Episode 47: Garland Jeffreys — 35mm Dreams

In this week’s episode, we first talk about San Antonio and its famous River Walk, which is a great place to visit. If you’ve never been there, check it out.

But we spend most of the episode discussing last weekend’s trip to the Milwaukee Film Festival to see a documentary about our good friend Garland Jeffreys. The film is called Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between. Garland’s wife Claire — also a good friend — wrote, directed, and put the film together with the help of editor Evan Johnson. 

We’ve talked about Garland and this documentary before, but this was our first opportunity to see the film in a theater with Claire. We also spent time with Claire and Evan before the screening, which was great. We talked to them about making the film and Claire’s life with Garland … and some other famous people.

This week’s episode also goes into how we got to know Garland and Claire and the many times we saw Garland perform over the years, from a street festival in Chicago in 2012 to his farewell performance at City Winery in New York in 2019. 

And we talk about brisket sandwiches. Which all ties together. You’ll see.

Anyway, it was such a special experience to share with Claire after all these years and we had a great time recapping the whole thing. 

So, we encourage you to see the film if you can and to get to know Garland’s music. You won’t be disappointed.

We hope you enjoy the show, and please feel free to follow us on Instagram (@jenn_and_dave). You can also follow us on the site formerly known as Twitter, where our joint account is @JennandDave1 and the podcast account is @itsotetPodcast. Until next time! 

Episode 46: Music for All Occasions

We take the title for this week’s episode from a 1995 album by one of our favorite groups, the Mavericks. But more on that later.

We start out with an update on our local walking club, which we joined a few weeks back despite some initial … hesitation. Turns out, it’s been a lot of fun and we’re glad we joined. Then we discuss our upcoming schedule. We will be out of the box for most of May, going to our youngest child’s college graduation followed by yet another trip to Ireland. 

At least we have excuses this time. And we’re telling you up front!

After that, we circle back to last week’s topic — mental health. And, in particular, how to manage your mental health on social media. This week’s story begins with an infamous comment by an infamous billionaire author who’s made it her life’s work to trash trans and nonbinary people, and what happens to normal people when they push back. We talk about the positive side of social media (that it can give you a voice when you feel like you don’t have one) and the negative side (that angry mobs will try to silence you if you challenge their narrow-mindedness). And then we talk about the strategies that work for some of us: Don’t engage the haters. Instead, go ahead and block them, mute them, and leave conversations to protect your own mental health. These strategies may not work for everyone, but they give many of us peace of mind while still allowing us to have our say.

We then turn to much happier topics: Seeing the above-mentioned Mavericks in concert this past weekend for what is at least the sixth, if not seventh, time. From the first time we saw them at a small club in the Chicago suburb’s touring in support of their 1994 LP, What a Crying Shame, to this most recent show, they’ve never let us down. Their music spans country, rock, blues, and Latin, but it’s all universally fun. And they’re fantastic musicians, which doesn’t hurt. They also have a new album coming out called Moon and Stars which will be available on May 17. We’re really looking forward to that.

Finally, we talk about an interesting new album called Petty Country: A Musical Celebration of Tom Petty. As the name suggests, the album consists of twenty covers of Tom Petty songs by a diverse group of country artists, including Chris Stapleton, Luke Combs, the Brothers Osborne, Willie and Lukas Nelson, Margot Price, Wynonna Judd, Marty Stuart, Steve Earle, George Strait, and Rhiannon Giddens. We’re not entirely sure what to expect, but we’re looking forward to giving it a spin.

So, we hope you enjoy the show, and please feel free to follow us on Instagram (@jenn_and_dave). You can also follow us on the site formerly known as Twitter, where our joint account is @JennandDave1 and the podcast account is @itsotetPodcast. Until next time!