Upcoming Guest

Luke Marzec’s life has always been about music. He picked up the violin aged 7, the sax at 10 and the piano soon after. At just 11, his natural talent earned him a place at the prestigious Royal College of Music (RCM) Junior Department. In fact, most of Luke’s childhood was spent either in the practice room or on stage. By the time he graduated high school, he had led countless classical and jazz bands, ensembles and orchestras - professionally, at school, RCM and at the national level. 

However, the relentless demands left him tired and searching for more creativity; less structure. He smoked weed, read Marx, went raving, fell in love and enrolled on a Philosophy degree. 

In 2025 Luke will take up residence at one of the city’s newest micro-venues while touring across Europe to promote his new album, debut album Something Good Out Of Nothing.

This is Luke Marzec. And he invites you along for the journey. 

Find out more here: https://www.lukemarzec.com

Tracy Bonham is a classically trained violinist and pianist turned alternative singer-songwriter who rose to fame in 1996 with her twice GRAMMY™nominated album, The Burdens of Being Upright(Island Records). This debut album cast Bonham into the globalspotlight with MTV fame and major radio airplay with her #1 alternative chart-topping song Mother Mother, an anthem for disgruntled teenagers of all ages. While so many of her songs have been placed in film and tv throughout the decades, you might have most recently heard Mother Mother in Yellow Jackets season 1 episode 2.Over the past 27 years, Bonham’s albums and live performances have shown what it is to be an ever-evolving artist. While Bonham sings, she moves from guitar to violin, from violin to piano, and back again. When playing live, her songs from the 90s blend and blur with stylistic changes that she has created over time making her entire repertoire make sense as an entire body of work. She plays the old and new material and even though the songs span thirty years they all continue to be equally relevant.Bonham will be joined by upright bassist Rene Hart (David Amram, James Hunter) and drummer Alvester Garnett (Regina Carter, Abbey Lincoln) and with her new material she connects to something deeper than ever, her true self. Most of the new songs are performed on the piano giving her the chance to lean back to what made her fall in love with music in the first place. Borrowing harmonic structures and beautiful melodies from her favoriteclassical romantic composers, Bonham stretches herself artistically to combine this rediscovered passion with her unique and quirky songwriting style to create musical alchemy. This purifying process most certainly acts as a vehicle for inner transformation for Bonham. "It's like going back to the spark I had as a very young musician, discovering the beauty of Ravel and DeBussy and reclaiming that spark and everything that has happened after that". Bonham speaksof her current line-up,"Playing with incredible jazz musicians like Rene and Alvester hasopened my mind and is now giving me the supportI have always needed to spread my wings and fly. I am really enjoying exploring the intersections and overlaps of where classical and jazz meet without excluding my alternative rock sensibilities. These dudes can rock too. The three of us playing together is definitely my happy place.”

Learn more here: https://www.tracybonham.com

If the city of Los Angeles had a soundtrack, it would be Ozomatli. Since their formation in 1995, the six-piece, multi-genre band has been a cultural force, blending Latin, hip-hop, funk, reggae, and globalinfluences into an unmistakable sound that embodies the energy and diversity of LA. In 2025, Ozomatli celebrates an incredible milestone: 30 years of bringing their dynamic, genre-defying music to audiences around the world.

To mark the occasion, Summer 2025 kicks off their 30 Revolutions Nationwide Tour, a celebration of three decades of music, community, and culture.

Emerging from the politically charged streets of Los Angeles, Ozomatli’s origins are steeped in activism and a desire to unite communities through music. This ethos has carried the band across three decades, earning them a dedicated global following and accolades that include three GRAMMY® Awards, iconic performances at the Hollywood Bowl, a TED Talk, and countless shows worldwide. From high-profile TV appearances on The Today Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Austin City Limits to groundbreaking tours in places like Burma and Mongolia, Ozomatli’s music and message transcend borders, languages, and cultures.

Leafblower’s the band and Tim’s the mascot. A master leaf blower, blowing fog all over your good times, with leafblower the band as the soundtrack: four dudes in jumpsuit uniforms. Think Kraftwerk meets yard work, plus Busch Light, with noise guitars instead of synths. It’s dissonant stuff, reverb fed through tin cans and amplified.

Take the roughest looking dudes in your neighborhood (shovel man from home alone but drunker, with unlimited gasoline). And there’s four of them. Those poor kids inadvertently seeing leafblower descend into their practice space are going to need major psychiatric work to undo their deep-seated fears of all things lawn associated. And that’s without even hearing the music.

Leafblower is loud. It is an experience. Listening to them is like holding an industrial leaf blower, 64cc and gas powered. The ones that strap to your back. Pulling that starting rope, jumpsuit on. Unleashing fury. Fuck you, leaf-litter. You got that beast cranking and everyone walking by crosses to the other side of the street. That is leafblower. - Dr. Paul Hansen

Find out more here:

https://www.instagram.com/leafblowermusic/?hl=en

Joan Slonczewski is a leading author of biological and feminist science fiction.  Slonczewski's books combine fully imagined ecosystems with exploration of artificial intelligence.

Slonczewski publishes research with undergraduates on bacterial pH stress, funded by the National Science Foundation. She also studies cold-adapted microbes from Antarctica. She authors science fiction novels, including her latest, Minds in Transit, The Highest Frontier and A Door into Ocean, both of which earned the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. 

She teaches courses on microbiology, virology and biology in science fiction. Two of Joan’s books won the Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel: The Highest Frontier, and  A Door into Ocean.

Besides writing books, Joan teaches microbiology at Kenyon College, authoring with John Foster the textbook Microbiology: An Evolving Science. She contributes to the nation’s economy by employing students to conduct research on bacteria in extreme acid or base, like the stomach or pancreas respectively. For arts and humanities majors she teaches the notorious course Biology in Science Fiction.

Author of Minute Men: Execute and Run, as well as the collection entitled This Way to Egress, which was adapted for Mick Garris film Nightmare Cinema: and the Bram-Stolker nominated Voices, which features Connolly’s best stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Twilight Zone, Year’s Best Horror and other top magazine anthologies of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

His novels include the eco-thrillers Veins, Vipers, and Vortex.

He is currently collaborating with Christopher Connolly and Academy Award-winning producer Jonathan Sanger to develop Execute & Run into a feature film.

Fid out more here: https://lawrencecconnolly.com

Catalyzed by his father’s suicide in 2022, Lew Apollo’s genre-bending soul music reflects on deep-rooted internal struggles, cloaked in a sepia and rose tint. Born and raised in Rural Northern Minnesota, Lew’s songwriting and style is the fusion of his home state’s icons, Bob Dylan and Prince. Drawing inspiration from Hozier, Leon Bridges, and Labrinth-Lew’s ear-candyproduction style, hypnotic guitar and sultry voice create a lush sonic landscape akin to a jungle: a visual embodiment of an overgrown mind.Lew has sold-out countless shows with his bandfollowing the 2023 release of his debut EP, introducing himself as the next artist to watch. Lew Apollo’s self-produced debut album ‘Fool’s Gold’ is out August 8, 2025

Find Out More Here: https://www.lewapollo.com

Kula Shaker are back at full strength and in peak form, following the global release of their acclaimed seventh studio album Natural Magick (2024), which topped the UK Independent Album Charts and was hailed by Shindig! as “the best album of their career.” With major shows across North America, Asia, the UK, and Europe, the band have reasserted themselves as a formidable force on the international live circuit.

Reuniting their classic lineup for the first time since 1999 - with the return of Hammond organ maestro Jay Darlington (after a decade with Oasis and the Gallaghers) - Kula Shaker’s sound is bolder, tighter, and more electric than ever. Completing the iconic lineup are frontman Crispian Mills, bassist Alonza Bevan, and drummer Paul Winter-Hart.

Find out more here: https://kulashaker.co.uk

David Boop is a Denver-based speculative fiction author & editor. He’s also an award-winning essayist, and screenwriter. Before turning to fiction, David worked as a DJ, film critic, journalist, and actor.

 David’s novels run the gamut, such as the sci-fi/noir She Murdered Me with Science and the Weird Western, The Drowned Horse Chronicle.

 David edited the bestselling and award-nominated Weird Western anthology series beginning with Straight Outta Tombstone, followed by a trio of Space Western anthologies starting with Gunfight on Europa Station. He’s edited several pulp anthologies, including Gentlemen Prefer Domino Lady,Domino Patrick: Daughter of the Domino Lady, and Green Hornet & Kato: Detroit Noir. Most recently, he edited the Jack L. Chalker’s Well World tribute mosaic novel, Permutations.

 David is prolific in short fiction, writing across many genres including sci-fi, fantasy, horror, weird western, and superhero. Some of his shorts include media tie-ins for Predator (nominated for the 2018 Scribe Award), Kolchak the Night Stalker, The Green Hornet, and Veronica Mars. 

He’s a Summa Cum Laude Graduate from UC-Denver in the Creative Writing program. He tutors and teaches Creative Writing, collects Funko Pops, and is a believer. You can find out more at https://www.longshot-productions.net.

Don Cusic is one of the premier historians of country music and an internationally known scholar and writer. As an author, teacher, historian, songwriter, producer, and executive, Cusic has been actively involved in the music business since 1973. He is a 2022 inductee in the Western Music Hall of Fame.

Cusic is the author of twenty-five published books, including the biographies Roger Miller: Dang Him, Elvis and Nashville, Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You In My Heart, The Life and Career of Gene Autry, The Cowboy Way: Riders In The Sky, James Weldon Johnson: Songwriter and The Trials of Henry Flipper. He wrote an encyclopedia of cowboys, Cowboys and the Wild West: An A-Z Guide from the Chisholm Trail to the Silver Screen and edited (and was the primary writer of) The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. Other books include Johnny Cash: The Songs, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel and Christian Music (re-published as Saved by Song), The Cowboy in Country Music, Music in the Market, Baseball and Country Music, Poet of the Common Man: Merle Haggard Lyrics, Willie Nelson: Lyrics 1959-1994, Hank Williams: The Complete Lyrics, Reba McEntire: Country Music's Queen, Randy Travis: King of the New Traditionalists, The Poet as Performer, and Sandi Patti: The Voice of Gospel. Cusic is also the author of two novels: Sharecropper’s Son and Dressed in Grey and Blue (a Civil War novel). 

Website: https://www.doncusic.com

Laura Sawosko is a Nashville based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. With the help of PLA Media, Laura’s 6th album will be released in April 2025.

She is a member of NSAI and ASCAP and was one of the chosen Qualifiers for The TN Songwriter’s Series, her career includes performances at iconic venues such as the Bluebird Cafe and The Listening Room and has opened for Major artists such as Edwin McCain, Sarah Buxton and Michelle Branch.

Website: https://www.laurasawosko.com