Nakedly Examined Music Podcast

Jonathan played in the ’80s with the punk/ethnic California band Camper van Beethoven, and he has since put out 40+ solo albums, sometimes with songs, sometimes guitar improvisations, or instrumental music for dance or film. We discuss his lengthy art-rock songs with political content: “Sleep for a Hundred Years” and the title track from Superfluity (2017), then look back to &#82...

Nik had some huge hits in the ’80s (e.g., “Wouldn’t It Be Good” from 1984’s Human Racing ) and has been described by Elton John as “the best songwriter of a generation.” We discuss “These Tears” from his most recent album EI8GT (2012), “Lost” from You’ve Got to Laugh (2006), and the acoustic re-recording of 1984’s &#8220...

Robbie has recorded 12 solo albums of crafty-lyric, country-folk music since 1996, including 2016’s Grammy-nominated Upland Stories . We discuss “America is a Hard Religion” and “Fare Thde Well, Carolina Gals” from that album, then look back to “Where There’s a Road” from Georgia Hard (2005) and conclude with “I Told Her Lies” from South...

The Love and Rockets singer/guitarist started in the Goth band (before there was Goth) Bauhaus in the late ’70s/early ’80s, then shifted briefly to record flippant dance songs with Tones on Tail , then was known for tuneful and sometimes acoustic New Wave with Love and Rockets , reaching the height of fame with “ So Alive ” (1989) before switching to electronica , a realm h...

Todd held down the beat and wrote some songs for Grand Rapids, MI’s Molly in the ’90s through 2003, then wrote a few more songs and sang a bit for Dutch Henry for about ten years, then pushed forward to sing and write all the songs for his projects The Star Darts and now Cartorson. We discuss Cartorson’s new Richfield Skyline EP, specifically “The Last Time,” plus &#8...

Asif led the highly textured Canadian pop band MIR from 1998 to 2008, and has since then recorded with real instruments for commercials and film soundtracks, and released a one-man-band album Synesthesia in 2013, designed to sound like a missing link between the Police’s Synchronicity and Sting’s Dream of the Blue Turtles . We discuss the title track and “Electrical” from t...

Bradley started as a drummer, graduated to front-guy, and in 2005 formed the Bay Area band, The Bye-Bye Blackbirds, which inhabits the niche of Byrds-influenced “power pop” even though Bradley really doesn’t like that term or its sometimes very shallow connotations. We discuss the band’s 2016 boogie single “ Let Your Hair Fall Down ,” the country ballad “H...

Michael has played on 500+ recordings and studied with jazz legend Jaco Pastorius . He was the house bassist for the Windham Hill label in the ’80s and has put out seven solo albums since then, with increasing focus on solo works. He expands what electric bass can do by using many tunings, even retuning on the fly using a custom-built system, using his bass as a percussion instrument, and so...

Seven-time Grammy winning drummer Paul Wertico and his multi-instrumentalist/filmmaker/soundscaper cohort David Cain are two-thirds of Wertico, Cain and Gray, an improvisational trio who have released five albums since 2013, each capturing a live event, or in the case of the most recent Short Cuts , an afternoon creating 40 short improvisations. Their style has been described as “impressioni...

Jason fattens out his eclectic guitar pieces by writing string and horn parts, and The Jason Seed Stringtet includes members of the Chicago Symphony sawing away furiously. We’ll discuss “Ishtar,” a Bulgarian/Latin-inflected piece from In the Gallery (2013), “Any Night Now” a more traditional chamber jazz number from 2015, and the Zappa-esque “Mammoth” from...

Jill was part of a 3-woman vocal band in the ’80s called The Life is Grand Band, and then in 1995 released Songs About Sex & Depression , and only in 2015 unveiled her long-awaited study of the dark psychology of fairy tales, A Handmade Life . We focus on this most recent project, discussing “Letters from Murdertown” and “Eyes of Fire,” and playing at the end &#82...

Steeleye Span rocked up traditional British folk songs in the ’70s, and Peter’s fiery violin was a key part of the sound. Starting with Sails of Silver (1980), they added folky-sounding originals to the mix, and Peter’s (often piano-based) compositions (like the hit “ Let Her Go Down “) were among the group’s most heartfelt. His current unit is the trio Peter Kn...

This orchestral tubist and pop songwriter has merged his two worlds to compose fun new additions to the solo tuba repertoire and classically influenced piano-vocal songs (with scores!). We discuss two selections from Pat’s 2015 debut album released with his singing wife Bridgid, Dare to Entertain : The tuba duet “Mendota” (performed with Jacob Grewe) and the vocal tune “Lov...

Bill played with all of your top three ’70s prog bands, as the original drummer for Yes, a default member of King Crimson, and even briefly played live with Genesis . His near-final foray into pop stardom was with U.K. in the late ’70s, but most of his output has been with his own jazz-inflected bands Earthworks and Bruford, as rock proved too confining for his rhythmic and tonal creat...

Tyler can rap endlessly, and has filled up ten lengthy albums full of his machine-gunned musings on life and politics, usually over his own soundscapes, but sometimes using sampled or preexisting backgrounds, usually alone but often with another rapper or two. This is an exceptionally clear, insightful introduction to indie hip-hop to those like me that have seldom listened to this form outside of...

Sean writes music for video games. He uses five computers linked together, with memory-hogging, massively realistic orchestra sounds, and he performs every part, usually with a breath controller, to allow for dynamics and expression. These are nearly always two minutes long and loop. We discuss three pieces from the last couple of years: “Beyond the Desert” (from Empires Apart , forthc...

Jon has been a key member of art collective The Mekons since 1977, injecting country/folk/reggae/etc. influences into a seminal punk band to create an inimitable melange that has put out 19 albums, plus he puts out solo albums and is involved with many side projects including the country-punk Waco Brothers. His formula, whether dealing with his own songwriting, with how his work gets churned by th...

Trey is one of a small group of masters of a many-stringed type of guitar/bass that you play by tapping with both hands at the same time, sort of like a keyboard. His mentor was Robert Fripp, with whom he played in the ’90s and ’00s lineups of the seminal progressive rock band King Crimson. He has also released over a dozen exploratory solo albums and numerous collaborations that are m...

Dave is a consummate craftsman in the acoustic singer-songwriter vein, painting vivid, audience-involving lyrical pictures. As an added bonus, he’s an amazing guitar player, who for 15 years or so has acted as sideman for ’70s Brit-legend Al Stewart, i.e., filling in the entirety of the musical palette apart from Al’s singing and strumming. Plus, Dave has a philosophy Ph. D., and...

Chad’s 2015 album Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are has received heaps of nice reviews , with its carefully crafted, groove-oriented soundscapes and cinematic lyrics. We discuss “Afrikaner Barista” and “Steven & Tiwonge,” and then go back to Beauty Pill’s first release with “The Idiot Heart” from the The Cigarette Girl Of The Future EP (2...

Jill is a big personality, rivaling Elvis Costello in the creation of acerbic, stylistically varied singer-songwriter material, and she’s been putting out tuneful, story-laden albums since 1990. We discuss “Jetpack” from Underdog Victorious (2004) and get to meet her frequent co-writer Robin Eaton , then “Empty Glass” (co-written with playwright Elise Thoron ) from Ca...

Carrie fronted Seattle grunge favorite Hammerbox in the early ’90s, then moved to the more poppy guitar rock band Goodnes s for the latter part of the decade, and released three solo albums in the ’00s. The overall movement is from harsh exuberance to quiet reflectivity, and Carrie’s role evolved with her starting off as new newbie to rock bands singing over already-composed musi...

Narada started as a fusion drummer in the ’70s (with Mahavishnu Orchestra , Jeff Beck , Weather Report , Santana, etc.) then released numerous solo albums and produced and wrote for artists like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, and many more. He believes in working fast: creating a mood and getting the most out of it. We discuss “Freedom” (written by Richie Havens...

Craig led Shudder to Think from 1986 to 1998 and has since had a solo career and done soundtrack work, often for members of the comedy team The State like childhood friend David Wain . Shudder to Think was a band that started as part of Washington DC’s “hardcore” scene, but challenged musical conventions to try to achieve U2-level success with Captain-Beefheart-level weirdness (t...

After serving a stint with the Flaming Lips, Jonathan has been putting out albums with Mercury Rev since 1991. Over time, their music has shifted from noisy alternative rock to symphonic, soundtrack pop songs… still psychedelic, but now with an unapologetically Disneyesque influence, with the magic of nature swirling out through harp glissandos and french horns, all standing behind a simple,...