Stereo Embers: The Podcast

“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 theatre community of Philadelphia Her 2017 debut EP Unconscious revealed an out of the box talent who wrote about the rickety world around us with a hypnotic and poetic steadiness. The songs were riveting, arresting and captivating. From there she put out a string of fabulous singles, did the soundtrack for the Wilma Theaters production of Romeo and Juliet and now she’s back with Dreams Die, which you just heard. An album is in the works, live shows could happen depending on the health of the world out there and there’s more to come from Gracie Martin. The fact is, she’s so talented, she could do anything. And she will. Now, it’s true that most artists have a familiar relationship with anxiety. And that anxiousness can be about anything—life, love, money, the actual creative process itself. It can get pretty tense. In this chat, Gracie talks about her own experience with anxiety and the workarounds that it forced her to come up with to deal with it. Look, she’s not alone—we all have it in one form or another and this conversation is about Gracie, but it’s also about the rest of us. We also chat about the rigors of college, cultivating a persona and voice as an artist and becoming desensitized to the quarantine….

"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 be found on 4AD or Creation or Rough Trade. He played in Pete Yorn’s band and he was a member of the legendary slow core outfit Idaho. His debut album as Blesson Roy has the perfect title in Think Like Spring—after all, the record is about renewal, regeneration and revival. A dreamy blast of layered melodies, textured choruses and mesmerizing soundscapes, Think Like Spring is emotional, thoughtful and vulnerable and it soars mightily away with the kind of muscle and grace that brings to mind everything from the Cocteau Twins to Ride. The songs and the creation of the recordings, Borden says, “Felt like a warm place in a cold and dangerous world.” In this engaging conversation Borden talks to Alex about growing up in Los Angeles, his love of Echo and the Bunnymen, his relationship with the past and the difficulty of making friends as we get older.

"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 with Michael Hutchence, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers were at one point the biggest band on the planet. And that was at a really competitive time—you had U2, Depeche Mode, R.E.M., and DURAN DURAN--and INXS at their peak were bigger than all of them.They put out ten records with Hutchence and two others after his death and they were elected to the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. Pals since high school, Farris and Hutchence were a lethal songwriting combination and Farris really was the sonic architect of INXS’s sound. Not only that, but he co-wrote all but one of the band's top-40 hits in the U.S. Farris went on to produce for everyone from GUN to Yotu Yindhi and Jenny Morris and he snagged a Producer of the Year award at the ARIAS in 1990. He was inducted into the Australian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016 and in 2020 he was awarded with the Member of the Order of Australia. His new EP "Love Makes The World” is a country-tinged offering that’s contemplative, captivating and comforting. It’s a thoughtful blend of rootsy rock and lush acoustic numbers that perfectly capture the wondrous things the world does to the human heart. It’s aching, it’s wistful and it’s utterly lovely work. In this conversation Farriss talks to Alex about the joys of hard work, what it’s like to live in such a remote location and what made him pick up a guitar and write this new batch of such inspired material.

“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 staggering melodic beauty and streetwise lyrical grit and it shoots light out from every note that’s played. It is a straight up, stone cold stunner. When they formed in 1988 they were Lolita and the Whipping Boy, but when their lineup solidified, and it was Fearghal McKee (vocals), Paul Page (guitar), Myles McDonnell (bass, vocals), and Colm Hassett (drums), they shortened their name to just Whipping Boy. They were a dark and powerful band capable of staggering beauty and edgy elegies that were redolent with wisdom and philosophy. Their influence can still be heard today in bands like The Fontaines DC and Shame and if you put on any of their three albums, the urgency, the intensity and the muscle sound as fresh as ever.If they’d stuck around? Who knows. They might have ruled the world. They certainly had all the tools at their disposal. But the band were done in '98 and that was that. Did they give us enough? You and I both know that it could never be enough—we’re fans, we’re greedy that way. In this interview, Whipping Boy guitarist Paul Page talks to Alex about the band’s love for Big Black, his admiration of Johnny Marr and why he hasn’t picked up the guitar in years. He also talks about touring with Lou Reed, what it would take for him to play again and his relationship with the other guys in Whipping Boy. Paul Page is a great guy and this is an honest, unflinching chat about what was, what could have been and all that tricky stuff in between.

"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 and an in-demand public speaker. His new book "The FBI Way" is a user-friendly tour through the bureau's code of excellence. Figliuzzi demonstrates that not only are the core values of code, conservancy, clarity, consequences, compassion, credibility and consistency hallmarks of the FBI, they are universal truths that could guide anyone in any discipline through any situation. In this chat, Figliuzzi talks to Alex about repairing a tarnished reputation, intentional versus unconscious error and whether or not he and James Comey are pals. And he also tells Alex of this tumultuous time in our nation's history: "We will get through this."

"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 gifted pianist, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, it didn’t take long for everyone to want the services of Bill Champlin, After a handful of excellent albums with Sons of Champlin, Bill left the band and from there his list of musical accomplishments is so extensive if they were listed on LinkedIn, LinkedIn would break. I can’t list them all here, so let me give you a partial list: Champlin has worked with REO SPEEDWAGON, DAVID FOSTER, BARRY MANILOW, ELTON JOHN, AMY GRANT, PATTI LABELLE, THE TUBES and BOZ SCAGGS. He won a couple of Grammys—one for co-writing "After The Love Has Gone" which was made massive by Earth Wind And Fire, and another for co-writing “Turn Your Love Around,” which George Benson made an eternal classic. That would be enough for anyone, but Champlin just kept going. He joined Chicago in '82 and with that band Champlin co-wrote and sang on tracks like 'Hard Habit To Break' and 'Look Away." Champlin has appeared on hundreds of songs that are still blasted across the airwaves every single day. Put it this way, whenever you walk into Whole Foods and music is playing? Chances are, Bill Champlin is on that song. Champlin has put out 10 solo albums and his new one Livin' For Love is out at the end of this month. It’s his first album in 10 years and Champlin describes it as the best record he’s ever made. Hard to argue with that. It’s a stunner—featuring incredible arrangements, stirring vocals and poignant and powerful songwriting, Bill Champlin has never sounded better. In this conversation, Champlin talks to Alex about Donna Summer, Fall Out Boy and how art should be personal. He also talks about his friendships with folks like David Foster and Peter Cetera, his take on CCR and his love of stacking guitars in the studio.

“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 own as a musician. A high school scholarship followed for the young violinist and before she was 20 Santo had become pretty adept on both banjo and guitar as well. She fronted the L.A.-based band honeyhoney with Ben Jaffe who you might remember from his appearance on our podcast—and that band put out three perfect albums. A stirring confluence of indie rock, riveting roots music and West coast soul, honeyhoney toured with Sheryl Crow and Jake Bugg, logged millions of Spotify streams and found themselves hailed by everyone rom Rolling Stone to NPR. Santo’s debut solo album Ruby Red was a stunning platter of poetic folk and gutsy blues, showcasing the singer/songwriter’s arresting lyrical acumen. Bringing to mind the stark immediacy of Patty Greffin and the literate wordplay of everyone from Kurt Cobain to Liz Phair, Ruby Red was as nervy as it was vulnerable Her new work is as searing as it is rousing. Her voice has never sound better and 2021 looks to be a banner year for the musician. In this candid conversation, Santo talks to Alex about how she’s staying both sane and creative during the pandemic, why she feels great about being single and why she decided to knock down a wall in her house.

"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 Kennedy’s All India Radio. In this year-ending interview, Goldstein talks to Alex about how moving from the east coast to the west affected his notion of sound, his love of rave culture and what it was like to move from his old bands (Harlem Shakes, ARMS) into such broad compositional territory.

"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, she’s been nominated for a Juno and the Polaris Prize, she’s toured with Bruce Cockburn, the Posies, Blue Rodeo and Toad the Wet Sprocket and she’s garnered rave reviews from everyone from No Depression to Pop Matters. Consider The Speed is a powerful entry in Lightfoot’s discography. Filled with rootsy ballads, raging guitars and big crunchy pop, it’s ruminative, emotionally direct and stirring at every turn. We love Terra Lightfoot and we’re so happy to have her back. In this conversation Terra talks to Alex about her love of Bonnie Raitt, lucid dreaming and how to stay creative during Covid. She also talks about a spooky (at first) island getaway and she gives an update on her attempt to learn the cello…..

“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 when he was 13. And over the course of his career he played on records by George Harrison, Ginger Baker, Joe Cocker, Terry Reid and John Lennon. He played live with Lennon as part of the Plastic Ono Band at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival in 1969 and he also had a stint playing live with Steve Linwood. When he joined Yes he also had two other job offers at the same time with Jethro Tull and America. But White said no to them and yes to Yes. Pretty good move. He played on 17 Yes records, and established himself as one of the most innovative, intuitive and muscular drummers around. His playing is a deft combo of finesse and power, that’s as athletic as it is stylistic. Recorded live at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel, back in July of , 2019, Yes’s newest effort is called THE ROYAL AFFAIR TOUR, LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and it’s a beast. A sterling collection that showcases not only the depth and scope of the band’s winning songbook, it features Mr. White tearing it up. In this chat he talks about the magic of Charlie Watts, whether or not you can master the drums and why you’ve got to be spot-on to be onstage with Yes.