Author: Matthew Ussia

Episode 18: The Anxieties of Activism or the Joys of Disobedience

Good pal and union brother Clint Benjamin stops by and talks about overcoming one’s inhibitions and speaking out against an unfair situation.  By day, Clint is a writer and adjunct instructor of English at several colleges.  By night, he works to make life better for the folks who do the majority of college teaching as an organizer for the Adjunct Faculty Association.  Clint explains how he overcame his inhibitions and became a media superstar.  Together , we discuss the fear of getting arrested while protesting and what makes the risk worthwhile.

As always we swear.

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Episode 17: I Know It’s Only Rock and Roll, but the Italians Like It.

The second time I saw Bill Toms perform I said that I though every bar in the country should have a Bill Toms clone or bot that can be pulled out whenever folks need to have gospel infused blues rock good time.   Bill has been performing music for 35 years and is a true master of his craft.  Anyone who has seen one of his joyous live shows can understand why I was super happy to spend part of a Saturday morning discussing songwriting, how an album is a document of a time and a place, why Europeans love American music, his awesome new album Memphis, and when those Bill Toms-bots will eventually rise up and take over the world they will only ask for dark chocolate.

You can find out all about Bill Toms at his website, buy all his merchandise here, and if you never saw a Bill Toms show, see what you are missing with this clip.

As always, there’s a little light swearing.

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Episode 16: For the Love of Extreme Personalities.

Happy New Year Everybody!  It’s was an odd end of 2013 and sad beginning of 2014.  In episode 14, Lori Howsare and I spoke about some of what it meant to do theatre.  Unfortunately, our theatre director, Mr. Kenny Resinski, who we spoke of warmly in that episode, passed away in December.  Lori came back not to do a sappy tribute show, but to explore an uncanny way Mr. Resinski changed our lives in a way that a few other people could, by teaching us to accept and admire extreme personalities.

Lori is a performance artist in Pittsburgh.  She has a blog called Muse Inspired Madness, which she sometimes types words into.  She also will be performing as part of The Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, as well as their kick off party, which will be on Thursday, January 16th.

Light swearing as usual.

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Episode 15: It’s All Just Words, Man.

Our good friend Derek Zanetti is back to talk about Existentialism: The Musical.  If you remember Derek is The Homeless Gospel Choir, but his new project is an impressive collection of poetry and artwork you can order here.  During the podcast we talk about what it means to switch genres and how artistic forms serve certain ideas better.  It all sounds very serious, and if you watch this informational video you can find out more about what Existentialism: The Musical is all about.

As always, I swear.

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Episode 14: When the Circus Leaves Town

Don’t call it a comeback . . . For this episode we speak to Lori Howsare.  Lori’s been doing theater for forever, and in this episode we talk about some of the unique temporary communities that seem to pop up when doing shows.

Check out Lori’s blog MUSEinspiredMADnesS for her random thoughts and performance schedule.

We talk about the bad old days, ebola, and why Brigadoon might just be the scariest show anyone can do.  Also, Lori has the best answer so far for the “bad porno plot” question on the bottom 5.

As always, we swear.

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Episode 13: Rock and Roll Rhetoric (Prequel)

We’re back from our unplanned late-summer hiatus!

In this episode, I talk to former Pittsburgh concert promoter Christopher Caresani (Aka Dr. Z).  We planned on talking about the power of lyrics to either inspire greatness or ruin a person’s life.

Instead, we talked about his awful taste in music, how he doesn’t actually like music (but swears he does), whether or not someone Elton John can inspire someone to commit a misdemeanor, and Dick Cheney.  Also, for some stupid reason I thought it would be a good idea to do a spontaneous Bruno Mars impersonation.   We will get back to our stated topic at some other time.

Christopher has a blog that he updates less often than I bother to do podcasts.  You can read it here.

As always, the f-word makes a regular appearance.

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Episode 12: Escape from South Plainfield

Chris Q. Murphy and I grew up in the not very quaint nor so little town of South Plainfield, New Jersey, and we’ve chosen to live our adult lives in a lifestyle very different to how we were raised.  Chris plays us a song.  We talk about how we were raised, why and how we escaped, and finally, the special kind of cynicism only Jersey kids know.

Chris Q. Murphy is a music teacher and musician in Brooklyn, New York.  You can find out all about his music at his creatively named website chrisqmurphy.com.  He has an amazing backup band called The Fiendish Thingies and together they have a great EP and excellent single that can be found over at his Bandcamp page.  He has a Faceplace but not a Google+.  His wife does not believe I exist. 

And as always, I cannot  not swear.

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Episode 11: Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs

With all apologies to The Minutemen, we talk with Derek Zanetti of The Homeless Gospel Choir about making music with a meaning.  Derek plays live for us new songs for us from the new album he is working on.   He already has some really great albums : the fairly new Luxury Problems, my personal favorite Some People Never Go Anywhere, and You Work So Hard Just to Be Like Everyone Else, which I haven’t heard yet.

We also have a nice chat about what the songs mean, the contemporary crisis of identity, and how you’re better off chopping up your friends when they die.

As always, we swear.

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Episode 10: Public Animal No. 1

The late GG Allin is one of the most compelling musical curiosities I have ever encountered.  His raw, uncompromising performances have fascinated me since I first learned about him in 1997, 4 years after his death.  I thought it would be a good idea to have two of my friends who have never seen the Todd Phillips documentary Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies over, make them watch it, and record their reactions for a podcast.  The film is graphic.  I can’t even post the trailer without fear of getting busted by the Internet police. GG is difficult to pin down into any category, and the film puts even the most jaded viewer into unknown territories and uncomfortable positions.  In this podcast, we not only talk about GG Allin, but we discuss aesthetics, nihilism, and a lonely and sad Christmas I had a few years ago where nobody got me what I really wanted.

On second thought, this probably wasn’t such a good idea.

Adam Rousseau and Brett Zoric are longtime friends of We’re All Gonna Die.  Brett, of course, wrote our theme music, and they are both in the awesome bands Triggers and Chrome Baby Jesus.

There’s lots of swearing in this one, and that tinkling sound you hear throughout . . . that’s the ice in our drinks.

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Episode 9: Improv(e)

Spiff Wiegand is back to talk about improvisation and the role it plays in the creative process.   For the past two weeks, he has improvised a new song every day.   The exercise has taught him a lot about the creative process and how one should think about doing art.  We talked about the importance of play and of not taking oneself too seriously.  Also, I get all professorial and start citing my sources, and Spiff improvised and recorded a brand new song.

You can keep track of his improvized songs at  https://soundcloud.com/spifftunes.  And here you can heard the song he recorded during the podcast called “Spent My Morning Talking to a Yeti“.

Spiff is a musician and actor his old website is spiffwiegand.com and his new website will soon be spifftunes.com.  It’s not yet ready, but go ahead, keep clicking on it.  I dare you!

As always, there’s a little mild swearing.

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