We’ve run our mouths from a basement in Washington, D.C. for four hundred episodes now, but sadly it is time to say goodbye.

Please join us for a bittersweet final hang in the basement with the people that we hold most dear saying goodbye to this chapter the only way we know how: Talking about Boston’s Third Stage.

Thanks for listening. Y’all are the goddamn best.

For many, the music of Steely Dan is an enigma. For us…it’s our lifeblood.

On our penultimate broadcast from a basement in Washington, D.C., Dead To Me’s Casey Rae and Eduardo Nunes are sitting in to fulfill a promise that Kevin made long ago, and turning up the nerd to nigh impossible levels in the process. Any major dude will tell you that whether you’re a super-fan or just Steely Dan curious, this episode is probably your destiny.

It sure as hell was ours.

Washington, D.C. has been our home for over a decade now, but our time here is rapidly coming to a close. In one of our final broadcasts from our nation’s capital, Kevin sits down with Lindsay Hogan (Music Journalist/DIY maven) and Paul Vodra (Hometown Sounds) to talk about some of the music that moved us in 2018, how we got to this point, and where we’re going from here.

2018 was a wild ride, and on one of our final broadcasts from Washington, D.C. we’re celebrating the music that moved us the most.

Van Halen’s 5150 was a turning point for the legendary party rockers for more than one reason. The replacing of original front man David Lee Roth with rocker Sammy Hagar was what was driving headlines, but the real news was in the music. Revved up, radio-friendly, and raring to go, this “new” Van Halen supplemented often questionable machismo with synths, honest-to-god pop hooks, and, most radically: Feelings.

Washington Post Pop Critic Chris Richards and Broke Royals’ Philip Basnight are joining us as we reconsider one of the most divisive albums of Van Halen’s career, reveal it’s secrets, and more.

This, dear listener, is what dreams are made of.

On her latest LP Goners, Laura Gibson is taking on grief and the joy that can be found through grieving, and the result is her strongest record yet. Lush, adventurous, and human AF, Goners drags the listener down to the bottom, where it may be dark, but at least you’ve got good company.

PLUS: Maryjo Mattea is in pretty much ALL of the bands in Washington, D.C., and on her new single she’s being joined by good friend Cody Valentine (Allthebestkids) for a potent tale of personal empowerment and the joys that are out there waiting for us when we set ourselves free.

The members of The Skiffle Players — Neal Casal (Circles Around The Sun/Chris Robinson Brotherhood), Dan Horne (Beachwood Sparks), Cass McCombs, Farmer Dave Scher (All Night Radio/Beachwood Sparks), Aaron Sperske (Father John Misty/Beachwood Sparks) — are some of the most respected musicians on the scene today. So when they find the time to get together for a new Skiffle Players album, you’d best believe it’s going to be something special. Skiff, the collective’s second LP, expands on the foundation they laid with 2016’s Skifflin’ and hints at a blindingly bright future that looks a lot like the past that they’ve been celebrating.

On paper, an album about heartache, anxiety, and ancient aliens doesn’t seem like something that would work (or should even exist), but on Pyramid Theories, Mink’s Miracle Medicine are singing about those themes and more resulting in their best release to date.

We’re catching up with the Melissa Wright of this Appalachian-based duo to dig into the trials of life as a creative, edibles, woodworking, aliens, and how their remarkable new album came to be.

On her new album Lake Accontink, Marian McLaughlin invites the listener along on her quest to try and make sense of the many ways in which we impact and are impacted by the environment, and what it all may mean in the long run. We’re sitting down with the Baltimore-based musician to talk about what inspired her self-described “music for the Anthropocene Epoch,” the perils of capitalism in the modern age, the joy of playing in a room with one-hundred other guitarists and much more!

To call Chicago’s Makaya McCraven, just a drummer would be doing the multi-talented musical truth seeker a grave disservice. Over the past few years, McCraven has been refining a production technique that mixes live jam sessions and impromptu performances with radically creative editing to produce some of the most exciting jazz of the modern day. On Universal Beings, an album recorded in four different locations with four distinct groups of musicians at each, McCraven seems to have perfected this technique, and the result is one of the best albums of 2018. Meditative, complex, smooth, and even funky, Universal Beings points to blindingly bright future for not just McCraven, but jazz as a whole.

PLUS! Saxaphonist, vocalist, and DMV native Braxton Cook is back with a new album No Doubt, and we’ve got a listen to it’s title track to help you get hip to this remarkable talent!

In 2016 Chicago rapper Noname (Fatimah Warner) stepped out of the shadows of her collaborators to deliver Telefone, one of the best albums of 2016, and easily one of the best hip-hop debuts in recent memory. One move to L.A. and a good bit of growing up later, Noname is BACK with her first “official” album, Room 25. Self-produced and self-released, Room 25 is an ambitious step forward for one of music’s brightest talents, and we’re joined by special guest Philip Basnight (Broke Royals) to discuss what makes it so great, and what we’re looking forward to from Noname in the future.

Plus! Washington, D.C.’s very own Dupont Brass is back with a new EP Halftime that’s all about enjoying yourself, and we’re spinning its first single.