6.6: Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill (1972)
Deeper Cuts
What grabs you as a kid listening to songs on the radio may still grab you as an adult... but the nuances often come out after you’ve had years to process them, all informed by life experience. This was true for Rob and Steely Dan’s 1972 debut record Can’t Buy a Thrill. It was an album he immersed himself in his twenties during his first flush of CD buying. But as a little kid, the big radio singles sounded weird and even terrifying – and sometimes hilarious – to him. So, what’s the real identity of the music beyond what listeners hear in it wherever they are in their lives? It’s...
info_outline
6.5: Age of Mirrors - Screenplay (1987)
Deeper Cuts
When you find out your friend is in a band and has made a record, it’s like finding out that they’re a practicing wizard, a superhero, or secret agent. It often turns music fans/friends into evangelists – “Everyone! Listen to what my friend made!” In the heady days when melancholic northern new wave roamed the earth, Graeme’s friend Bob, alias “Simon DeBeaupre”, along with his bandmates in Age of Mirrors put out 1987’s Screenplay. Graeme made sure we all had a copy. He’s still making sure of that by way of this episode of our show – thirty-five years later! So, all these...
info_outline
6.4: Sweet Honey in the Rock - Breaths (1988)
Deeper Cuts
Music runs deep and has the power to enlighten, educate, and empower. This doesn’t have to be a didactic thing and the best of it isn’t. Great songs can do all of those things as one listens and enjoys them. It does all that at the soul level. Music is weird – and sometimes very, very sneaky. Shannon connected with the world of acapella from her time in college, solidifying her well-earned status as theater and choir kid. All the while, the music of Sweet Honey in the Rock and their album Breaths was a stalwart influence to change her perspective on what acapella music could be. It...
info_outline
6.3: Nick Heyward - North of a Miracle (1983)
Deeper Cuts
There reaches a point in a young music fan’s life when they begin to detect the emotional complexities of the songs and albums they love. This usually corresponds with a capacity for sensing these things in real life between real people. One discovers that some things can seem happy on the surface, while being full of tumult and struggle underneath. Nick Heyward’s 1983 debut record North of a Miracle was the key example for Rob when he was 14 and going on 15. It also provided the soundtrack for what followed in his own life as things changed dramatically in his household at the time. How...
info_outline
6.2: Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing (1997)
Deeper Cuts
We often find an attachment to certain music during times of emotional upheaval and loss. And it can be a double-edged blade. We love it and find it painful at the same time... because, hey, music is weird – and mysterious. For Graeme, the ending of a relationship led him to this exact place. Around that time, Sarah McLachlan’s 1997 record Surfacing was his soundtrack – not just on his personal stereo, but with the music playing as a musical accompaniment in his head as he navigated his way through a painful period. Join Graeme, Shannon and Rob as they ask: what makes a great break-up...
info_outline
6.1: Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)
Deeper Cuts
As is often the case with music, love can grow in increments. The Deeper Cuts trio touched on that when Shannon first saw the artist’s incendiary performance of “Chocolate Jesus” on Letterman. But even as listeners grow into a sound over time, artists themselves reveal something of their art through various stages of their careers, too. It was this phenomenon that struck Shannon when she heard 1974’s The Heart of Saturday Night, which presents Tom Waits in an earlier incarnation. The album revealed new depths and new perspectives for her on his work, solidifying her fandom for all...
info_outline
Holiday Special 2022
Deeper Cuts
Twas two weeks before Christmas (a little bit less) and all through the podcast, Shannon, Graeme and Rob were receiving holiday presents... from our listeners! That's right, this year we've outsourced our traditional gift exchange. Listeners Martin Hajovsky, Drew Walco and Sarah Irvin have given Graeme, Shannon and Rob respectively albums that they like. Will the Deeper Cuts trio have a holly jolly Christmas with the listener gifts? Or will they be like the abominable snowman before Hermey the Elf's dentistry? As ever, we liven up the proceedings with questions about music and making the show...
info_outline
The Live Sessions 3: Paul Simon - Concert in the Park (1991)
Deeper Cuts
Welcome to Deeper Cuts: The Live Sessions – a three-episode miniseries which finds the Deeper Cuts trio looking at the live music albums that were meaningful to them, and pondering what makes a great live album. After exploring a theater and a concert hall as a setting for great live records, this time we consider the large-scale outdoor live show. To illustrate this context best, Shannon showcases a go-to live album for her – Paul Simon’s 1991 live offering, Concert in the Park. For Shannon, it was a high school record; a put-it-on-in-the-car-and-drive-anywhere record. It meant freedom,...
info_outline
The Live Sessions 2: Indigo Girls - Live With The University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra (2018)
Deeper Cuts
Welcome to Deeper Cuts: The Live Sessions – a three-episode miniseries which finds the Deeper Cuts trio looking at the live music albums that were meaningful to them, and pondering what makes a great live album. During a hellscape of a summer marked by a never-ending work crisis, Graeme learned about the Indigo Girls' new live album through a Deeper Cuts fan (and friend of the program) Sarah Irvin. This new album-- a collaboration with the University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra-- pushed the boundaries of a live performance for the folk duo, and proved to be a balm for Graeme during a...
info_outline
The Live Sessions 1: James Brown - Live at the Apollo (1963)
Deeper Cuts
Welcome to Deeper Cuts: The Live Sessions – a three-episode miniseries which finds the Deeper Cuts trio looking at the live music albums that were meaningful to them, and pondering what makes a great live album. There are wake-up calls and there are WAKE UP! calls. When Rob was growing up, his Dad’s copy of James Brown and the Famous Flames’ Live at the Apollo record was one of those... and in more than one respect. For Rob, one form was literal, while another form took hold over a much longer term, helping to shape his musical outlook for all time. In this first of three episodes of...
info_outline
Sometimes, you find yourself growing up. You realize that some of the things you believed and thought were solid in your life really aren’t – and in fact are even harmful to you. You find you have to question those things to create a new path for yourself. You’ve got to start again. This was Graeme’s experience at the end of his high school years and the beginning of his college years. Sting’s 1987 record …Nothing Like the Sun was Graeme's "first grown-up record" and was an important part of his personal soundtrack at the time when he was calling his belief system into question. This is an album that also touches on life-changing events and challenges to meet a world that is often perplexing, cruel, and sometimes even violent. How did this album help Graeme create clarity during a tumultuous time in his life? How did the Deeper Cuts trio process the music? Did it go straight to the heart? Or does Graeme dance alone on this one? There’s only one way to find out! Join our new main host Shannon Dohar (alongside Rob Jones and Graeme Burk) for this first episode of our fourth (!) season.
Our Spotify Playlist will have the albums we're looking at this season, along with the songs from our COVID Sessions earlier this year.