Stereo Embers: The Podcast

"Heart Like Thunder" The Colorado-born, Brooklyn-based Hallie Spoor is a true artist. And she's a true athlete. And she knows that to be either one of those things, you've got to put in the reps. Trust me when I tell you, Spoor has put in the reps.The trained opera singer and former collegiate soccer player is well aware of the hard work that's needed to hit a note that carries to the clouds or kick a soccer ball that soars right alongside it. Hallie Spoor's voice is wondrous, elegant and filled with limitless beauty. Her new long player and her fourth overall, is Heart Like Thunder and it's nothing short of spellbinding. Bringing to mind everyone from to Nina Simone to Beth Orton, Spoor's vocal command is a cascading blend of power and grace and her compositions are moving blends of indie folk and rolling jazz.  www.halliespoormusic.com www.bombshellradio.com www.embersarts.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.alexgreenbooks.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"Summer of No Light" The Philadelphia-raised Kip Berman had a musical life before he was the Natvral and that life could be found in his band The Pains of Being Pure At Heart. The beloved New York outfit was around for a little over a decade, calling it a day in 2019 after four perfect albums of indie pop that brought to mind everyone from Aztec Camera to Belle and Sebastian. Berman's 2021 debut as The Natural was the scorching beauty of an album called Tethers, which, for those of you keeping score, was my favorite album of the year. His sophomore album Summer Of No Light is a straight-up killer. It's got all the howl of Basement Tapes era-Dylan and the raw pop smarts of early Dream Syndicate, and it's one of those records that grabs you from the beginning, leaving you mesmerized by its raw and tender power. I love this album. It's somehow feral and polished and it's filled with the most achingly lovely hooks you'll hear all year. www.thenatvral.bandcamp.com www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.embersarts.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"Messages To God" The New Zealand-born Sarah Mary Chadwick fronted the deliciously feral post-Grunge outfit Batrider in the early 2000s. She made her first solo foray with the riveting 2012 album Eating For Two and from there she’s moved from strength to strength with records like Please Daddy and Me And Ennui are Friends, Baby. Her new one Messages To God is nothing short of stunning. An aching blend of Jonathan Richman, Mark E. Smith of The Fall and Rid Of Me-era PJ Harvey, Chadwick has never sounded better. The album is spare and savagely beautiful featuring brilliant songs like Shitty Town and I Felt Things In New Zealand. Chadwick’s raw emotional precision is singular and stunning and she’s one of our favorite musicians ever. IG: @sarahmarychadwick https://sarahmarychadwick.bandcamp.com/music www.killrockstars.com IG: @killrockstarsofficial www.bombshellradio.com www.embersarts.com www.stereoembersmagazinee.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"Entelechy" The work of the Ohio-born Sandy Bell is pure magic. I guess by now, you're getting the feeling I'm a big admirer of what she does. But the work that we're talking about which is so effortless and beautiful, was hard-fought and the journey to get where we are today with Sandy's songs, was fraught with some pretty heavy stuff. We'll let her tell you all about that, but along the way, she went West as many do, and along the way found herself writing songs with Jeff Buckley, which many....don't. She also fronted a band that was on the cusp of some potential '90s glory before she ghosted them, and as she dug her heels into L.A. life, she was also battling deeply serious addiction issues and for a while slipped way off the grid and was living off Hollywood Blvd and grappling with demons that were in a full-time flex of trying to destroy her. But they didn't. Moving to New York with her partner and producer Jeff Lipstein, Bell was revived, rejuvenated and ready to be the artist she was meant to. Her first album When I Leave Ohio is a stone cold stunner--it has the stillness of a Hopper painting and all the raw loneliness of Nick Drake. The follow up, Entelechy, which is a phrase borrowed from Aristotle, which refers to ‘’That which realizes or makes actual what is otherwise merely potential," is, quite simply, one of the best records you'll ever hear. Atmospheric, mesmeric and emotive, Entelechy is a textured song cycle that explores devastation and darkness with the probing eye of a philosopher and the atmospheric lens of a filmmaker. In other words, think David Lynch collaborating with Plato on music that sounds like Karen Dalton fronting the Bad Seeds. It's regenerative, restorative, terrifying, comforting and powered by an enormous heart that beats with hope. Sandy has collaborated with everyone from Rachel Yamagata to Bat For Lashes and now, she's collaborating with us. www.sandybell.com (http://www.sandybell.com) www.bombshellradio.com (http://www.bombshellradio.com) www.stereoembersmagazine.com (http://www.stereoembersmagazine.com) www.embersarts.com (http://www.embersarts.com) Twitter: @emberseditor Instagram: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"Face To Face" Although she got her start behind the drum kit playing for her dad's band, the Detroit-born Suzi Quatro taught herself how to play bass so she could be in her sister's band, The Pleasure Seekers. She moved to England at 21 and released a string of rather massive albums like her 1973 self-titled debut and the searing Your Mamma Won't Like Me in 1975. A pioneering presence in the pop world, Quatro influenced everyone from Joan Jett to Chrissie Hynde to the Talking Heads' Tina Weymouth. A global superstar with over 50 million albums sold, Quatro's CV is a wealth of riches. Here are just a few of her highlights: She toured with Slade and Thin Lizzy, headlined the 'Girls Night Out' at the Isle of Wight Festival, won a handful of Bravo Otto awards, appeared on Happy Days as rocker Leather Tuscadero, was awarded the Icon Award by the Women's International Music Network, was inducted to the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame, received an honorary doctorate in music from Anglia Ruskin University and appeared as Annie Oakley in a London production of Annie Get Your Gun and friends. The singer/songwriter is a stone cold legend and her music is filled with melodic muscle and harmonic smarts. Her new album, a joint effort with Scottish singer/songwriter KT Tunstall is an instant classic. Titled Face To Face, it's a stirring song cycle that's reflective, confessional, tough and tender and catchy as hell. It's a perfect album that's an end to end delight. www.suziquatro.com www.bombshellradio.com (http://www.bombshellradio.com) Stereo Embers www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.embersarts.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast

"The King Of Good Intentions III" John Andrew Fredrick is the author of several books, including one on the early films of Wes Anderson, but he also happens to be the braintrust of the beloved band the black watch, whose extensive body of work is an endless orchard of sonic joy. If you know their work, you know the deal. If you don't, jump in and grab anything they've ever done and work your way forwards and backwards through their nearly 30 album discography--you will not be disappointed. As for John's The King of Good Intentions trilogy, in Part 3, which is the final volume of the series,Fredrick continues to chronicles the misadventures of the '90s indie rock outfit The Weird Sisters and there's a great deal to chronicle: love, love triangles, misunderstandings, madcap episodes and utter rock and roll chaos. The Virginia-born, but Southern California dwelling Fredrick writes with undeniable narrative velocity, comedic charm and a big, big heart. His sentences are fresh and vibrant and it's hard to think of anyone who can craft a better paragraph--the language here is elastic, joyful and commanding and every page sparks with literary momentum. www.theblackwatch.bandcamp.com www.bombshellradio.com www.embersarts.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"Leisureland" Although he was born Eric Goulden in East Sussex, my guest today on the program is perhaps best known in the music industry as Wreckless Eric. Under that moniker he first garnered attention with his song The Whole Wide World, a shambolic blast of joyful punk that landed him a deal with Stiff Records. At the time, Stiff was just getting going and they had Ian Dury Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe on their roster. Not too shabby. The art school graduate was more than just one killer song--since the '70s he's cranked out almost ten perfect solo albums of scruffy pop magic that demonstrate Wreckless Eric is a singular and very special talent. His new album Leisureland is the perfect album to play while you're saying goodbye to summer. Wistful, nostalgic and equal parts ferocious and elegant, Leisureland is filled with ragtag pop, garage stomp, and percussive muscle augmented by beats and loops. And it's fabulous. Over the years he's played with The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Damned, John Wesley Harding, The Proclaimers, and his wife Amy Rigby. His work has been covered by everyone from Cage the Elephant, to Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong. He's also been in a lot of bands like The Len Bright Combo, The Hitsville House Band, and The Donovan of Trash and the fact is, everything he does is wonderful and brilliant and infectious. The guy is the real deal. www.wrecklesseric.com www.bombshellradio.com www.embersarts.com STEREO EMBERS THE PODCAST Twittter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast EMAIL: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"The Long Goodbye" With close to ten fabulous albums under their musical belts, Candlebox have had quite a career. The Seattle outfit has sold millions of records, played Letterman and Woodstock, toured the world with the likes of everyone from Rush, Metallica, Foo Fighters and Our Lady Peace, and over the years counted among their personnel folks from bands like Pearl Jam, Dig and Ugly Kid Joe. And not only that, but their new album The Long Goodbye, might very well be their best yet. A smoldering blast of catchy hard rock and grungy bliss, The Long Goodbye is an affecting song cycle that burns with smoldering intensity on songs like the defiant Punks and bids farewell with the moving Hourglass, which is one of the best album closers in recent memory. So if Candlebox has never sounded better, why are they calling it a day on their career? Well, Kevin will explain and his explanation is hard to argue with. As a fan, it's a tough pill to swallow and in the back of your head you remember that they had breaks before--one was five years and one was a decade, so you think maybe this is a false alarm, but trust us: it's not. So when you listen to this, forget you're a fan and just be a person for a second. And if you can divide those two parts of yourself, you'll see, Kevin's decision to walk away is one that makes sense.  www.candleboxrocks.com www.bombshellradio.com www.alexgreenonline.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.embersarts.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"Paradise Blue" The Seattle-based singer/songwriter Steven Cristol has had quite a career. Well, to be more specific, he's had several careers, but today we're going to talk about the musical one. We'll let him tell you his story but a little background is important before we get to the chat. The Georgia-born Cristol's adventure with music and the music industry found him with incredible highs, like getting a phone call from Harry Belafonte about recording one of his songs to some tough lows that he'll explain, but here's the thing about those lows--what made them so hard was that they came disguised as highs. In other words, it looked like smooth sailing, but then the ship capsized. The emotional whiplash an artist gets was detailed perfectly in our chat with actor Michael Charles Roman a few months back when he talked about booking a sitcom only to have his and everyone else's part recast. Well, this is the music side of that story and it's series of suckerpunches. But this chat is about more than that--it's about self belief, self preservation, and never putting art on the backburner for good. I love the story you're about to hear because it demonstrates the power of creativity and the beauty of art. Steven is a fabulous singer/songwriter whose compositions summon everyone from Jackson Browne to James Taylor. He wrote songs for Starship, Little River Band and Belafonte and for good reason--his precision and lyrical agility are effortless skills that should have made him millions and nearly did. Business strategy consultant, career coach, singer/songwriter and former Fortune 50 executive whose previous business books have been published in 11 languages. His latest book is an unorthodox guide to self-employment, written after more than three decades of successfully sustaining independent work. He also writes about solutions to environmental issues for leading media outlets focused on sustainable business practices. www.stevencristol.net www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.embersarts.com www.alexgreenonline.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

"My Good Friends" The Ohio-born David Wilcox is one of our great treasures. Over the course of his career the singer/songwriter has put out nearly 25 perfect albums, including 1989's How Did You Find Me Here, 1991's Home Again, 2003's Into The Mystery and his brand new one, My Good Friends.Bringing to mind Nick Drake, John Gorka, Milo Binder and Joni Mitchell, Wilcox is one of those rare singer/songwriters whose body of work has no dip in quality. My Good Friends is a perfect example of how Wilcox just keeps crushing it. From the retrospective romp of the title track, to the stirring Just A Trace Of Light to the deeply moving album closer This Is How It Ends, Wilcox has never sounded better. Observational, compelling, and wise, Wilcox's work is always punctuated by an artful blend of delicacy and strength. His resume' is a long one, but some highlights include playing Carnegie Hall, opening for the Indigo Girls, and being on the cover of Acoustic Guitar magazine. www.davidwilcox.com www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.embersarts.com www.alexgreenonline.com Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com