Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Eli Lake. Eli is a columnist for The Free Press, contributing editor at Commentary, and host of Breaking History. You can follow him on Twitter/x @EliLake.

Eli’s Music Pick: Steely Dan
In what is likely the last of our past episodes to be completely re-recorded, we present a totally new edition of our look at the music and career of Steely Dan. Jeff long has despised the sound of his microphone on the original show (our version of a Katy Lied-esque mishap), which also was recorded in a back-up studio. It makes sense to get something on tape that will stand the test of time.

There may not be a more unlikely story in rock history than Steely Dan, more specifically the braintrust of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. Michael McDonald, who provided backing vocals for the band later in its career, wrote that Fagen had the "physique of an 80-year-old woman" and Becker gave off the distinct vibe of a "lab technician working on some nefarious government experiment." These two guys, who famously didn't even like the idea of being in a conventional rock band, somehow became one of the most distinctive and enduring acts of the 1970s. They took the sounds of jazz, R&B, soul, blues, pop, and rock, ran them through a filter of studio perfectionism and darkly funny songwriting, and came out with something that sounded like nobody else. And somehow, against all odds, some of the most musically complicated songs of their era became radio staples.

The Steely Dan story is also a story of constant reinvention. From the sly pop-rock of Can't Buy a Thrill and Countdown to Ecstasy, through the increasingly ambitious Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied, and The Royal Scam, Becker and Fagen gradually turned the recording studio into their own musical laboratory. Then came Aja, the masterpiece that may be the ultimate expression of their obsession with precision, groove, and impeccable musicianship. The term “Yacht Rock” might as well have been born right then and there. Gaucho pushed that approach even further, even as the band's perfectionism and internal tensions reached a breaking point.

We dig into the music, the personalities, the bizarre characters, the legendary studio sessions, and the songs that make Steely Dan so endlessly rewarding. Because beneath all the perfectionism and complexity, Steely Dan always understood one fundamental thing: A great song still needs a great groove.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Sleater-Kinney with Nic Rowan.

Introducing the Band:

Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Nic Rowan. Nic is managing editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal. You can follow him on Twitter/x @NicXTempore.

Nic’s Music Pick: Sleater-Kinney

When people talk about the greatest American rock bands of the past 30 years, the conversation usually starts in familiar places (we might say Spoon around these parts). But sooner or later, it ought to arrive at a discussion of Sleater-Kinney. The band, named after Sleater Kinney Road in Washington near Interstate 5, formed in the Pacific Northwest during the explosion of the riot grrrl movement. Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and, eventually, Janet Weiss built a sound that was fiercely intelligent without being pretentious and musically adventurous without ever losing sight of the hook. Their records are packed with jagged guitars, knotty rhythms, and thrilling vocal interplay, all delivered with an urgency that never feels manufactured.

Part of what makes Sleater-Kinney such a compelling subject is that they're difficult to pigeonhole. They're often introduced first as an important feminist band, or a cornerstone of riot grrrl, or a political band, and all of those descriptions contain some truth. But they can also obscure the bigger picture. Strip away the labels, and what's left is an extraordinary rock band, one with a distinctive musical language and an uncanny ability to make tension sound exhilarating.

Over the course of a remarkable run, the band continually reinvented itself without abandoning its identity. Dig Me Out and One Beat get universal praise on this show, while there's great debate over the generally well-regarded The Woods. And what to make of the comeback after a decade away? We trace that entire journey and discuss why Sleater-Kinney remains one of the essential bands of modern American rock.

If you know them, you know why they matter. If you don’t, you’re about to find out. Join us for a deep look at the music and career of Sleater-Kinney.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss the second part of XTC’s career (1984-2000) with Andrew Gretes.

Introducing the Band:

Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Andrew Gretes. Andrew is a fiction writer teaching creative rhetoric at Georgetown and George Washington University. You can find his work at andrewgretes.com.

Andrew’s Music Pick: XTC, Pt. 2

Awaken you dreamers! A month after we took you through the first part of XTC’s career – an Argonaut-like journey across the world of postpunk and pop during the end of the Seventies and the start of the Eighties – we return to pick up the story where we left off in 1984: with a psychologically landlocked band (songwriters Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding as well as guitarist Dave Gregory), now forever off the road and consigned to a studio, forced to make the most of their remaining careers without fears of an audience to either drag them down or lift them up.

And aside from the Beatles, it is little exaggeration to say that no studio-bound act ever made quite as much out of such a fate as XTC – though they didn’t make much money, naturally. Instead they made great art, with a series of increasingly ambitious pop albums (including 1986’s Skylarking, which you might even have heard of) that reflected the expanding musical palates and melodic ambitions of Partridge and Moulding.

The first episode of this two-part series proudly featured some of the weirdest, most clashingly irregular sounds of the Seventies. This second features some of the most awe-striking beauty you’ve probably never heard. From their mainstream career (which rarely if ever sold) to their moonlight lark as the Dukes of Stratosphear (which sold gangbusters until people realized they were buying XTC music) Partridge, Moulding and Gregory never quit stuffing every single song they recorded with meaning and melody, and the results are an overwhelming trove of musical riches to discover – one you might only be vaguely aware even exists

Political Beats has been building up to its XTC episodes ever since the day the podcast was founded. The second part of their story is every bit as impressive – and different – as the first. Settle in and listen to us sing a happy-sad ballad about the greatest band in popular music to never quite make it. Oh my, oh my, don’t it make you wanna cry?

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.