Stereo Embers: The Podcast

"Sonic Amadea"

Over the course of five perfect albums with Catherine Wheel, including Ferment, Chrome and Adam and Eve, guitarist Brian Futter made his mark as one of the most dynamic players in modern music. Armed with blazing effects and cascading crescendos, Futter's distinguished playing gave the legendary British band their signature sound. After global tours, heavy airplay on MTV, rave reviews and a handful of top ten hits on the U.S. alternative charts, Catherine Wheel hit pause in 2000 and the band's members went their separate ways. Futter was in 50 Foot Monster with Catherine Wheel drummer Neil Sims and he also raised a family and lived his life. Which brings us to Good Day Father. A dream pairing of Futter with Tanya Donnelly of Belly/Throwing Muses and The Breeders, Good Day Father is a legitimate joy. The band's new EP is a sonorous blend of melodic muscle and dreamy rhythms--Donnelly sounds as beguiling as ever while Futter rolls through each number with thrilling intensity. This is just wonderful work.

www.gooddayfather.bandcamp.com
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"Happy Birthday, Peter Hook"

There’s nothing about Peter Hook that I can tell you you don’t already know, so let’s just do a refresher run through his musical CV. In the late '70s Hook formed Joy Division with childhood pal Bernard Sumner after the two friends saw the Sex Pistols play in Manchester. The band only put out two albums and one of those albums, the legendary Closer was put out two months after the band had ceased to b,e due to the suicide of singer Ian Curtis on the eve of Joy Division’s debut US/Canada tour. Rechristened New Order and consisting of the remaining members of Joy Division plus keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, New Order blended jittery post-punk rhythms with dance music. The result? Well, you know the result. They were one of the biggest bands of the '80s, spawning hits like True Faith, The Perfect Kiss, Subculture and Blue Monday, which was the biggest selling 12-inch of all time. It might still be. New Order dominated the '80s, but the '90s weren’t too shabby—they had a #1 UK hit with World In Motion in 1990 and they had their biggest US hit with “Regret” in 1993. They kept crushing it, putting out Get Ready in 2001 and collaborating with Billy Corgan and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream. They were given the Godlike Genius award at the 2005 NME awards and got nominated for a Grammy in 2006 for Guilt Is a Useless Emotion. Then things got a bit sour, with Hook leaving the band in 2007 and forming his own outfit Peter Hook and the Light, a band that featured his son Jack and much to his fans delight, revisited the Joy Division and New Order songbooks. Over the course of his career Hook has worked with The Stone Roses, and Perry Farrell, he toured with the Durutti Column, put out albums with Revenge and Monaco and wrote one of the best music books ever: Substance; Inside New Order. This is a partial list, btw. Almost a partial partial list because when it comes to Peter Hook, there’s a lot of ground to cover. But these are the basics. Do a deeper dive after you hear the show—the guy is a titan. As for his split with New Order and his boyhood pal Bernard, we don’t have time to go over the legal end of that dissolution, so let’s just say this. If you’re hoping for a reunion you’re wasting your good hope energy. Not going to happen. As a bassist, he plays with an authoritative blend of prowl and sting and not only is he one of the all time greats, he also happens to be a nice guy. This chat covers his fractured friendship with Sumner, why the New Order/Joy Division songbooks appeal to fans across generations and what Hooky has learned from his old material. www.peterhookandthelight.live www.bombshellradio.com www.embersarts.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.alexgreenbooks.com Stereo Embers The Podcast Twitter: @emberseditor Instagram: @emberspodcast Email: [email protected]

"Straight From The Hat"

The New Jersey born Ben Vaughn has put out close to twenty albums, including personal favorites of mine like Beautiful Thing, Mood Swings and Ben Vaughn Blows Your Mind. Aside from his own records, Vaughn has produced records by Ween, Los Straitjackets, Nancy Sinatra, and Charlie Feathers, had his songs covered by everyone from Marshall Crenshaw to Deer Tick and collaborated with the likes of Alex Chilton, Alan Vega, and Rodney Crowell. Vaughn loves punk and surf and rockabilly and folk and country and the blues, which explains the versatility of his collaborations. And if that wasn’t an impressive enough resume, let’s add these two career highlights: he penned the themes for both Third Rock From The Sun and That 70's Show. Oh, and he hosts the fabulous radio show The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn. Vaughn's discography demonstrates his musical dexterity, it also showcases his brilliance as a songwriter—filled with humor, wisdom and grace, Vaughn’s work is always soulful, introspective and impossible to resist. But here's the thing about Ben Vaughn--he loves music. Whether it's noise rock or doo wop, he just loves taking it all in. And that open mindedness has gotten him in a lot of rooms with a lot of people and it's granted him access to a wealth of experiences. And those experiences can now be heard on Vaughn's bi-coastal, cross-generational music history podcast titled Straight From The Hat With Ben Vaughn. Along with co-host Laura Pochodylo (from Sun Records) on the program Ben shares stories about musicians, producers, and all the various characters from his career, with names drawn directly from a hat.

www.benvaughn.org
Instagram: @benvaughnmusic

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"Fighting Fit"

For a little over a delicious decade the London band Gene put out four glorious albums. And since we're here and we have time, let me name them: Olympian, Drawn To The Deep End,
Revelations and Libertine. From 1993 to 2004, the band's resume just kept building: They were on the cover of Melody Maker and the NME the latter of who also gave them the inaugural BRAT award for Best New Band,
they headlined the Reading Festival, played Glastonbury, toured Europe, Japan and the U.S., logged top twenty singles, put out a killer live album called Rising For Sunset, sold hundreds of thousands of albums and played a legendary sold-out show with a full orchestra at London's Albert Hall. Behind the Welsh- born Martin Rossiter, Gene's crunchy blast of melodic muscle and poetic pounce made them one of the most unforgettable bands around but all good things come to an end and by 2004, the band called it a day. A one-off reunion in 2008 was the only blip on the Gene radar until now. Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Olympian, in October of 2025 all four original members of Gene reconvened at the Apolo in London and blew the place apart and sounding positively ageless. What happened next? Well, fans wanted more so more was given in the form of 2026 March dates in Nottingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Dublin and Manchester.

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"If You Go There I Hope You Find It"

Over the course of seven shimmering albums, the Paper Kites have elegantly moved from strength to strength. The ARIA-award nominated Melbourne five piece, led by singer/songwriter Sam Bentley, have quietly been lodging platinum record sales, registering millions of streams and playing sold-out shows across the globe. I saw them play a sold-out show here in San Francisco in 2016 and it was one of the most moving live experiences I've ever witnessed. It's hard to explain what it was like but the closest I can come is it was like an hypnotic flow of seamless folk that ran like a river from the stage and out into the night. And by that, I mean I thought about that performance--or, more accurately, I felt that performance on a deep and almost cellular livel for the next few weeks. From 2013's States to 2018's On The Corner Where You Live to their brand new one, If You Go There, I Hope You Find It, The Paper Kites have asserted themselves not only as one of the most consistent bands around, but also one that, impossibly because each album is so brilliant, just keep getting better. The new album is a stirring blend of indie folk finesses, poetic elegance and sonorous beauty. It's such a deeply affecting album, played with nimble grace, it may only be January, but we might already have our album of the year.

https://www.thepaperkites.com.au

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Stereo Embers:
Email: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Bluesky + IG: @emberspodcast