Kyle Thiermann podcast, June 2020
Two Santa Cruz natives talk about navigating editorial tides, dealing with malfunctioning tape recorders and wearing a kimono to the Playboy Mansion.
About
I’m a copywriter with years of experience as a magazine editor and freelance writer. I love working on vivid, urgent stories, whether they take the form of memoirs, push notifications or something in between.
I grew up in Santa Cruz and attended UC Berkeley and the New School while playing in bands that toured the U.S., Japan and much of Western Europe. After years of freelance writing (and more touring, and contributions to roughly a dozen albums), I signed on as managing editor of PAPER magazine—just in time to work on the notorious Break the Internet issue. I moved to L.A. in 2015 and soon found myself at Playboy, where I served as an executive editor for four years.
These days I’m a copywriter at MasterClass and a member of two or so bands.
This Was the Scene podcast
Jersey boy Mike Doyle interviewed me about the band my friends and I started in high school. According to the episode notes, topics include "The German Skinhead Story."
James Rickman Leads Playboy In the #MeToo Era
“I’m fascinated by the Rorschach test that is Playboy,” Rickman says. “All I can do is embrace a certain amount of complexity and allow that all those reactions are genuine."
People Get Ready: "Middle Name" live
An excerpt from Specific Ocean, a “melding of independent music and contemporary dance” (NYT) that premiered at New York Live arts in Oct 2012.
New Book Looks at the Rise and Fall of Ska Bands
In this excerpt from the new book In Defense of Ska, author Aaron Carnes explains why ska needs defending, and how Santa Cruz’s most popular ’90s ska band, Slow Gherkin, lost its way.
The Cinnamon Boys: Everybody’s in L.A. dress rehearsal
A strange and glorious day that included the careful steaming and pressing of our street clothes and a lovely exchange with Richard Kind about The Producers.
