Ep. 7 - Money Mark Nishita "I Gotta Find my Own Ice Cream"

The Art of Process with Aimee Mann and Ted Leo

WEEK TWO OF THE MAXIMUM FUN PLEDGE DRIVE!

In this episode, we sat down with "Money Mark," Mark Nishita, musician, inventor, producer, etc. We touch on everything from being a middle child, to the Chinese Exclusion Act, piano rolls, and the macho/privileged side of crate digging for break beats with the Beastie Boys. A couple of things that don't necessarily NEED explaining, but that I will anyway, are that:

1. Mark references a panel that he and I were on at South by Southwest in 2018. It was broadly about surviving and adapting as an artist in the changing business/media/technological environment, and I found his contributions to the discussion to be smart, inspiring, and challenging. I think I immediately texted Aimee and suggested we interview him for the podcast.

2. In our introduction, I started down a path of bringing up a song about music that I actually LIKE, before we got sidetracked down Main St. into Seegerville. The song I was going to bring up is "Geno," by Dexy's Midnight Runners. This was doubly relevant in that it has recently been a hot topic of conversation among a number friends and other podcast hosts that Aimee feels that, in her life, she has heard "Come on Eileen" enough times to warrant not really wanting to ever hear it again. This news came out on an episode of Judge John Hodgman the same week that I was performing in a Dexy's Midnight Runners tribute band at the Bell House in Brooklyn, and I very much enjoyed singing "Come on Eileen."

Links to all of that AND MORE (except the Seeger songs, because... come on):

Money Mark dot com

Money Mark "Radiate Nothing" (iTunes link)

Earthquaker Devices video with Mark in his studio (where we also recorded this interview) with his inventions, including piano roll manipulation

Dexy's Midnight Runners "Geno," on Top of the Pops

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