's like this private club that's like inside the Fox Theater in Atlanta. And this, like the second time I open for Trevor in Atlanta. And so I meet up with him and his wife is there. And I was like, what are you even doing here? And so the first time he ever saw me doing stand up was at the Fox Theater.
Luke Burbank: Wow.
Dulcé Sloan Opening for Trevor. And he's like, I figured you'd be on the show because of how tight you and Trevor are at the desk. And I saw his wife's eyes light up like the whole what was interesting is that the tickets for that show in Atlanta went on sale in November. The show was in January. I didn't know until two days before that I was going to even be opening for Trevor. So I could have not even been there. But he bought tickets just assuming that I would be. And I kind of. And so I didn't. When I got in the car, I was like kind of crying because I had always wanted him to see me do stand up. And it was an old wound and a very old wound from when I was like 27 that now at like 39 was like being healed. But then the other thing that was so great to me is the uncomfortable conversation I knew he was having with his wife. And that is priceless.
Luke Burbank: That's right. And that is the perfect place to wrap this up. Dulcé Sloan's new book is, "Hello Friends!". Dulcé, thank you so much.
Luke Burbank: That was Dulcé Sloan right here on Live Wire. Make sure to check out her book, "Hello, Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs". And of course, you can always check her out on The Daily Show. Sometimes checking your email, let's be honest, can be a little stressful, but we want to change that over here at Live Wire. We want to make checking your email more joyful with our weekly newsletter, which is only good news. That's all we do over here at the Live Wire newsletter. We got sneak peeks and deep dives on upcoming events. Details on where you can join us live. New episode drops and even more than that, getting this drop of joy. It's super easy to head over to Live Wire Radio.org and you click. Keep in touch. It takes like 30 seconds 25 if you're speedy. So help us help you have a little more fun in your inbox with the latest from the Live Wire newsletter. This is Live Wire. Each week we like to ask our listeners a question. This week we asked who is an underappreciated artist you think more people should know about? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: Okay, so this first one is hands down, my favorite. Tyler would like more people to know about Sarah McCreanor. Luke, do you know who Sarah McCreanor is?
Luke Burbank: Not even a little bit.
Elena Passarello: I didn't know her name, but I'd seen her videos on TikTok and Instagram reels. She does interpretive dances of things getting crushed by a hydraulic press. So you watch like a birthday cake being smushed or like a, you know, sedan. And then she's just really good dancer who kind of, like, turns her body into that process. And she's usually wearing clothes like in the color of whatever the item that's being squished is. And I'm I would be embarrassed to tell you how many of her videos I have seen.
Luke Burbank: That is amazing. I mean, that might be the apotheosis of creativity in 2024. Like, I watched this one account where a woman, a British woman, is just responding to if she thinks it was a good smash or not, she has certain kind that she likes and that other kinds of she doesn't really have time for. So what I'm watching is a woman's reviewing of one of those videos where some industrial process is smashing like a bowl of Jell-O, a bowling ball, a thing of Play-Doh.
Elena Passarello: You're looking for the critical content, the the commentary, the color commentary of this mush. Nice.
Luke Burbank: But I'm telling you, they are artists in a way. So good recommendation. What's another relatively unknown creator that one of our listeners want more people to know about?
Elena Passarello: Now, this is sort of in the opposite direction because I know I don't have to tell you who this person is, but Marie thinks that Kelly Clarkson needs more love, more tours, more everything from the people. Her vocal chops are so powerful. And I agree. I feel like one day I mean, she gets plenty of appreciation and people love her television show. Apparently, she has a wonderful personality. But one day people are going to be like, that's one of the greatest interpreters of any songbook that we had in this decade or so. I mean, she could sing anything.
Luke Burbank: I just saw. Speaking of TikTok, I just saw a clip of her when she was just getting started and I forget what she's maybe singing Breakaway or one of her early, like big hits, but it's just one of those like in the studio kind of clips. And then she just breaks into the song and you're like, Well, that's from another planet. That's not an instrument most of us are working with.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, It's like, how is that a part of her body? And I have the same body part because when I do it, it sort of sounds like Foghorn Leghorn.
Luke Burbank: Hey, what's one more artist that one of our listeners thinks should get a little more?
Elena Passarello: Do I love this one from Lupita, who wants more people to know about, quote, the people who bake the fresh treats at my local bakery or at any bakery, for that matter. Exclamation point. I love you, Baker's three exclamation points.
Luke Burbank: You know what I learned the other day, Elena and I want to mention I'm 48 years old. I learned that scones are really good. Yeah. I was getting, as a kid, the absolute worst scone selection that you could ever have. And so I filed it away under. I don't like those. And then I was getting some coffee and on a whim, I grabbed, like, a freshly baked scone and ate that with my. It might have been one of the best things I've ever eaten in my entire life.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, your your gateway scone really does affect you.
Luke Burbank: Never forget. Right. Well, thank you to everyone who sent in a response to our listener question. We've got another one for next week's show, which we will reveal in just a moment. In the meantime, we've got to welcome our next guest over. He is an award winning filmmaker from Portland, Oregon. His film, Mothering Inside, helped lead Oregon to become the first state to pass a bill of rights for the children of incarcerated parents. His latest project is Lost Angel the Genius of Judee Sill. It tells the real story of an L.A. folk singer in the 1970s who in just two years went from living in her car to appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and then back to relative obscurity, Film Threat warns. It's the kind of film the buries itself in your rib cage and keeps glowing for days afterward. Brian Lindstrom joined us onstage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland. Hello, Brian.
Brian Lindstrom: Hello.
Luke Burbank: Welcome to the show. I loved this movie so much. It was one of those things where I watched it and then I immediately started texting. People in my life I know who, like, enjoy great stories and enjoy great music. I'm wondering, how did you first even learn there was somebody named Judee Sill out there?
Brian Lindstrom: Well, I should say that filmmaking is a very collaborative effort. And I made this film with my good friend Andy Brown, who was my co-director. And right after YouTube came out, Andy showed me the clip of Judee performing the Kiss on the old Gray Whistle test BBC show, because he knew it would blow me away. And of course it did. And that kind of started us on this journey that leads us here today.
Luke Burbank: What was it about her that intrigued you? Aside from liking the music? What was the thing that made you think, this, that we should have a whole movie about this person?
Brian Lindstrom: Right. Well, it definitely was liking the music, but it was also getting to know her life story. And at first glance, the kind of strange dichotomy between her, I would say, spiritual music and the kind of hard facts of her life, which include armed robbery, prison time, things like that. But as we got deeper into this story, we realized that she was doing those things because she was so numbed out from childhood trauma that she was really just looking to feel something. And I think we can all relate to someone who is in a way, trying to save their own life, but is going about it in ways that maybe aren't that healthy.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. She was part of an armed robbery when she was really young, like 18 or something. And in the film, somebody says that her account of this was that she said, okay, mother sticker, this is a map.
Brian Lindstrom: That's true. Yes.
Luke Burbank: Does that also sort of typify her general vibe in life?
Brian Lindstrom: Well, she was definitely her own person. And she did everything, you know, kind of according to her own lights. But what was so interesting about working on this film, because we eventually got her diaries and journals. And, you know, Judee, when you heard the facts of her life, you kind of thought, okay, well, she's a great storyteller and she's kind of, you know, making this sound a little bit more interesting than maybe it was. But it was all true. Everything.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. You have all these newspaper clippings. I mean, rock and roll music is full of tall tales. And then she would talk about something like being sent to, like, a reform school or a robbery. And then you're watching the film, and there's the clipping from some local newspaper about 18 year old delinquent Judee Sill being in the thing. Like it all kind of checked out, I guess. Yeah.
Brian Lindstrom: I mean, she learned to play the church organ in reform school.
Elena Passarello: Wow.
Luke Burbank: How would you describe her musical style? Like we were saying, folk, folk music. But what does that really mean?
Brian Lindstrom: You know, I don't think folk music really does it justice. You know, she was so gifted, as Linda Ronstadt says in the film, you know. She had more chops than anyone on the scene, with the exception of Brian Wilson. And that's pretty good company to be.
Luke Burbank: And another person who, you know, struggled.
Brian Lindstrom: Right.
Luke Burbank: You know, I mean, I don't want to generalize or make a diagnosis, but it does seem that sometimes the kind of brain that can make the music that Brian Wilson made in the studio made that can be a pretty an unquiet place.
Brian Lindstrom: Yeah. And that was part of her motivation in making this film, you know, is really trying to figure out a way where even though when we started, there was really no archive of beauty to speak of, We really wanted to try to make a first person film so that the audience could really be and Judee said and understand what it is like to have that kind of a gift. What are the challenges and also what is it like to have that kind of a gift and know that that music saved your life? Because Judee went from kicking heroin on the floor of the L.A. County jail with no aspirin or nothing in 1968 to being on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1972. And so she knew that that music saved her life. And she really felt like she was put on this earth to share that music with the masses and saved their lives, too.
Luke Burbank: So you decide you want to make this movie about her, but then you realize there's not really an archive of her stuff. It's not like trying to do a document about Bob Dylan or something. There was no Instagram. Like, how do you actually put together the visuals of an entire movie about a person who is fairly, you know, unknown?
Brian Lindstrom: Well, you know, it's kind of an exercise in faith and you just kind of start out and know that, like, her music has touched me. Her story touches me. I have faith it will touch other people. We did our first round of interviews in 2013 in L.A. and what was so heartening about that and. These are like Judee's dear friends, is they all had such specific stories about Judee, and she was still like a palpable presence in their lives. And so we knew that, like, if she's touching those people that way, if we can kind of do our jobs as filmmakers, I bet she'll touch an audience that way.
Luke Burbank: So her musical style as it sort of evolved seemed to be this almost kind of ethereal. You know, she talked a lot about God and about sort of the spirit realm. It was very artsy. And this was she was on the same asylum records, which was started by David Geffen. It's like her, like Jackson Browne, The Eagles. Who am I forgetting from Asylum Records at that time?
Brian Lindstrom: Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell. JD Souther.
Luke Burbank: Right. So she's on this like the label to be on at that time in L.A. if you're making this kind of music. Right. And yet, even though she was sort of an artist's artist, all the cool people like Linda Ronstadt, you know, really loved her, her music didn't ever really click with the wider world. Why do you think that was?
Brian Lindstrom: You know, I don't know, of course, is the honest answer. And I kind of bristle at the question just a little bit because like anyone who's listening.
Luke Burbank: We can end this interview now, Brian.
Brian Lindstrom: I'm out of here. Anyone who's listening to Judee's "The Kiss", you know, I just can't even like for you.
Luke Burbank: Don't want to entertain the idea of it not connecting for.
Brian Lindstrom: Exactly like, how could that possibly be put in the same sense that she didn't make it. And yet I understand, of course, what you're asking. And I think the very things that maybe prevented her from making it, you know, at that point in time is the reason we're talking about her now. You know, the kind of timeless quality is like we really wanted to show Judee's legacy. You know, we felt like that film needed to have a kind of present tenseness to it. And we were so lucky to have, you know, Fleet Foxes and Big Thief and Wise Blood and Shawn Colvin and, you know, people who really kind of cement and exemplify Judee's legacy.
Elena Passarello: I'm so fascinated by something that you just said about a major goal of this documentary was a first person approach. But the first person obviously isn't here and hasn't been here for a long time. So what does that look like when you're a filmmaker to not just tell the story of someone so that we can really feel it and understand it and understand the impact that they made, but to feel like we're inside the person, that's what you meant, right?
Brian Lindstrom: Like that. We're absolutely you know, we feel like the film, you know, I hope this doesn't sound egotistical, but it's a hard hitting film. You know, I mean, you're dealing with someone who really grappled with some big questions in life and has some challenges and also had some incredible gifts. And we really wanted to help the audience kind of get inside that and understand from Judee's perspective what all that was like. And we were so lucky that I tracked down a retired journalist named Chris Van Ness, who used to write for the L.A. Free Press. And in 1972, he did this really comprehensive article on Judee, which really kind of amounted to like an oral history of her life up to that point. And we thought like, my God, if there is audio of that interview, we can have Judee narrate the film. And so Chris didn't have much of a kind of online footprint. And so I wrote him a letter and we he got back to me and he said, you know, I'm wheelchair bound. But I do think I have a tape of that interview in a box in my attic. My God. And my co-director Andy Brown, lived in New York at the time. So he drove to Connecticut and met Chris. And Chris, you know, was guiding them from the bottom of the stairs to the right. And so we got the audio tape. And at that point, the tape has been in a box for literally 50 years. And we don't know if there's any audio information on the tape. And one of the biggest eureka moments in making the film. So when we had it, you know, digitally transferred and we play it and you can hear the first kind of syllables of Judee's voice and it's like, first of all, it felt like a strange like there's Judee, you know, because I hadn't heard her speaking voice before that.
Luke Burbank: [Elena: My gosh]. That must have been emotional.
Brian Lindstrom: It was a reason. Yeah. And it was also just a hell of a relief because we knew that we have a narrator now.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, you did something. Also. Really, I thought, kind of interesting with the film where because she was apparently a real meticulous diary keeper, she wrote a lot of things down and you you sort of animate those in her different, you know, handwriting and how she was feeling in the moment. And it really does kind of bring her alive. Was she did you just find a bunch of her diaries or was she writing in the margins of like the music? Where are you getting this written material from her?
Brian Lindstrom: Well, that's an interesting story. My co-director, Andy, Andy Brown, tracked down Judee's cousin who had all of those journals in a box and was just like, you know, here, there you go. And so for the longest time, like all of Judee's kind of journals and letters and things were in a box and Andy's apartment in New York and we kind of like slowly. Fired or, you know, got the archive of everything. Judee. you know, and like even like the bills of her hospital stays. And, you know, it was in her address book in which she wrote Judee Still no home ever. Wow. You know, it was it was also like a we felt like we were entrusted with something. You know, we felt like, my God, this is like a a gift that's been bestowed upon us. And we really need to honor, honor her, you know, with what we did with the film.
Luke Burbank: It was an interesting experience watching it because I became so connected with her and I was rooting for her so hard. And I think I had a sense of how the movie was going to end. But I kept thinking, Well, maybe she gets famous. Maybe she's like, maybe she wins eight Grammys and tours with the Rolling Stones. I don't know. I was like, one thing, the actual sort of march of time and the facts of the world to change for her. Right. Because I found her to be so interesting. And again, I was just I just wanted things to go well for because of everything she'd been through.
Brian Lindstrom: Well, you know, she's bigger now than she ever was in life. And people are continually to, you know, rediscover her music and, you know, through the the people that she's touched, her music lives on. And, you know, I think that Judee's life also has a lot to give us, not just her music. And one thing that was really empowering for me was, you know, what I love about Judee is she really kind of like throws us upon ourselves in interesting ways. And there are some things about her music in her life we just have to grapple with. And one is, you know, the fact of her death, unintentional heroin overdose. And at that point, you know, this was like before addiction was even considered really a disease. And so on her death certificate, it says suicide, you know, which is so such a hard, you know, thing to look at.
Luke Burbank: And something that a lot of people in the film wanted to really kind of dispel. People that knew her were like, this was not somebody who took their own life. Right. And that seemed very important to them.
Brian Lindstrom: Absolutely. I mean, you know, every one of them said she wanted to live. You know, she was a person who had an addiction and she wanted to live. Another thing that was really impressive about all the people that knew Judee was besides how much they cared for her was how much fun they said she was, you know? And it was really empowering for Andy and I and the crew to know that, like, this wasn't like a one note down person that kind of like, you know, tortured artist. She was like the life of a party. She was a dear friend. She knew when everyone's birthdays were, she would bring people together for every holiday. You know, she was really a, you know, a loving, bright person.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Like as soon as she got some money, she got, like, a house in the valley with a swimming pool and was just, like, the fun place to be until she ran out of the money, which is all we can hope for. And a friend said, if they get some money, they get a house in the valley with a swimming pool. So Brian, it's a really, really great film. I hope everybody gets a chance to see it. Brian Lindstrom, everybody right here on Live Wire.
Brian Lindstrom: Thank you so much.
Luke Burbank: That was Brian Lindstrom right here on Live Wire. His film Lost Angel. The genius of Judee Sill, is available on streaming services right now. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello. We have to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we're going to hear some music that will absolutely break your heart in the best way. From the wonderful S.G. Goodman. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank with Elena Passarello. Okay. Before we get to our musical guests this week, a little preview of what we are doing next week. We are going to talk to a writer who's appeared pretty much everywhere, The New York Times, The New Yorker, This American Life. Let's be honest. If you're hearing this show right now, this is like the holy trinity of things you care about. His name is Shalom Auslander, and he's also writer of the memoir "Foreskin's Lament". He did the TV show Happyish, and his latest book is "Feh", which actually probes some topics that I've thought about kind of a lot in my own life body shame, sea monkeys. And the fact that we're mostly communicating as a society through overly proud T-shirts. Anyway, we're also going to hear from award winning poet Simon Shea. He is a former professional Muay Thai fighter turned poet. Publishers Weekly calls his book master an extraordinary investigation of a painful past. Then we're going to round out the hour with some music from singer songwriter Kara Jackson, which we recorded at this year's Pickathon festival. So keep your ears tuned for that show coming out next week. This is Live Wire for PRX. Our musical guest this week is equally at home at the Grand Ole Opry as she is standing behind a tiny desk of the NPR variety. She spent her childhood in western Kentucky as a devoted member of the Southern Baptist Church before earning a degree in philosophy, which for her, kind of put an end to the whole Southern Baptist thing, as did her coming out as queer and joining the politically active indie music scene. Her music has taken her all over, playing with folks like Jason Isbell and Tyler Childers. Rolling Stone calls her and Untamed rock and roll. Truth teller. And we met her at the James Theater as part of the Mission Creek Festival, a multi-day music and literature festival that takes place every spring in downtown Iowa City, Iowa. Take a listen to S.G. Goodman playing her song "Teeth Marks" here on Live Wire.
[S.G. Goodman performs "Teeth Marks"]
Luke Burbank: That was S.G. Goodman right here on Live Wire. Make sure to check out her album, "Teeth Marks", which is out now. That is going to do it for this episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests Dulcé Sloan, Brian Lindstrom and S.G. Goodman. Special thanks. This week to Mission Creek Festival, Nina Lohman, Brian Johannesen, Sarabande Books, and Joanna Englert.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Eben Hoffer is our technical director. Leona Kinderman is our assistant technical director and our How Sound Is by Neil Blake. Ashley Park is our production fellow and Becky Phillips and Andrea Castro-Martinez are our interns. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Zach Honi Domer, Jacob Miller, Ayal Alves and A Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Trey Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the James F. And Marion L. Miller Foundation Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank members Rita Zante of Seattle, Washington, and Nicole Peterson of Portland, Oregon. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire Radio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX.
