This episode is a little different, because what you’re about to hear was recorded live, in front of an audience, right here inside The Sharp Notes record store at the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey. You might catch the room in it: few laughs, knowing nods, and shoppers walking past our front window.

My guest is author and music journalist Alan Light. Over the years he’s written as a rock critic for Rolling Stone, served as editor-in-chief at Vibe and Spin and he’s a regular contributor to The New York Times. He’s also the author of books that take pop culture seriously without draining it of feeling, including The Holy or the Broken, his deep dive into the long, strange ascent of Leonard Cohen's, “Hallelujah.”

His newest book is Don’t Stop: a kaleidoscopic look at Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. The tome is not just the well-worn legend of who was breaking up with whom, but how that record became a kind of emotional public square, the way it keeps pulling in young listeners nearly fifty years later, and why it still shows up everywhere, from TV and comedy sketches to the streaming era and TikTok. Alan’s reporting brings in artists and fans across generations, asking a simple question that turns out to be hard to answer: what is it about Rumours that refuses let go?

In this conversation, we dig into the album’s mythology, its musical intelligence, and its afterlife.

So, here's our live chat. Maybe - next time - you'll join us.

This episode’s guest is one of those rare studio minds who makes the control room feel less like a workplace and more like a laboratory with excellent taste.

Sylvia Massy is a producer, mixer, and engineer whose credits stretch from punk grit to arena-scale rock and beyond. Her name is often spoken as she produced Tool’s Undertow, but her story doesn’t start with platinum plaques. It starts in the mid-’80s trenches, making compilations, working with punk bands, engineering metal records, and learning the kind of hard-won lessons you only get when the tape is rolling and the stakes are real. From there, she becomes a crucial behind-the-boards force in Los Angeles, intersects with the Sound City recording studio mythology, and winds up in the orbit of Rick Rubin’s American Recordings era, touching projects that helped define what “big” sounded like in the ’90s.

But the reason I wanted Sylvia on the show isn’t just the résumé. It’s the method. Sylvia is obsessed, in the best way, with recording technology and the physical stuff of sound. Consoles, mics, outboard gear, oddball techniques, and the kind of creative decisions that make an outsider sit up and pay attention. Her approach is curious, practical, fearless, and frequently hilarious.

We also talk about Studio Confidential, a new live, in-person onstage conversation series launching in New York City. It’s designed to pull back the curtain on legendary sessions and the people who actually built those records from the inside out. The official residency runs February 3 through March 1, 2026 at NYC’s Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, with multiple shows each week.

If Studio Confidential is about pulling back the curtain, Sylvia’s the person you want holding the flashlight.

Some conversations begin with music. This one begins with language. A little French. A little English. When this interview takes place, it's a late night in Brussels, where the streets are quiet, the restaurants are closing down, and Lucien Fraipont (fray-pon), who records and performs under the names Robbing Millions and DUID, is generous enough to stay awake a bit longer and talk about his multifaced career in music.

What follows is less an interview and more a map of how a musician becomes himself. How jazz training folds into electronic textures. How a teenage obsession with Nirvana morphs into a lifelong interest in improvisation. And how a home studio project grows into something restless and alive. Here, alter egos are less about costume changes and more about giving different parts of the same creative mind room to breathe.

We talk about playing alone onstage with samplers and pedals, the strange discipline of improvising inside machines, the Brussels underground, working with Mark Hollander on Aksak Maboul records, and the beautiful problem of wanting to do everything at once: produce, perform, collaborate, wander.

If you care about how music evolves, how scenes survive, and how curiosity keeps artists young, this conversation is for you.