Poetic Wax: Music History Hidden in the Grooves
Poetic Wax is a short weekly podcast where host Andy Fenstermaker digs deep into his vast record collection to uncover and share the history of bands, albums, songs, and more. Poetic Wax explores music history in all its forms, from new angles on things widely covered to the little known moments that create monumental change.
- Update frequency
- every 4 days
- Average duration
- 12 minutes
- Episodes
- 71
- Years Active
- 2024 - 2025
How A Horse Accident Drove Blonde Redhead's Transformation
It's time to go deep into the history and story of Misery is a Butterfly, the 2004 album by Blonde Redhead. We'll go deep, exploring the band's noise pop origins and their move from Smells Like to To…
The BIZARRE Story of How the Velvet Underground Met Andy Warhol
The Velvet Underground is one of the most influential bands in rock history, and their collaboration with pop art icon Andy Warhol has a lot to do with that. This is the BIZARRE story of how The Velv…
How Arcade Fire Changed Indie Rock: The Story of 'Funeral'
From Grief to Greatness: this is a history of Arcade Fire's debut album Funeral and how it changed indie rock. Funeral was released in September 2004, birthed from the collective grief of the band af…
Modest Mouse and the Story of 'Float On'
This is the story of "Float On" and how a slew of bad events led Modest Mouse to create the greatest perseverance anthem of all time. Their 2004 album "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" turns 2…
The Story of Mercer Arts Center and the Rise of CBGB's and Punk Rock
Before CBGB's there was the Mercer Arts Center. This is the wild story of the hotel that housed that venue, it's collapse, and how it led to the rise of CBGB's and punk rock. Today we touch on a few …
The Smashing Pumpkins and the 1979 Ultimatum
One of the reasons I started the Poetic Wax Podcast is that I love digging deep into the often little known history of bands, albums, and songs in my record collection.
Sometimes it's shocking how qu…
Radiohead and the Sabotage that Made 'Creep' a Masterpiece
Sabotage doesn't usually lead to good things. On a rare occasion, however, it does. This is the story of how an act of sabotage in the studio created the defining sound that led to Radiohead's first …
How "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana Saved Rock Music
The speed as which "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and the album it opened, Nevermind, catapulted grunge and alt rock band Nirvana into the mainstream in 1991 is unparalleled. Not just was the song the ant…
The Sonics and the Origins of Punk Rock
Punk originated during the mid 1970s, but its beginnings are steeped in the underground scene dating back to the mid 1960s. Today, Andy Fenstermaker with Poetic Wax looks at proto punk and its origin…
Jack White and the First Elvis Presley Recording
In 2015, Jack White anonymously purchased the one off copy of Elvis Presley's first recording, "My Happiness" b/w "That's When Your Heartache Begins."
This is the story of how that two-song record ca…
The Smashing Pumpkins and the Song From Siamese Dream Saved Billy Corgan's Life
In 1992, Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins wrote what might very well be the most upbeat song about hopelessness and hitting rock bottom: "Today." Many look no further than the opening line "Toda…