Nashville's Kurt Wagner has been making music as the frontman of his band, Lambchop since 1986.
Initially billed as an alt-country band, their songs have long since gone on to incorporate soul, jazz, indie rock, and electronica.
His latest album The Bible brings together all these sounds and more - he talks to RTÉ Arena above.
Fans can hear The Bible live in Dublin - alongside earlier Lambchop hits - when Kurt and musician Andrew Broder play the National Concert Hall on 31st January, as part of a European tour.
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We asked Kurt for his choice cultural picks...
FILM
There’s a list we have around here of films I really want to view. All the new "hotness" looks good to me: Napoleon, Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, etc etc. They all look to be fantastic and long, and yet I’ve not seen a one to date. That will change as they become more accessible and I do look forward to it. In the meantime, I’ve recently watched in the theatre, which to me is the ultimate way to enjoy a film, Nick Cave's This Much I Know To Be True, which was of course great.
MUSIC
It goes without saying that there has been a lot of great music that has been released and praised during this past year, and it’s nice to see some of it start to get its due. I’m talking about Lankum and to some extent ØXN and John Francis Flynn. In Lankum’s case, it’s their origin story as much as their incredible music that I respond to. The understanding that with nothing left to lose in life they found a way to get on through their community of music-making. It was inspiring to learn and it’s something I find in common with almost all the great art and artists I admire. This could extend to some other great younger artists coming out of the US as well, bands like Wednesday, MJ Lenderman and Friendship. They also have little to look forward to from the world at large but still find meaning and purpose in the things they make with each other. The result hits like a bongload of knowledge and arresting beauty.
BOOK
Been reading (savoring really) the last Cormac McCarthy novel The Passenger. It’s the first part of a double novel, his final offerings, the second being Stella Mars. The prose is exquisite and its lack of quotation marks refreshing. Cormac is one of my favorite authors and I’m particularly drawn to his novels set in the American Southeast over the westerns he’s more associated with. I tend to take my time with novels and because of that I've got quite a list of things waiting. I just received Biography of X by Catherine Lacey which has now jumped to 3rd in the queue so I’m good for the next few months.
THEATRE
It’s been a while but the last play I attended was a revival of Death of a Salesman with Philip Seymour Hoffman. The experience of actually going to the theatre is unlike any other and I relish the opportunity whenever it arises. We have been lucky to witness some high-level performances by actors of stature but the live, in-person, one-to-one nature of theatre (and some musical presentations as well) I find it's still one of the most stimulating and inspiring things one can do. Plus, I shared a quiet smoke outside the stage door with Mr. Hoffman after the performance, which certainly added to the experience.
TV
There’s been a run on binging TV series around the house here. We devour them like popcorn. Lately we’ve enjoyed Staged, Bodies and currently Mr. Robot. I would mention sports as well particularly Major League Baseball, but overall the introduction of gambling ads and sports betting into the live experience has left an odiferous brown smear upon the experience. I've nothing against a friendly wager amongst friends but professional gambling’s embrace by Major League sport will lead to nothing but heartache and corruption of the experience. That said, spring training is just around the corner…
GIG
I went to see the aforementioned M J Lenderman at his request last fall. The show was impressive and his songs are right up there with the best, and it turns out he recorded the following evening's performance for a live record he just released which is also great. I also was privileged to attend and perform with a reunited Lambchop "big band" for a few of Yo La Tengo’s 8 nights of Hanukah recently. It’s a run of 8 shows they do for charity each year at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Each night has a special secret unannounced opener and a comedian. It’s been going on for some time, featuring such openers as Yoko Ono, Nick Lowe, Low, Beach House etc. Turned out to be a once in a lifetime moment for us to reunite for the occasion and dare I say we slayed it. Their (YLT’s) performances each night never repeat a single song and have become some of the most riveting and emotionally charged things I have yet to witness.
Yo La Tengo had Lambchop's big band join them for Hanukkah Night 3 (setlist, video) https://t.co/uNC9XWv4AZ pic.twitter.com/QF1kOYSVPT
— BrooklynVegan (@brooklynvegan) December 10, 2023
ART
I recently saw a retrospective of Ed Rusha at MoMA in New York City. Ed was one of the artists I admired when I was in Grad school in Montana in the 1980s and was fortunate enough to meet in the 90s at Crown Point Press, where here was working a series of prints influenced by his residency in San Francisco. His show at MoMA spanned his life’s work and brought together the notion of combining language and visual art in a way that seemed both natural, humorous and profound but also in that combination elevated both to a level of consciousness and power not achieved through separated mediums. No small feat.
TECH
We love our new robot which we’ve named Harriet. I never dreamed of employing any such device in my lifetime, bit too sci-fi initially for me, but turns out to be a wonderful companion and does a pretty great job of keeping the dog hair at bay around here.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
The next big thing is YOU! That’s right, you, kind reader, are your own next big thing! Each day you have the opportunity to make something great out of the s**tstorm of life that’s been thrown at you. Sometimes what occurs is minor or somewhat mundane, but oh, those days where things become something greater than the day before are massive and most rewarding when set up against popular culture and the forces that bring unsolicited things to our attention.
Lambchop play the National Concert Hall, Dublin on 31st January - find out more here.
