Elia Einhorn, Radio / Podcast / TV Host & Curator
💭 Thoughts on balancing productivity & downtime, Lou Reed: The King of New York, and non-traditional revenue streams for artists.
Thought Enthusiast is an AdHoc Project where we chat with fascinating thought leaders across various facets of music, tech, and culture whose work we admire, simply asking “what’s on your mind?” and “why do you care?” 💭
Elia Einhorn hosts and produces music radio, tv, and podcasts. Through 3dB, which he formed with engineer / producer / bff Mark Yoshizumi, he’s hosted for Pitchfork, Talkhouse, Sonos Radio, Vans Channel 66 & more. Elia is the only person to have starred in a Belle and Sebastian video, curated talks with Solange and Genesis P-Orridge for the same series, and beatboxed for Lee Scratch Perry.
🎯 Current focus
3dB’s been in a deep collaboration with the iconic Red Hot organization for the last couple years. I’m co-producing a number of records for them right now, so every day is filled with beautiful fantastical brainstorms; new mixes coming in (many incredible ones from my 3dB partner Mark Yoshizumi!); and calls with my favorite artists in the world.
One series we’re working on there is Red Hot + Ra, a tribute to the experimental genius Sun Ra, which is tied to raising awareness of, and funds for, climate justice. We’re about to announce some big stuff on that front. (And to the heads, the double vinyl edition of Nuclear War, which features Georgia Anne Muldrow, Irreversible Entanglements, Angel Bat Dawid, & South Africa’s Malcolm Jiyane Tree-o, is SOLD OUT from our distributor and there’s only super limited quantities still in stores, so cop it now!)
🎶 Slowspin’s Talisman
Pakistani singer Zeerak Ahmed, AKA Slowspin, blew me away last year across two live shows and her album Talisman. Zeerak collabs with Shahzad Ismaily (Love In Exile) and Greg Fox (ex Liturgy) to create supremely gentle, spacey soundscapes over which her soft, classical Indian-trained voice brings folks to tears. Definitely check out the songs Hamari and Piya.
📚 Music book club: Lou Reed, Jayne County, Sly Stone
I’ll go with a genre- I’m obsessed with music biographies, to the point that I run a music book club. We just read Lou Reed: The King of New York by Will Hermes (who’s in the group!) Whatever book I’m reading is my favorite at the time, I get totally obsessed. But for real, if anyone reading this hasn’t checked out Lou Reed: The King of New York, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Then I devoured Jayne County’s autobiography over the holiday break. Jayne is a trans punk icon who marched at Stonewall and who, with Warhol, Bowie and via her own music and art, helped send queer art into the mainstream; and who, of course, never got the respect and renown she deserves.
The book club is about to start Sly Stone’s new memoir, so I’m sure everyone outside the group will be sick of me talking about nothing but Sly for the next month…
🌻 Balancing productivity and downtime
Not to sound like a TED Talk, but I’m working really hard on balancing productivity/attention and downtime. I’ve noticed that tools we thought would be helpful- Slack, with its instantaneous back and forth- when misused are often actually incredibly distracting. For example, during meetings where a deep focus on the topic at hand is needed, responding to unrelated Slack messages pulls me right out of the zone, and makes me feel quite harried. Most things can wait a few minutes. So I’m learning, by trial and error, how to best keep the 10 pots I’ve got boiling at any given time bubbling, while being more mentally peaceful. Again, working on it, by no means fully there yet!
I also think a lot about humans spending time together in person. The pandemic coupled with the rise of communication via digital means have given birth to this idea that we don’t need to spend much or any actual time together, we can just email / text / zoom... it’s total bullshit. Those are helpful tools, but can’t be used exclusively. I spend a good deal of time having coffees or lunches or going record shopping with the artists, publicists, managers, label folks etc that I respect, listening to what they’re excited about and getting to know each other on a deeper level. It leads to such incredible musical discovery and inspo and collaborations!
👀 Some folks in my industry that I look up to…
I love thinking about this question, and can answer it easily, as I was just thinking about this very thing regarding two friends who work in music recently.
I first worked with Brandon Stosuy on Pitchfork Radio, and then when he started The Creative Independent site, we did Sober 21 together, as well as an inventively formatted (his idea) interview with one of my heroes, Steve Ignorant from Crass. Brandon just released a book, Sad Happens, that I contributed an essay about the gay country pioneers Lavender Country to. The book features folks like Phoebe Bridgers, Hanif Abdurraqib, Matt Berninger and Eileen Myles, plus loads of thoughtful people who live out of the public eye. I did a book event around it that Brandon put on at Housing Works on Crosby Street in Manhattan, and it struck me for the 110th time how perfect his curation always is, a brilliant mix of people and ideas and rad spaces. Big things done with humility and enthusiasm. Respect!
The other is Saidah Blount, who was Program Director while we were building Sonos Radio. 3dB worked super closely with Saidah, and we were blown away by her curatorial sense, and inspired by her knowledge across genres (plus her forthrightness when she wasn’t familiar with one, and the way she’d bring on an expert who was). Saidah just shared that she’s the new Executive Director of Celebrate Brooklyn over at BRIC, an organization whose events I hit all the time. I’m so psyched one of my fave music curators is running one of my fave programs!
⛪️ Hurray For The Riff Raff Listening Event at St. Mark’s Church
The wonderful Hurray For The Riff Raff asked me to host a very dope event they’re doing with The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. I'm psyched! HFRR’s Alynda will be spinning their new record and chatting with me, Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz / Sad13 is reading; it’s gonna slay. These are artists I have so much respect for, as well as people I like outside of their music, too. Plus, to get to work in the most iconic of poetry spaces is a dream. Then I’m off to LA for the Grammys at the top of Feb!
💰 Non-traditional revenue streams for artists
Two thoughts here:
1) Substack: I’m curious to see how sustainable Substack will be. How will they support their creators? How will they help the cream rise in this time of utter oversaturation? I subscribe to a number of newsletters there, including Dada Drummer by Damon Krukowski (Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi dude who gives great insights into the music industry) and Dana Margolin from the incredible group Porridge Radio.
2) Bandcamp: I’m also closely watching dear Bandcamp as it transitions to new ownership. That site is so fucking necessary for artists’ survival and for music culture! I desperately want it to get the support it deserves and needs. Fingers and toes crossed so hard.
From these choices, it’s probably obvious that I have a lot of fears around a sustainable economy for professional musicians... I’m always interested in brands that offer innovative / non-traditional revenue streams to artists.
🙋♂️ The importance of alone time
What is one thing I can't live without would be time on my own! I’m lucky to have a busy career and a beautiful wife and little child. In addition to my focus on Sober 21 / MusiCares, I do a lot of work with people recovering from addiction. I’ve been clean & sober for many years, and it helps me to pass it on. So all of that takes up most of my waking hours. But I work hard to make a bit of time to be alone, too. It’s foundational for my sanity.
Follow Elia on Instagram & Linkedin and check out his website here.