Political Beats podcast

2:46:38

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Eli Lake. Lake is a columnist with the Free Press and also a contributing editor at Commentary. Find him online at the Free Press or @EliLake on Twitter/X. Eli’s Music Pick : Stevie Wonder It’s time to sing some songs in the key of life as we tackle the amazing and iconic second half of Stevie Wonder’s career. From his emergence as Motown’s first truly singular independent artist in in 1972, with Music of My Mind , Wonder blazed a path through the musical Seventies crossing over successfully into ever musical genre, to the point where Paul Simon infamously thanked him -- when accepting a “Best Album” Grammy in 1976 -- for not putting out an album in 1975. Stevie owned the American 1970s commercially and artistically in a way that few other of his era did -- David Bowie is a strange but apposite analogue for his effect on British culture of that era -- and even if he tailed off into pleasant innocuousness from the Eighties onward, his musical legacy is deathless. So once again, there’s no need for a lengthy introduction to this (refreshingly brisk!) episode: Everybody knows who Stevie Wonder is, and unless you were born or moved here only five years ago, you will spend nearly half of this episode dancing out of your shoes. Isn’t it lovely?…

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Episode 142: Eli Lake / Stevie Wonder [Part 1] 2:17:04

for 9 weeks siden2:17:04

2:17:04

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Eli Lake. Lake is a columnist with the Free Press and also a contributing editor at Commentary. Find him online at the Free Press or @EliLake on Twitter/X. Eli’s Music Pick: Stevie Wonder Happy New Year, everyone. 2024 was a mess, 2025 looks to be every bit as much of a mess, and gloom pervades the national mood. Therefore, it is high time for Political Beats to turn to Stevie Wonder and remind ourselves of what real joy sounds like. There's no need for a lengthy introduction to this (refreshingly brisk!) episode: Everybody knows who Stevie Wonder is, and unless you were born or moved here only five years ago, you can name at least six or seven classic hits of his off the top of your head. But Stevie Wonder's career arc is less appreciated, and in this first episode we are joined by Eli Lake to recount the first half of that career, informally subtitled "The Education of Little Stevie." Joining Motown as a preternaturally multitalented (and charming) eleven-year-old blind boy, the next decade found him learning to first survive, then thrive, then drive the Motown hit machine as he learned the ropes. From a happy harmonica-wielding child stealing stage-time from his labelmates on "Fingertips, Pt. 2" to the teenaged hitmaker of "I Was Made To Love Her" to the self-confident young man cranking out one endlessly listenable hit after another, this episode sees Wonder first get lost in the Motown "machine," figure out its inner workings, and then conquer it. On our next episode, he will leave it behind entirely. But for now, enjoy some of the snappiest hits R&B ever recorded, and the beginnings of the greatest musical career to ever emerge from Motown.…

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Episode 141: Mary Chastain / Stone Temple Pilots 2:48:06

for 15 weeks siden2:48:06

2:48:06

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Mary Chastain. Mary is a writer and editor at Legal Insurrection . She's also a sometimes contributor to The Hill , Washington Examiner , and Reason , and FEE . Mary is on X at @ Mchastain81 . Mary’s Music Pick: Stone Temple Pilots: This is another in a series of episodes (think Daryl Hall & John Oates and The Monkees) in which your hosts believe there is a reputation to be restored or repaired. In this case, far too many people seem to look at Stone Temple Pilots with disdain, dismissing them as third-rate Pearl Jam imitators or a product of an audience that was willing to accept pretty much any/every grunge-type act. This, as you'll find out, was not the case. Or, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is singer Scott Weiland’s troubles with drug addiction and the law. While true, it doesn’t in any way devalue his contributions to the band and his status as one of the best frontmen of the decade. What we have here is a band that shared influences with other artists like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice In Chains and released a debut album, Core , steeped in that sound. Even then, there were indications STP were not quite like their peers. Bassist Robert DeLeo was a major force in crafting the sound and writing the songs. Guitarist and brother Dean DeLeo pulled not from Pete Townsend and The Who, but from the more experimental later-era Led Zeppelin releases, with monster riffs and chords in line with Jimmy Page’s best work. Eric Kretz was far more than just a time-keeper, adding fills, rolls, and rhythms that were essential to driving the composition. Purple , the follow-up to Core , has aged wonderfully and is an essential album that helps define the sound of the decade. By then, the band mostly had moved past the sludgy sound for which grunge was known and was beginning to color from a more varied palette. “Interstate Love Song” is one of the most iconic songs of the 1990s for a good reason. Tiny Music . . . Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop was met with muted reception if not downright confusion. What many missed at the time is rightfully regarded now as an immense step forward, as the band blended elements of glam and psychedelic rock, with hints of Bowie, T. Rex, and the Beach Boys in places. The remainder of the band’s catalog provides strong reminders about the talent contained inside Stone Temple Pilots. Despite hiatuses and break-ups, that’s what should be the legacy of the band. Political Beats now has the receipts to prove it.…

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Episode 140: Andrew Fink / ZZ Top 4:03:32

for 21 weeks siden4:03:32

4:03:32

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Andrew Fink. Andrew lives with his wife Lauren and their five children in Hillsdale County, Mich., and is an attorney, Marine veteran, current state representative, and candidate for Michigan Supreme Court. He's on X at @ AndrewFinkMI , and his website can be found here . Andrew’s Music Pick: ZZ Top No matter how far into the future this show might run, when you stack Political Beats episodes alphabetically, this is the one that always will show up at the bottom. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to turn the spotlight on "That Little Ol' Band from Texas," ZZ Top. Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, Frank Beard. Blues, guitars, and boogie. And, of course, later on, synths, drum machines, and sequencers. Maybe you're like Jeff and your mental picture of ZZ Top is frozen in time around 1983, when Eliminator was soaring near the top of the charts. We're here to tell you you're missing an awful lot from the band. The entire decade of the 1970s featured album after album of incredible music. There's seriously never a misstep. Early on, you can hear the influence of and influence on other bands like The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. ZZ Top figures out early exactly who they are as a band and refine, refine, refine until perfecting it (we think) on 1979’s Degüello . Billy Gibbons, the group’s main songwriter, singer, and guitar player, has a style all his own, a unique approach that cuts through each song, even when he’s incorporating the sound of another player. At the turn of the decade of the 1980s, the band makes what we consider to be a fairly natural evolution. The tones, beats, and rhythms on Eliminator might seem out of place in a vacuum, but not if you follow the contours of the band’s career. Post-worldwide fame and success is a different story, and one we also tell during the course of this episode. By the way, this is the longest one-part show in Political Beats history, surpassing the U2 show, which actually makes some sense. The feeling here was we wouldn't go quite so long -- otherwise we would have split the thing in half! But once we got going, there was too much fun being had and too many good arguments being made to stop. All for the benefit of you, the listener. They’re bad, they’re nationwide. And now’s the time to discover the full story of ZZ Top on Political Beats .…

Political Beats

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Episode 139: Peter Suderman / Dismemberment Plan 3:13:46

for 24 weeks siden3:13:46

3:13:46

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Peter Suderman. Suderman is the features editor at Reason magazine. He also writes the Substack Cocktails With Suderman , which is about making better cocktails at home. Find him online at Reason or @petersuderman on Twitter/X. Peter’s Music Pick: The Dismemberment Plan The name might sound like you’re in for a three-and-a-half hour barrage of trendily obscure post-punk music with this episode, and you could not be more wrong. Though we’re not going to lie: The first album and a half from Washington, D.C.’s mid-to-late Nineties indie-rock darlings do feel an awful lot like the twitchily inchoate remnants of the Bad Brains/Fugazi regional hardcore scene of the Eighties with a healthy dose of West Coast Minutemen math-rock thrown in as metric ballast. What they quickly settled into around the turn of the century however, with albums like The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified , Emergency & I , and Change , was not just a genre-defining statement of what “indie-rock” was supposed to be about during what we now know retrospectively -- and jadedly -- as “the PitchforkMedia era” of rock criticism, but timeless music that can still get a crowd of downcast nerds to start dancing uncontrollably as they muse about that time they too got ruinously drunk on New Year’s Eve. It is quite possible that (outside of that one Robbie Fulks episode) Political Beats may be covering its most obscure rock group to date with the Dismemberment Plan. Click now, remedy that, and open yourself to a life of dangerous possibilities.…

Political Beats

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Episode 138: Nick Lowe 1:08:07

for 24 weeks siden1:08:07

1:08:07

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Nick Lowe. Nick Lowe is . . . wait, you don’t really need a bio for Nick Lowe, do you? If there’s any questions about who he is, please take the time to listen to our lengthy Political Beats episode with guest Matt Murray. In an interview that has been months in the making, your Political Beats hosts get the opportunity to spend a little more than an hour with the legendary Nick Lowe. Cards on the table, both of us were a little nervous to be speaking with one of our musical heroes. Nick made it comfortable and entertaining, as if anything else would be expected. The conversation begins with a discussion about his fantastic new album, Indoor Safari . The record is a collection of songs from EPs released over the past half-decade or so, many of the tunes re-recorded or slightly changed from the initial versions. These performances are so crisp, so lively. “Crying Inside,” is a perfect example of a top-notch, sublimely written and executed, late-career Nick Lowe song. “A Quiet Place” could be the single best band performance on the album. “Blue on Blue,” would fit in alongside anything on The Impossible Bird and the Bacharach-influenced “Different Kind of Blue,” truly benefits from the full band arrangement not heard on the version found on the 20th Anniversary edition of The Convincer . As the liner notes claim, “ Indoor Safari isn’t a journey back in time -- it’s a journey out of time, to a music that stands the test of any time.” We begin our chat in the present but quickly move far afield, with discussions about his early career, the thought process that started his “second half” of music (starting with The Impossible Bird ), his songwriting techniques, and a few nerd/fan questions near the end. We hope to have asked a few questions that perhaps haven't been asked before. Be sure to check out Nick and Los Straitjackets live this fall. Tour dates are here (Click on "Show All Dates" to see them all.) If you’re out and about, you might see Scot at the Detroit show and Jeff at one of the Chicago shows. After all, we’re big fans.…

Political Beats

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Very Special Episode: Most Essential/Necessary Compilations [137] 2:28:12

for 29 weeks siden2:28:12

2:28:12

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar (@ EsotericCD ) with . . . no guest at all! With Jeff moving his belongings to a new abode while also covering the RNC and DNC for National Review and Scot's vacation schedule creating another hurdle, we felt it was time to break the glass on the window marked "VERY SPECIAL EPISODE." For those relatively new around here, we've done two VSEs in the past, both when schedules were getting out of control. One compiled our Best Cover Songs and the other listed our Best Soundtracks. In short, some stuff we wouldn't get to cover in a different way. And, by the way, these are pulled off without a guest. Thinking in that direction for a theme, we present to you the Most Essential/Necessary Compilations. For Scot, this meant one thing: artists/bands who have produced basically no complete albums worth consideration of a full Political Beats episode, but who have a Greatest Hits/Best Of package that contains absolutely everything you need of the singles. Some people really hate buying hits packages because they want to have the artistic statement made by the full album. But you can’t deny there are some collections that are just perfect in their brevity/simplicity. All killer, no garbage album filler to worry about. On the other hand, Jeff thought about this a little differently: What compilations helped introduce him to the larger work of a band? And, being a post-punk guy, which collections helped bind together swaths of material you can't find elsewhere? In the end, as usual, you get two slightly different perspectives on the show. You can decide which one is superior.…

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Episode 136: Brad Birzer / Yes [Part 2] 2:43:10

for 36 weeks siden2:43:10

2:43:10

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Brad Birzer. Brad is the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History at Hillsdale College. He is also the co-founder of and senior contributor at The Imaginative Conservative , and the author of a number of books, including Neil Peart: Cultural (Re)Percussions . Find him online at bradbirzer.com or @bradleybirzer on Twitter. Brad’s Music Pick: Yes Well, the buses outside don't add much weight to the story in our heads we began in our last episode of Political Beats , so we're thinking we should go and write a punchline; thus, welcome to part two of our discussion of the great progressive rock band Yes, wherein we discuss their career from 1974's Relayer onward to the present day. (Be forewarned -- we pick and choose after the debacle of Union (1991). Fondly remembered: Talk , Keys To Ascension , Magnification and Fly From Here . Not so fondly remembered: erm, Open Your Eyes .) I could offer more prelude than that, but this is one episode where the music will do vastly more explaining than any written exegesis; Yes bounced back after Tales from Topographic Oceans with an album even more abstruse and outwardly difficult, yet light years more compelling. From that point onward and despite countless personnel changes -- up to and including swapping the "Video Killed the Radio Star" guys straight into their band -- the group maintained its unique sound and creative voice throughout the second half of the Seventies in a series of albums that age like casked scotch. (Check out the vigorous defenses of Tormato and Drama ye shall find herein!) Then the group collapsed after a disastrous 1980 tour and seemed to be over . . . until a South African guitarist/vocalist/songwriter named Trevor Rabin entered the picture. All this and much, much more is covered on an episode of Political Beats that spans from the mid Seventies all the way to the late Eighties without once pausing for breath. Afterwards, we take a breather here and there, but for now? Tempus fugit, my friends, so you should click, because we're off to the races, going for the one.…

Political Beats

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Episode 135: Brad Birzer / Yes [Part 1] 2:58:05

for 40 weeks siden2:58:05

2:58:05

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Brad Birzer. Brad is the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History at Hillsdale College. He is also the co-founder of and Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative , and the author of a number of books, including Neil Peart: Cultural (Re)Percussions . Find him online at bradbirzer.com or @bradleybirzer on Twitter. Brad’s Music Pick: Yes Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare! We take you close to the edge of the south side of the sky this week as we discuss the early adventures of Britain's answer to all the questions raised by hippies during the Seventies, the New Age of Atlantic : Yes. Yes were one of the pillars of British progressive rock music, but also (perhaps surprisingly) a major commercial success in America long before their peers. They were also a truly singular band during their lengthy heyday; the band underwent endless lineup changes as personalities clashed and artistic visions ran amok, and yet they have always sounded like themselves and nobody else successfully has. Starting with local janitor Jon Anderson on countertenor vocals, Pete Banks on Hendrixian guitar, Tony Kaye on groovy late-Sixties B3 organ, fussily precise jazz drummer Bill Bruford keeping time, and Chris Squire playing a bass so aggressive it intimidates people into crossing to the other side of the street, Yes exploded out of London's club-gigging scene after drawing inspiration from watching a newly born King Crimson play the circuit. Their early style mixed originals -- first halting, then increasingly assured -- with spectacularly imaginative covers of everything from West Side Story to Buffalo Springfield and Simon & Garfunkel. But as Banks was jettisoned for Steve Howe, and then Tony Kaye traded in for Rick Wakeman, Yes ascended from a series of records beginning with The Yes Album and Fragile (1971) to superstardom, with all that entailed: sidelong songs, triple live albums, and extended soaks in the topographic oceans. All set to some of the most inscrutable lyrics but gorgeous music written during the decade. So turn on your lava lamp and get ready to call over valleys of endless seas as you and I climb crossing the shape of the morning -- it's time to sink into a elevated musical fantasy world created by Yes during this, the first part of their career. We take the story up through Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973); next time around, we'll get a relayer to go for the one without too much drama, but for now click play and enjoy the sound of perpetual change.…

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Episode 134: Guy Denton / Echo & The Bunnymen 3:27:20

for 44 weeks siden3:27:20

3:27:20

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Guy Denton. Guy is the co-host of The Wrong Stuff with Matt Lewis, contributor to The Dispatch and National Review , and until recently took Jonah Goldberg's guff over at The Remnant . Find him on Twitter/X . . . nowhere, because he is saner than the rest of us. Guy’s Music Pick: Echo & the Bunnymen There's really not much to say about this episode other than that it is the greatest and most important edition of Political Beats ever recorded. That's what singer/rhythm guitarist/world-class ego Ian McCulloch would no doubt say about this discussion of legendary U.K. postpunk greats Echo & the Bunnymen, and this time he might have a point, because this actually is one of the show's white whales: The Bunnymen may not have invented, but truly perfected, the platonic sonic ideal of "postpunk" over a series of four stunning records in the first half of the Eighties and if Jeff's use of descriptive superlatives were clipped and collected on their own, it would probably add up to at least a half-hour of raw time. The Bunnymen were originally a drumless three-piece bedsit-room band from Liverpool -- vocalist McCulloch, lead guitarist Will Sergeant, and bassist Les Pattinson; it was the drum machine that was nicknamed "Echo" by fans. The addition of Londoner Pete de Freitas on actual drums in early 1980 immediately catalyzed the band: They launched out of the gates with their debut album Crocodiles (1980) and never looked back. From that point onward, they would play not just a major role, but arguably the defining role, in carving out the sonic world we now think of as "postpunk": fiercely arty, fiercely aggressive, and also fiercely beautiful. McCulloch sounded uncannily like one of his most well-known competitors in the postpunk arena -- U2's Bono -- and the run of work they put out between 1980 and 1987 tracks theirs blow-for-blow and is frankly superior in all respects right up until the end. And yet from our American perspective (and nearly 40 years after their heyday) Echo & the Bunnymen are often treated as a curious footnote from the world of Eighties music, obscure Brits who recorded That Song You Know From That Movie Soundtrack. They were the furthest thing imaginable from it: one of the most endlessly compelling and rewarding groups of a decade positively exploding with great music. We weren't kidding when we said there isn't really much to say about this episode, because the music will speak more eloquently than any words can. Bring on the dancing horses, and seal your pact with the Dark Mistress of Fortune underneath the killing moon. Perhaps it was your fate -- up against a will -- all along. Click play and never stop.…

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Episode 133: Joshua Treviño / Matthew Sweet 2:47:54

for 48 weeks siden2:47:54

2:47:54

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Joshua Treviño. Joshua works and writes at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and spent the entire 1990s listening a lot to Matthew Sweet. Joshua’s Music Pick: Matthew Sweet For listeners of a certain age, just the name Matthew Sweet will evoke a particular memory, and it’s likely one that involves heartbreak. Breaking through with the power-pop masterpiece, Girlfriend , Sweet channeled the inner thoughts and emotions of Gen-Xers everywhere and married them to killer hooks and melodies. Of course, his career is more than just that. Matthew Sweet bridges the gap between sweet, melodic power pop and the edgy alternative rock sound of the 1990s, leveraging the guitar work of Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd on his best music. His influences are clear -- you hear some Beatles, sure, but also influences of Big Star, the Byrds, and even Neil Young in the guitar tones. His run of albums from Girlfriend to In Reverse (or roughly 1990–2000) is what we focus on in this show, though additional time is spent on his first two solo efforts and some of his later-career output, particularly the trio of Under the Covers albums recorded with ex-Bangle Susanna Hoffs. It’s great music and for many, including one co-host, it’s essentially brand-new music for the ears. They say nothing is certain in life, but we can guarantee you 100 percent fun when you tune in for this Matthew Sweet edition of Political Beats .…

Political Beats

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Episode 132: Tom Nichols / Boston 2:06:55

for 51 weeks siden2:06:55

2:06:55

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Tom Nichols. Tom is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters , with a new second edition out soon. Find him on X/Twitter at @RadioFreeTom . Tom’s Music Pick: Boston This could be our first episode that is longer simply by listening to the entirety of the band's actual discography. Even if true, we still think you should choose Political Beats ! Boston is an unusual band, sui generis in many ways. To begin with, Boston is really one guy: Tom Scholz. Okay, Okay, he probably couldn’t pull this off without the voice of Brad Delp. And our guest is quick to point out Sib Hashian has some nice moments on drums on the Boston debut album. But Scholz wrote nearly all the songs, he developed the guitar sound, he spent years in his basement perfecting that debut album. And what a debut it was. You know every song here and all but one remain in heavy rotation on classic rock radio stations across the country. It was the biggest-selling debut in history for about a decade after its release. “More Than a Feeling,” “Peace of Mind,” “Foreplay/Long Time,” and “Hitch a Ride” continue to soundtrack summers annually. But what do you do for an encore? And how do you evolve that sound, if at all? These are some of the questions we kick around throughout the show. It's always a blast to be joined by a guest who actually lived through the release of some of the music we are discussing. Tom gives a needed and appreciated perspective on Boston and the impact the music had on the rock world. We’ll talk until you’re feelin’ satisfied and are prepared to walk on to another episode. Grab your Rockman amp and plug in to Political Beats .…

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Episode 131: Jay Cost / The Kinks [Part 2] 3:22:51

for 1 year siden3:22:51

3:22:51

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Jay Cost. Jay is the Gerald R. Ford senior non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of, most recently, James Madison: America’s First Politician . Find him on Twitter/X at @Jay__Cost . Jay’s Music Pick: The Kinks Haven’t we done these guys already? We sure did! But this is the part of the Kinks' career we didn't do any real justice to back six or seven years ago when Jay first joined us for our comically brief discussion of the Kinks' Seventies career. We remedy that here, for the second part of our grand Kinks retrospective (covering everything from 1969's Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire onwards) sheds light on an era of their career that has been largely forgotten, but which contains much of their greatest music. From the conceptual ambitions of Arthur , Lola , and an entire passel of early-to-mid '70s concept albums that are usually more mocked than listened to (wrongfully so, we argue), the Kinks reclaimed stardom, promptly kicked it right back to the curb in order to do concert/stage production hybrids for a few years, and then with superb 1976 Sleepwalker went right back to climbing the album and singles charts. And all throughout it Ray Davies's lyrical vision -- singular in both its profundity and also its occasional cheerful mundaneness -- guided the group through a series of records that, while no longer discussed as much as their classic Sixties era, were extremely popular in their time and justifiably so. We pretty much wrap up our discussion with Give The People What They Want (1981), so if you have to be a big Think Visual! fan, then this episode may disappoint you. But we doubt it. Because Political Beats is proud to have finally given the latter era of the Kinks their proper due, and in a way that we hope will make several new fans. Click play, sit back in your old rocking chair in your Shangri-La, and enjoy.…

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Episode 130: Jay Cost / The Kinks [Part 1] 3:38:28

for 1 year siden3:38:28

3:38:28

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Jay Cost. Jay is the Gerald R. Ford senior non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of, most recently, James Madison: America's First Politician . Find him on Twitter/X at @Jay__Cost . Jay's Music Pick: The Kinks Haven't we done these guys already? We sure did! For the first (and possibly last) time, Political Beats has done something unprecedented and gone back to cover an artist for the second time . Why? Because frankly, our original Kinks take was Episode #7 (we're up to #130 now, seven years later), and we didn't know what we were doing with the format yet, didn't do the discussion justice, and frankly this should have been a two-part episode. So now it is! Jay was great with us back in the day -- except for the part where we had to cut short the discussion because he had to pick up his kids from school -- so we've invited him back to do proper justice to Ray and Dave Davies, eternally warring brothers who fronted a band that started as the most mindlessly brutish of all the British Invasion '60s hitmakers ("You Really Got Me," "All Day And All Of The Night," "Tired Of Waiting For You," "Till The End Of The Day" -- all rockheaded classics) and then rapidly transformed into one of the most curiously intellectual bedsit-room British bands in history, as quintessentially "English" in the late Sixties and Seventies as The Band was effortlessly "American." The music during their early phase (discussed this week -- part two coming soon!) transforms from hitmaking international singles to insular, intensely well-written melodic and lyrical miniatures about English eccentrics and English life -- the sort of music that was destined to fail commercially in its moment but which later became (and remains) the subject of endless musical, emotional, and intellectual fascination. Join us then, as we take a second, far juicier bite at the apple and chronicle these glorious early years of growth for the Kinks, culminating in The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968), an album all about the seductions, perils, and aches of nostalgia. Later on, after this point, the Kinks would reemerge into the world at large, cultivating a massive international (and specifically American) fanbase during the Seventies and Eighties with a very different kind of music. But for now, get ready for stories of session men, insufferably perfect schoolboys, ugly urban tube stations at dusk, and utterly phenomenal cats as we take you back to the mysterious era known as "decline-phase late Sixties Britain" and discuss the last of the good old-fashioned steam-powered bands.…

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Episode 129: Mike Long / Joe Jackson 3:09:39

for 1 year siden3:09:39

3:09:39

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) with guest Mike Long. Mike is a (very) occasional writer for National Review and was one of the originals back in the early 2000s as NRO was launched. He’s the author of the non-fiction bestseller The Molecule of More and its sequel coming in fall of 2024. Mike’s Music Pick: Joe Jackson After running through Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe/Rockpile, it was only a matter of time before we got to covering Joe Jackson. As an artist, Jackson frequently is grouped into the "angry young man"/Pub Rock category with the aforementioned artists. However, as we discuss on the show, there's an incredible depth to his songwriting and arrangements that quickly busted him out of whatever box critics might put him in. Jackson came out of the gate hot, with two releases in the magical year of 1979, Look Sharp! and I'm the Man . They could be parts one and two of the same album. These are the ones that lump him into the Costello/Parker/Lowe movement but it's a sound he rarely returns to again. Every single song is a winner. From here would come some of his best known songs – “I’m the Man,” “It’s Different For Girls, and “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” By 1981, he took a massive detour from the rock/pop world with Jumpin' Jive , a collection of covers of 1940s swing and big band songs originally performed by Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway. Night and Day was released the same year as Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom and it, too, is a bid to be taken very seriously as a songwriter. Like Elvis's effort, it's a complete success artistically and even moreso commercially. "Steppin' Out" earned Grammy Award nominations and reached number six on the charts. "Breaking Us in Two" reached number 18. It's a cosmopolitan, big-city record. The rest of the 1980s would find Jackson stretching his wings and dabbling in jazz, Latin rhythms, classical – if you name a genre, he probably has a song in it (OK, perhaps not metal). Albums like Body and Soul , Big World , Blaze of Glory , and Laughter and Lust didn’t sell nearly as well as previous efforts but kept fans happy. After 1991, however, he wouldn’trelease another non-classical studio album until 2000's Night and Day II . Why? Take it from the artist himself: "After the Laughter & Lust world tour … I had real bad writer's block. I couldn't even listen to music. I just lost it, totally. It was awful." But it wouldn’t stay that way! Beginning in 2003 with Vol. 4 , Jackson would release a string of records that showed he still know how to write a song. By the way, all of us have musical blind spots, and Joe Jackson was one for Jeff. Come along for the ride as he discovers the many layers of this talented performer and writer.…

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Episode 128: Hannah Rowan / Blondie 2:38:14

for 1 year siden2:38:14

2:38:14

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Hannah Rowan. Hannah is the managing editor of Modern Age . You can find her on X at @ Hannah_Cristine and read her review of Debbie Harry's memoir here . Hannah’s Music Pick: Blondie Here's another artist we get to cross off the list of long-awaited episodes. Both Jeff and Scot have been hot to do Blondie for years and it has nothing (okay, relatively little) to do with the attractive woman fronting the band. It’s the music that means so much, even after all these years. Blondie, as Jeff argues, is perhaps the quintessential new wave band, but they started by paying tribute to girl-group sounds and garage rock of the '60s on the band’s first record. From there, singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, the two leaders of the group, led Blondie through a wide variety of styles and genres. The band was as comfortable playing power pop and new wave as they later would be incorporating disco, reggae, and even rap into their sound. Blondie recorded four number one songs -- "Heart of Glass," "Call Me," "The Tide Is High," and "Rapture" -- and you couldn’t quite stick any of them inside the same box. And we can’t escape the visual aspect. It’s impossible to separate what you see from what you hear. Debbie Harry was a striking figure to lead the group. And Blondie was a band that was deliberate in how it presented itself -- from album covers to stage apparel to making videos for every song on a record, which predated the MTV-era by a good half-decade or so. The timeframe for the band's brilliance is relatively short and we spend very little time on the post-reunion work (apologies to fans of Pollinator ). But what was created at the end of the 1970s truly stands the test of time. The music, in many ways, pointed forward toward what we would hear throughout the decade of the 1980s.…

Political Beats

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Episode 127: Eric Kohn / Huey Lewis & the News 3:07:36

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3:07:36

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Eric Kohn. Eric is the Director of Marketing & Communications at the Acton Institute. Check him out on Twitter at @ iEricKohn . Eric’s Music Pick: Huey Lewis & the News Do you believe in miracles? Yes! After years of lobbying, Jeff has proven that anyone will fold, given enough time and pressure. Here is the Huey Lewis & the News episode of Political Beats . Those of you with us for a while will know that the band is a favorite of Scot's while Jeff previously has taken any opportunity to vow never to cover Huey and the boys on the show. Well, recently he had a change of heart (Track One, Picture This ) and we wasted no time in finding a guest. Did we end up talking for three hours about Huey Lewis & the News? Of course we did. Did we change Jeff's mind? Listen and find out. Scot’s love of the band started at a young age, and much of his knowledge of the early story of the band’s history comes from a mass-market paperback that he still has to this day. Huey Lewis & the News: A Biography is a 142-page chronicle of the rise of the band and its origins on the San Francisco music scene. It’s out of print, obviously, but check your local used bookstore for a copy. Huey Lewis & the News essentially was the merger of two big local Bay area bands -- Clover and Soundhole. Huey and keyboardist Sean Hopper played in the former, while drummer Bill Gibson, saxophonist/guitarist Johnny Colla, and bassist Mario Cipollina in the latter. Clover (sans Huey) were perhaps best known for being Elvis Costello's back-up band on My Aim Is True . The band then picked up a 21-year-old kid in 1979, Chris Hayes, to play lead guitar and were off. The next year, 1980, brought the little-noticed self-titled debut. Here's the thing: It's quite good! This album, and the early sound of the band, is the commercial follow-through on the wonderful music made by the pub rock artists of the U.K. This record is heavier on Mario's bass than later entries, but those trademark backing vocals are there from the start. It didn't sell. At all. The next album would be make or break. Huey's face alone is on the cover. Harmonies are tighter. Little did they know they had an ace in the hole: a song written by Mutt Lange. "Do You Believe in Love" would explode to #7 on the charts. The band had a hit. A follow-up would be tougher. Three other singles from Picture This failed to break #36, though one, “Workin’ for a Livin’,” has endured as a blue-collar anthem. The band went back to work with a taste of success and a thirst for more. The mission for the next album was simple: every song a hit. Easy, right? With Sports , they pretty much pulled it off. You know virtually every song on this album, including “I Want a New Drug,” “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” “If This Is It,” and more. There was no thematic goal other than producing hits. Synths, drum machines, massive hooks -- whatever it took. Outside writers? Sure! A strength of the band was taking other's material and making it sound like their own, as they did on “Heart and Soul” and “Walking On a Thin Line.” Sports was a monster. Massive headlining tours followed. Two major projects before the next album would drop. First, Huey would take a lead vocal spot in "We Are the World,” filling in for Prince. Second, some work on a little film called Back to the Future and the band’s first #1 hit in “The Power of Love.” Huey Lewis & the News is on top of the world. But 1986 is approaching and a new album is due soon. One problem: No one hears a single. One of the engineers calls up Chris Hayes at home and says, "Chris, we need a hit." "Stuck With You" was what he came up with, and it was the lead single for Fore! , which would also hit #1 & sell 3 million+ copies. That said, Fore! is a bit of an odd duck. Fully half the songs were from outside writers, including the album's other #1 single, “Jacob’s Ladder” (written by the Hornsby brothers) Next? Well, whatever the band wanted. And what they wanted was not necessarily commercial in nature. A socially conscious effort full of eclectic musical themes, Small World . As far as I've read, the band loves this album. They got to stretch their legs as musicians. They had earned the right to make a project of their choosing. The record-buying public was not impressed. Small World barely scraped 1 million units in sales. The band did have one last bullet to fire at the charts. “Perfect World,” a song written by Alex Call, a former Clover bandmate of Huey and Sean, hit #3 and clearly sits aside their best. Afterward, the band had some well-earned time off. In the time span, though, the rock world was changing quickly. Huey & company dropped the weirdness of the last album and returned to the blueprint -- rock, R&B, a love song, and a tune by Mutt Lange. All on Hard At Play . There would not be another album of new material for ten years. Four Chords and Several Years Ago , an album of 50s-era covers, came in 1994. Plan B , an album of new material, arrived in 2001, followed by Soulsville, a Stax covers album, and finally 2020’s Weather . The last record was released following Huey’s diagnosis of Ménière's disease, an inner-ear disorder, which means he can no longer hear music frequencies or hold vocal pitches. The result is no touring and no more new music from the band. It's sometimes hard to hear Huey Lewis & the News on the radio. Living on that weird line between rock and pop in the 1980s means there's not a great format for those songs now. It's a catalog well worth further inspection, though. You won't regret spending three hours with us and the band.…

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Episode 126: Rory Cooper / Simon & Garfunkel 3:11:25

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3:11:25

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Rory Cooper. He’s a partner at Purple Strategies , a corporate reputation and advocacy agency in Alexandria, Va., a former George W. Bush and Eric Cantor aide, and a longtime Republican strategist. He’s on Twitter at @ rorycooper . Rory’s Music Pick: Simon & Garfunkel If you enjoyed Political Beats ’ episode on the solo career of Paul Simon with Rory Cooper from a year and half ago, then kick right back after the Labor Day weekend and start feelin’ groovy while listening the epic George Lucas/Peter Jackson prequel extravaganza that is our discussion of Simon & Garfunkel! Yes, Rory has returned to discuss a pop duo formerly known as “Tom & Jerry,” whose music dominated both American and U.K. airwaves in the late Sixties. With three #1 hits, nine more top 20 singles, two #1 albums, and their names attached to one of the decade’s most beloved films, we think it likely that you’re already somewhat familiar with Simon & Garfunkel. But this, like our Paul Simon episode, is the rare episode in which neither of your two esteemed hosts were actually deeply familiar with the albums (as opposed to the radio hits). How could this have happened? All is explained while we are rejoined by Rory Cooper, a guy who knows all the stories and loves Paul Simon’s music so much he named his kid after one of these songs. In this episode, we explore the origins of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel as schooldays choirboy friends in Queens, their brief “teen idol” phase as Tom & Jerry, and their -- rather awkward -- rebirth in the early Sixties as folkies on a Greenwich Village scene that resolutely disdained them for purported inauthenticity. Simon & Garfunkel’s 1964 debut album flopped so badly that Simon went to England and Garfunkel simply went back to school, until a Columbia producer desperate for a hit overdubbed electric backing onto a forgotten song from that debut called “The Sound of Silence.” And the rest is history. Simon & Garfunkel’s career resumed in a haste as “Sound of Silence” hit the top of the charts in January 1966, and what followed was a series of increasingly assured acoustic folk/pop/rock hits that culminated by the late Sixties in immortal and gnomic songs like “Mrs. Robinson,” “America,” and “The Boxer.” From being a pale imitator of Bob Dylan’s “intelligent folk” music, Simon & Garfunkel had evolved into a different, singular sound, anchored around Garfunkel’s peerlessly pitch-perfect high tenor voice and Simon’s insistently rhythmic sense of guitar-work and arrangement. Although the pairing did not -- and could not, for many reasons -- last long, it ended in a supreme achievement: Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970), a record whose commercial dominance and omnipresence in its day has been exceeded only by its subsequent critical reputation. And that was it; Garfunkel left for an acting career, and Simon for a solo one. (A brief reunion in the early Eighties went nowhere.) And that was for the best: They will forever be remembered for going out on the highest possible note. What happened next has already been discussed , but for now, enjoy the groovy Sixties and Paul Simon’s orthogonal, acutely self-conscious place within them as we count the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, all gone to look for America.…

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Episode 125: Matt Murray / Nick Lowe 3:31:11

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3:31:11

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Matt Murray. Matt is the recently departed editor of the Wall Street Journal , now on assignment for its parent company, News Corp. Check him out on Twitter at @ murraymatt . Matt’s Music Pick: Nick Lowe Okay, it says “Nick Lowe” right there above this line, but we need to be straight with you -- there’s a lot of other stuff happening in this show. Nick Lowe-adjacent acts are featured prominently, too. That means talk about Brinsley Schwarz, Rockpile, Dave Edmunds, and many, many more (even Huey Lewis!). There's a really simple way to summarize this episode: Here's a 3.5-hour love letter to Nick Lowe. That's pretty much the plot, people. Three hosts with a deep, abiding adoration for the music and production contributions of one of the biggest missing names from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Now, I imagine there are some people who are saying, "Nick who?" After all, Lowe's career is the definition of a technical one-hit wonder -- a single top-40 song (“Cruel To Be Kind”) and that's it in terms of true chart success. First of all, everyone is in for a treat, from longtime fans to newbies. Albums such as Jesus of Cool and Labour of Lust are among the very best released in the 1970s. Second, Nick Lowe's musical influence and work as a producer certainly will be familiar to you. The term “Pub Rock” describes an entire wave of U.K. acts, and Nick was at the center of most of them. This means Brinsley Schwarz and Dave Edmunds for sure, but also acts such as Graham Parker, Elvis Costello, and The Damned. This was a back-to-basics movement and a reaction to the bloat of progressive rock and the flash of glam. These artists instead looked to the rock and R&B of the '50s and '60s as guideposts. This is such a fun story to tell because the music is undeniable. The melodies are unimpeachable. And Nick Lowe's "second act" in his career has been so creatively satisfying. Starting with The Impossible Bird , he builds an entirely new sound and feel that is just as rewarding as the early work. He’s Nick Lowe and Political Beats is here to make the case that, although he’s not a household name, he certainly should be.…

Political Beats

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Episode 124: Dave Weigel / Pet Shop Boys 2:50:01

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2:50:01

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Dave Weigel. Dave is a founding reporter at Semafor , where he covers the 2024 campaign and writes the Americana newsletter. Check his work out here and find him on Twitter at @daveweigel . Dave’s Music Pick: Pet Shop Boys Opportunities are knocking: I've got the brains, and you've got the looks, so let's make lots of money as we use the post–July 4 week to celebrate the United Kingdom's most famous '80s/'90s synthpop dance-music duo! Of course, Pet Shop Boys -- a two-man collaboration that began in 1981 when rock critic Neil Tennant ran into bedsit-room synths-and-sequencers muso Chris Lowe at a record shop -- are much more than that besides. They managed the trick of being one of the United Kingdom's most commercially dominant chart acts while also being one of its cleverest and most tasteful, the result being that their classic run of albums beginning with Please (1986) have not dated even as they helped create and define the sound of '80s and '90s pop, club, and dance music. Neil Tennant's knack for melody and endlessly clever lyrics relating stories of heartbreak, ennui, and urban adventure from a then still-hidden subculture (gay London of the '80s and '90s) matched perfectly with Lowe's preternatural ability to layer keyboards hooks and sequenced percussion into compulsive radio fodder: The Pet Shop Boys scored 22 top-ten singles in the U.K. and ten over here in the United States, and you'll be surprised how many of them you knew without realizing you did. So press play, get ready to dance, enjoy a real treat. By the end you may be asking yourself: "What have I done to deserve this?"…

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Episode 123: Dominic Green / The Jam 3:10:19

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3:10:19

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Dominic Green. Dom is a historian and columnist, and he used to be a musician. He is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal and a columnist for the Washington Examiner and Jewish Chronicle . Check him out on Twitter at @DrDominicGreen . Dominic’s Music Pick: The Jam In some ways, this is one of the most necessary episodes of Political Beats ever. In other ways, this is one of the most obscure episodes of Political Beats ever. So come on in, Smithers-Jones, take a seat and a weight off your feet, because I've some news to tell you: The Jam is the most important and consequential British rock group that nobody outside of music nerds and record store clerks in America even knew existed. Paul Weller (guitar, vocals, primary songwriting), Bruce Foxton (bass, vocals, secondary songwriting), and Rick Buckler (drums) formed the late Seventies U.K. punk era's greatest power trio by explicitly patterning themselves off of the "straight lines" musical attack of mid Sixties mod-era Pete Townshend and The Who. They then almost immediately began to develop an approach that, by the time of All Mod Cons (1978), had evolved into a unique musical and lyrical response to the massive societal upheaval and displacement of the early Thatcher era. Even as The Jam sought and achieved universal critical acclaim and commercial success in Great Britain -- Paul Weller would later be dubbed "The Modfather" by '90s U.K. Britpop bands such as Oasis, Blur, and Teenage Fanclub -- their legacy failed to translate nearly anywhere else, and particularly to the United States. It's no mystery as to why: The Jam's lyrics and themes (driven by Weller) were uniquely British in a way few other top-tier rock artists' had been since the heyday of Ray and Dave Davies with the Kinks in the late Sixties. But these themes are nevertheless emotionally universal and humane, and the music? Oh, the music, my friends. If you are a Brit or a Jam fan of long-standing, then prepare for a delightful stroll through one mind-blowing punk, power-pop, or even string-laden art-rock memory after another. If you are new to The Jam -- and we must assume that many of you are -- prepare to be mowed down by a youth explosion as one pop masterpiece after another is brought to your attention for the first time. Some people might get some pleasure out of hate but you? You've enough already on your plate with this episode. Click play, and soon you'll be going underground.…

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Episode 122: Eric Garcia / Black Sabbath 3:02:18

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3:02:18

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Eric Garcia. Eric is senior Washington writer for the Independent and a columnist at MSNBC. Check him out on Twitter at @EricMGarcia . Eric’s Music Pick: Black Sabbath The storm is upon you; can you hear the peals of thunder in the background, and the bleak clang of the church bell in the sleeping village? Well then break out the most appropriate tritone you can think of as the gang discusses Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, Bill (and yes, Ronnie James as well) and the groundbreaking music of Black Sabbath. Sabbath are famed as the inventors -- with their self-titled 1970 debut album -- of what would come to be known as "heavy metal." As such, they've long been worshipped by surly teenagers and metalheads alike, and derided by parents and critics in equal proportion. What we will take great pleasure in explaining to you during this episode is that the kids and metalheads got this one right. The critics and your parents whiffed. Sabbath was an incredibly intelligent band that may have begun as a demonstratively sludgy blues-rock (hence the birth of "heavy metal") but almost instantly evolved into a progressive group afterwards under guidance of guitarist Tony Iommi's compulsive riff-writing abilities and the secret jazz predilections of bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. And then there's good ol' Ozzy Osbourne -- the bloke from down at the pub made good, singing his head off as best he can and finding surprising depths in his everyman voice. Sabbath's posthumous reputation is dictated largely by the ubiquitous popularity of their first two albums -- if you have heard them on the radio, it's probably a song like "Iron Man" or "War Pigs" -- but as far as the gang is concerned, that's actually where it gets really interesting for a band whose ability to combine piledriving riffage with shockingly unexpected moments of beauty and soulfulness marked them out during the next seven years as not just the most important heavy-metal bands to exist, but (secretly, don't tell your mom) also one of the finest art-rock groups of its era. Click play and join us this week as we boldly head Into the Void.…

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Episode 121: Adam Wollner / My Morning Jacket 2:53:12

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2:53:12

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Adam Wollner. Adam is a Washington-based journalist who has covered national politics for CNN, McClatchy, and National Journal. Check him out on Twitter at @ adamwollner . Adam’s Music Pick: My Morning Jacket A reverb-laden, indie-country band? Roots rock? Electro-funk? Jam band? All that and much more could be said to describe My Morning Jacket at various stages of their career. The constant has been solid-to-great albums and a dynamic live show that harnesses the power of the studio tracks and unleashes it upon the audience. Led by songwriter and lead vocalist Jim James, My Morning Jacket's music is most closely tied to the Americana folk scene, drawing comparisons, especially early on, with The Band and Neil Young. MMJ slowly adopted some of the moods and styles of the late '60s psychedelic/folk movement, as well. What results is a unique amalgam of genres, songs that seem to pick up new tricks and ideas from across a wide musical spectrum. MMJ has been around for 25 years but, if you're not in the right musical circles, you might not have heard of them before now. Which is, of course, a shame. As Scot explains in the episode, this is not music you need to work hard to love or enjoy. MMJ comes to you, arms open, holding a fluffy blanket. There are numerous ways to enter the world of this band. From there, wonder awaits.…

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Episode 120: Mark Hemingway / Big Star 2:06:17

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2:06:17

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Mark Hemingway. Mark is a writer at RealClearInvestigations and RealClearPolitics and an occasional contributor at The Federalist . Check him out on Twitter at @ heminator . Mark’s Music Pick: Big Star How do you merit an episode of Political Beats when you've released only a handful of albums in your career? When two happen to be among the best pop/rock records ever recorded and a third is a fascinating “"lost masterpiece” that’s never had a real, official release and is steeped in so much mystery no one is even sure what the correct track order might be. That, and much more, is the story of Big Star. In actuality, there's a rich story behind the music of Big Star, from bad luck to poor distribution to bad timing to, much later, acknowledgement of the stellar work that was done. The songs they recorded form the rock solid foundation of power pop, influencing bands decades into the future. Some of your favorite artists likely learned numerous tricks from Big Star, bands like The Posies, R.E.M., Teenage Fanclub, Gin Blossoms, Wilco, Matthew Sweet, The Replacements, and many more. Only a few thousand copies of Big Star’s records sold upon release, both a comment of the prevailing tastes of the early 1970s and an indictment of the distribution strategy (or lack thereof) of the band’s labels. We try to explain the genius of both Alex Chilton and Chris Bell and come to praise the contributions of Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens to the arrangements. If you don’t know Big Star, this is a perfect introduction. As a side note, Mark Hemingway becomes our very first three-time guest on the show, opening the door for others to return again in the future. He’s been anointed “King of the Short Discography” after tackling The Replacements, Nirvana, and now Big Star on the show.…

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Episode 119: Noam Blum / Tool 2:20:55

for 2 years siden2:20:55

2:20:55

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by Noam Blum. Noam is Chief Technology Officer at Tablet Magazine and co-host of the Ambitious Crossover Attempt podcast and of All Crossed Out on the Callin app, both of which deal with pop culture, media, and politics. Find him on Twitter at @neontaster . Noam’s Music Pick : Tool Since Political Beats dealt with one of Gen Z's niche musical obsessions last episode in tackling The National, we've decided to double down in the new year and finally go after one of the Millennial generation's more beloved (and also, as we grant on the show, derided for their sincerity) bands with a discussion of Tool. Driven by the lyrical vision of Maynard James Keenan, the guitar geometrics/visualizations of Adam Jones, and the drumwork of Danny Carey, Tool was/is (though "is" is notional proposition, given that they've slowed their work pace to one album a decade) progressive heavy metal in their approach, a genre we haven't covered at all here on the show yet. We have dealt with many of their progenitors, particularly King Crimson (compositionally and musically) and Husker Du (lyrically and spiritually). And one day we'll get to Metallica, we promise. But Tool in many ways represents the final flowering of that line of intellectualized hard rock that began in the '70s, became unfashionable in the '80s, and then reemerged in the '90s. Their heavy sound and emotionally involuted lyrical obsessions would become endlessly imitated by many lesser groups seeking to recreate the intensity of their music, but those would be pale imitations. Here's the genuine article, a tool to use for yourself. Use wisely.…

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Episode 118: Phil Wegmann / The National 2:35:50

for 2 years siden2:35:50

2:35:50

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Phil Wegmann. Phil is White House reporter for RealClearNews and RealClearPolitics . Check him out on Twitter at @ PhilipWegmann . Phil’s Music Pick: The National Let us tell you, we have had *a bunch* of listeners ask us for an episode on The National, and we are nothing if not responsive to our fans. Neither one of your hosts previously was extremely familiar with the band, which is why we called in our ringer, Phil Wegmann, who earlier helped to lead our path through the Creedence Clearwater Revival show. Looking at Wiki's description of The National -- “The National has been compared to Joy Division, Leonard Cohen, Interpol, Wilco, Depeche Mode and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds” -- you could be forgiven for thinking this already was one of Jeff’s favorite bands. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact there’s a lot of Arcade Fire in this music, as well. Much of your opinion of The National could hinge on how you feel about lead singer/lyricist Matt Berninger and his classic baritone voice. There’s not a ton of vocal modulation on these tracks! That, of course, makes for a distinctive sound and separates the band from many of its peers. The band’s self-titled debut is a bit of an outlier – there are sounds there they never quite would return t0 – but after that, a fantastic string of albums begins with Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers , one Scot argues actually is among their best. Alligator , Boxer , and High Violet make the case for The National becoming one of the most consistent acts of the decade while continuing to tweak their songwriting and performance at each stage. 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me ends up as a top choice of all three of your hosts. Maybe you’re new to the band, too! Don’t worry. Jump in and experience The National through the eyes of a superfan and two other hosts who were in the same position you’re in. And if you already love The National, well, there’s a decent chance our takes will somehow manage to irk each and every one of you in some way. We can’t all be “Mr. November,” after all.…

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Episode 117: Andrew Fink / Otis Redding 3:10:19

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3:10:19

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Andrew Fink. Andrew is a member of the Michigan House of Representative (District 35 -- Branch & Hillsdale Counties). Prior to that, he was the district director for Senate majority leader Mike Shirkey. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewFinkMI. Andrew’s Music Pick : Otis Redding Ladies and gentlemens, we are so happy to be here with the Love Crowd tonight because we gotta gotta gotta gotta turn it loose about soul giant Otis Redding, a man whose recorded legacy looms large not just in the history of soul and R&B but in modern popular music as a whole. Redding is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest R&B vocalists of all time, and as a "soul giant," but what is far too less appreciated about him is that he was the first truly modern African-American popular musician, a man self-consciously carving out a sound, pushing sonic boundaries and the traditions of his genre, and working self-consciously to craft albums as complete statements at a time when absolutely no other black artist in the country outside of jazz was thinking along those lines. Redding's early singles established him, simply on their own terms, as an early Sixties soul great. ("Pain In My Heart," "Mr. Pitiful," "That's How Strong My Love Is," "I've Been Loving You Long," and "Security" are the sorts of timeless Redding soul belters that went immediately into the working books of countless English R&B bands, notably including The Rolling Stones.) His mid-Sixties albums demonstrated that he, alone among all major soul/R&B artists of his era -- long before Stevie or Marvin moved for their artistic freedom -- had a sound and vision that belonged to something more than a series of singles. And the music he was making before he suddenly died (in a December 1967 plane crash while flying between shows) was mutating both into chart-topping contemplative folk-pop ("(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay," his only #1 single) and forward-looking hard funk ("Hard To Handle"). Four albums of posthumous Redding material were released between 1968 and 1970. Much of it is great work. But one can only imagine where Otis would actually have been by 1970. He was growing so quickly as an artist. Join us this week, as we open with a long discussion of Stax/Volt and the nature of its "sound," and then engage in a celebration of one of the greatest popular musical artists of the Sixties -- and perhaps the most heartbreaking loss of modern musical history, in terms of what we likely missed when that plane went down on a cold winter's day in December 1967. Hail to The King of Soul.…

Political Beats

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Episode 116: Noah Weinrich / Weezer 2:44:29

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2:44:29

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Noah Weinrich. Noah is director of communications for Heritage Action , the grassroots and advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation. Check him out on Twitter at @ weinrich_noah . Noah’s Music Pick : Weezer What kind of a band starts its career with two stone-cold classic albums, takes a nearly five-year hiatus, and then returns to mixed results for a 20+ year tail? We're about to find out. Covering the good ( Maladroit ! Everything Will Be Alright In the End !), the bad ( Make Believe !) and the ugly ( Raditude !), we try to lend some perspective on what made the band great, why perceptions have changed over the years, and what keeps them going. Of course, we spend a huge portion of the show discussing Weezer’s twin pillars of excellence: the debut (Blue) and Pinkerton . One beloved from the moment of release and the other taking years for fans and critics to fully appreciate. The response to Pinkerton clearly changed the trajectory of the band and influenced musical decisions for years to come. The second self-titled (Green) album heralded a comeback in 2001, but it was a different kind of band, divorced from much of what made the first two albums so consequential. Regardless, fans, some new and some old, embraced most of these sonic moves. There’s lots to discuss about the last 20 years and how Weezer should be considered so long after the early success. There’s also Rivers Cuomo’s lyrical journey from sharing ultra-personal thoughts and desires to crafting pop songs from spreadsheets and syllable counts. It’s . . . weird. One of the longest-lasting rock bands of the 1990s, but should it be considered one of the best? That question and many more get tackled on this Political Beats.…

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Episode 115: Jesse Walker / Willie Nelson [Part 2] 3:11:43

for 2 years siden3:11:43

3:11:43

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Jesse Walker. Jesse is books editor at Reason and author of two books, The United States of Paranoia and Rebels On the Air . He can be found on Twitter at @ notjessewalker . Jesse’s Music Pick : Willie Nelson In Part Two, we pick up Willie’s story at his commercial breakthrough, Red Headed Stranger (1975). This opens a window in which Willie records frequent number one albums on the country charts and often dents the pop charts with his records, as well. What’s changed? Well, Willie stops writing music for himself for an awfully long stretch. It’s somewhat ironic that his biggest successes in this era will come from other people’s songs after Willie’s writing helped so many artists move product in the years prior. Near the height of “Outlaw Country,” Willie takes a sharp left turn by recording an album’s worth of compositions from the Great American Songbook. Stardust becomes a huge hit and allows Willie to do what he wants. Specifically, that means a series of tribute albums and duet albums in the late '70s. The '80s would bring a string of crossover hits like "On the Road Again," "To All the Girls I Loved Before," "Pancho and Lefty," and "Seven Spanish Angels.” Always on My Mind was a HUGELY popular album at the time but signaled the end of a certain creative era for Willie. He writes again on Tougher Than Leather to mixed returns and the rest of the decade would see occasional hits among a plethora of releases. The 1990s kick off with Willie’s tax trouble and a pretty great release meant to raise money to pay back the government. We dive into Who’ll Buy My Memories and other highlights from an interesting decade of music, with Across the Borderline , Moonlight Becomes You , Spirit , and Teatro (with Daniel Lanois producing) among his best work. Willie has continued his firehose release schedule to this day, with a new album on the shelves just a couple months ago. We skim through the latter portion of his career, stopping to shine a light on a few of the more worthwhile albums. Over two parts and more than six hours, we hope to give both die-hard Willie fans and those new to the artist an overview of what made him so great.…

Political Beats

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Episode 115: Jesse Walker / Willie Nelson [Part 1] 3:13:45

for 3 years siden3:13:45

3:13:45

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Jesse Walker. Jesse is books editor at Reason and author of two books, The United States of Paranoia and Rebels On the Air . He can be found on Twitter at @ notjessewalker . Jesse’s Music Pick: Willie Nelson Sure, in the past here on Political Beats we have dabbled in country-ish music. We've dipped our toes in the water of alt-country and country rock. But this, friends, is a full-fledged belly flip into the world of COUNTRY. Welcome to Willie Nelson, Part One. The show may never be the same. In Part One, we take Willie from his early songwriting days up through Phases and Stages . That’s right -- it’s 3+ hours and we don’t even get to Red Headed Stranger . That’s how much we have to say about Willie. We discuss much more than the music in this one. For example, we ask why country music's greatest albums are not considered among popular music's greatest as well? Why do we cabin them off to one side? How should we consider the songwriter versus the performer? Why would someone like Willie, early on at least, successful at one but not the other. And the voice. The delivery. What makes Willie truly Willie? From Liberty to RCA to Atlantic, all of Willie’s record labels are represented on the show. It's a straight-up crime that some of these records aren't routinely listed among the greatest American albums of all-time. However, that's the silo country music finds itself in, at times. We try to bust through that silo. It’s an exciting mix of styles and eras with entertainment and information for newbies and hardcore fans. Relax in any way you see fit, grab a bit of yesterday’s wine, and be amazed at how time slips away when you listen to Political Beats . You can even stay in your underwear, if you like.…

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Episode 114: Steve Miller / Mott The Hoople 2:22:07

for 3 years siden2:22:07

2:22:07

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Steve Miller. Steve is a veteran journalist and a reporter at RealClearInvestigations . He's also the author of Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Rock 'n' Roll in America's Loudest City . Steve's Music Pick: Mott The Hoople Do you remember the Saturday gigs? We do, we do! Mott The Hoople are known outside of specialist rock audiences these days either as "one of those weird bands from That Weird Era with one of those memorably weird names" or as a putative 'one-hit wonder' performing a song most people associate with David Bowie. So that's where you're wrong, kiddo. Mott The Hoople was a band that managed to set Britain (and particularly London) afire during the early Seventies, even as they consistently eluded chart success. They were brought together by famed rock & roll madman/record-jobber/A&R man/heavy drinker Guy Stevens, who realized his dream of creating a band that sounded like both The Rolling Stones AND Bob Dylan simultaneously by pairing a chubby Dylanesque vocalist/pianist (Ian Hunter, hiding his insecurity behind enormous shades) with a workaday gigging band that hailed from within spitting distance of the Welsh border (the Doc Thomas Group, with Mick Ralphs). From that fusion came Mott The Hoople, and their 1969 self-titled debut album. The pure rock & roll energy -- gruff, with zero pretensions, utterly available to the fans and the audience, yet strangely literate and aspirational as well -- was there from day one. The only question was whether Mott could ever properly harness it in the studio. The gang argues that they actually did quite a good job during their pre-Bowie years (especially on Brain Capers , an album of such loopily memorable hard-rock ferocity that it must be heard to be believed), but the record-buying public certainly didn't agree. Which is where David Bowie stepped in, rushing to save the band after they'd announced their own dissolution in the UK music press. His song "All The Young Dudes" became their most famous number, and yet on this episode everyone is at pains to argue that neither the song nor its namesake album are the real highlight of Mott's career. So let us explain to you how a band you've more or less never heard of recorded one of the greatest albums of the entire decade after their involvement with David Bowie as we sing you the ballad of Mott The Hoople. And if it seems we've lost just a little bit on the journey, then please treat us kindly.…

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Episode 113: Andrew Heaton / 'Weird Al' Yankovic 2:58:20

for 3 years siden2:58:20

2:58:20

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Andrew Heaton. Andrew is a comedian and political satirist you might know from Reason TV. He is the host of The Political Orphanage , a funny policy analysis show for people tired of tribalism. You can find him on Twitter at @mightyheaton . Andrew Music Pick: “Weird Al” Yankovic You should know a few things about Al before we start. First, Al is super smart. He was two years younger than all the other kids in grade school and was going to be an architect before music intervened. Second, Al is super nice. There are no bad stories (that we know of!), no scandals. He doesn't even do a parody unless the artist gives the "Okay," even though there's no particular reason for him to do that. Three, Al is a super-good songwriter. You might think of parodies when you think of “Weird Al,” but a goal of this show is to convince you that his originals & pastiches are even better. The short Al story begins with the “Dr. Demento” radio show. Al was a fan. He passed him a cassette tape with some songs when the Dr. visited his high school, one of which then was played on the show. After that, Al continued to contribute and people took some notice. Well before the first album was released, he got national airplay with the singles "My Bologna" and "Another One Rides the Bus" -- the latter was recorded live on Demento's show and not even re-recorded for the debut. That '81 performance also is where Al met his long-time drummer. The rest of the band was put together in '82 and they've been together since. Not bad when it comes to longevity and loyalty. There are essentially four types of "Weird Al" songs: 1. Straight parodies (think "Eat It," “Fat,” “Smells Like Nirvana”) 2. Pastiches (song in the style of REM, Devo, Talking Heads, Cake, Bob Dylan, etc.) 3. Pure originals 4. Polka medleys of current or past hits There are certain recurring themes – food, TV, movies, the sad sack in love, lyrics with escalating comedic situations -- but through Al’s lengthy career, he’s shown the ability to adapt to whatever is in front of him, both musically and culturally. There are ups and downs to be sure, but his last album, Mandatory Fun (2014), was Al’s first number one album, a sign he still commanded a sizable fanbase of nerds and weirdos. Of which all three of us are, of course. Join the crowd, shout it out loud! Dare to be stupid with Political Beats and “Weird Al” Yankovic.…

Political Beats

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Episode 112: Scott Immergut / Squeeze 3:02:21

for 3 years siden3:02:21

3:02:21

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Scott Immergut. Scott is the CEO of Ricochet.com and the Ricochet Audio Network. He is the long-time producer of the Ricochet Podcast and the GLoP Culture podcast with Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, and John Podhoretz. He’s also the Executive Producer of The Hoover Institution’s Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson and Good Fellows , with Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, and John Cochrane. Scott’s Music Pick: Squeeze They might do it down on Camber Sands and at Waikiki, but in the mainland U.S., Squeeze was mostly a rumor for much of the band’s career. Highest charting album? #32. Just two Top 40 singles. Squeeze, unfortunately, was destined to join the long list of very British bands that never quite crossed over to the States. If you know Squeeze at all, it might be because of the placement of “Tempted” on the soundtrack for Reality Bites . Or, perhaps a roommate at college had the Singles 45's and Under collection on CD, as most roommates seemed to in the 1990s. But there’s a heck of a lot more to the story. This is, of course, where Political Beats steps in to solve the problem. Because the truth is you won’t find music any better than what Squeeze produced, particularly at their peak from 1978-1982. The highly literate lyrics of Chris Difford, filled with sharp storytelling and British allusions, paired perfectly with the beautiful, melodic, and sometimes quite complicated music written by Glenn Tilbrook. Tilbrook’s soulful tenor took most of the leads (except, famously, on perhaps the band’s best-known song, “Tempted”) while Difford’s deep croaking voice contributed backing vocals. The duo were called the heirs to the Lennon/McCartney songwriting throne, though the comparison never really fit and actually harmed the band’s output, as we discuss on the show. But they were something special, producing some of the finest pop songs of the era, like “Another Nail In My Heart,” “Pulling Mussels,” “Up the Junction,” and “Is It Love”. The band broke up in 1982, making way for a pretty awful Tilbrook/Difford duo album that was a naked reach for the charts. Squeeze reunited in 1985, fell apart in 1999, got back together in 2007 and remain a recording and touring entity to this day. Pick up almost any album from their collection and you’re going to hear at least a handful of well-crafted, melodic, memorable tunes. If nothing else, you’ll learn about a whole bunch of British slang, like “argybargy,” “up the junction,” “that’s not cricket,” and “slap and tickle.” But we’re pretty sure you’re going to love this music, as well. It’s not just an East Side Story , it’s one everyone can enjoy on Political Beats .…

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Episode 111: Eli Lake / Prince [Part 3] 2:53:16

for 3 years siden2:53:16

2:53:16

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by Eli Lake. Eli is a contributing editor at Commentary , and fellow at the Clements Center at UT-Austin. Follow him on Twitter at @EliLake . Eli’s Music Pick: Prince, Pt. 3 (1992-2016) Eli rejoins the gang as they resume their discussion of the career of Prince Rogers Nelson, or as he was known for a significant part of this period covered during this episode, "[unpronounceable symbol]." Yes, this is the era where long-simmering tensions finally boiled over and Prince went to war with his record label Warner Brothers, resulting in his infamous decision to change his name to an unmarketable, unpronounceable "love symbol" ("The Artist Formerly Known As Prince" is the best people could do back then) in order to diminish the commercial impact of his work. What the gang are at great pains to explain here, during this final episode of our Prince spectacular, is that even though Prince was willfully obscurantist or difficult during this period, the music remained every bit as good as it had been during the earlier phases of his career. You never heard most of this music on the radio, and unless you were already a Prince fanatic at the time you likely didn't purchase it either, but up through 1999 or so, at least, there was no perceptible diminution in his talent. Welcome to the part of our Prince journey, where you'll be hearing music you had no idea even existed.…

Political Beats

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Episode 110: Eli Lake / Prince [Part 2] 3:11:57

for 3 years siden3:11:57

3:11:57

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by Eli Lake. Eli is a contributing editor at Commentary , and fellow at the Clements Center at UT-Austin. Follow him on Twitter at @EliLake . Eli’s Music Pick: Prince, Pt. 2 (1985-1991) Join us once again as we deepen our Strange Relationship with Prince! Eli rejoins the gang as they pick up their discussion of the amazing career of Prince Rogers Nelson in the aftermath of Purple Rain and Around The World In A Day and Eighties megastardom. Having conquered America his own way, yet endlessly restless and ambitious, Prince proceeds to wander through an ill-begotten movie project ( Under The Cherry Moon , with the wildly underrated album Parade attached) and a period of indecision and various scrapped projects until finally he emerges with Sign O' The Times in 1987. Now widely hailed as his greatest achievement, it didn't sell at the time and inaugurated a period where Prince would increasingly go to war both with himself and his record label. Hear the early results on this episode, as we discuss the fascinating narrative that leads to Lovesexy (a CD he insisted be released as one single 44-minute-long track, to prevent listeners from skipping around), then Batman , then another unfortunate movie tied to a fantastic album, and finally his great commercial revival with Diamonds And Pearls . Yes, the dire rhymes of Tony M. are discussed. Yes, all the outtakes and discarded projects are discussed. And the story will only get stranger in our final episode, next time.…

Political Beats

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Episode 109: Eli Lake / Prince [Part 1] 3:55:48

for 3 years siden3:55:48

3:55:48

Eli’s Music Pick: Prince Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called Life. Electric word, "Life," and it's a mighty long time, but I'm here to tell you, there's something else: Prince Rogers Nelson. Known to the world by his first name, Prince was a self-made musical polymath who performed the singular trick of somehow altering the world to accommodate his eccentricity and musical genius rather than the other way around. We know Prince in our cultural memory as one of the classic 1980s MTV megastars alongside Madonna, Michael, and Bruce, but what is less appreciated is just how remarkable it is that he managed to vault himself so easily into that rarified company despite being so unapologetically weird. A Minneapolis kid who refused to ever give up his roots, Prince was so determined to carve his own path through the musical world of the late Seventies and Eighties that he recorded nearly every single note of all of his albums during this era. From his origins as an upstart in the R&B charts (as an heir to the autonomous tradition of Stevie Wonder, with crossover ambitions to match) to the avant-garde outrage of Dirty Mind and Controversy , to the world-conquering success of 1999 and Purple Rain , Prince moved with such method and purpose that the gang is almost in awe of the scope of his growth from 1978 to 1985. Join us for Part 1 of a three-part series where we celebrate the transcendent genius, and oddness, of The Purple One, his Royal Badness. We're living the pop life over here on Political Beats for the next few episodes.…

Political Beats

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Episode 108: Mike Long / Robbie Fulks 3:05:31

for 3 years siden3:05:31

3:05:31

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Mike Long. He wrote the sort-of-bestselling book The Molecule of More and he teaches writing at Georgetown University, but mostly he writes things for other people to put their name on. He’s on Twitter at @ mikewrites . Mike’s Music Pick : Robbie Fulks This is almost certainly the most obscure artist we've ever covered on Political Beats . Yet, when the three hours are up, we think you'll also consider him one of the best. Ladies and gentlemen, please say hello to the incredibly talented Robbie Fulks, an artist who would be a household name if there were any justice in the musical world. Scot has been a fan for more than 20 years, dating back to finding one of the artist's CDs in a stack he was to review for his college radio station. Jeff’s new to the music, but hit on something by describing Robbie as “the country Elvis Costello.” Like Elvis, Robbie has an encyclopedic knowledge of multiple decades of music and isn’t afraid to jump from genre to genre in his work. And like Elvis, his lyrics and stories can often take center stage with creative wordplay and rhyming. Whether you are a rock ( Let’s Kill Saturday Night ), folk ( Upland Stories ), bluegrass ( Gone Away Backward ), country ( Country Love Songs , Georgia Hard ), pop ( 50 vc. Doberman ), or, in Jeff's case, post-punk fan, there's going to be something here for you to grab a hold of. And we haven’t even mentioned what might be his best album, Couples In Trouble . No, none of them have been hits on the charts, but the consistent quality of the music will impress any listener. Robbie has a keen ear for creating stunning instrumentals and picks wonderful partners for occasional duets. He can make you laugh out loud during one song while moving you to cry in your beer over the next song. He’s adept at road songs, love songs, murder ballads, and cheating laments. And if you’re not careful, he’ll even turn you on to some of the underloved classic country artists of the past. If you’ve never heard of Robbie Fulks, we’ve provided the perfect introduction. Join us and you’ll soon be a fan.…

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Episode 107: Rory Cooper / Paul Simon 3:12:08

for 3 years siden3:12:08

3:12:08

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Rory Cooper. He’s a partner at Purple Strategies , a corporate reputation and advocacy agency in Alexandria, Va., a former George W. Bush and Eric Cantor aide, and a longtime Republican strategist. He’s on Twitter at @ rorycooper . Rory’s Music Pick: Paul Simon Here comes rhymin' Simon, right onto his own edition of Political Beats . This is the rare episode in which neither of your two esteemed hosts were intimately familiar with the artist’s music before preparations began for the show. Thankfully, Rory Cooper is here to fill in our blanks and guide us through Simon’s career. We begin with an overview of Simon’s partnership with Art Garfunkel (though the music itself largely will wait for a specific S&G episode) before the break-up which led to the self-titled solo debut (Ok, Ok, there was a Paul Simon album in 1965, but that really belongs to the S&G story) , an album that immediately engages the listener and highlights the artist’s firm grasp an the American musical songbook. As Jeff points out early in the show, Simon’s music is largely about rhythm and finding different places and sources to get that rhythm. His second effort, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon , features one of the best and purest slices of '70s pop in “Kodachrome”. Following a Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Still Crazy After All These Years , Simon took five years off before returning to mixed results, though Jeff makes the case for Hearts and Bones as a minor classic. Simon’s career renaissance would come via a cassette handed to him by an artist he was supposed to be helping. Instead, he fell in love with the music and stole/borrowed the idea to compose and record an album inspired by the sounds. This would be Graceland , a miracle of an album that still holds up well today. Yes, we discuss the circumstances surrounding the recording, the accusations of “cultural appropriation,” and much more. That album served as a template for much of the rest of his career (though the less said about Songs From The Capeman the better). Simon continued producing quality albums every five years or so with a handful of gems and no real embarrassments up until what appears to be his final new studio album in 2016, Stranger to Stranger . Hop on the bus, Gus, and come along for the ride. There is a need to discuss much about Paul Simon on Political Beats .…

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Episode 106: Andrew Prokop / Kate Bush 3:49:53

for 3 years siden3:49:53

3:49:53

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by Andrew Prokop. Andrew is Senior Politics Correspondent for Vox, and you can find his work here . Follow him on Twitter at @awprokop . Andrew's Music Pick: Kate Bush Who? Unless you're an art-rocker, Englishman, or Lisa Simpsonesque girl-poet-dreamer, the name "Kate Bush" quite likely means nothing to you. Bush is something close to a beloved institution in the United Kingdom, where she has grown up in public to become the nation's officially designated Eccentric Bookish Aunt, but in the United States she is almost a pure cipher outside of music fanatics, a weird lady with a flute-like voice who occasionally shows up on '80s-era Peter Gabriel singles. Well get ready for a massive course-correction then, because this is an episode of Political Beats that has been brewing since the day the show began. And it doesn't take a psychic to figure out which of your hosts has been quietly lying in wait, ready to explain the deeply committed art-rock genius of Kate Bush to you for four years now. Bush began her career as a downright creepily preternatural child prodigy (she was writing at age ten, recording by age 13, professionally recording at age 15, and released her debut LP at age 18), swiftly gathered up complete creative control into her hands, and went to work from 1980 onwards shaping a career that stands for so many things, but perhaps most of all for the miraculous idea that gallery/exhibition-level art and "pop music" can still coexist within the same skin without shedding representation altogether. Instrumentally, this is piano-based music, but the real instrument here is the Fairlight CMI, a synthesizer program set that allowed her to retreat into near-complete isolation and play every single note of any instrument herself; Bush, more than nearly any other rock or pop artist with mainstream success during the 1980s, is the sound of Virginia Woolf's A Room Of One's Own made good. Ah, but it's not just about art! It's about love and beauty! Bush balanced all of her arty instincts with an achingly pure lyrical vision that magpied from every influence imaginable to take form in her own unique style: a literary fascination with artifice -- with the self-construction that knowledge and imposture makes possible -- combined with an elementally deeply fascination with men and the inscrutable mysteries of masculine anxieties, ambitions, and inchoate needs. So here we go! It's coming for us through the trees! Take your shoes off, throw them in the lake, click play, and before you're 20 minutes in, hopefully you'll be two steps on the water as well.…

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Episode 105: Bruce Edward Walker / Warren Zevon 2:39:18

for 3 years siden2:39:18

2:39:18

Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) with guest Bruce Edward Walker. He’s Midwest Regional Editor for The Center Square . He has written extensively on popular culture, literature and public policy for reference books, newspapers, magazines, and websites. He’s on Twitter at @ bruceedwalker . Bruce’s Music Pick : Warren Zevon The show begins its 2021 finishing kick with a long-requested episode featuring the music and career of the great Warren Zevon. Zevon is an artist with passionate fans who, at the same time, also can prove to be difficult to grab onto for newcomers. We hope to provide a path. As a singer/songwriter, Zevon can be difficult to pigeonhole. He’s a cynic, yes. He writes about portions of society -- outlaws, sociopaths, drug dealers, villains -- that many others might like to forget. He’s full of humor and wit. He writes biographical songs yet also has a wonderful way with literary narratives. He was a drunk. He recovered. He was a drunk again. Personal demons often got the best of him. Yet the work stands up. As Scot mentions on the show, a trip through his discography is like a series of mini “We Are the World.” Zevon, for most of his career, was able to attract the biggest California rock stars and the best session musicians around to contribute to his albums. Hey, there's Bonnie Raitt! Lindsey Buckingham! Leland Sklar! Ben Keith! Don Henley! David Lindley! Jackson Browne! Linda Ronstadt! Jeff Porcaro! Steve Lukather! J.D. Souther! The three of us have very different opinions on various portions of Zevon’s career, so this one can be a spicy listen. Send lawyers, guns, and money … and get ready for Warren Zevon.…

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Episode 104: Charles C. W. Cooke / Fleetwood Mac [Part 2] 3:13:20

for 3 years siden3:13:20

3:13:20

Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by our old friend Charles C. W. Cooke. Charlie is a Senior Writer for National Review, and you can find his work wherever quality Charles C. W. Cooke products are sold (i.e. mostly right here on this website). Follow him on Twitter at @charlescwcooke . Charlie's Music Pick: Fleetwood Mac "Oh sure," you think as you read what artist we're covering this week, "I know them. Everybody knows them." Well yes . . . and no. You know the hits (everyone does -- new generations of teens have been "rediscovering" Rumours since the early 1980s at least), but what you might not know about is the sheer artistic drive of this, the latter-era version of Fleetwood Mac. That force came from the addition of none other than guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist/songwriter Stevie Nicks. Buckingham and Nicks were also a long-time romantic pair just then slowly beginning to come apart at the seams when they joined Fleetwood Mac, a fact that would have certain consequences for their music and their career. Even though the story only covers a handful of albums, the journey is vast. From the 1975 self-titled album (a fitting title for a true rebirth of the band) to the world-dominating pop-rock perfection of Rumours to the willful obscurantism of Tusk and the retrenchment from Mirage and onwards, the Buckingham/Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac is populated with landmarks of modern music, and attests not only to the restless studio genius (and technical perfection as a guitarist) of Lindsey Buckingham but of an entire group. They were a three-headed songwriting behemoth backed by the finest and most organically creative rhythm section in all of popular music. The soap opera is the stuff you probably already knew -- though you might not have known the Stevie Nicks cocaine factoid Jeff lays on the audience during the show -- so come and stay for an appreciation of the greatness of this music. We'll save you a place.…

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Episode 103: Charles C. W. Cooke / Fleetwood Mac 3:15:25

for 3 years siden3:15:25

3:15:25

Scot and Jeff discuss the first part of Fleetwood Mac’s career (1967-1974) with Charles C. W. Cooke. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by our old friend Charles C. W. Cooke. Charlie is a senior writer for National Review, and you can find his work wherever quality Charles C. W. Cooke products are sold (i.e. mostly right here on this website ). Follow him on Twitter at @charlescwcooke . Charlie’s Music Pick: Fleetwood Mac “Oh sure,” you think as you read what artist we’re covering this week, “I know them. Everybody knows them.” Well yes . . . and no. You know the hits (everyone does) but what most who only started paying attention with 1975’s chart-topping Fleetwood Mac album fail to realize is that the Mac had been together for a full eight years of legendary madness and great music prior to finally breaking big in America. From a hardcore electric blues band to a preternaturally self-assured and professional pop-rock act, from the East End alleys of London to Los Angeles, from a five-piece band featuring three separate lead guitarists to a shellshocked husk of a group without a single one . . . the story of Fleetwood Mac is one of the wildest, most improbable, least believable stories in rock history, and that’s all before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks join the group. This is a band whose manager once sent a fake version of the band out on tour to impersonate them, for crying out loud. And the music is utterly superb. Early Fleetwood Mac feels somewhat schizophrenic due to their rapid mutations and personnel changes, but every era of this band up to the 1990s brought something of value and there are few treats more pleasurable than the sound of founder and original bandleader Peter Green’s blues-guitar playing. From blues, to art-rock, to ’50s pastiche, to prog-rock, to solid Fleetwood Mac-style pop, this was a band that could play in pretty much every style due to the versatility of its rhythm section. Come along and join us on an exploration of the wonderful forgotten years of Fleetwood Mac — back when their secret weapons were a songwriter whose favorite lyric to use in songs was “la,” a balding SoCal post-hippie burnout, and a woman who was literally born Perfect.…

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Episode 102: Daniel Gullotta / Michael Jackson 3:39:08

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Scot and Jeff discuss Michael Jackson with Daniel Gullotta. Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Daniel Gullotta. Daniel N. Gullotta is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in American Religious History at Stanford University. He is completing a dissertation on how religious politics influenced the rise of Andrew Jackson and the formation of the Democratic and Whig parties. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post , The Bulwark , The Hill , National Review , The Critic , and many other publications. He is also the host of the Age of Jackson podcast . Follow him on Twitter at @danielgullotta . Daniel’s Music Pick: Michael Jackson In this episode the gang tackles the discography of none other than The King Of Pop himself, and we refuse to stop ’til we’ve gotten enough. After the requisite throat-clearing (yes, you can’t talk about Michael Jackson without addressing the bizarre circus that was his life or the allegations of abuse that dogged him later in his career and after his death) Political Beats turns its attention to what our show always focuses on: the music. And what an incredibly rich career it is! From his earliest days as the biggest child star of the pop-music era (Jackson had four #1 singles, three with his family group the Jackson 5, before he even reached the age of 13) to his post-adolescent emergence with the explosively danceable Off The Wall , to the biggest-selling album in world history and all that followed, Jackson always focused his singular talents on conquering the world commercially, and pretty much succeeded. (As the gang jokes, 1/6 of the entire United States bought Thriller back in the mid-1980s, and the remaining 5/6ths correctly calculated that if they wanted to hear it all they had to do was turn on the radio, which was playing every single track.) The myth, the media, and the mess all have tended to obscure the power of one of the biggest and most influential artists in the modern era of music, so this week we want to take you back to how it felt to listen to someone sing a love song to a murderous pet rat, or explain to you why a solid 25 percent of American kids were wearing one white glove and a white fedora for Halloween during the late ’80s. Get up, get out on the dance floor, and let Political Beats burn this disco out with you.…

Political Beats

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Episode 101: Matt Lewis / John Mellencamp 2:34:21

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Scot and Jeff discuss John Mellencamp with Matt Lewis. Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Matt Lewis. He’s a senior columnist for The Daily Beast , author of the book Too Dumb to Fail , and host of the podcast “ Matt Lewis & The News ”. Follow him on Twitter at @ mattklewis . Matt’s Music Pick: John Mellencamp In an episode with the biggest singer name confusion since our Pixies show, Political Beats takes on the music and career of Johnny Cougar/John Cougar/John Cougar Mellencamp/John Mellencamp. This is one that Jeff was not necessarily looking forward to, but an episode we hope many of you are excited about. Scot and Matt do their best to convince Jeff of the worthiness of Mellencamp’s catalog, while Jeff begrudgingly admits yes, there are some outstanding albums to be had. Mellencamp’s career began with a series of albums that stiffed (except in Australia!) before finally hitting paydirt with American Fool . He followed that with a run of classic LPs, Uh-HUH , Scarecrow , and The Lonesome Jubilee , in which his lyrical focus jumped from a being a tough-guy ne’er-do-well to bemoaning the state of American farms and the living conditions for many lower-class people in the U.S. In that transition he also moved from a Stones-meets-Springsteen presentation to introduce fiddle, banjo, dobro, and many other folk/country instruments not usually heard on rock tracks. An argument is made that while Mellencamp is not the greatest lyricist, he is a great storyteller and is able to convey the feeling of his songs effectively. Even in his more “protest”-minded songs, he’s able to craft a narrative that avoids finger-pointing (for the most part) and focuses on the problem at hand. And he has a knack for writing melodies that are hard to forget. You can’t tell the story of 1980s and 1990s rock without including multiple songs by Mellencamp. One word of caution: if you’re a fan of his output for most of this century, well, you might be disappointed. All of us have tried to get into the recent albums that feature a more stripped-down folk sound but, unfortunately, we have very few compliments to throw around concerning that music. Whether you’re from the big town or a small town, John Mellencamp’s music likely resonates on some level. Check it out . . . and check out this episode of Political Beats .…

Political Beats

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Episode 100: Andrew Fink / The Allman Brothers Band 3:33:56

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Scot and Jeff discuss The Allman Brothers Band with Andrew Fink. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Andrew Fink. Andrew is a member of the Michigan House of Representative (District 58 – Branch & Hillsdale Counties). Prior to that he was the district director for Senate majority leader Mike Shirkey. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewFinkMI . Andrew’s Music Pick: The Allman Brothers Band Have the risers for the twin drum set-up been properly double-bolted? Have all the lines into the amps and board been checked? Is the organ plugged in? Then there’s no need for a soundcheck as we move through the dog days of August with a trip to Hot ‘Lanta! Today we celebrate the greatness of The Allman Brothers Band, a little group originally out of Jacksonville, FL (and later Macon, GA) put together piece by piece during the late Sixties by brothers Duane (the elder) and Gregg (the younger). The Allmans are regularly described as one of the greatest “Southern Rock” or “jam” bands to have ever existed. The irony, of course, is that they disdained both labels: on the one hand, “Southern Rock” didn’t even exist as a genre until these guys invented it, and was a reductivist label that put them in a box they didn’t properly belong to. And on the other hand, in the words of Gregg Allman, “we aren’t a jam band, we’re just a band that jams.” What the Allmans were really about was incredibly hard, sweaty electrified blues-rock, electrified in a way nobody had ever heard prior to their emergence onto the scene in late 1969. With a twin-guitar attack (Duane and co-lead guitarist Dickey Betts), a double drum engine-room churning away behind them (Butch Trucks — perhaps the most quintessential “southern rock” name ever — and Jai Johanny Johanson), eloquently melodic bass counterpoint (Berry Oakley), and Gregg Allman on organ and lead vocals, what the Allmans came up with was a fusion of blues, rock, and jazz that took three old and hallowed genres and somehow managed to create something new out of them. Join us this week as we travel through the prehistory of the Allmans (all those early bands, Duane’s amazing career as a session guitarist, etc.), their glory years (including one of the greatest live albums in the history of popular music), and their extremely “tabloid drama” decline (yes, Cher is somehow involved). For the first five years of their career these guys never set a foot wrong despite having to survive not one, but two tragic motorcycle deaths, and if you aren’t already familiar with the music then don’t keep yourself wonderin’, just dive in and eat a peach for peace.…

Political Beats

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Episode 99: Randy Barnett / Traffic & Steve Winwood 3:19:15

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Scot and Jeff discuss Traffic/Steve Winwood with Randy Barnett. Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Randy Barnett. He’s the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center where he directs the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. His most recent book, The Original Meaning of the 14th Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit , will be published by Harvard University Press and is now available for preorder on Amazon . Follow him on Twitter at @RandyEBarnett . Randy’s Music Pick: Traffic/Steve Winwood We return after a lengthy lay-off with a look at the career of one of the most talented musicians we’ve ever covered on the show, Steve Winwood. Joining The Spencer Davis Group at the age of 14, Winwood had a voice well beyond his years and was more than proficient at multiple instruments. After a few years and a couple of hits, he left to form Traffic, the band at the heart of this episode. Traffic’s blend of folk, rock, jazz, and soul were driven by the partnership of Jim Capaldi and Steve Winwood, along with the talents of Chris Wood. Dave Mason became the Rachel to the band’s Ross through the years, joining and leaving multiple times. Beginning in 1967, the band first turned out eclectic pop singles flavored with psychedelic influences. Traffic emphasized Winwood’s organ and piano and the reed instruments played by Chris Wood. After a first break-up, members reconvened following Winwood’s trouble crafting a solo album. In its second iteration, Traffic developed into a band that favored extended jams, leaving room for jazz-like improvisation. Perhaps best-known in the States now for “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys,” the band frequently touched the Top Ten album charts during the 1970s. On this episode, you’ll hear music and discussion involving Spencer Davis, Traffic, Blind Faith, Steve Winwood, and Dave Mason plus special appearances by The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix. It’s a veritable Rock and Roll Stew around here. Jump in and enjoy the program. You’ll be feelin’ alright in no time flat.…

Political Beats

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Episode 98: Jeff Dufour / Neil Young [Part 3] 4:18:58

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Scot and Jeff discuss the third part of Neil Young’s career (1980–2021) with Jeff Dufour. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Jeff Dufour. Jeff is the editor in chief of National Journal . Find him on Twitter at @dcdufour . Jeff’s Music Pick: Neil Young (Part 3) If you need a podcast to sample and hold or feel rockin’ in the free world, then settle in and prepare to devote a full four hours of your life to the gang’s account of the final (to date) 41 years of Neil Young’s career, from the dawn of the ’80s and the Reagan Era all the way to the present day. Thirty-eight albums! And somehow we manage to discuss a full thirty-four of them in depth. This is the period where Neil started zooming all over the map stylistically, from trad country music to synthpop to rockabilly to horn-soaked nightclub blues to just good old-fashioned Neil Young-style hard rock and folk. These 40 years had incredible highs and legendary lows, but we’re here to explain to you why it all makes much more sense than it might have seemed at the time, and why so many of these albums are actually hidden gems. ( Trans , my friend. Trans .) Buckle up as we drive you through one of the more remarkable musical journeys in rock history.…

Political Beats

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Episode 97: Jeff Dufour / Neil Young [Part 2] 3:28:21

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Scot and Jeff discuss the second part of Neil Young’s career (1973–1979) with Jeff Dufour. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Jeff Dufour. Jeff is the editor-in-chief of National Journal . Find him on Twitter at @dcdufour . Jeff’s Music Pick: Neil Young (Part 2) Grab a bottle of tequila, an inflatable palm tree, and a rack of honey slides to prepare yourself for our discussion of Neil Young’s latter Seventies career, which begins after the early 1973 Harvest / Time Fades Away tour with a plunge straight into darkness, despair, and alcohol-sodden musings on death and redemption. Yes, we’re talking about none other than the infamous Tonight’s The Night . The album was so disarmingly bleak and bizarre that he decided not to release it for several years after recording it (even though he toured it across the world!), and instead turned around to record On The Beach (which Jeff argues may well be the most stoned album of the Seventies, and perhaps coincidentally also Neil’s greatest ever work) and reunite with a re-formed Crazy Horse to play on and off with for the rest of the decade. This was also the era when Young began to record so prolifically and become so indecisive about his material that no less than three “lost” albums were prepared for release and then shelved. But what he did release was the most sterling work of his career: from Tonight’s The Night to Rust Never Sleeps and the canonical Live Rust , this era represents Neil Young’s undisputed, where his creative winds are blowing like a hurricane. Please take my advice, come along with us, and try not to stub your toes on any garbage pails as we take you through one of the most impressive explosions of creativity from any popular musician of the last 60 years.…

Political Beats

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Episode 96: Jeff Dufour / Neil Young [Part 1] 2:46:32

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Scot and Jeff discuss the first part of Neil Young’s career (1963–1973) with Jeff Dufour. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are joined by guest Jeff Dufour. Jeff is the editor-in-chief of National Journal . Find him on Twitter at @dcdufour . Jeff’s Music Pick: Neil Young Step aside and open wide as we begin a long journey through the past of the profoundly great career of The Loner himself, Mr. Neil Young. The opening episode of this three-part series covers the first decade of a career that continues to this day. Young traveled a vast distance from obscurity to fame during this period, from his early Sixties origins as Canadian surf instrumentalist to a failed Ontario folkie, to playing lead guitar for Rick “Superfreak” James, to co-founding one of the Sixties’ great “lost” bands in Buffalo Springfield, to a solo career that began as a quirky oddity and then turned him into #1 chart-topping superstar after his profile was raised to household-name status by spending time in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And then, just as he had conquered America, he intentionally took an immediate hard left turn into the ditch. This is a tale of a man who almost always refused to compromise, who only bothered to make music that personally pleased him, and yet who somehow managed to amass a worldwide following and a musical influence that lasts to this day. Rest assured, we’ll be back for more next time to continue covering his career – this is not our last dance.…

Political Beats

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Episode 95: Helaine Olen on Rilo Kiley/Jenny Lewis 2:59:58

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Scot and Jeff discuss Rilo Kiley/Jenny Lewis with Helaine Olen. Introducing the Band : Your hosts Scot Bertram ( @ScotBertram ) and Jeff Blehar ( @EsotericCD ) are with guest Helaine Olen. Helaine is an opinion writer at the Washington Post . Find her on Twitter at @ HelaineOlen . Helaine’s Music Pick: Rilo Kiley/Jenny Lewis So it turns out Hannah Nefler from Troop Beverly Hills and Ronnie Pinsky from “Salute Your Shorts” aren’t played by just talented child actors after all. Those actors, Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, went on to form one-half of Rilo Kiley and were responsible for writing the music and lyrics for the band. And it all started out because actor/comedian Dave Foley offered to pick up the tab for recording a group of demos. While Rilo Kiley never sold a ton of albums, they became a successful and artistically interesting group that made waves in the indie rock community. Jenny Lewis began her solo career before her band officially ended its run, with the superb Rabbit Fur Coat , released in 2006. Rilo Kiley produced one more “grab for the brass ring” album, titled Under the Blacklight . By that point, though, it was clear Lewis’ talent meant more solo albums were on the way. Rooted in a California/Laurel Canyon sound, Lewis rarey repeats herself on record. Her voice has matured over the years to become a true musical weapon. Many of her friends, like Beck, Elvis Costello, Jonathan Rice, Benmont Tench, and others pop up on songs here and there. Whether you’re new to this music or simply taking a deeper dive, be more adventurous with us and listen to the Political Beats take on Rilo Kiley & Jenny Lewis.…

Political Beats

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Episode 94: John J. Miller on The Afghan Whigs/The Twilight Singers 3:35:36

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