This is 10000% my shit I'm so looking forward to this series

It's time for Beginnings, the podcast where writer and performer Andy Beckerman talks to the comedians, writers, filmmakers and musicians he admires about their earliest creative experiences and the numerous ways in which a creative life can unfold.

On today's episode, I talk to musician John Vanderslice. Raised in rural North Florida, Vanderslice was forced into piano lessons as a young child, and eventually picked up the guitar and started writing songs as a teen. After moving to San Francisco in 1989, John made three records as a part of the experimental band MK Ultra, including the critically-acclaimed The Dream is Over. His obsession with recording craft persisted: while working as a waiter at Chez Panisse in 1997, he opened Tiny Telephone Recording as an affordable outlet for the Bay Area’s indie rock community. Between 2000 and 2014, John released 10 records on Barsuk, Dead Oceans, and Secretly Canadian, and collaborated as a producer and musician on records by Spoon, the Mountain Goats, Okkervil River, Death Cab for Cutie and Tune-Yards. Taking a break from his own recording, he became a full-time producer for a number of years, and in 2018, John decided to leap back into his solo career with full force, releasing a number of albums and EPs, the latest of which is a tribute to Dave Berman entitled John, i can’t believe civilization is still going here in 2021! Congratulations to all of us, Love, DCB

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John Vanderslice – The Cedars (Native Cat Recordings)

The 11-square-mile area, called the Cedars located in Placer County, California is a mysterious place which boasts all types of unique geological phenomena including Mars-like red slopes, strange mineralized rock formations, and high-alkaline springs that have fostered plant species found nowhere else in the world.  It’s also nearly impossible to access due to barriers both natural and legal.  A…