When my longtime friend and musical sherpa Todd Stonehouse handed me his copy of Secret Stars, the Greatest Underdogs Of The Rock n Roll Era, he grinned and said, “You are gonna love this.” Just looking at the ten bands listed on the book jacket, I knew I had found one of my new sacred texts.
Inside the blazing red cover lay chapters on Nick Drake, Robyn Hitchcock, Elliott Smith, Big Star, and more. These were my secret stars too! I’d not only found someone writing about these bands in any way, I had found someone writing about them as the oughta be pop gods I knew them to be.
While Matt Berenson has had a long career as a film producer, it makes great sense that he and I would connect over his music writing, specifically his writings focused on genius that never quite gets its proper due. As I dragged my copy of Secret Stars across the Moroccan countryside a couple of years ago, each chapter felt like another piece of evidence as to why this writer and I should hang out, be friends, and be talking constantly about cool shit.
Essentially, that was what I wanted my chat with Matt Berenson to be like for this show. I wanted to capture the exuberance of sharing a new band with a new friend, and talk of unveiling those secret stars and helping them to burn a shade brighter.
Inside our chat, you’ll get to hear Matty C and Matty Bexplain the fours Ps of rock and roll: Pop, Punk, Psych and Prog, and we discuss doubling down on the stuff that we dig. Matt and I also talk about early XTC, and we acknowledge that Van Halen still very much rules.
My original conversation with Matt was so fantastic in fact, that I wound up splitting it into two chunks. On today’s episode, we’ll dive deep into our conversation about Matt’s book and some of our favorite secret stars. This conversation is almost music exclusive, and covers Matt’s work as a music writer and fan, but doesn't touch on his day job as a film producer.
After you finish up with this chat, you can go back into the archive and find Episode #021 of the What Am I Making Podcast, where Matt and I continue this conversation. We run down the details of Matt’s career in film and his thoughts on the current state of cinema; and we hit upon how much it has in common with the music industry and why streaming is changing everything for creatives and creators everywhere.
So dive in with a couple of nerds obsessing over obscure discoveries, indie rock demi-gods, and why Tom Waits has the perfect celebrity life. Enjoy.
Cheers,
Matty C
