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The Department of Tangents Podcast

Years ago, playing a sort of improv game with friends in which we all picked super powers based on our personalities, I dubbed myself “Tangent Lad.” I was not a very strong superhero, and I could not defeat a super villain on my own, but I could distract them with Monty Python quotes and football trivia. I have many times since apologized to an interview subject in my capacity as a journalist by saying, “I am either very good or very bad at tangents, depending on how you feel about tangents.”

I had a rough time coming up with the concept and naming this blog/podcast. I knew I wanted to create a place where I could address things I’m passionate about – comedy, music, and horror. Finding a name that communicated all three of those things proved a bit impossible. I bugged my friends, and they all tried to help. To no avail. Then I thought, maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong angle. Maybe my lack of focus should be the focus.

As a journalist, I have written for The Boston Globe since 2000, starting out writing CD reviews and then writing a regular column on comedy for seven and a half years. I still contribute there, and to Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. I’m also a musician, and released my debut full-length album, Blue Skies and Broken Arrows, in March of 2015. And I’ve been publishing short horror fiction for a couple of years.

I like to climb into things I love and see how they operate. That’s what the Department of Tangents is for. The main thing here is love. To talk about the things that make I’ve loved forever, and some new things that might stand the test and be around, at least for me, for decades to come. I’ve had to be critical in my writing at times, and it might not all be nonstop roses here, but in the end, what I really want to talk about is the good stuff. That’s why I will regularly write about things I think are “Perfect,” even if someone can demonstrate empirically that they are flawed. Still perfect to me.

Also, fish.

I hope you, dear anonymous surfer person, will come to expect only the highest-quality, free-range, grass-fed tangents. And I hope some of you love the same things I do and find it useful. Or at least a welcome distraction until the others get here.

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  2. DoT EP97: Lucy Isabel On Being a Jersey Girl in Nashville, Leaving Acting for Music, and Her Debut Album, Plus Live Tracks!

DoT EP97: Lucy Isabel On Being a Jersey Girl in Nashville, Leaving Acting for Music, and Her Debut Album, Plus Live Tracks!

Jul 10, 2019

If things had worked out as Lucy Isabel had originally planned, she would be firmly planted in New York right now, using the theater degree she got from Yale as a working actor. Instead, shortly after graduation, the New Jersey native left theater behind and moved to Nashville to become a touring singer/songwriter.If things had worked out as Lucy Isabel had originally planned, she would be firmly planted in New York right now, using the theater degree she got from Yale as a working actor. Instead, shortly after graduation, the New Jersey native left theater behind and moved to Nashville to become a touring singer/songwriter. She spends a lot of time on the road, which is partly why her new debut full-length album is called Rambling Stranger. A lot of the songs deal with Isabel traveling, or being in one place and thinking about another, playing music. There is adventure but also isolation in that life. To start her new life, Isabel and her now husband endured a long-distance relationship until her could join her in Nashville. The lyrics to “Lucky Stars” reflect that, as she sings, “I slept with my guitar in my arms last night/because I didn’t want to think I was alone with you not home.” Her theater degree taught her how to tell other people’s stories – now she is telling her own.

And Isabel is a fast learner. You can hear the progression in Isabel’s songwriting and performing from her two EPs, Along the Way and Kane, to the new album. The playing is more crisp, the imagery better defined and more evocative. I’m happy to have captured a couple of the songs as she played them in Boston at A Concert for Clean Water, a show sponsored by a local apparel company that donates some of their profits to efforts to clean up water supplies. You get to hear them stripped down here, but I would highly recommend checking out the studio tracks as well.

this week’s featured tracks, taken from Lucy Isabel’s live You acoustic performance in Boston! When I first started this podcast, I was hoping to feature more tracks like this, intimate live recordings done at the site of the interview. That didn’t work out as I’d hoped, so I’m glad to be able to present these to you. This is an edited mini-concert of sorts. I took three songs from the set – “Something New,” “How It Goes,” and “Don’t Ask Me Why” – because I felt they flowed well together. go from a lighter touch to more of a rocker, and then “Don’t Ask Me Why,” which is a piano song on the album, played on acoustic guitar. So you get to hear a different version of it here. Enjoy these three live renditions of songs from Rambling Strangers, and please do check out the studio album, as well. You can find Isabel <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lucyisabelc/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">on Facebook under @lucyisabelc</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/LucyIsabelMusic" rel="noopener" target="_blank">on Twitter under @lucyisabelmusic</a>, and <a href="https://www.lucyisabelmusic.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">on her site at lucyisabelmusic.com</a>.