Photo Credit: Joseph Quever.

Jesse Malin has been building and nurturing the music scene in the five boroughs for over forty years. He is essentially the New York Mayor of Rock and he makes friends wherever he goes. Through the decades he’s played countless benefit shows and spearheaded more than a few efforts to try and get help where it’s needed. He embodies the idea of community through music so naturally we’ve had a long and rewarding relationship with him at WFUV. Eighteen months ago, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke that left him without the use of his legs. All the compassion and empathy that he has shown throughout his career is now coming back around in the form of a tremendous new tribute album and a pair of benefit shows coming up in December that will be his first time on stage since then.

It was an honor to visit Jesse in his East Village apartment and create a one-hour radio show to celebrate the new collection, preview the concerts – featuring full sets from him and his band – and get an update on his situation. It was a rare opportunity to have a freewheeling conversation that touched upon everything from spitting ketchup Gene Simmons style at a talent show in Whitestone to being at the Saturday Night Live performance of Fear to having Bruce Springsteen congratulate him on a good review in Rolling Stone to combing through lyrics at a kitchen table with Lucinda Williams. At the same time we got to play some of his great tunes and hear some of the marvelous new interpretations of his songs. Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin does what great tribute albums do: It’s a reminder of a lot of great songs and an introduction to a bunch of new versions of them. See you at the Beacon Theatre on December 1st and 2nd.

Jesse Malin radio show on 90.7 FM WFUV – Broadcast 9-10p on 10/14/24
Links below give you the whole show with music and conversation in 2 parts

OR cherry pick below…
Click link to hear song, Click play to hear each interview segment

“Room 13”    Jesse Malin    3:57    Sunset Kids     2019

“New York Comeback”    Lucinda Williams    4:14    Stories from a R&R Heart    2023

“She Don’t Love Me Now”     Bruce Springsteen    3:28   Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Queen of the Underworld”     Jesse Malin    3:53    Fine Art of Self Destruction    2003

“Before You Go”    Jesse Malin    3:46    Sad & Beautiful World   2021

“Brooklyn”   Dinosaur Jr.    4:01    Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Sally Can’t Dance”     Lou Reed    4:13    Sally Can’t Dance    1974

“Turn up the Mains”    Mosshart Morello Gang    3:41     Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Cycles”     Rickie Lee Jones    3:19    It’s Like This    2000

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down In Town Tonight – August 4, 2016

When I spoke with Thao on a lovely afternoon in Austin during SXSX in March, she said that the new record A Man Alive was a much more personal album than she and the band had intended to make but she’s glad it unfolded the way it did. She explained how she put herself in a vulnerable position exploring the grief, sadness, anger – and whatever was there – in the relationship with her father. Thao pointed to her close friend and producer Merrill Garbus (she of Tune-Yards) as a key to finding the fearlessness required for tackling that kind of lyrical content. She also affirmed that she and Merrill share the same taste in health food.

Sonically, Thao said the plan was to rely on beats and bass and loops as a foundation and introduce other elements like her guitar playing almost as if they were being sampled. This gave her the chance to acknowledge the influence that hip hop has on her that past albums have not. It also was the perfect complement – one with, in Thao’s words: joy and vitality and that people could dance to and connect with on a physical level – to the cadences that have always been a strength of her talk-singing and singing.

Tonight’s show should be memorable as Thao is sharing the bill with the super fab Lucinda Williams as well as iLe, a.k.a. Ileana Cabra Joglar, who went by PG-13 when she performed with the hip hop crew Calle 13. The show is free! The Damrosch Park Bandshell is the place at Lincoln Center. It’s an NPR event and some Q&A with the artists will also be part of the program. Here is a flashback to my chat with Lucinda, along with her performance, at the WFUV Holiday Cheer show four years ago. The free action continues tomorrow and through the weekend with AmericanaFest which features a tribute to 40th anniversary of The Last Waltz. M Ward, Margaret Glaspy, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, and Larry Campbell will all be performing.