Story

Inspired by the first XOXO, The Magazine editor Glenn Fleishman started The New Disruptors, a podcast interviewing independent artists and makers about their work — many of them past XOXO speakers and attendees. Returning full circle, Glenn interviews three creators—Electric Objects cofounder Zoë Salditch, publicly-traded person K. Mike Merrill, and 20x200 founder Jen Bekman—on our main stage.

In each Song Exploder episode, Hrishikesh Hirway sits down with a musician and dissects one of their songs, analyzing it piece-by-piece to tell the story of how it was made. For the first time, Hrishikesh stages Song Exploder in front of a live audience, featuring Portland's own The Thermals.

John Roderick tells stories. The bearded half of Roderick on the Line and lead singer/songwriter for The Long Winters, Roderick holds court every other week at The Rendezvous in Seattle, spinning yarns from his life touring the world, followed by an interview with a special secret guest. For the first time, he's bringing the Rendezvous out of Seattle to the Redd, but "John Roderick's Redd" sounded silly.

In the two years since keynoting the first XOXO, Dan Harmon's been fired, rehired, cancelled, and rehired as the creator and showrunner for Community, one of the best shows in TV history. This year, he returns to XOXO triumphantly as mayor of Harmontown, his weekly comedy podcast recorded live in Los Angeles. Completely improvised and unscripted, fellow podcaster Erin McGathy and guest comptroller/dungeonmaster Spencer Crittenden join Harmon for a quite-likely NSFW jaunt through his inner psyche. And probably some D&D.