Paul Krugman’s Favorite Indie Bands!

And Some Good Stuff From The Talking Feds Podcast

Today I thought I’d lob in a quick, change-of-pace entry to share something important that we're doing at Talking Feds, appended with a short chaser on indie music.

In the wake of the election, the discourse has been dominated by postmortems about how we got here and vague, anxious predictions about the future. We decided it was important to cut through the noise and tackle some practical urgent questions: what does a second Trump term actually look like? What changes are on the horizon, and what, if anything, can be done about them?

To address those questions, we’ve launched a series of subject-specific episodes designed to help gear for Trump 2.0. Over the past month and continuing into the next, we've set aside our usual current-events format to dive deep into seven critical areas where Trump will be looking to attack government as we know it. Each episode features solid gold, only-on-Talking Feds roundtable trios of great experts. I think you'll find these episodes both highly useful and unlike anything else out there. You can find them all on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here is the lineup.

1. November 26th: Department of Justice with Katie Benner, Paul Fishman, and Amy Jeffress

2. December 9th: National Security with Frank Figliuzzi, Juliette Kayyem, and Asha Rangappa

3. December 16th: Economic Policy with Dean Baker, Paul Krugman, and Stephanie Ruhle

4. December 23rd: Immigration with Doris Meissner, Kristie De Pena, and Leon Rodriguez

5. December 30th: State and Local Power as Backstops with former AG Rich Cordray, former Senator Heidi Heitkamp, and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser

6. January 6th: Healthcare Policy with Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, Dan Diamond, and Dr. Kavita Patel

7. TBD: Foreign Policy—not yet announced, but it’s a great panel

Not too shabby!

The general goal of this Substack is to spotlight the abuses and degradations of democratic norms and the constitutional rule of law that might not be immediately visible in the daily churn of headlines. These are the most important hot button areas where the pushback and the fights over Trump’s drive toward authoritarian rule will take place. If you have the chance to give them an overall listen, I think you’ll find it yourself well-oriented to the coming battles.

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I also plan to mix up the Substack legal or political analyses with occasional lighter fare. I’ve asked a few friends of the podcast to send over a list of five items from an area of interest that might strike listeners by surprise. These are people you’ve no doubt have heard of, but they’re diving into an additional dimension of their interests that will be new territory for most listeners.

Let’s start today with a little blurb on indie music from Paul Krugman. I’ve known Paul, if not well, for 15 years. Apart from collaborating on podcasts and other projects, I often turn to him as an expert on new indie bands. Ever since his hot tip about the indie band Lucius back in the aughts, he’s consistently had a list of intriguing bands I’ve never heard of. Here’s his current list, along with thumbnail explanations:

I'm not having as much luck as I used to in finding bands I like; don't know if it's the music scene or me. But I've been listening to:

Boygenius — an indie supergroup

Larkin Poe — sisters who play the blues, with great slide guitar

Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway — bluegrass on another level. The violin is amazing.

The Warning — hard rock sisters from Mexico, never thought this would appeal to me but it does. "Error" has to be the only song with a verse in binary.

Churches — they've been around for a while, but still seem deep to me

And while we’re talking indie bands, here’s the youtube I did with Rhett Miller, the singer-songwriter for my favorite indie band, The Old ‘97s.

Next up: George Conway’s five favorite guitar solos.

Merry xmas and Happy Chanukah to those who observe; and best wishes for happy holidays and all good things in 2025 to everyone.

Talk to you later.