Matt's Writing

MC Lars put on a great live show at The Cathouse in Glasgow on April 15th. Below are some photos from the show. I interviewed MC Lars for my radio show on Fresh Air: The Alternative before his show, and the podcast of the hour-long interview and feature on MC Lars can be found on my website http://mattswriting.com In the interview, MC Lars and I discuss his songs Guitar Hero Hero, Download This Song, Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock, Hipster Girl, Twenty-Three, Hey There Ophelia, Signing Emo (feat. the Matches), and White Kids Aren’t Hyphy (DJ Khaled Remix). Topics also discussed include MC Lars’s latest album This Gigantic Robot Kills, Jean Baudrillard’s notion of “hyperreality,” the rich traditions of punk and hip hop in the Northern California music scene, the suicide of MC Lars’s former Stanford roommate , which inspired the song Twenty-Three, and how MC Lars navigates the racial politics of being a white MC. This show features the voice-over talents of Ben Felsing, and also a surprise...

Check out my new website hosting the DJ Matt Werner Show at http://mattswriting.com . I'm currently uploading podcasts from my past radio shows on Fresh Air: The Alternative for free download.

Talib Kweli Interview with DJ Matt Werner on Fresh Air: The Alternative Phone interview recorded on March 3, 2009, This show aired on http://freshair.org.uk March 10, 2009. Click to download Part 1 and Part 2 of my interview with Talib Kweli Click here for the full 60 minute interview and feature (It's a 142 MB mp3 file). DJ MATT WERNER: This is DJ Matt Werner on Fresh Air: The Alternative. We’re coming at you from Edinburgh, Scotland, and we have Talib Kweli with us on a phone interview. And so Talib, you’ve been very active this last year, and I’ve read most of the interviews you’ve conducted this last year online: on everything from your song about Lauren Hill, J Dilla, MCEO, and other projects, so I don’t want to repeat questions that’ve already been asked in these other interviews. But my listeners here in Scotland have had two main questions for you. One is on… TALIB KWELI: Black Star? DJ MATT WERNER: Yeah, Black Star. TALIB KWELI: [laughs] DJ MATT WERNER: They’re wonderi...

I made this mashup honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on MLK Day 2009. It features Dr. King mixed with "Live Your Life" by TI and Rihanna.

I had the great honor to interview the ground-breaking poet and musician Saul Williams by phone on Fresh Air: The Alternative. This podcast was originally broadcast on December 9, 2008 on Fresh Air , the University of Edinburgh, Scotland student radio. Topics and ideas discussed in the interview include Saul Williams' third album, the Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, collaborating with Trent Reznor, esoteric religions, William Butler Yeats, poetry as an intuitive artform, what is beyond words, Walt Whitman, how we are so much more than how we are perceived, and Barack Obama. This hour-long feature on Saul Williams also features much of his poetry and music, including: Sha Clack Clack, Black Stacey, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Wine, Twice the First Time, Release, Amethyst Rocks, 1987, and Children of the Night. My past interviews can be found at http://www.youtube.com/djmattwerner

DJ Matt Werner's interview with spoken-word, hip hop artist, actor, and playwright George Watsky premiered on Fresh Air: The Alternative on November 11, 2008. The complete 40-minute podcast is below in 5 videos on YouTube. Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Part 4: Part 5 (Features George Watsky's Michael Cera diss track):

DJ Matt Werner's Radio Show on Fresh Air: The Alternative, the University of Edinburgh's student radio station was a big success this autumn semester. I will continue it in the spring, interviewing and doing features on authors, artists, and musicians who are challenging the status-quo of their fields. Interviews this semester included: Saul Williams, Kid Beyond, Dahlak Brathwaite, and George Watsky. For updates on my show next semester, please sign up for my show's Facebook group.