Stereo Embers: The Podcast

“Black Leather On The Inside” Victor DeLorenzo rose to global prominence as the drummer for the Violent Femmes—but he did really cool stuff before that and really cool stuff after. An actor since the age of five, after college DeLorenzo was a member of Theatre X, a pretty punk rock and way ahead of its time improv theatre group, who performed all over the world. He formed the Violent Femmes with B...

"Bleeding Audio And The Life Of A Match" I’m a Bay Area guy, so I remember in the late '90s when this group of kids from Bishop O’Dowd high school in Oakland got things going and started generating a buzz in this community as The Matches. And community is the key word here. The Matches found a way to connect with their audience in the most grass roots of ways—they were super accessible to their fa...

“The Songs Between The Docks and the Roads” Over the course of his career, the east London-born singer/songwriter Graham Parker has put out close to thirty albums and they’re all great. All of them—Whether its Howlin' Wind or Squeezing out Sparks or Another Grey Area or Deepcut To Nowhere or Cloud Symbols, every single GP album is a winner. Parker grew up a huge fan of the Beatles, Otis Redding, S...

“Alan White Remembered: You’ve Got To Be Spot-On” In memory of Alan White (1949-2022), we're re-airing our chat with him from 2020. Being spot-on is what drummer Alan White says you have to be when it comes to being behind the kit for a band like Yes. One of the most technically proficient outfits in rock and roll history, Yes are musically precise and that’s why White has been behind the kit with...

"Cathal Coughlan Remembered: 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...

“Courageous” Róisín O's 2012 debut The Secret Life of Blue was a stirring and sonorous collection that announced her arrival in a big way. Over the course of her career she’s played on bills with everyone from Bryan Ferry to Lionel Richie, opened for her mom on her U.S. tour, formed the band Thanks Breother with John Broe and she’s been known to post YouTube clips of her covering tracks by Selena...

“For The Country” By the time Seth Tiven formed Dumptruck in 1983, he’d already had a few bands under his belt, including Saucers, a band he was in with fellow Connecticut pal Mark Mulcahy who would go on to form Miracle Legion. Tiven had relocated to Boston after graduating from Wesleyan and the supporting cast of Dumptruck had a few personnel changes, but changes aside. their first two albums D...

“Long Live King Kobe” Sherman Chambers’ 21 year old son Tyler Kobe Nichols was murdered in a random knife attack in Brooklyn two days before Christmas in 2020. Nichols, who was with his brother, had just gotten a haircut when the incident occurred. As author Paul Auster writes: “It was a weird and senseless crime…a sudden, unprovoked burst of violence, on a tranquil street in a tranquil Brooklyn n...

“New Jersey Rock and Roll” The New Jersey born Ben Vaughn has put out close to twenty albums, including personal favorites of mine like Beautiful Thing, Mood Swings and Ben Vaughn Blows Your Mind. Aside from his own records, Vaughn has produced records by Ween, Los Straitjackets, Nancy Sinatra, and Charlie Feathers, had his songs covered by everyone from Marshall Crenshaw to Deer Tick and collabor...

“Just One Voice” Michelle Willis has one of those voices that’s so stirring, it makes you feel things you didn’t know you felt. Actually, let’s take that one step further: her voice makes you feel things you didn't even know you could feel in the first place. Yes, she’s that good. The Canadian singer/songwriter and keyboardist decided to hit the 212 back in 2016, which really just means she moved...

“The Circle” The singer/guitarist Jim Shepherd is probably best known for being a part of the legendary indie Scottish outfit the Jasmine Minks. One of the first bands signed to Alan McGee’s Creation Records, the ‘Minks put out a handful of albums, including classics like Another Age and 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 All Good Preachers Go To Heaven. They played with bands like the Violent Femmes, Jesus and Mary C...

“Mosaic” Matt Rollings is a musical monster, with a resume that would make anyone envious. He’s played with Clint Black, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Richie Sambora and Peter Wolf, he's produced records by Blues Traveler and Willie Nelson, won a Grammy for that very same Nelson album, played in Lyle Lovett's Large Band, did several torus with Mark Knopfler as his keyboardist, got nominated for two more...

“Fazz: Now & Then” Noel Paul Stookey became a household name as the Paul part of the Peter Paul and Mary equation. The landmark folk trio formed in New York in the '60s and went on to lead the American folk music revival with massive hits like If I Had A Hammer, Puff The Magic Dragon, and Leaving On A Jet Plane. Hammer, of course was written by Pete Seeger and Jet Plane John Denver, but that was t...

“Western Skies” Darden Smith's new project Western Skies is an ambitious and comprehensive multi-media affair that’s dedicated to the mythology and history of West Texas—it’s a new album, a book of essays, photography, spoken word pieces, song lyrics, a set of videos—this thing is a monster of a release. Influenced by Neil Young, Guy Clark and John Prine, the Texas-born Darden Smith’s body of work...

“Feeling Of Emptiness” Katie Hannigan is a stand-up comic whose roots are in the theatre. But theatre and comedy aside, the Indiana-born Hannigan is a self-proclaimed introvert and in this chat she talks to Alex about the fact that introvert as she may be, she’s picked a life of performance for her career. An engaging chat about her appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the community a...

“This Life” Raised in Idaho and California, Curtis Stigers is likely comfortable in the snow and the sun--and musically, he’s equally as versatile. Trained in clarinet and saxophone, Stigers loved blues and punk rock as a kid, but found himself gravitating to jazz clubs as he came of age. He graduated from high school and high-tailed it to NY to pursue his rock and roll dream, but it was jazz that...

“Limbs And Edgewalkers” Keely Forsyth’s new album Limbs is powerful and raw, dramatic and intense. It’s the sound of one woman shadowboxing the darkness and throwing each punch with the fluidity of a ballet dancer and the finesse of a poet. Alive with theatrical elegance, Limbs is both spare and lavish. It’s a compelling song-cycle that’s as crushing as it is inspiring. It’s a stunning stare-down...

"Power, Corruption and Truths" There’s nothing about Peter Hook that I can tell you you don’t already know, so let’s just do a refresher run through his musical CV. In the late '70s Hook formed Joy Division with childhood pal Bernard Sumner after the two friends saw the Sex Pistols play in Manchester. The band only put out two albums and one of those albums, the legendary Closer was put out two mo...

“Themes From Venus" Love Tractor are an endless delight. The Athens, Georgia outfit got their start in the early 80s and they put out a handful of albums that still sound as fresh as ever. From This Ain’t No Outerspace Ship to Around the Bend to Themes From Venus(which has been reissued and remastered and comes with bonus tracks), Love Tractor established themselves as one of the most creative, vi...

“The Faraway” Sometimes people say the same things about a person because they’re true. For example, Bowie was always described as being mercurial. Why? Because he was. The word intensity always comes up when discussing the work of Daniel Day Lewis for the exact same reason. When it comes to explaining the sounds that come from Robin Guthrie’s guitar, critics and fans tend to immediately go to the...

“Proclaimer Of Things” The co-founder of the legendary Elephant 6 Collective that spawned Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control and her band The Apples In Stereo, Hilarie Sidney has very quietly been one of the most important figures in modern music. By the way, before we continue, I’m sure you’re like Neutral Milk Hotel? Cool. Olivia Tremor Control? Cool. The Apples In Stereo? Cool. Yes, all...

“Hard To Get (ish)” This is the continued post-mortem of a band that I’ve explored over the course of several episodes of the show. Now, bands break up all the time—big deal. But a band that signed the most lucrative contract for a debut album in the history of Island Records and called it a day after only one record? Not so common. The album in question is Starclub’s 1993 self-titled album. When...

“New Kings Of Pop” The Mommyheads got their start somewhere around 1987 or so in New York. They relocated to San Francisco and in the 90s they were Bay Area staples. Their music is a charming blend of wobbly pop beauty that brings to mind everyone from Jellyfish to XTC but the Mommyheads are not just a pop band—they’re an idiosyncratic outfit that, over the course of their career, have thrown soni...

“Time Of The Season” The Zombies got their start in the early '60s and since then, they’ve been one of the most enduring bands in rock and roll history, The British outfit, which is led by the core of Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent had a mad streak of singles—She’s Not There, Tell Her No and Time Of The Season—that pretty much cemented their reputation as a massive pop force. Their album Odessey a...

"Click Click Domino" Christopher Turpin and Stephanie Jean were in the Bath-based alternative rock band Kill It Kid who put out three fabulous albums. With a sonic attack that fell somewhere between Nirvana and The White Stripes, Kill It Kid were a ferocious live act that radiated intensity and heart. After the band called it a day Turpin and Jean formed the duo Ida Mae. Influenced by Delta Blues,...