Coachella is upon us, so Steve and Ian felt it was appropriate to talk about the music festival. But do you really need to talk about Coachella on an indie music podcast these days? This year’s lineup might be the least indie-oriented in history, continuing a long-running trend favoring pop and electronic music. To illustrate this point, we revisited the 2013 lineup, a year when The Stone Roses, Blur, Phoenix and lots of other bands who might not even be booked at the festival in 2023 were the heavy hitters.
Then we turned to Running With Our Eyes Closed, the recent HBO documentary about Jason Isbell and the making of his 2020 album, Reunions. Unlike most recent music docs, this film does not feel like a commercial for the subject. It is, instead, a very candid look at a marriage going through a rough patch. In fact, the film might be almost too honest in places; this is the rare music doc that doesn’t flatter its subjects. Directed by Sam Jones, who also made 2002’s similarly frank Wilco doc I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, Running With Our Eyes Closed ranks with the best rock films to come out in recent years.
In our mailbag, we addressed questions about The Walkmen — who recently reunited for a tour — and their overall legacy, as well as the career of Songs: Ohio singer-songwriter Jason Molina, who has emerged as an important influence on contemporary Americana and post-hardcore acts.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 134 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.