Nakedly Examined Music Podcast

Beth started doing band-type things in grad school, fronted Clear Blue Betty from 2000–2007, then starting in 2009, became a solo artist, co-founding Madison’s Girl’s Rock camp and letting music consume all of her professional activities. She’s a classic singer-songwriter of the write-chords-and-good-lyrics-on-acoustic variety, and her mission is to help others (ladies of all age...

Phil is the long-time string arranger for Tori Amos and has done a heap more production, arrangement, and keyboard work. He has a very deliberate production style, carefully crafting a very natural-sounding theatrical background using both cutting-edge and very old tools. We talk about “Cross the Channel” from the Brik & Shenale EP (2012), Phil’s arrangement and production o...

Bob leads the Madison, WI band The Getaway Drivers ; he shares the vocal duties with his wife Shiela Shigley. Though Bob has displayed a lot of affection toward old-timey, world-weary music since starting off his major songwriting efforts around 2000 at the ripe age of 28ish, The Getaway Drivers’ new album Bellatopia is a conscious attempt to break with that, though Bob still likes telling s...

In 1986, Nick van Eede released a song that will be played long after we are all dead. But he’s got a lot more going on than that, and on his new album (still under the moniker “Cutting Crew”) he’s recorded his best songs from the last decade without regard for continuity with the sound that made him famous. We dip back near that time by talking about another of his ballads...

Roderick Wolgamott Romero founded and fronted the Seattle 90s space rock band Sky Cries Mary , which created beautiful, collaborative music that was beloved by such “world music” champions as Peter Gabriel and David Byrne. So how does a poet get a band? Is a poet’s process different from a typical lyricist’s? On this episode of the Nakedly Examined Music podcast , we discus...

Tim describes himself as not a singer, but a writer with a band, and he shouted at the front of Too Much Joy in the late ’80s–’90s and has since recorded now and again with Jay Blumenfeld from Too Much Joy as the techno-tinged Wonderlick. He’s also a digital music hot-shot, working with Google Play, Rhapsody, and now Freeform . On this episode of the Nakedly Examined Music podcas...

Gary is a guitar virtuoso who’s put out more than 30 albums, typically by writing guitar instrumentals that then get a melody and words added by a singer/songwriter, the most famous of these being Jeff Buckley in the early ’90s, but also Joan Osborne and many others. Gary got his start on Captain Beefheart’s final albums in the early ’80s, and gained from him an intuitive a...

Steve is a one-man band, overdubbing his compositions both in jazz (steel drum!) and pop/rock (featuring his unique and sometimes disco-high voice). He’s also drummed and/or fronted bands (The Bureau/BAMF!, Love Lies Dreaming, Fingers), and in fact co-fronted the college/indie psychedelic/eclectic band The MayTricks with Mark back the early ’90s. The common thread through all of this i...

Jeff was the voice of JudyBats until ’94, and is now Heiskell. He sings with character, or characters, always articulate, overly introspective, with intimacy issues. We discuss his current status as happy, self-funded, free-styled, hands-off yet obsessive compulsive solo artist (with a very intuitive supporting group!), as contrasted with his high-pressure, compromise-filled time on a major...

I bring you the mysterious Gareth Mitchell, a post-rock academic and innovative guitarist who put out two albums of experimental soundscapes under the monicker Philosopher’s Stone and now uses recorded splices of treated guitar (among other things) made into loops to meticulously construct electronic music, as on his upcoming album, 72 , written in the wake of the death of his father. On thi...

Kevin Godley is a multi-media master, having directed many of the coolest music videos you’ve ever seen. But before that, he was half of Godley & Creme and 1/4 of 10cc , singing, drumming, and mostly coming up with ideas, ideas, and more ideas. Today he runs Whole World Band , a platform for collaborative video creation, and recently released his iBook autobiography Spacecake , but he st...

Fritz maintains a cool, direct front-man persona even while engaging in self-help, snarling social commentary, and referencing classic literature. He aims to write simple, repetitive songs that catch you and hit you and make you their dog. He’s been out there since the ’80s, moving around the country from band to band, but consistently delivering the goods. On this episode of the Naked...

Welcome to the premiere episode of Nakedly Examined Music , where a songwriter and I go in depth on three of his or her songs. David is the lead singer of Camper van Beethoven and Cracker , and has of late been a music business professor and a major advocate for artists’ rights, even testifying before Congress . The three songs we discuss are: “ All Her Favorite Fruit ,” by Campe...