The Hustle

Dirty Vegas were shot out of a cannon in 2002 when their song "Days Go By" was selected by Mitsubishi to soundtrack their new ad campaign. The song was everywhere and suddenly there was a culture shift with artists and their music as it relates to advertising. This gave Steve Smith from the band a career that's taken some unexpected turns, but has never let up. Dirty Vegas released a couple albums, then he went solo, and ...

When "Sleeping Satellite" hit the airwaves in 1992, it announced a new unique talent in Tasmin Archer that seemed to be going far. Little did we know that we'd only hear from her sporadically over the next 34 years. The usual label politics slowed the follow up album and after that she found it more to her liking to go independent and be her own boss, amounting to only four full length albums, including last year's A Caul...

It's difficult to summarize Robert Margouleff's career in a nutshell. He's a musical innovator thanks to him and his musical partner Malcolm Cecil's invention of a sort of synthesizer they dubbed Tonto's Expanding Headband. Tonto caught the ear of Stevie Wonder, who brought the guy's onboard to engineer/produce him during that peak 70s period (Innervisions, Talking Book, etc). This lead to further jobs with other legends like Devo,...

In this fantastic Bonus episode, Phil Collen and Simon Laffey of Manraze join us to discuss their brand new career-spanning box set, Lock, Stock & Barrel. Phil and Simon's friendship goes back over 40 years to the glam rock band Girl. Then Def Leppard recruited Phil and you know how that went. About 20 years ago, Phil and Simon decided to make some music together and recruited Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook to join them. Th...

We've seen this movie before. Band comes out hot with their debut, have hits, sell millions of records, and then record a follow-up the label says isn't good enough so it gets shelved for a while and all that momentum stalls and never comes back. Fort Worth's Toadies lived it, After Rubberneck and the smash "Possum Kingdom" exploded, the label didn't hear a hit on the follow-up and told them to try again. Four years p...

Our Book Club this time features author Paul Rees who has recently written one of the most enjoyable rock books of recent memory - Raised on Radio: The AOR Glory Years. Even though he's a Brit, Paul was the perfect guy to author this oral history of one of America's most unique musical genres. All the major players - Steve Perry, Pat Benetar, Tom Scholz, Lou Gramm, Gary Richrath, Steve Lukather and scores of others - weigh in on wh...

Bassist Greg Norton was the George Harrison of the mighty Husker Du. While alpha's Bob Mould and Grant Hart competed for album space and song excellence, Greg remained a loyal soldier in the background playing his part well. When the band broke up in the late 80s, he changed careers and became a chef for a while. Finally in the last few years, a musical project has come along that's deserving of his massive talent - t...

We celebrate our 11th (!) birthday in usual fashion - by bringing on someone a little extra special. This year they're a lot extra special. This year we're featuring the great Todd Rundgren! Todd is about to go out on the Damned If I Do tour next month, hitting Europe in August. Todd and I discuss why some people love him religiously and some don't, whether he's ever had a bad idea, what makes his sound so singular and what we...

We've been featuring a lot of artists lately that earned their bona fides pushing the boundaries of what electronic music could do. Well, few did it as ruthlessly as Cabaret Voltaire. From their beginning in the late 70s making "music" that's more creative sounds than tuneful songs, to their evolution over the next several decades stretching genres to suit their muse, the "Cabs" never went pop or sought hits. Frontman (and las...

Richard Barbieri has been pushing the boundaries of synth-based music for almost 50 years. Japan may have originally been lumped in with the likes of Duran Duran and Ultravox, but they evolved in a way few bands outside of Talk Talk could even understand. After they ended and Richard evolved even further in groups like Dolphin Brothers and Rain Tree Crow, he was then snatched up by Steven Wilson and hopped on the Porcupine Tree tra...

Even though Wire are considered one of the most important post-punk bands ever, it's actually been a long time since they played in that genre. The band quickly evolved over a couple albums to incorporate more dance beats and front man Colin Newman has been in that groove ever since. In the 80s he was hired by Israel's Minimal Compact to produce an album, then he and Malka Spiegel fell in love and have been partnered in life and mu...

One could argue that the sound of American indie rock and power pop was shaped by Mitch Easter. Of course, he produced those early REM albums that are practically canon now, but his own music with Let's Active and his partnership with the likes of Scott Miller (Game Theory, Loud Family) and the db's have further cemented his legendary status. Recently, he's lent his talents to the Salt Collective, a fascinating project by French ar...

We love the Tubes around here so we're breaking one of our rules of not dipping into bands we've already covered on the show. There's a very good reason for this. Drummer Prairie Prince is a lot more than the Tubes' drummer. His long and storied career includes Todd Rundgren, Chris Isaak, Brian Eno, Jefferson Starship, Journey, David Foster and tons more. Prairie just released his first solo album, Colors and Passions, which is mor...

Helix front man Brian Vollmer has been bringing the rock for over 50 years. From humble Canadian beginnings, Helix have managed to keep the metal moving through trends, periods of indifference, super highs ("Rock You") and low lows (deaths). His commitment to rock has never wavered. Recently, the band released the aptly named Scrap Metal, a collection of new songs and reimagined classics that fans old and new will enjoy. What's gre...

There have been few creative bursts of the modern era more epic than George Clinton's in the 70s. He had so many songs in his brain he had to keep creating bands or producing artists to get them all out. One of his key players during this furtive time was guitarist Michael Hampton. "The Kidd" joined George's team while still a teenager when Eddie Hazel started to do his own thing. From there, George used him in Parliament, Funkadel...

Former Boston Globe Music Critic and rock and roll lifer Jim Sullivan joins us this week to discuss his highly entertaining new books Backstage and Beyond. There are two volumes (or one "Complete" version that includes both and some extra chapters) that share his conversations with most of the major movers and shakers over the last 45 years in rock. There's everyone from Jerry Lee Lewis to David Bowie to Ginger Baker to Enya to Geo...

It was going so well. Detroit's Von Bondies exploded out of the same garage rock scene that birthed the White Stripes and many others. In fact, Jack White produced their first album, Lack of Communication, in 2002. Things really took off with their Jerry Harrison-produced follow up Pawn Shoppe Heart from 2004 and "C'mon C'mon" became the theme song to the show Rescue Me. But then an unfortunate confrontation with Jack in a bar (and...

Jon is joined by former guest Jackie Clary and our great friend Ryan Rauzon to discuss the recently released memoir by Cameron Crowe, The Uncool. We get into our history of fandom with Cameron, our thoughts on the book, on his career, the meaning of his "happysad" theory, rock journalism, and how he and the book have affected our lives. This was recorded live with no edits. If you've read the book, tell us what you think. Enjoy!&nb...