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Jason and Travis Kelce returned to their old college stomping grounds on Thursday (April 11) when the NFL legend brothers packed the University of Cincinnati’s Fifth Third Arena for a taping of their “New Heights” podcast in front of a rabid audience of college kids and football fans. And while they had some A-list guests […]
There’s a good reason listening to The Black Keys’ new album, Ohio Players, is like spending time with a well-curated collection of vintage vinyl singles. Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney spent part of 2023 taking their DJ gig, The Black Keys Record Hang, across North America and Europe, playing 7” vinyl singles in small clubs into the wee hours of the morning.
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The discerning taste required to keep the audience engaged proved valuable as the band worked on the songs that would eventually comprise the Nashville-based, Ohio-born band’s 12th studio album. “I think we started to get so picky with the records and we started to do the same when we were in the studio,” Auerbach tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “We didn’t want to make songs that sound like old 45s, but we wanted to have the same spirit.”
The genre- and era-spanning setlists at those Record Hang events, documented by attendees in Spotify playlists, included such earworms as 1967’s “Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)” by Memphis garage band The Hombres, 1969’s “Love Buzz” by Dutch psychedelic rockers Shocking Blue (it was later covered by Nirvana for its 1989 debut album, Bleach) and 1970’s “Chocolate” by San Antonio funk band Mickey & The Soul Generation.
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Gauging the crowd’s reaction to those 45s proved to be valuable market research and helped Auerbach and Carney tighten up their songwriting. From the debut single, the Top Adult Alternative Airplay No. 1 “Beautiful People (Stay High)” or “I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” a cover of the 1968 recording by William Bell, Ohio Players has the efficiency of two-and-a-half minute Motown standards or radio-ready classic rock tracks.
“The way those classic 45s are,” says Carney, “it’s like there’s no wasted space.”
Auerbach and Carney had little room to spare when they wrote “On the Game” with Noel Gallagher (Oasis, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) in a studio in London barely big enough for a drum kit and a few people. “We were in a circle in this tiny room,” says Auerbach. “That’s the sound you hear on the record. It was amazing watching Noel go through the process of writing and run through all the chords up and down the neck until he finds the one that he hears in his mind is just right. We were just kind of like sitting patiently, you know, letting him do his thing. It was it was really cool to to watch him go through his process.”
Listen to the entire interview with The Black Keys in the Spotify player embedded below or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart or Amazon Music.

If there had never been Sue Brewer, there may never have been the Outlaw Country movement led by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash.
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Though the artists already knew each other, in the mid-‘60s, Brewer gave them a safe haven in her Nashville living room, dubbed the Boar’s Nest, to create music and form lifelong friendships. She believed in them when naysayers in the Nashville music establishment doubted them and provided a shelter from the outside world, including, at times, their wives.
Brewer’s story is told in The Boar’s Nest: Sue Brewer and the Birth of Outlaw Country Music, an eight-part Audible Originals podcast, debuting Thursday (March 14).
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Brewer, a single mother who worked three jobs, played no instrument herself and never got the recognition she deserved for the outsized role she played as their confidante and muse, remaining an unsung hero. “As a woman who wasn’t looking necessarily for a romantic connection with these guys, she really just wanted to give them this safe space,” says This is Us actress Mandy Moore, who plays Brewer. “They had tons of people pulling at them from every different direction and she didn’t want anything from them. She just loved the music. She wanted to help them.”
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The Outlaw movement, which also included artists like David Allan Coe, hit its stride in the ‘70s and ‘80s, with the music taking on a rougher edge than the overtly commercial, polished, smooth sounds coming out of Nashville. The music proved extremely popular with fans: 1976 compilation album Wanted! The Outlaws, which featured songs from Jennings, Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, was the first country album to be certified platinum for sales of one million by the RIAA.
In addition to Moore, the audio drama’s voice cast includes The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Shel Silverstein, Brothers Osborne‘s TJ Osborne as Johnny Cash, Deadwood’s W. Earl Brown as Waylon Jennings, John Hoogenakker as Kris Kristofferson and Jake Hart as “Cowboy” Jack Clement.
Longtime producer Dub Cornett, who most recently worked on the Audible Originals audio drama The Big Lie (featuring Jon Hamm), produced and created The Boar’s Nest for Fresh Produce Media and wrote the script with highly respected Nashville journalist/historian Holly Gleason and playwright Rachel Bonds. Kimberly Senior served as director.
Moore was unaware of Brewer’s story until Cornett sent her the script but was immediately onboard to amplify Brewer’s vital role in country music history. “This is such an incredible and important story to be able to bolster this woman’s legacy,” she says. “The history has sort of been erased and that’s what’s so great about being a part of a project like this: It is almost this little time capsule capturing this woman’s story in this very, very special period of Nashville’s history in the country music scene that I feel hasn’t been told in quite this way before.”
Because there is so little archival material on Brewer and many of the artists she fostered have died, Moore had virtually no footage to base her character on. “That’s what’s so tough about playing a person like this who did exist, but there’s so little out there about her,” Moore says. “It’s not the day and age we live in now where there would be an online social media presence that would leave a footprint. Even her home is no longer there.”
Instead, Moore says she leaned heavily on Cornett, who was close friends with pioneering producer/songwriter Clement, and the scripts. “The scripts kind of spoke for themselves. The writing was imbued with so much emotion and so much of her quiet ferocity and tenacity,” she says.
It was the writers’ intent to capture her quiet, yet indominable spirit. “Sue Brewer was the glue and the rock for some of the most iconic, wild-eyed creative spirits at their most vulnerable,” Gleason says. “Before Willie, Kris, Waylon or even Johnny were superstars, they were songwriters slamming against a system that didn’t know what to do with them. She did: Give them a safe harbor late at night, remind them why they were special, press them to take their songwriting even further and dust them off and remind them they were great when they were on the verge of quitting. In a town that famously doesn’t give credit to the women who are midwives and catalysts for legends who will break the rules, Dub wanted to make sure the single mother who worked two and three jobs was celebrated for the massive contribution she made to Outlaw Country. Without her, who knows? But I don’t want to think about it.”
Moore recorded her part when she was more than nine months pregnant, and says she loved the ability to “jump in because I’m not on camera.” Compared to when she voices a character in an animated feature, such as in Disney’s 210 Rapunzel tale, Tangled and is working in complete isolation, Moore relished recording her part over Zoom with other actors or working with Brown doing their scenes together in separate studios. “It was great,” she says. “With animation, you’re never in the same place as somebody. You’re interacting with yourself or reading with a director. Getting to read with these performers you were in the scene with made all the difference.”
This was Moore’s first podcast, and she enjoyed “flexing a different muscle” knowing that her voice had to do the heavy lifting given the lack of a visual. “I’ve never done something quite like this before,” she says. “It’s so dynamic. We really have to rely on our voices to tell the stories and to draw people in. You get hyper focused on just listening to what someone’s doing.”
Moore hopes that by the podcast shining a light on Brewer, it will elevate her story and others like her. “There are lots of people like Sue Brewer out in the world that are the nucleus of supporting people to be the best version of themselves. They’re not looking to be in the limelight, but they have this incredibly intrinsic and special quality that helps draw out the best in other people,” she says. “I hope it helps us recognize that those kinds of people exist in all corners of the world, so we’re not just left posthumously acknowledging them. They deserve in the moment to be celebrated.”
Silverstein and Vince Matthews, another songwriter Brewer fostered, paid tribute to Brewer in their 1972 song, “On Susan’s Floor.” Recorded by Gordon Lightfoot and Hank Williams Jr., among other artists, the lyrics warmly recall the refuge she provided: “Like crippled ships that made it/ Through a storm and finally reached a quiet shore/ The homeless found a home on Susan’s floor.”
Brewer, who died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 48, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990 for the role she played encouraging songwriters.
Jason and Travis Kelce just won iHeartRadio’s 2024 podcast of the year award, but they’re not letting it go to their heads. While accepting the honors via video Monday (March 11), the two brothers made sure to shout out an enormous group of people who undoubtedly swayed the vote in their favor: Taylor Swift fans.
“Podcast of the year,” marveled the Kansas City Chiefs player, who hosts New Heights with his older bro, in a clip posted on X. “It’s big s–t.”
“Listen, this is an incredible honor, especially for two jabronis like us,” added Jason, who recently retired from the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive line. “To receive an award like this is beyond humbling, and we would be remiss if we didn’t immediately thank all of the 92%ers out there — aka Swifties — who voted for us to win this award.”
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In response, Travis laughed and nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, guys, for everything,” he added. “We truly do have the best fanbase in the entire world.”
Indeed, Swifties have rallied around the Kelces’ podcast in the months since Travis and Swift began dating last summer. In fact, New Heights has served as a core part of the two stars’ love story, with the Chiefs player first professing his crush on the “Anti-Hero” singer on the show back in July.
“I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice,” he said at the time, revealing he’d hoped to give Swift a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it at one of her Eras Tour concerts.
Flash forward to March 2024, and Travis is jet-setting around the world to support the 14-time Grammy winner on her trek. Most recently, the pair linked up in Singapore, where the superstar played six shows.
Before that, Swift was a mainstay at the athlete’s games, up through the Super Bowl in February. Following the Chiefs’ victory against the San Francisco 49ers, the pop star was one of the first people to hug Travis on the field.
Watch Jason and Travis Kelce thank Swifties below.

Could a momentous Madonna reunion with two of her former longtime backing singers be in the works? This week, the Queen of Pop plays a trio of shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden for The Celebration Tour (Jan. 22, 23 and 29). And, perhaps not so coincidentally, Donna De Lory and Niki Haris – who were seen in the Madonna documentary Truth or Dare and in the iconic video for “Vogue” – are performing two of their own shows together just up the street from the Garden on Jan. 27-28.
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While the ladies have not worked together in years, could there be any plans for Madonna to drop by one of De Lory and Haris’ gigs at The Green Room 42, or for them to appear onstage with Madonna at The Garden?
Well, De Lory and Haris join the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast this week (listen to their chat, below) to discuss that possibility, and more.
“I have no right to give any information that is not completely confirmed as of this moment,” Haris very carefully tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast with a laugh. “With that said, we take joy wherever we can find it — if it’s on our stage, at Madison Square Garden, wherever the joy is. In [Madonna’s] living room. … The bottom line is, we’re in town. … We may just go grab a coffee together. Who knows?”
De Lory adds: “No matter what, we’re just gonna have a great time.”
For years, De Lory and Haris were behind Madonna — supporting the superstar on the road, during television performances on the Grammy Awards and MTV Video Music Awards, and singing on many of her albums and singles. The pair joined Madonna on four tours between 1987 and 2001, with De Lory continuing to perform on two more Madonna tours in 2004-06. Their voices can be heard on many Madonna recordings released from 1987-98, including the Like a Prayer, I’m Breathless and Erotica albums, and singles such as “Vogue,” “Cherish,” “Deeper and Deeper” and “Nothing Really Matters.”
So, with so much recording history behind them, would De Lory and Haris be open to recording with Madonna, on record and in the studio for a song, if the opportunity presented itself?
“I feel for myself,” De Lory says, “and I feel for Niki as well, we would love that. We would love that. And I know that the magic that was always there would be there. … It would be sweet if that happened. … We just all have a great blend and great energy, and that will always be there.”
“I’d love to just sit around a room,” Haris says, “have [Madonna] grab her guitar, Donna go to the keyboard, and let’s just do what we love to do. … God, we just like to sing together. I would rather just sing without an agenda. Just sing.”
While De Lory and Haris are best-known for backing Madonna for years, they’ve also had their own solo careers, and also provided backing vocals individually on albums from the likes of Belinda Carlisle, Whitney Houston, Santana and Selena. In 2016, the pair came together to work on their first album, the Two Friends EP, which was released in 2017. Since then they have continued to release stand-alone tracks, and have hopes of releasing further new material, perhaps setting up camp in Nashville to work with a producer/songwriter to collaborate on new music.
During our chat with De Lory and Haris, we also asked the women about why they think “Vogue” has endured through the year, and influenced such artists as Beyoncé (with the “Vogue”-infused Queens Remix of “Break My Soul”) and Ariana Grande (with her house-inspired “Vogue” cousin “Yes, And?”).
De Lory says: “I knew when we went in to do those vocals at that session, it was a fresh sound… the music was so powerful.” Haris says that we’re in a “society that now is celebrating voguing, celebrating being a drag queen, celebrating [drag] houses … you just have a bigger audience that’s being more accepted” and adds that “‘Vogue’ is such an infectious kind of energy… it’s celebratory.”
Also on the new edition of the Pop Shop Podcast, we’ve got chart news on the debut of Grande’s “Yes, And?” atop the Billboard Hot 100, and how 21 Savage and Kali Uchis make splashy debuts on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Plus, we’re discussing news of Billy Joel soon dropping his first pop single in years, a new Justin Timberlake album on the horizon, and the music-related nominees at the 2024 Academy Awards.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
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The Pod Wars are never going to end, that is if we’re to believe there is still static between Joe Budden and his former co-hosts, Rory Farrell and Jamil “Mal” Clay. In the latest episode of New Rory & Mal, the hosts share their thoughts on Diddy and while they didn’t say it explicitly, it appears they may have taken a shot at Budden over ducking the topic.
To add context, Joe Budden and Sean “Diddy” Combs have a working relationship due to Budden’s work on the REVOLT network and Budden is known to speak favorably of the mogul on his eponymously named podcast. However, Budden put episode 676 of his program behind his Patreon paywall, which was reportedly edited to jump over the situation between Diddy and Cassie Ventura.
In episode 220 of New Rory & Mal, titled We’re Not Afraid To Talk About Diddy,” Rory and Mal didn’t hold back their thoughts and believed that anyone who kept mum about the case after all that was shared publicly might have something to hide.
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In fairness, in episode 677 of The Joe Budden Podcast, which was published Wednesday (November 22), Budden, and his co-hosts Parks, Ish, Flip, and Ice sans co-host Melyssa Ford did discuss the Diddy situation and from what we heard, the cast didn’t offer too strong of an opinion due to legal reasons according to Budden.
Again, it cannot be definitively stated that Rory and Mal took a shot at Budden as other broadcasters haven’t touched the case beyond reporting about the fact Ventura and Diddy settled the lawsuit last Friday after just one day of the allegations going public.
Budden, on his show, took notice of how the case might be affecting Diddy, mentioning a now-viral photo of the Bad Boy honcho appearing to be having a tough moment although nothing has been confirmed.
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Photo: Johnny Nunez / Getty
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Jeff Teague, a former NBA player, has embarked on a new career as a broadcaster unbeknownst to those outside of his current audience. Now a host of the Club 520 podcast, Jeff Teague and his expert command of storytelling is on full display and he shared a hilarious Charles Oakley story that we’re still processing.
Teague, 35, left the league after a stint as a member of the 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks, winning a championship in the process. With Club 520, now in its second season, Teague and his co-hosts Brandon Hendricks and DJ Wells cover basketball as expected but also pop culture points as well. The trio got into a spirited debate about Drake and Michael Jackson, with Teague calling the Canadian superstar a better vocalist than the late King of Pop.
However, the moment in the current episode of Club 520 that had fans talking was the Oakley tale. During Teague’s rookie season with the Atlanta Hawks, he was paired up with former NBA big man Tyrone Hill for training. Teague then explains that former NBA player Duane Farrell came into the gym and alerted him that Hill owed Oakley some money.
True to the legend that is Oakley, Teague says Oak began flinging basketballs with pinpoint accuracy towards Hill, demanding his overdue funds. Trust us, the way we’re telling it here isn’t as funny as hearing Teague’s version.
Check out the Club 520 podcast below and hop to the 30:00-minute mark. We encourage readers to watch the entire episode as it’s great content on its own.
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Conan O’Brien has made plenty of new pals over the five years he’s hosted his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. And what better way to celebrate all those deep connections than a limited-edition vinyl album curated by Conan and his trusty Friend co-hosts assistant Sona Movsesian and show producer Matt Gourley? SiriusXM announced Tuesday […]
Spotify reported its first profitable quarter in more than a year on Tuesday, after subscription price hikes, lay offs and marketing budget cuts helped boost revenues and operating income for music streaming and podcasting giant.
Spotify reported revenues for the third quarter rose 11% to 3.4 billion euros ($3.6 billion), and operating income over 32 million euros ($34 million). The company beat its growth guidance on both monthly active users and subscribers, adding 23 million monthly active users, a 26% uplift, for a total of 574 million compared to the year ago period. The number of premium subscribers rose by 6 million, or 16%, to 226 million from the year ago period.
The company said that the uptick in revenue is due to the early effects of its $1 price hike on premium individual plans and a rebound in the ad market, as improving podcasting trends and lower operating expenses after January’s company-wide cost cuts helped operating income turn a 1% profit.
The company told investors they could expect total monthly active users (MAU) and premium subscribers to continue to grow for the rest of the year–by 27 million net new MAUs and 9 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter 2023–which is expected to boost total revenues by 3% and gross margin by 0.2%.
Spotify reported a free cash flow of 216 million euros for the quarter, up from 25 million euros a year ago. As of Sept. 30, the company says it employed 9,241 full time employees worldwide, down from roughly 9,800 at the end of 2022.
Spotify has been managing a reboot of its podcasting strategy this year, moving away from the hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring podcast start-up and programing under former Chief Content Officer Dawn Ostroff. Spotify now hosts over 100 million tracks, 5 million podcasts titles, and 350,000 audiobooks.
The company also benefitted from a rebound in ad-supported revenue, which rose 16% to 447 million euros ($475 million), helped by a 20% uptick in music. “Podcast advertising revenue growthremained in the healthy double-digit range,” according to a Spotify release.
Monthly active users rose by 26% to 574 million, compared to the third quarter 2022, beating guidance by 2 million.
The number of subscribers rose by 16% to 226 million from the year ago period, also ahead of guidance by 2 million.
Ad-supported monthly active users rose by 32% to 361 million from the year ago period.
Total revenue rose 11% to 3.36 billion euros ($3.57 billion) from 3.04 billion euros ($3.2 billion).
Revenue from preimium subscriptions rose by 10% to 2.9 billion euros ($3.08 billion).
Revenue from ad supported users rose 16% to 447 million euros ($475 million).
Operating income was 32 million euros ($34 million), bosted by higher gross margin and lower personnel and marketing costs.
The company’s gross margin was 26.4%, compared to 24.7% in the third quarter 2022.

Going from the underground to Michael Jackson-level fame overnight is mind-melting for anyone. But for the scruffy 20-something punk rockers in Nirvana it was even more disorienting, and life-changing than they could have ever imagined.
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In an exclusive Billboard preview of next week’s episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, the former late night talker sits down with living Nirvana members drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic to discuss the effects of going from touring in a van to topping the charts.
O’Brien notes that there was just a three-day gap between when Nirvana’s second, and final, major label album, In Utero, dropped in September 1993 and the kick-off of his original late night talk show on NBC, Late Night With Conan O’Brien. “I remembered the music on the album — because I was such a huge fan — being background music to the terror and the weirdness of me starting a late night show from complete obscurity,” says O’Brien, who is also joined by In Utero producer/engineer Steve Albini for the chat celebrating the album’s 30th anniversary.
“That’s similar to the Nirvana experience I would imagine,” says Grohl, who recalls that he was just 21 when the band suddenly became massive in 1991 upon the release of their axis-tilting major label debut, Nevermind; Novoselic was 25, Cobain was 24. “We were kids and so when you talk about the amount of time that’s gone by to me it’s not even so much about the years, it’s about the experiences that just kind of led, one after another, going from three kids that were basically living or touring out of a van to then becoming a huge band.”
Grohl says that the divisive 1993 follow-up turned into the “uncomfortable soundtrack” to that transition from obscurity to intense scrutiny, with the band living in a totally “different world” during the sessions for that album than they were just 16 months earlier.
Trying to put the leap into perspective, Novoselic says that Geffen Records had such modest expectations for Nevermind that it initially printed only 50,000 CD copies. O’Brien adds that he spoke to someone who worked at the label at the time who noted that when the album with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as its lead single blew up Geffen had to stop printing copies of titles by all its other artists to go full-born on Nevermind.
The three-year period between when Nevermind dropped and singer Kurt Cobain‘s death by suicide in April 1994 felt like “10 years,” according to Novoselic, with Albini putting a button on the chaotic whirlwind by describing how Nirvana went from being “couch surfers to being the biggest band ever in the world” in a span of 18 months.
The problem, O’Brien posits, is that Nirvana came out of the punk scene, where he suggests that flossy displays of wealth and success were considered anathema to the ethos of the DIY culture. Albini, however, pushes back against what he says is a notion often espoused by those outside the scene that punks consider success to be “bad and evil.” It’s worth noting that Cobain was an avowed admirer of he Beatles and that the retro video for the Nevermind single “In Bloom” was an homage to Beatlemania.
“I have never experienced that genuinely from anybody in the punk scene that wasn’t purely an expression of jealousy,” Albini says, adding that, for the most part, Nirvana’s fans wanted them to become successful and beloved. O’Brien clarifies that he was thinking more of the immense pride the band had in topping the charts — Nevermind went from selling 6,000 copies in its first week to hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in January 1992, pushing Michael Jackson’s Bad from the top spot — combined with a WTF? feeling from the band at their historic ascent.
“Before we made the record Nevermind we were pretty much living in squalor,” says Grohl, describing the tiny “f—ing disgusting” apartment he shared with Cobain that was covered in corndog sticks and cigarettes. “I would have done anything to have my own apartment and to be able to do that through making music.”
And, to be fair, the Foo Fighters frontman says he didn’t have $1 million in his bank account overnight when success came, but rather suddenly his per diem was a lordly $15 per day, enough for two packs of cigarettes. Grohl also says he didn’t feel conflicted or harbor any shame in helping to pay off his mother’s house or buying her a car with his newfound cashflow.
“I think the reason why I didn’t feel personally conflicted was because I knew the band hadn’t done anything outside of our true selves to get there,” Grohl says.
The full interview with the trio will debut on Monday (Oct. 23) on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, with an extended version including music slated to debut that same day at 6 p.m. ET on SiriusXm’s Lithium (channel 34); additional broadcasts (all ET) will take place on Oct. 23 at 9 p.m.; Oct. 24 at 10 a.m.; Oct. 25 at 12 a.m. and 1 p.m.; Oct. 26 at 5 p.m.; Oct. 27 at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.; Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. and Oct. 29 at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Watch the preview of Grohl, Novoselic and Albini on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend below.
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