It’s New Year’s Eve, 1986. Deirdre is talking with the LA Times’ music critic, Robert Hilburn , about the musical trends of 1985. Deirdre O’Donoghue: I don't think that the big, quote-unquote, "rock" stations can very much longer ignore the growing numbers of people who are listening to alternative radio stations all around the country ... with which you're seeing album sales, at least on a smaller level, but it's making a bump. Among the acts Deirdre discovered that year was a crew of self-desc...
Dec 02, 2021•22 min•Ep. 6
It’s Independence Day Weekend, 1988. And Deirdre is celebrating the return of Glass Eye , her favorite independent act from Austin, Texas. They’ve just released their third album, “Bent By Nature.” But Deirdre’s allegiance to the band went much deeper than a catchy title. For her, they represented the very best of what Austin had to offer, which at the time also included “SNAP!” staples like the Reivers, the Wild Seeds, and Poi Dog Pondering. Glass Eye ’s two principals, Kathy McCarty and Brian ...
Nov 25, 2021•20 min•Ep. 5
It’s September 4, 1986. And Deirdre has just met a kindred spirit in singer Syd Straw. Like Deirdre, Syd traveled in good company. You could pick out her voice on records by Los Lobos, Rickie Lee Jones, Was (Not Was), and more. As an early member of the indie supergroup The Golden Palominos , she was a feature on Deirdre’s playlists long before she became a regular guest. Most artists that appeared on “SNAP!” will tell you how comfortable Deirdre made them feel. That absolutely resulted in fanta...
Nov 18, 2021•20 min•Ep. 4
In 1988, while most of the music world was fawning over Morrissey’s solo debut, Deirdre O’Donoghue was all-in on a new record from a lesser-known English band: The Mighty Lemon Drops . After years of support on “SNAP!,” their single “Inside Out” blew up in the U.S., becoming a college rock anthem and MTV staple that launched the band into pop consciousness and amphitheater tours. The Lemon Drops’ guitarist David Newton and his wife Bekki join us to discuss the strange twists and turns which brou...
Nov 11, 2021•21 min•Ep. 3
Illustration by Meredith Schomburg In episode two of Bent By Nature, co-producer Bob Carlson explores the life of influential and enigmatic DJ Deirdre O’Donoghue behind the mic. Born in New York City and DJing across the country before landing at KCRW to host " SNAP! ", O’Donoghue didn’t talk much about her past or private life — even in the face of personal demons, and eventually, her deteriorating health. But O’Donoghue’s fierce passion for music manifested in close friendships with those who ...
Nov 04, 2021•33 min•Ep. 2
Before Soundcloud and Bandcamp, there was Deirdre O'Donoghue and "SNAP!," the LA DJ and radio show that served as a waypoint for underground music, artists, and its fans — and helped shape the sound of independent and D.I.Y. culture today. In the first episode of "Bent By Nature," co-producer Bob Carlson introduces O’Donoghue and goes inside the community she cultivated, her passion for music, and the problems she had with KCRW’s management and staff. Featuring archival live performances by Camp...
Oct 28, 2021•34 min•Ep. 1
She was the most influential American DJ you’ve never heard of. Deirdre O’Donoghue was a vital force in the musical underground of the 1980s. Countless artists crammed into her studio to perform live on her late-night show, “SNAP!” on KCRW. And after 40 years, those legendary sessions will be heard again. Join Michael Stipe, Henry Rollins, Julian Cope, and more for a sound-packed series from the producers of Lost Notes and Unfictional transporting you to the heyday of ‘80s independent music and ...
Oct 19, 2021•2 min
In 1980, anti-disco sentiment was at a high and Grace Jones was coming off a trilogy of disco albums. If she stayed stagnant, it felt like her career could be swept away. And so out of disco’s death rattle – driven by the discomfort of white male tastemakers – Grace Jones rose, reinforced and reimagined in a new decade freshly obsessed with risk.
Sep 24, 2020•31 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Most know Minnie Riperton because of one part in one song. “Lovin’ You” was Riperton’s biggest hit, and she doesn’t sing that magic, piercing note until around the 3-minute mark. Cancer took Riperton away tragically in 1979, and the next year producers got to work on a posthumous album. Filled with leftover recordings and celebrity cameos, “Love Lives Forever” is an album full of ghosts.
Sep 24, 2020•29 min•Season 3Ep. 6
In December of 1980, two exiled artists and freedom fighters attempted return to their home in South Africa for a concert. Jazz musician Hugh Masekela and singer Miriam Makeba were briefly married, but they had a robust collaborative relationship that stretched across multiple decades. The 1980 concert wound up happening in neighboring Lesotho — and the performance became about defiance, namely against the Apartheid government in South Africa. But a recording mishap meant the concert needed to b...
Sep 24, 2020•31 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Punk singer Darby Crash dreamed of immortality. The single full-length Germs album was to become a holy grail of music history, and his passing might’ve made him a legend, but Darby Crash died on December 7th, 1980. By the time the news of his death began to circulate, it was well into December 8th, the day John Lennon was shot by Mark David Chapman. As radio stations in Los Angeles began to start their marathon of Germs songs, John Lennon lay dying in New York, at the doorway to his apartment. ...
Sep 24, 2020•32 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In May of 1980, Joy Division lost its lead singer, Ian Curtis. The band decided that they would carry on with a different name. From the cutting room floor, a song with Ian Curtis haphazardly slurring the words he’d written became the first single for a decade-defining band. New Order was made up of people who were weighed down by grief and regrets. Straining themselves to make sure they did justice to the words Ian Curtis couldn’t bring himself to sing.
Sep 24, 2020•25 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In 1979, "Rapper’s Delight" was released and went on to become the first Top 40 hip-hop single. Sugarhill Gang almost had no choice but to follow the single up with a full-length. So in the early months of 1980, a six song, nearly forty minute album by a rap group was released. The debut, self-titled album by the Sugarhill Gang wasn’t received without controversy, and wasn’t received without skepticism. When one thinks about the greatest rap groups of all time, Sugarhill Gang might be an afterth...
Sep 24, 2020•36 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Stevie Wonder released seven albums from 1970 to 1976. It is an impenetrable run of albums and songs, one of the greatest in music history. Then, in 1979, he faced his first defeat of the decade. Reviews for “Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants” were harshly mixed. So in 1980 Stevie was due for a comeback. Lost Notes host Hanif Abdurraqib reflects on the album and Wonder’s call for the observation of Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday.
Sep 24, 2020•30 min•Season 3Ep. 1
This season the poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib explores the year 1980. It was the brilliant, awkward and sometimes heartbreaking opening to a monumental decade in popular music.
Sep 10, 2020•3 min
Our second of two Lost Notes bonus episodes for this summer. This one is about The Student Teachers. In 1977, a group of music obsessed friends got together and decided to form a band. Most of them were still in high school and almost none of them had even picked up an instrument before, but they lived and breathed the New York City music scene and wanted nothing more than to be a part of it. They worked in record stores, ran fan clubs, and spent every second they could together, hanging in club...
Aug 06, 2020•40 min
The new season of Lost Notes will be here in September. Meantime, this summer, we’re sharing a couple of bonus episodes. Fifty years ago, an unlikely musical group evolved out of the Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party. They were called The Lumpen. And although they quickly gained a following for their air-tight funk, they were always meant to be much more than mere entertainment. Peter Gilstrap reports on the rise and fall of an unlikely R&B group born out of social upheaval.
Jun 18, 2020•37 min
As long as there have been guns, there have been songs about guns. But American culture's relationship with guns is changing. Does popular music reflect that? We take a look at the history of music's relationships with guns, and gun control activism, to find out.
Jun 13, 2019•30 min•Season 2Ep. 8
In the early ‘80s, two teenage siblings in London recorded an album that fused Pakistani pop and British New Wave. It became a perfect harmony of the two worlds they lived in. This is the story behind their lost masterpiece.
Jun 06, 2019•35 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Jazz pianist Billy Tipton has been celebrated by some as a trans pioneer – but his story resists an easy telling.
May 30, 2019•29 min•Season 2Ep. 6
As a supplement to our episode on John Fahey, we share a conversation between Jessica Hopper and Carla Green about artist legacies in the era of cancel culture and #MeToo.
May 28, 2019•15 min
John Fahey’s guitar playing influenced the sound of the American underground for generations. But how does that legacy change when you hear from three of the women who knew him best?
May 23, 2019•40 min•Season 2Ep. 5
The rock band Fanny ruled the Sunset Strip in the 1970s, and they were supposed to be the next big thing. They explain the price women pay for being ahead of their time.
May 16, 2019•36 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani used an esoteric instrument to design some of the most well-known commercial sounds of the 20th century.
May 09, 2019•41 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Poet and author Hanif Abdurraqib's letter to Cat Power about how her album The Greatest worked its way into his life.
May 02, 2019•24 min•Season 2Ep. 2
The Freeze were an early American punk band. Now, 40 years later, two members reckon with the lyrics they wrote as teenagers.
Apr 25, 2019•43 min•Season 2Ep. 1
On this season of Lost Notes, the music journalist and author Jessica Hopper is looking at artist legacies. How do they hold up? How do they change over time? Learn how decades on a song can find new meaning, something different than when it was written. Find out what happens when we apply our 2019 politics to 1974’s songs. And hear from pioneering women who have been written out of music’s history.
Apr 03, 2019•3 min
The strange story of the postwar pop standard "Nature Boy" and its enigmatic creator, eden ahbez.
Jan 31, 2019•29 min
Legendary DJ/crate-digger Cut Chemist professes his love for Cymande’s 1972 self-titled debut.
Oct 10, 2018•42 min
A global pop icon appears in a most unexpected place in this story from Pod Planet’s Clive Desmond.
Aug 21, 2018•13 min
