Before The Stream

About Before The Stream

An in depth look back at albums I listened to growing up and the listening experience. Jason Bemis Lawrence, creator and host of Before The Stream, is a singer/songwriter and a drummer with bands like Heather Woods Broderick, The Building, and Jesse Marchant. In this podcast, Jason and a guest will be checking in on a record they both listened to abundantly in the past to see what memories the record conjures, what holds up, and what has changed about.. well, everything.

Publisher

Jason Lawrence

Category

music · music

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

28 Apr 2020

Latest episode

14 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 72 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   14 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, with Rob Collier

   Beatles scholar Doctor Rob Collier and host Jason Bemis Lawrence discuss Paul McCartney's 2005 album "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," exploring its place in his catalog and Nigel Godrich's production.

2. 

   19 Sept 2025

   Elvis Costello: Spike, with Peter Morén

   Swedish singer/songwriter Peter Morén (Peter, Bjorn, and John (https://www.instagram.com/peterbjornjohn/?hl=en)) joins the podcast to talk about Elvis Costello's 1989 album Spike and Peter's new SunYears album The Song Forlorn (https://bio.to/SunYearsYT). Jason and Peter talk about how Peter got started with Elvis Costello and Spike, making albums, lyrics, collaboration, how ambitious albums can remain coherent, and much more. The talk transitions to Peter's career and process, and the making of The Song Forlorn. Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: beforethestreampodcast@gmail.com (mailto:beforethestreampodcast@gmail.com) Instagram: beforethestream (https://www.instagram.com/beforethestream/) linktr.ee/beforethestream (https://linktr.ee/beforethestream)

3. 

   4 Feb 2025

   Soul Asylum: Slowly But Shirley, with Rob Collier

   Soul Asylum again? And their new album from 2024? When Jason and Rob Collier (https://robcolliermusic.com/) saw that the title of Soul Asylum's new album quoted the movie Airplane! they knew they had to follow up on their previous episodes about Grave Dancer's Union and Let Your Dim Light Shine. Do you have to have heard the album to enjoy this talk? Definitely not. And don't call me Shirley. Rob and Jason play the Dave Pirner lyrics game, consider other quotes from Airplane! and what kind of album titles they might've made, talk about Soul Asylum's evolution, and get into details from the album. Rob also talks a bit about his current and future projects, including more educational and Beatles-related material on his YouTube channel. (https://www.youtube.com/@recoll05) Subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Email: beforethestreampodcast@gmail.com (mailto:beforethestreampodcast@gmail.com) Twitter: beforethestream (https://twitter.com/beforethestream) Instagram: beforethestream (https://www.instagram.com/beforethestream/) linktr.ee/beforethestream (https://linktr.ee/beforethestream)

Inside a recent episode

Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, with Rob Collier

Published 14 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] It's probably nothing that Lennon would have ever come up with. But McCartney had this way of being like really, really specific about like kind of inventing characters in his lyrics and being really specific about them. And that was something that he continued to do is sort of like create characters and either sing about a character or create a character and sort of sing from that character's perspective. So you don't ever know if like, yeah, what you're hearing from him is, is this like how he feels or is, yeah, is he singing from a character's perspective? But yeah, that thing of like, kind of coming up with a little turn of phrase and sort of building lyrics around a really simple phrase is also something that he did a whole lot of. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

375

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

23 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 72 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

89

Social presence

0

YouTube

66

Engagement

71

Contact Before The Stream

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.