Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

Beginnings

We all know the stories of how creative people get into the business of creating for a living, but how did they start using their imaginations in the first place? On the Beginnings podcast, writer and performer Andy Beckerman asks well-known and up-and-coming comedians, musicians, writers and artists about their earliest creative acts and about other formative childhood experiences.

Dec 6, 2024

On today's episode, I talk to rapper and musician Brian Ennals and Tariq Ravelomanana AKA Infinity Knives. Originally from Annapolis, Maryland and Tanzania respectively, Brian and Tariq made music separately for years, and after reading about Brian in the Baltimore Sun, Tariq reached out to him and eventually asked...


Nov 22, 2024

On today's episode, I talk to musician Fred Thomas. Originally from Ypsilanti, Michigan, Fred started playing music as a teenager, and in 1994 founded the math rock band Chore. The band broke up two years later, and he joined the brilliant His Name Is Alive, and in 1999 started the well-known indie rock band Saturday...


Nov 15, 2024

On today's episode, I talk to musician Jake Xerxes Fussell. Originally from Columbus, Georgia, Jake is the son of folklorist Fred Fussell, and as a teenager began playing and studying with elder musicians in the Chattahoochee Valley, apprenticing with Piedmont blues legend Precious Bryant, with whom he toured...


Nov 8, 2024

On today's episode, I talk to cartoonist John Pham. Born in Saigon, John's family immigrated to the US towards the end of the Vietnam War. In the year 2000, John received a self publishing grant from the Xeric Foundation for his comic Epoxy, and later in the aughts, Fantagraphics published his books Sublife vol. 1 and...


Nov 1, 2024

On today's episode, I talk to musicians Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson of the band Tsunami. Tsunami formed in Arlington, VA in late 1990, when Jenny and Kristin were housemates at Arlington, Virginia’s legendary punk-activist Positive Force house. Over the next seven years, Tsunami wrote and recorded...