There’s a chapter in my memoir, My Life in the Sunshine, where I dive into a bunch of racial microaggressions I faced while co-owning Sonic Boom Records in Seattle back in the late '90s and 2000s. Initially, I wrote that I didn’t experience much racism in Seattle. But as I reflected more, small incidents started popping into my head, and before I knew it, there were enough to delete that opening sentence.
Flashback to the early 2000s: the band Maktub was on the brink of stardom—ready to break out of Seattle like so many before them. We sold hundreds of their self-released CDs at Sonic Boom, often ordering them by the box, which the band members would deliver themselves with pride and speed.
Maktub’s singer, Reggie Watts, was a charismatic guy with a giant Afro that made him stand out in Seattle's predominantly white indie rock scene (though Maktub wasn’t an indie rock band). Reggie and I weren’t close; we'd exchange hellos or nods at shows and bars, then go about our business. I always wondered how he navigated that scene—a scene that had, despite some minor issues, treated us both pretty well.
Fast forward to years later: I bumped into Reggie while we were both in line outside a Future Islands show in New York. We had our longest conversation ever, which was just a couple of minutes. This was around 2014/15, and by then, Reggie's star had risen significantly—he had just started as the leader of the house band on "The Late Show with James Corden." Now he’s an accomplished comedian, actor, musician, and the author of the excellent memoir, Great Falls, MT. Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again.
A few months ago, Reggie and I reconnected in Los Angeles to tape an episode of Identified, where we caught up on—among other things—the differences and similarities between our bi-racial upbringings in Montana and Utah. Listen HERE.
Here’s a quick one-minute excerpt from our conversation that didn’t make the podcast: me reminding Reggie of our shared past as we got comfortable on the couch:
Last summer at a book event in Port Townsend, WA, I found myself in a cozy backstage room with musician Ben Lee and actor Ione Skye, the hosts of the Weirder Together podcast, who were set to go on after me. In our short conversation, we covered a lot: Ben once played an in-store at Sonic Boom, and Ione, having seen my talk, related to my story of an absent father—hers is the musician Donovan, whom she didn’t meet until she was eighteen.
“Do you want to talk about it on my podcast?” were the next words out of my mouth. Identified was only an idea at that point, but Ione seemed like the perfect guest. When we met again several months later in Los Angeles, I went into our conversation knowing only about Ione’s amazing acting career (Say Anything, River’s Edge, Wayne’s World) and the brief sentence she shared about her father. Ione’s memoir, Say Everything, is out in early 2025, so I consider our conversation an introduction to what will surely be a fascinating book. Listen HERE.
Did you see my favorite New Yorker—my uncle, Alan Braufman—in The New Yorker?! A few weeks ago, Alan took the writer Nick Paumgarten on a walking tour of what used to be some important jazz spots in lower Manhattan in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. It’s a great read.
The first seven episodes of Identified are live now. It begins with Karen Ayers, a living descendant of the man who enslaved my paternal ancestors. After that, it’s musician and Song Exploder podcast host Hrishikesh Hirway, musician Dawn Richard, KCRW host Novena Carmel, Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel, Comedian Reggie Watts, and actor Ione Skye. A new episode will drop every Thursday for the foreseeable future. Identified is available on all major podcast platforms, 100% free and ad-free. You can watch short video clips on YouTube and Instagram.
I hope you’ll give Identified a listen and share it with others who might enjoy it.
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My memoir is called My Life in the Sunshine. You can order it here, or listen to the audiobook on Spotify.
I hope to see you somewhere soon. Upcoming events are always listed here.
Nabil Ayers / Brooklyn