The Hustle

Geoff Downes has lent his keyboard wizardry to many of the biggest and best bands of the last 50 years. He was a trendsetting new-waver with the Buggles popularizing synth pop alongside Trevor Horn. Then they were famously recruited to join Yes, changing that band's sound for a decade. And, while with Asia, he showed how good "corporate" AOR rock (not to mention supergroups) could be. There have b...

Our buddy John Cafferty returns to the pod to discuss the new Beaver Brown Band album, Sound of Waves. You might remember John was on here a year or two ago when some new songs were finally released. Well, now there's a whole new album. We only had to wait about 36 years for this! John and I discuss these new tracks, finally making it happen, and the passing of saxophonist Michael "Tunes" Antunes,...

The Porcaro family is rock royalty. They made everything they touched better from their incredible session work to the many Toto hits and Grammys. Steve Porcaro has recently released a new solo album called The Very Day that shows him cleaning house. Most of these songs have been sitting around unfinished for decades so he finally committed to perfecting them (with help from friends like Michael M...

Author Bill Kopp returns to the podcast to discuss his latest book, What's the Big Idea: 30 Great Concept Albums. The great thing about Bill's writing is that he often shines a light on music that is underappreciated. These 30 albums aren't the obvious ones, but completely worthy creations that deserve a spot in your collection. We also get into why artists choose to make them, whether they're fun...

Percussionist Lenny Castro has made a career out of being an ingredient that makes everything he touches better. He's been one of the most in-demand musicians of the last 50 years and was even an official member of Toto for many decades. Would classics like "Africa" and "Rosanna" be what they are without him? Doubtful. He's also the best thing about Christopher Cross's "Ride Like the Wind" and ONJ...

The musical mind of Barry Adamson was so cinematic he created soundtracks for movies that didn't exist. Until they did. He starts out with the essential post-punk band Magazine, who released some of the best albums the genre had to offer. He was restless though and after time in Visage and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, he committed the music in his head to tape with the solo album, Moss Side Story...

By running Boston's Fort Apache studio with partner Sean Slade, Paul positioned himself at the forefront of the underground, indie sound that was suddenly above ground. His resume includes all time classics like Radiohead's Pablo Honey (featuring "Creep") and Hole's Live Through This, but also well-respected benchmarks by Buffalo Tom, Morphine, Pixies, Uncle Tupelo, Dinosaur Jr., and the Lemonhead...

Britta Phillips has maintained two very different careers for decades - one is all kitsch and the other has a ton of street cred. She starred in that kinda fun, but mostly bad 1988 Justine Bateman movie Satisfaction and was the singing voice for Jem in the Jem and the Holograms cartoon. She also maintained a career in indie rock bands that got a big leg up when she joined Luna in the early 2000s....

Producer Paul O'Duffy may not have been the actual architect of the sophistopop movement in the UK in the late 80s, but he had a hand in popularizing it. The man helped shape the sound of five of the major players within the genre - Hipsway, Breathe, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Danny Wilson, and Swing Out Sister, which he was practically the unofficial third member of for many years. Along the way h...

Around the year 2000, keyboardist Jai Winding decided he didn't want to be a hugely successful musician anymore and traded in his rock star life for real estate. He made the right move for him, but boy was it fun while it lasted. Some of the collaborations we discuss this week include the Pointer Sisters, George Benson, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Olivia Newton-John, Howard Jones, an...

Few yacht rock hits of the 70s have endured as well as Player's 1977 classic "Baby Come Back." While they had a few other hits, they've been completely overshadowed by this monolith. What you may not be as aware of is the vast songwriting career of frontman Peter Beckett. Remember "Twist of Fate" by Olivia Newton-John? That was Peter. Or "Dare to Fall in Love" by Brent Bourgeois? Also Peter. There...

Bill Janovitz returns to the Hustle, this time as an author instead of a rocker. The Buffalo Tom frontman has recently published a master work - the definitive story of The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told. Bill effectively tells the band's story from beginning to end with all the detours in between. Each band member's personality comes to life and the inner tensions become very real, but so does the...

When you talk to keyboardist Roddy Bottum, the word "privileged" comes up a lot. He was privileged to grow up in San Francisco as a gay man. Privileged to play keys in Faith No More and Imperial Teen. Privileged to have the foresight to be an early investor in Apple that has since made him a multi-millionaire. Privileged to have had close friends like Kurt and Courtney. He recounts this unique lif...

This week's guest is Saint Tim! The Charlatans have been one of the most reliably great British bands over their 35 year history. Tons of hits and many great albums. Their profile changed drastically over lockdown when Tim began his Listening Parties on Twitter which managed to unite the entire music world in good vibes at a tenuous time in history. The whole band is back together for their first...

The 80s weren't a fertile time for blues on the radio. Eventually, acts like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Robert Cray and this week's guest the Fabulous Thunderbirds captured some attention and kept the torch lit. In fact, "Tough Enough" also happens to be one of the greatest singles of the decade, but it was the T-Birds biggest and only crack at the pop charts. Eventually, tastes changed, Jimmie Vaughn lef...

Ivy might be the least likely band to release new music in 2025. After the loss of leader Adam Schlesinger to COVID early in the pandemic, the band had no choice but to end things. Luckily, surviving members Dominique Durand, Andy Chase and Bruce Driscoll came together to flesh out some songs Adam hadn't finished and released the new album Traces of You recently as a proper tribute to their former...

The great Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly is back again. Last week he released his 30th album (!) called Seventy and it's evidence that this genius shows no signs of slowing down. Paul returns to the podcast to discuss some of the key tracks, what his process is at this stage, and what he still has left to prove. The man is as good at 70 and he has been his whole career. We're lucky to hav...

It's been a bumpy road for Pete Droge the last few years and the acclaimed singer-songwriter knew exactly what to do about it. First off, after years of not feeling right, Pete was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome about ten years ago. This changed how he would have to approach his career which, as an independent artist, was already a full time job. Then, he decided the time was right to fin...

Producer Mark Saunders has done a lot of things, but amidst it all he's responsible for two of the most revolutionary albums of all time. The first is Neneh Cherry's debut Raw Like Sushi featuring the game-changing "Buffalo Stance". The second is the debut album Maxinquaye from Tricky which rewrote the rules as far as what music could sound like. Just those would be enough for some people, but we...

Liverpool's The Farm capitalized on a moment in the early 90s when their debut album Spartacus captured the Baggy sound in the UK perfectly. It featured a couple of evergreen hits with "Groovy Train" and "All Together Now" and even did well in the states. But, as Baggy wound down, so did the Farm and after a couple more albums they called it a day. Miraculously, they came back this year to release...

Author Greg Prato joins us this week to discuss his new book Alternative for the Masses. The book argues that Nirvana didn't just happen out of nowhere. The seeds had been planted with bands like the Pixies and Jane's Addiction that prepared a way for Nirvana (and the whole grunge movement) to flourish. The book is an oral history featuring dozens of key voices from the scene (many of which are fo...

What can you say about the great Thomas Dolby that hasn't already been said? We know about the hits (like "Science" and "Hyperactive"), we know about the innovation and the tech businesses he's started, and we know about Live Aid. In this conversation we set out to fill in some of the gaps like how did he get Jerry Garcia and Eddie Van Halen to play guitar with him? Did he ever meet Prince, who he...

Richie Zito checks a lot of boxes for the Hustle. For one, he was a noted session guitarist in the 70s for artists like Neil Sedaka, Hellen Reddy, Leif Garrett, and Elton John. Then he eventually became one of the most successful producers of the next decade working with people like Eddie Money ("Take Me Home Tonight"), Cheap Trick ("The Flame"), Bad English ("When I See You Smile"), the Cult, Hea...

Jon Dawson has been keeping Third of Never going for almost 20 years now and on their latest album, Damage the Pearl (Original Soundtrack), he has enlisted former guest and Connells frontman Doug MacMillian as his musical partner. Jon and Doug have written some primo songs and released one of the best albums of the year. We discuss the logistics of how this project works, what attracted them to ea...

Everything seemed possible in hip-hop in 1992. Creativity was abundant and groups like P.M. Dawn, Public Enemy, De La Soul, and Arrested Development could all flourish. This led to AD's debut album becoming a watershed moment in music, selling millions, having hits and winning Grammys. Unfortunately, once gangster rap got its hooks in everyone, it devoured everything else and has remained largely...