The Hustle

For this week we welcome author, podcast host and private investigator (!) Darren Paltrowitz to discuss his book DLR Book. Capturing the real David Lee Roth, while also separating the real guy from the mythology he's worked hard to create is no easy task, but Darren does his best. David Carruth joins co-hosts this episode as we dissect DLR's Hollywood ambitions, his solo efforts, his radio hosting gigs, and much much more. He's sur...

Jon was invited to hang with his good friends Haydn and Bee of the INXS : Access All Areas podcast recently to discuss our love of Australian music, the rich history, and, of course, our mutual love of INXS. Any fan of this band needs to know this great podcast is out there if they don't already. Every member has appeared on there, it's a wealth of valuable knowledge. Jon tells some stories you've heard before and some you haven't,...

Can you believe another year has gone by? We can't! Who would have ever thought 9 years The Hustle would become what it has. As usual, we always celebrate this day with a very special guest and this year is no different. This week we welcome the wonderful Nick Laird-Clowes of the Dream Academy! The band snuck up on everyone in 1985 with the seminal and wholly unique "Life in a Northern Town". Those who were there will never forget ...

For this Deep Dive we welcome back John Parr to discuss his underappreciated album from 1992, Man With a Vision. By this point in his career, John was all alone with no major label support and litigation making it hard to get heard. He self-produced this album and it's an excellent slab of peak AOR goodness, even though it's from the early 90s. John gives us the full story and I hope you'll all seek out this beauty for yourselves. ...

The short but solid trajectory of the Undertones' career reflects the arc of popular British music during the same time. Starting off in Derry Ireland as punks with an ear for melodies in the late 70s and ending up about five years later exploring sophisti-pop is a map of what was in style in the UK. If the band wasn't so good at both genres you might accuse them of selling out, but, in truth, they're just excellent at making catch...

Grammy winning engineer/producer Tom Lord-Alge has been behind some major music the last 40 years. He starts out in NYC under the tutelage of his brother Chris and breaks big working on Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life album. Over the years he's engineered dozens of gigantic hits including albums by Blink-182, Pink, Weezer, Marilyn Manson and Korn. We don't talk about any of those though (to Tom's surprise). Instead we get int...

Bassist Neil Stubenhaus was a key member of that pool of exceptional talent in LA in the 70s and 80s that were first calls to play on the great albums made during the era. Neil stood shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Nathan East, Lee Sklar and Pino Palladino (among many) to make good music even better. Included on his resume are people like Billy Joel, Lionel Richie, Al Jarreau, Anita Baker, Rod Stewart, Barbra Steisand, the T...

Mike Post is probably the most successful composer of the last half century. He literally wrote the themes to hundreds of TV shows from the early 70s until now. In fact, there's a good chance that during the heyday, almost every person on earth heard his work at least once a week. That's astounding. You could argue that shows like NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Magnum P.I., Rockford Files, White Shadow, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and...

Imagine being one of the architects of one of the biggest albums in rock history. It's like winning the lottery. As we know from the Fleetwood Mac story, what was happening behind the scenes on Rumours was as juicy and tasty as the music they were making. Witness to all of it was the great Ken Caillat! He went on to co-produce with Richard Dashut Tusk and Mirage as well before parting ways and parlaying that success into starting s...

This week, Jesus Jones embarks on their first US tour in 30 years! It's short, just a few shows over a couple of weeks, but it's, hopefully, the beginning of restoring a relationship with the states that will grow in the near future. Since lead singer Mike Edwards was on the show a few years ago, we are joined this time by keyboardist (and band manager) Iain Baker to not only explain the circumstances of the tour, but deep dive the...

This week we get to hear from acclaimed songwriter Dean Pitchford! After 45 years of near consistent success, Dean will finally be inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame this year, which is just another line on his impressive resume. He won an Oscar for writing "Fame" for Irene Cara and achieved the absolute peak with Footloose. He not only wrote the screenplay, but every song on the soundtrack and collected a couple Grammys in t...

Our guest this week is multi-Grammy winning producer Russ Titelman. Russ has been deeply rooted in the music business since the 60s as a producer, an engineer, a songwriter, and even a session guitarist. His midas touch has benefitted legendary artists like Paul Simon, Chaka Khan, James Taylor, Cyndi Lauper, Brian Wilson, Rickie Lee Jones, and won Grammys for Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton. In this conversation we hit on all of tha...

In 1989 when Australian rock bands like Midnight Oil and INXS were screaming up the charts in the US, you'd think the easiest thing in the world would be to present one more and let them continue the streak. Such was not the story of Boom Crash Opera. Despite getting some airplay for "Onion Skin" off their second album, These Here Are Crazy Times, and despite having material just as strong as their peers, it didn't happen and BCO n...

The Dandy Warhols have been around for 30 years. That can't be right! In the 90s they seemed like hedonistic little hippies and now, they still are, but the rest of the world has caught up with them. On the 15th, the band releases ROCKMAKER, their first fully guitar-driven album in a while (maybe ever) and they embark on a US tour this week. Zia McCabe joins us to talk about the new album, how the band writes songs (fans know their...

These days, guitarist Nigel Bennett is as much an entrepreneur as he is a punk rocker. I'll explain. Nigel's career began in the 70s when he was hired to join The Members who were mixing punk, pop and reggae in unique ways. They're probably best remembered by their 1982 hit "Working Girl". The band didn't last long and Nigel bummed around until he was hired by the Vibrators in 1990, where he remains today. During the pandemic, the ...

Author Joel Selvin returns to the show to discuss his new book on one of the greatest and most complicated drummers in rock history, Jim Gordon. The list of songs made better by Jim's talent is endless - "Good Vibrations", "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", "Wichita Lineman", "Apache" and hundreds of others. He was also the drummer in Derek and the Dominoes and co-wrote "Layla". Unfortunately, Jim was overwhelmed by demons from schizo...

The amazing Mike Scott returns to the podcast to go deep on the Waterboys' 1985 masterpiece This is the Sea. This benchmark album has been released in a massive 6-disc deluxe edition that includes almost 100 tracks, many of which have never been heard before, and a hardback book all of which tells the story of the album's creation. Mike takes us track by track through the original album, the contributions from other band members an...

Cult icon Josie Cotton joins us this week! Of course, her career exploded in the early 80s with the help of Valley Girl and the immortal "Johnny, Are You Queer?" but her time on major labels was short-lived. For almost 40 years she's built a career thriving as an indie artist and doing her own thing. Last year she released a strong new album called Day of the Gun which, like everything she does, is a complete artistic package from ...

Rich Travali is one of the most successful guests we've ever featured on the show. He began his career in the 80s at the Hit Factory in New York working with legends like Patti Smith, Sting and Paul Simon, who he was especially close to during the recording of The Rhythm of the Saints. In the 90s he formed a bond with Puff Daddy which led to a couple decades of gigantic hits - 11 #1 singles and over 140 million in total record sale...