John Corbett

Burning Ambulance Podcast

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Writer John Corbett is from Chicago, and has been spreading the word about obscure and underground music for decades. He's a writer, a critic, a record collector, a presenter of live music, and a producer of both reissues and new albums in the areas of free and avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, noise, modern composition, and things that are simply impossible to pigeonhole or classify in any meaningful way. He's got a new book out, Pick Up the Pieces: Excursions in Seventies Music, which is absolutely worth a read, but I wanted to talk to him about a lot of his other work, including the legendary Unheard Music Series of CDs which he curated for the Atavistic label in the early 2000s, and his current project, Corbett vs. Dempsey, which is an art gallery/publishing house/record label that's putting out incredible music, new and old, right now.

In this interview, we talk about a lot of different subjects, including everything I mentioned above, as well as his thoughts on Seventies jazz, punk rock vs. postpunk vs. hardcore, and much, much more. It’s a very interesting conversation, and one of our longer episodes. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Music heard in this episode:

Joe McPhee, "Nation Time" (Nation Time)

Milford Graves, "Ba" (Bäbi)