Aluthier is someone who makes guitars using all their tools and expertise to turn a block of wood into a sonorous musical instrument.

Alu Kutharther is someone who plays guitars, using all his expertise to make that instrument go.

Welcome to Strong Songs, a podcast about music.

I'm your host, Kirk Hamilton, and I'm so glad you've joined me for another season of loving loquaciousness about Luthiers, Lugather's, and who knows, maybe even Lukathyrs Luthiers.

Strong Songs is entirely listener-supported.

I am planning some cool new bonuses over on the Patreon for this year,

including monthly videos going inside the episode

and talking more about each song that I've covered.

And for January only, it's a dollar for your first month,

so I hope you consider it.

On this season of the show,

it's time for some second helpings as I return to some of the biggest artists I covered

in the early seasons of the show and give them a second pass. There was really only one band

I could cover for this premiere, so let's fire up the synths, get the Strat and Les Paul, and do this thing.

Music get the Stratt and Les Paul and do this thing. Here we are, everyone.

Strong Songs Season 8, the second helping season is underway.

And when I decided to do this,

to spend a season returning to artists and bands from the first few seasons of the show to give them another look,

I knew exactly which band I had to cover first.

After all, they're the band that started at all.

In the fall of 2018, more than seven years ago, if you can believe it,

I sat down with a microphone in my converted bedroom studio in Portland

...