Tanlines’ Jesse Cohen discusses No Effects, his refreshing music podcast
As one-half of the electronic pop duo Tanlines, Jesse Cohen doesn’t get starstruck when meeting artists on his podcast, No Effects. Or at least he tries not to.
“A big part of my show is talking to musicians as the regular people they are. If you present yourself as too much of a fan, you’re putting up a wall.”
With his experience as a touring musician, Cohen knows what artists find irksome, especially on a press tour. Conversations get repetitive, interviews feel stagnant, and the questions are always the same: How did you get your band name? Who are your musical influences?
“At the time, I was listening to a lot of podcasts that were very conversational and open-ended. And I realized that there should be a space like that where a band like Tanlines could be on. I sensed that there was a platform that was missing in the music press world.”
Art by Teddy Blanks
Cohen created No Effects in early 2014 and for his first episode, invited Cameron Mesirow, the artist behind Glasser. Over the course of 86 episodes (and counting), he perfected the format: A one hour episode where he introduces the artist, and then eases into an intimate conversation without excessive sound clips. He avoids describing the artist’s music, asking them what their lyrics mean, and drawing comparisons to other artists, which he says happens a lot. No photos or videos are taken — he wants No Effects to be as noninvasive as possible, so listeners feel like they’re sitting in the room with them.
To prepare for each interview, Cohen listens to the musician’s discography and reads other interviews with his subject. He doesn’t read press releases, Wikipedia pages, or bios. “I don’t want to know too much,” he said. “But I don’t want to know nothing about them.”
So far, his favorite guest has been Perfume Genius. In the episode, they discuss Mike Hadreas’ recovery, his songwriting that followed, and Myspace’s role in his musical career. “It’s not surprising when you listen to his music, which is so emotional and honest,” Cohen said. “He was all of those things in his conversation with me as well.”
“That’s when the conversations are good. That openness gives [fans] a glimpse into who the artist is.”
If he were to create a new podcast, he’d love to invite older artists to reflect on their careers. Evelyn “Champagne” King comes to mind as someone he would love to interview about her years as a superstar in the ’70s and ’80s. Another podcast idea Jesse has is one centered on dads, since he’s also a stay-at-home dad and hasn’t found a podcast that isn’t directed at moms or parents in general.
But for now, Jesse’s focused on spreading the word about No Effects.
“The most encouraging thing for me is when I hear people say that they enjoy doing the show,” he said. “A lot of times, the interview would be done and they would say, ‘It’s over already?’”
Catch up on past episodes of No Effects and keep up with season 3 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And in chronological order, here are Jesse’s 12 songs.
My earliest memory involving music is playing my mother’s old vinyl copy of a Beach Boys compilation called Endless Summer. The album artwork is a vaguely-psychedelic cartoon depiction of the band in their bearded 1970’s state, but all of the music was their peppy stuff from the 1960’s. I remember being confused when I saw pictures of them without beards. I loved all of the uptempo songs about surfing and cars, and sat out all of the depressing songs about being alone and the end of the day.
“Everything She Wants” is their sexy, emotional and cool hit, but I’ve always loved this mindlessly upbeat Wham! song.
I grew up on late Talking Heads albums. We had Stop Making Sense, True Stories, Little Creatures, and Naked on cassettes that lived in our minivan.
This was one of my first CDs. I remember listening to this album while playing Sonic the Hedgehog every day after school for a long time.
Beastie Boys albums from the 90’s jumped from hip hop to hardcore to meandering jazzy jam sessions. They planted the seed that genre doesn’t matter and that the best things can be many things at the same time.
As a teenager, I listened to this album over and over and over again. Juvenile and snotty and emotional and political and serious and fun all at the same time. I have no idea if this music holds up.
Right around the time I became interested in reggae, someone sold off a huge collection of their albums to the used CD and record store that I worked at in college. That day, I brought home Forward, a compilation by The Abyssinians; Eastwood Rides Again by The Upsetters; Police and Thieves by Junior Murvin; and Marcus Garvey/Garvey’s Ghost by Burning Spear. I now know how lucky I was to be exposed to these classic albums of different styles.
This has all of the personality, evocative storytelling, and music that makes the Dungeon Family so great.
I got this album at Jammyland in the East Village. I had no idea that it was a reissue of an amazing album recorded in the Bronx by two women from the Bronx. Still one of my favorite albums ever.
This is a sweet, anthemic, techno track from the German label Kompakt. I found out years later that it’s a cover and the original is by Jurgen Paape. That version is also very good, but I like Köhncke’s better. I never knew the meaning of German lyrics until I googled them as I was writing this post. Luckily, they work well enough with the meaning I had projected onto them.
I bought a bootleg copy of Miss E…So Addictive on Canal Street and listened to it through the summer of 2001.
This is a very weird and very cool remix that Robert Palmer did of his own song ten years after its original release, which is a very weird and very cool thing to do. When we started Tanlines, this was a song that we referenced a lot.
Listen to Jesse Cohen’s curated 12 songs playlist on Spotify.