Stereo Embers: The Podcast

"A Good Feelin’ To Know" The Ohio-born Richie Furay has a resume' that’s kind of staggering. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee was not only a co-founder of Buffalo Springfield, he was also a co-founder of Poco and he was in the Au Go Go Singers, the Souther Hillman Furay band and he fronts the Richie Furay band as well. Although Buffalo Springfield wasn’t around that long, the band reformed...

“Kicking Against Convention” Classical music is ruled by composers that are thought of as deities. Composers like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are the undisputed masters of the genre and they nobody can argue with their compositions being the blueprints for the foundation of classical music. But for the Korean-born JooWan Kim, studying the masters at the Berklee School Of Music made him…a bit rebell...

“The Night Economy” Over the course of their brilliant career, which got started around 1999, Stars have put out nine winning and magical albums including Set Yourself on Fire and the Polaris-Prize nominated efforts In Our Bedroom After The War and The Five Ghosts. Their last full-length effort was 2017’s There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light, and I know that was four years ago, but don’t worry—ne...

“Lost And Found" One summer in the early '90s I drove around with only one cassette in my car and that was Born to Quit by the Smoking Popes. Led by the Illinois-born Josh Caterer and his brothers Eli and Matt, the band were nothing short of a revelation. Josh’s lilting vocals has all the elegance of Sinatra and the finesse of Morrissey, but it also had muscle. The songs? Good god—I mean, the albu...

“The Cup Of Youth” If Kip Berman’s name sounds familiar to you, that’s for good reason. He fronted the beloved indie rock outfit The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart from 2007 to 20018. The NY-based band played all over the world, put out four perfect albums, culminating in 2017’s The Echoes Of Pleasure and they called it a day a year later. Berman moved to Princeton, New Jersey, started a family and...

“Consideration Of Rhythm" The Calgary-born Clea Anaïs is about to take flight in two ways. First, her solo career is blooming with the release of two new singles from her upcoming album and it won’t be long before her music is soaring through headphones across the world. It also won’t be long before she’s soaring across the world in a plane—not sure what you did during COVID, but Clea got her pilo...

"From Georgia To New York" Nainnoh has been a model of adapting ever since she left her home in Georgia and moved to New York. Not the Georgia where its unlawful to have a glass of water when you’re standing in line to vote—the other Georgia. The one located at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia and bounded to the west by the Black Sea. Nainnoh will explain the rigors of such a mo...

“Teenage Wasted American Kids” So, Modern Love Child’s Jonny Shane was on our show in October of 2019 just as his band’s debut album MLC hit shelves. And then a few months later, the pandemic hit and everything ground to a standstill. But the east coast-born Shane was undeterred by the tumult of 2020—the guy is everywhere. He was in L.A., he was in Costa Rica and now he’s in Florida. With his winn...

"La, La, La, La" Yes, he was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, but there’s always been a California feel to Alex Bleeker. The bassist for the beloved indie rock outfit Real Estate, Bleeker has also fronted Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, an outfit that plays a countryfied mash up of roots rock and psychedelia. That California feel I’m talking about can be traced to Bleeker’s love of the Grateful Dead. W...

“Pop The Placebo” The Greenwich Village-born Elizabeth Ziman started playing the piano at a young age. How young? Well, she penned her first song at age 6, so she got going pretty fast. A start like that makes her scholarship to study classical composition at the Berklee College of Music and her nabbing an ASCAP Leiber and Stoller scholarship not a very big surprise. So her scholastic plan was hat...

“The Comfort Of Discomfort” You’re about to learn a great deal about Chad Lawson in our conversation, so before we begin, I’ll give you a few essentials. The classically trained pianist first had the inclination he wanted to be behind the keys after watching Sha Na Na on TV when he was 5. Lawson went to Berklee College of Music where he declared himself a jazz performance major, but while there he...

“The Journey Isn’t Finished Yet" Steve Hackett is indeed one of the true musical masters. The London born guitarist got his start in two short lived bands—Canterbury Glass and Quiet World, but his tenure in Genesis is what catapulted him into the spotlight. Hackett played on six of the legendary bands’ albums, including Nursery Cryme and Selling England By The Pound. He left Genesis in 1977 and fr...

"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 majesti...

"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 bi...

“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 incorp...

“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 theat...

"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...

"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...

“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 st...

"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 an...

"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...

“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 o...

"Closing Out 2020 With Todd Goldstein" “I like to think of music as an emotional science,” the composer George Gershwin once said. Keeping that in mind, Todd Goldstein has been spending a lot of time in the lab. The musician’s new album under his TG moniker is called Memory Foam and it’s a textured long player whose innovative soundscapes bring to mind the work of everyone from Brian Eno to Martin...

"Christmas With Terra Lightfoot" The Ontario-born Terra Lightfoot was on our show back in 2018 and since then she’s been quite busy. We’ll catch you up on what she’s been up to, but a little background is in order first. Lightfoot played in The Dinner Belles before going solo back in 2011. Since then she’s put out four albums, including her latest, which is called Consider The Speed. Along the way...

“You’ve Got To Be Spot-On” That’s what drummer Alan White says about 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 them since 1973. One of the most formidable drummers in rock and roll for the last 50 years, the British born White started playing in bands...