Lars Gotrich

Last week was my kid’s spring break, so it was mine, too. We like to spend our time in a cheap cabin out in West Virginia — these are the CDs that soundtracked our mornings and evenings.

“Oh, right, I gotta do one with no smile!” Sometimes I go to a show and immediately know: Damn, they gotta Tiny Desk! I knew and liked @gweniferraymond before, but it wasn’t until her third album ‘Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark’ that I got a real sense of who she is as a fingerstyle guitarist — that mystery and myth surround her spirit-rattling songs. The growl and rage of noise and punk feel like touchstones, too, tempered by heavy, natural drone. It ended up being my favorite album of 2025. And then I saw her @rhizomedc set: holy hell, Gwen plays her guitar like it’s on fire, her fingers the smoke twirling around the flames. Thrilling, terrifying. So that’s what you get in this Tiny Desk, now on @nprmusic . Just Gwen in that space, which really isn’t so tiny when there’s just one person back there, but her tone, dexterity and ferocity — mesmerizing to witness. In fact, there was a class of high school students in the audience that day, some of whom came up to Gwen afterward to geek out. And that’s what I always want with guitar music: these six-string wonders to be passed down to new generations to make it their own. I’d keep going, but it’s the kiddo’s spring break and I barely knocked out those two grafs over 3 hours 🤪

When I was a kid, I’d spend all of my allowance on music. Generally, a cheap way to own my favorite songs heard on @theoriginal99x (without committing to a $15-$20 CD) was through CD singles and cassingles. @bush ’s “Machinehead” cassingle had a still from the music video wrapped around the O-card (the motorcycle helmet, of course), and a live version of “Alien” on the B-side. Back then, it was the coolest song I’d ever heard: slick, gnarly and angsty, but also sexy (even though I had little concept of what “sexiness” meant at 12 or 13). That riff still elicits an electric jolt through my body. Imagine my shock when, many years later, I saw Bush play at a local county fair — mostly to eat funnel cake with friends and gawk at a ‘90s band in such an environment — and walk away somewhat dumbfounded by a charismatic performance. So when my colleague @josh.newell.recordings pitched Bush for the Tiny Desk, I backed him up: Bush still rocks... like, a lot. (We produced this show together, which turned out to be quite complimentary in our skills: Josh handled everything audio, I coordinated everything else.) If you haven’t kept up with Bush, I get it. But I think folks will be surprised by this set. @gavinrossdale , Chris Traynor, @nikhughesdrum @coreybritz and @joshysoul came with a sound in mind, one that’s familiar, but deeper and even stranger. They asked a lot of questions about our space and were just game to create — total gents throughout the process. That’s always the goal with Tiny Desk: to rearrange or sometimes completely rewire the music. It doesn’t hurt that Josh Newell’s mix might be one of his best since joining our team — it’s thick and rich, but you can feel everything.

If you’d told 13-year-old Lars, who’d just bought ‘A Boy Named Goo’ on CD from Media Play, that his name would appear on a @googoodollsofficial record three decades later, I really wouldn’t have believed you. Thanks, John and Robby. Goo Goo Dolls’ Tiny Desk is now vinyl and streaming services. 📸 @moogiem

Boot shopping with Viking’s Choice. This week: the role of catharsis in music, featuring new albums by @janelleppin and @neurosisoakland . There’s a new mixtape, too, via vikingschoice.org (I keep thinking I’m gonna learn how to edit video, but nah, let it ride.)

Does the world feel like it's speeding up and slowing down a lot lately? 🌎️ NPR Music's Lars Gotrich explains how John McGuire's 'Double String Trios' can help you stop and take time to reflect.⁠ ⁠ Tap the link in our bio to hear about more albums we love.⁠ ⁠ Host: @totalvibration • Lars Gotrich/NPR⁠ Producer: @alanteserene • Alanté Serene/NPR

Beauty supply store shopping with Viking’s Choice. This week: The surprise drop of Fugazi’s ‘In On the Kill Taker’ sessions with Steve Albini. New mixtape featuring Fugazi, @janelleppin , @marisaandersonmusic , @bad_operation , @americfootball , @artsorority , @hannigan.barbara via Buy Music Club or vikingschoice.org

The first time I saw @ganavya perform, she led us in the most beautiful rendition of “Happy Birthday” I’d ever experienced. Let me back up: One evening last fall, in her main trio with @charlesovertonharp and @madridleymusic , Ganavya’s music was absolutely beguiling — a blur of musical and poetic disciplines without a name, but a feeling. A thoughtful, but surprisingly funny storyteller, often in languages that audience didn’t speak, but understood. She taught us how to sing with her, which she does in the Tiny Desk published today. And then, that night, someone called out, “It’s his birthday today!” Which can be a cringe thing! But she saw that the birthday boy was Indian and asked where his family was from. After he answered, she told a long and winding story about that town, finding the threads between her story and his, somehow connecting everyone in the room to the moment. We were in her hands, and we felt safe. So when she asked us to sing “Happy Birthday” to this young Indian man, we wove our stories together... it was angelic. That’s the power of Ganavya’s music. Her Tiny Desk, filmed just days after she and her then-partner (and now husband!) @felix_grimm returned from India, feels like another stop along Ganavya’s pilgrimage. That is Felix, by the way, on shakers, convinced by Ganavya to share the stage with her, despite his protestations — and in a brilliant teal garment, to match the ensemble, no less, freshly procured from their trip. And what an ensemble, some meeting for the first time at rehearsal the day before: Charles, Max, Shahzad Ismaily, @chrispattishall , @suavecito_91 , @adenniye , @manizehrimer and @zoerosedepaz . (1/2)

Walking the dog with Viking’s Choice. This week: Last night I dreamt that @yelyahwilliams found a toy store in the 3rd Street Tunnel. Her new band, Power Snatch (somehow NOT a hardcore band), has a song on the new Viking’s Choice mixtape.

̶T̶e̶a̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ Shoveling out my car with Viking’s Choice. This week: NOISE ROCK CRASH COURSE. A really nerdy list via Baltimore noise rockers BIRTH (DEFECTS), written on the spot at a show last summer for a kid unknowingly about to ruin his life with noise rock. Up now at vikingschoice.org

New-ish year, new thing: Tea time with Viking’s Choice. I’ll highlight one song from the mixtape via vikingschoice.org. This week: the bummer noise-rock chamber music of “it’s only begun” by Szymon Wójcik (@szymonwojcik__________ ) via @sawyer_editions

One of @gr8_grandpa ’s little kids was scared of me. Sometimes it’s the height! Or the beard! (Usually, it’s the beard.) They kept hiding behind the literal grandma tending to them. But humbling situations like that can break the tension of Tiny Desk, which has even stopped some of the biggest pop stars in their tracks. When the song “Digger” was released sometime in 2019, I pulled off my headphones at the office and told my then-podmates (and forever besties) @mrsslrss and @lyndseymck : “This sounds like an emo band that grew up on Sixpence None the Richer!” I had liked Great Grandpa’s earlier, pop-punkier music just fine, but the arrangement and the emotion was a levelling up, like we were let in on significantly higher stakes that were shared. (I told Pat Goodwin about the Sixpence comparison; he was honored ;) So I’m really glad they chose to perform “Digger” and (somewhat deep cut) “English Garden” for this set. Then the band was quiet. As I write in the copy for the Tiny Desk: Life moved on, but bloomed. And for Great Grandpa, that blooming resulted in last year’s ‘Patience, Moonbeam,’ an album that, to me, explores the mystery (and misery and triumph) of life with a kaleidoscopic view and sound. It’s folky and (surprisingly) proggy, but still very much in Great Grandpa’s thoughtful indie rock lane; I’d compare its soft spoken ambition to someone like Bill Fay, but I know the band found inspiration in ‘Abbey Road.’ That translates at the Tiny Desk into something quieter, but no less intricate.