Stereo Embers: The Podcast

"Somewhere Between Joe Gould And Lee Mavers" “The supreme question about a work of art,” James Joyce once wrote, "is out of how deep a life does it spring.” If you tried to plumb the fathoms for a measurable reading of the life of Cathal Coughlan—well, the depth finder would crack right in half. Coughaln’s life has been a rich and textured affair and his talent is vast and incomprehensibly majestic. With his band Microdisney, The Cork -born musician put out several of the most affecting albums ever made. Efforts like The Clock Comes Down the Stairs in 1985 or the following year’s Crooked Mile, are front to back classics. After he and his bandmate Sean O-Hagan dissolved Microdisney and O-Hagan went on to form the High Llamas, Coughlan fired up the Fatima Mansions—an aggressive, fiery and angular outfit, that played synth-laced alternative rock that churned away with grinding and brutal beauty. Viva Dead Ponies and Lost In The Former West are two personal favorites, but the fact is, I love every album in their discography. Over the course of his career Coughlan put out a series of brilliant solo albums, collaborated with the likes of comic Sean Hughes and British singer/songwriter Luke Haines, scored movies like The Last Bus Home and The Mapmaker, toured with U2, appeared onstage in a contemporary opera, and reformed Microdisney for a brief series of triumphant shows. His new album Song of Co-Aklan is a work of startling beauty and precision. Imbued with poetic invention and finesse, haunting melodies, riveting ballads and an unmistakable wisdom and pop grace, Coughlan has never sounded better. This is a deep and focused conversation that can’t be encapsulated in a sentence or two—you just have to listen. But we do touch on Lee Mavers, friendship, Sting, the legend of Joe Gould, the vulnerability of solo shows and staying prolific during lockdown. Digital pre-order https://orcd.co/songofcoaklan CD / Vinyl pre-order (USA) https://amzn.to/3jcx8CM CD / Vinyl pre-order (UK) https://ffm.to/songofcoaklanalbum

"Despondent Transponder Sacramento Shoegaze Blues" The Fleeting Joys’ 2006 debut Despondent Transponder slipped on the shoegaze radar with little fanfare, but fifteen years later, the album is considered a front to back classic. Awash in soaring melodies, fuzzed up guitars and hypnotic arrangements, the album sounds like a heavenly blend of lifting fog, exploding comets and outer space bliss. A bit of My Bloody Valentine, a bit of Sonic Youth and a touch of Ride--sure, all of that--but the Fleeting Joys have their own brand of magic that made subsequent releases like Speeding Away To Someday and Occult Radiance instant sonic treasures. The Sacramento band, which is fronted by the married team of John and Rorika Loring, know when to soar and when to punch and when to skyrocket into the stratosphere—not only that, they know when it’s safe to land. There’s new music on the way, there’s a vinyl reissue of Despondent Transponder, there might be some live shows and there’s a reason why the Fleeting Joys don’t think it’s important to do things in order. In this chat, John and Rorika talk about their musical roots, their love of Sonic Youth and how the creative process works when your creative partner lives in the same house….

“Modern Yesterdays” Over the course of her career, the Georgia-born, NYU-educated Kaki King has put out nine spellbinding albums, including her 2003 debut Everybody Loves You, the staggering 2006 effort Until We Felt Red and her brand new one Modern Yesterdays. Kaki King is a force. But she’s the kind of force that you can’t really define. She plays guitar like nobody else—and whether she’s incorporating jazz or flamenco or post rock, whatever she does sounds like something nobody’s ever done. Her percussive style and her fret tappings and her open tunings are beyond us to explain in a technical sense so let's just say this: Kaki King plays the guitar with an otherworldly flair. But even that falls short. Kaki King is a Jedi. And what we mean by that is what she does is so special, so rare and so staggering, when you listen to her play you can feel the force at work. And you can’t put words to it—you only know that what she’s doing is one of the great mysteries of the universe. And though that mystery is mysterious to us civilians, Kaki is in complete control of her gift and she’s fluid, she’s powerful and she’s got the kind of percussive finesse that’s about as mystical as it gets. If you know her music you know what we’re talking about. And if you know her music you know that there’s not way to talk about it. In this conversation Kaki talks to Alex about life during quarantine with two small children, how normal it will actually feel when things go to normal and her love of Spoon...

“Anxiety and Art” The New York born Gracie Martin’s music is nothing short of revelatory. A dreamy mix of indie folk and hypnotic pop, she brings to mind everyone from Kate Nash to Kate Bush. Martin starting writing songs at 11, started styling classical voice at 13 and started playing guitar at 15. She got her BFA in acting from the University of the Arts and was involved extensively in the theatre community of Philadelphia Her 2017 debut EP Unconscious revealed an out of the box talent who wrote about the rickety world around us with a hypnotic and poetic steadiness. The songs were riveting, arresting and captivating. From there she put out a string of fabulous singles, did the soundtrack for the Wilma Theaters production of Romeo and Juliet and now she’s back with Dreams Die, which you just heard. An album is in the works, live shows could happen depending on the health of the world out there and there’s more to come from Gracie Martin. The fact is, she’s so talented, she could do anything. And she will. Now, it’s true that most artists have a familiar relationship with anxiety. And that anxiousness can be about anything—life, love, money, the actual creative process itself. It can get pretty tense. In this chat, Gracie talks about her own experience with anxiety and the workarounds that it forced her to come up with to deal with it. Look, she’s not alone—we all have it in one form or another and this conversation is about Gracie, but it’s also about the rest of us. We also chat about the rigors of college, cultivating a persona and voice as an artist and becoming desensitized to the quarantine….

"Renewal, Regeneration, Revival" Clocking in at just under two minutes, "Stays With You” from Blesson Roy's debut album Think Like Spring perfectly exemplifies what the band does best—craft great pop songs that take no time at all to lift off. The band’s braintrust is the L.A.-raised Terry Borden, who grew up in the '80s loving punk rock but also loving all that great stuff from the UK that could be found on 4AD or Creation or Rough Trade. He played in Pete Yorn’s band and he was a member of the legendary slow core outfit Idaho. His debut album as Blesson Roy has the perfect title in Think Like Spring—after all, the record is about renewal, regeneration and revival. A dreamy blast of layered melodies, textured choruses and mesmerizing soundscapes, Think Like Spring is emotional, thoughtful and vulnerable and it soars mightily away with the kind of muscle and grace that brings to mind everything from the Cocteau Twins to Ride. The songs and the creation of the recordings, Borden says, “Felt like a warm place in a cold and dangerous world.” In this engaging conversation Borden talks to Alex about growing up in Los Angeles, his love of Echo and the Bunnymen, his relationship with the past and the difficulty of making friends as we get older.

"Love Makes The World" Well, he may live on a remote farm now, but back in the 80s there was nothing remote about Andrew Farris. The guy was everywhere. The Perth-born/Sydney-raised musician got his start in a band called Doctor Dolphin, but you probably know him best from his second band: INXS A multi-instrumentalist adept at piano, harmonica, and guitar, Farris and his brothers Tim and Jon along with Michael Hutchence, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers were at one point the biggest band on the planet. And that was at a really competitive time—you had U2, Depeche Mode, R.E.M., and DURAN DURAN--and INXS at their peak were bigger than all of them.They put out ten records with Hutchence and two others after his death and they were elected to the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. Pals since high school, Farris and Hutchence were a lethal songwriting combination and Farris really was the sonic architect of INXS’s sound. Not only that, but he co-wrote all but one of the band's top-40 hits in the U.S. Farris went on to produce for everyone from GUN to Yotu Yindhi and Jenny Morris and he snagged a Producer of the Year award at the ARIAS in 1990. He was inducted into the Australian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016 and in 2020 he was awarded with the Member of the Order of Australia. His new EP "Love Makes The World” is a country-tinged offering that’s contemplative, captivating and comforting. It’s a thoughtful blend of rootsy rock and lush acoustic numbers that perfectly capture the wondrous things the world does to the human heart. It’s aching, it’s wistful and it’s utterly lovely work. In this conversation Farriss talks to Alex about the joys of hard work, what it’s like to live in such a remote location and what made him pick up a guitar and write this new batch of such inspired material.

“When We Were Young” The Dublin outfit Whipping Boy have just three albums to their name-- Submarine, Heartworm and their posthumous self-titled effort. Look, all three are brilliant, but Heartworm is considered by many to be a front to back classic. A staggering collection of anger, passion, poetry, and grace, sonically Heartworm falls somewhere between A House and The Fall—it grinds away with staggering melodic beauty and streetwise lyrical grit and it shoots light out from every note that’s played. It is a straight up, stone cold stunner. When they formed in 1988 they were Lolita and the Whipping Boy, but when their lineup solidified, and it was Fearghal McKee (vocals), Paul Page (guitar), Myles McDonnell (bass, vocals), and Colm Hassett (drums), they shortened their name to just Whipping Boy. They were a dark and powerful band capable of staggering beauty and edgy elegies that were redolent with wisdom and philosophy. Their influence can still be heard today in bands like The Fontaines DC and Shame and if you put on any of their three albums, the urgency, the intensity and the muscle sound as fresh as ever.If they’d stuck around? Who knows. They might have ruled the world. They certainly had all the tools at their disposal. But the band were done in '98 and that was that. Did they give us enough? You and I both know that it could never be enough—we’re fans, we’re greedy that way. In this interview, Whipping Boy guitarist Paul Page talks to Alex about the band’s love for Big Black, his admiration of Johnny Marr and why he hasn’t picked up the guitar in years. He also talks about touring with Lou Reed, what it would take for him to play again and his relationship with the other guys in Whipping Boy. Paul Page is a great guy and this is an honest, unflinching chat about what was, what could have been and all that tricky stuff in between.

"We Will Get Through This" Frank Figliuzzi was with the FBI for 25 years, most notably serving as the Bureau's Assistant Director who headed the counterintelligence division. He also was appointed the FBIs chief inspector position, overseeing sensitive internal inquiries. A graduate of Fairfield University and UConn School of Law, Figliuzzi currently is a Nationaal Security analyst for NBC news and an in-demand public speaker. His new book "The FBI Way" is a user-friendly tour through the bureau's code of excellence. Figliuzzi demonstrates that not only are the core values of code, conservancy, clarity, consequences, compassion, credibility and consistency hallmarks of the FBI, they are universal truths that could guide anyone in any discipline through any situation. In this chat, Figliuzzi talks to Alex about repairing a tarnished reputation, intentional versus unconscious error and whether or not he and James Comey are pals. And he also tells Alex of this tumultuous time in our nation's history: "We will get through this."

"If It’s Not Personal, It’s Not Art" The Oakland-born Bill Champlin’s High school band The Opposite Six became Sons of Champlin in the mid '60s and if you’re familiar with rock and roll history, being in a band in the bay are in the mid '60s—well, that was pretty much the sweet spot. Sons of Champlin shared bills with the Grateful Dead, The Band, Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and the Fish. A gifted pianist, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, it didn’t take long for everyone to want the services of Bill Champlin, After a handful of excellent albums with Sons of Champlin, Bill left the band and from there his list of musical accomplishments is so extensive if they were listed on LinkedIn, LinkedIn would break. I can’t list them all here, so let me give you a partial list: Champlin has worked with REO SPEEDWAGON, DAVID FOSTER, BARRY MANILOW, ELTON JOHN, AMY GRANT, PATTI LABELLE, THE TUBES and BOZ SCAGGS. He won a couple of Grammys—one for co-writing "After The Love Has Gone" which was made massive by Earth Wind And Fire, and another for co-writing “Turn Your Love Around,” which George Benson made an eternal classic. That would be enough for anyone, but Champlin just kept going. He joined Chicago in '82 and with that band Champlin co-wrote and sang on tracks like 'Hard Habit To Break' and 'Look Away." Champlin has appeared on hundreds of songs that are still blasted across the airwaves every single day. Put it this way, whenever you walk into Whole Foods and music is playing? Chances are, Bill Champlin is on that song. Champlin has put out 10 solo albums and his new one Livin' For Love is out at the end of this month. It’s his first album in 10 years and Champlin describes it as the best record he’s ever made. Hard to argue with that. It’s a stunner—featuring incredible arrangements, stirring vocals and poignant and powerful songwriting, Bill Champlin has never sounded better. In this conversation, Champlin talks to Alex about Donna Summer, Fall Out Boy and how art should be personal. He also talks about his friendships with folks like David Foster and Peter Cetera, his take on CCR and his love of stacking guitars in the studio.

“Knocking Down Walls, Tearing Up Floors” In baseball terms, Suzanne Santo can pitch, play shortstop, bat cleanup, handle the outfield and play any base you want. Oh, and she can also manage the team. When you talk about Suzanne Santo you’re talking about someone who can do a lot of things. She got going on the violin in 2nd grade and it didn’t take long for the Ohio-born prodigy to come into her own as a musician. A high school scholarship followed for the young violinist and before she was 20 Santo had become pretty adept on both banjo and guitar as well. She fronted the L.A.-based band honeyhoney with Ben Jaffe who you might remember from his appearance on our podcast—and that band put out three perfect albums. A stirring confluence of indie rock, riveting roots music and West coast soul, honeyhoney toured with Sheryl Crow and Jake Bugg, logged millions of Spotify streams and found themselves hailed by everyone rom Rolling Stone to NPR. Santo’s debut solo album Ruby Red was a stunning platter of poetic folk and gutsy blues, showcasing the singer/songwriter’s arresting lyrical acumen. Bringing to mind the stark immediacy of Patty Greffin and the literate wordplay of everyone from Kurt Cobain to Liz Phair, Ruby Red was as nervy as it was vulnerable Her new work is as searing as it is rousing. Her voice has never sound better and 2021 looks to be a banner year for the musician. In this candid conversation, Santo talks to Alex about how she’s staying both sane and creative during the pandemic, why she feels great about being single and why she decided to knock down a wall in her house.