Cut The Cord Radio kicks off 2015 season next week; check out highlights from 2014

by | Jan 9, 2015 | POLITICS

As locally-focused RVA podcasts go, Cut The Cord Radio is certainly unique. Founder and host Tyler Matthews, soundman James Seretis, and their rotating cast of guests always bring a humorous and entertaining viewpoint to the internet’s airwaves on Thursday nights at 7 PM when their “radio” show streams live across the internet from its online home at cutthecordradio.com.


As locally-focused RVA podcasts go, Cut The Cord Radio is certainly unique. Founder and host Tyler Matthews, soundman James Seretis, and their rotating cast of guests always bring a humorous and entertaining viewpoint to the internet’s airwaves on Thursday nights at 7 PM when their “radio” show streams live across the internet from its online home at cutthecordradio.com.

The show’s profile grew quite a bit over the past year, featuring quite a few notable interviews and guest appearances by musicians and personalities from both the local area and beyond. However, if you still haven’t checked it out, we’ve got several clips here to give you an idea of the awesomeness and insanity that goes on each week.

We begin by tooting our own horn with a clip from a recent appearance on the show by RVA Magazine’s own Shannon Cleary and Andrew Necci (who is currently writing about himself in the third person). You might expect a show featuring these guests to go into depth about the local music scene–and it did, at points. However, this clip is probably the funniest moment of the entire episode, and it begins with a great discourse on, um, revenge pooping–which eventually detours into a lengthy retelling of the Dirtwoman origin story for Tyler, who had unbelievably never encountered Dirtwoman before. This one is definitely not safe for work, but it sure is funny–and enlightening, for anyone else who’s managed to remain unfamiliar with the ham-tastic RVA legend.

This clip is as entertaining in its own way, though it might not seem as amusing at first. However, give it some time. Chris Dorsey, Cut The Cord’s guest on this clip, is a controversial figure in Richmond politics, with his frequent interruptions of City Council meetings and videotaped activities that some would call showboating. Tyler attempts to get to the bottom of what Chris Dorsey’s agenda is all about, and uncovers quite a bit of political rhetoric in the process. Don’t expect 100% consistency or even coherence, but you can expect some pretty crazy arguments.

Here’s something a bit less wild and more focused on Richmond’s music scene–an interview with Mike Bishop, GWAR’s original Beefcake, and also the leader of recently-reunited Richmond postpunk band Kepone. Returning to the GWAR lineup in the wake of founder Dave Brockie’s tragic death, Bishop joined the Cut The Cord Radio crew to fill the world in on what the future held for GWAR. In this clip, though, Bishop tells a story about the times that Brockie took GWAR’s outrageous sense of humor far enough that even Bishop didn’t find it funny.

Continuing in the musical vein, here’s a clip from an interview with Valient Himself, vocalist for both NC metal band Valient Thorr and RVA post-hardcore crew Brief Lives. In this clip, he talks about his own strengths and weaknesses as a singer, and what he’s had to do to push his limits as a musician in order to work with Brief Lives:

One more clip from a musician interivew for you–this one is with Tesco Vee, singer for the long-running, taboo-breaking punk band known as The Meatmen. Cut The Cord spoke to Tesco over the phone from his home in Michigan in advance of The Meatmen’s appearance last summer at Bandito’s (secretly one of the best musical venues in this entire city). During this clip, Tesco discusses his chagrin that the PMRC never came after he and The Meatmen back in the 80s, then gets into his memories of Courtney Love before she was famous, as well as his feelings on notorious 80s punk band The Mentors:

Towards the end of last year, Cut The Cord began augmenting their audio programming with videotaped performances by the show’s musical guests, and promise to do a whole lot more of that sort of thing in 2015. Here are two of 2014’s performance clips, which couldn’t be more different where genre is concerned, but both contain a high level of musical talent and performing quality. First up is a solo acoustic performance by RVA singer/songwriter Patrick Bates, from episode 65:

Then from episode 59, we have Black Liquid, joined by hype man BCMusic1st, doing his recent single “Can’t Be,” featuring music and vocal samples from the work of Fiona Apple:

Awesome, right? There’s plenty more where all of that came from coming up next year from Cut The Cord, so tune in Thursday nights at 7 PM over at cutthecordradio.com, or check out the podcast, available for stream and download at cutthecordradio.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts (iTunes, Stitcher, etc). Keep up with Cut The Cord on facebook at facebook.com/CutTheCordRadio, or follow them on twitter @CutTheCordRadio.

Marilyn Drew Necci

Marilyn Drew Necci

Former GayRVA editor-in-chief, RVA Magazine editor for print and web. Anxiety expert, proud trans woman, happily married.




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