All Things Considered

In 1989, Dominique Durand left her home in Paris to live in New York. Her goal was simple: to learn English. But fate took over, and five years later she became the frontwoman for the indie pop band Ivy.

Colorado’s Secretary of State filed a lawsuit against the city of Denver this week in advance of November’s election. It’s one the topics that our media partners at Colorado Public Television and “Colorado Inside Out” are discussing.

Carrie Brownstein helped start Sleater-Kinney, the celebrated punk trio, when she was still in college. That band split in 2006, and though Brownstein kept busy — as a blogger and commentator for NPR Music, among other things — she says that by the end of 2010, she was feeling antsy.

"I was probably 12 when I trashed my first electric guitar," Diego Stocco says. "I totally disassembled it, and I wasn't able to put it back together."

It wasn't Stocco's first such experience; a year or two earlier, he'd been dismissed from music conservatory after sawing his violin in half.

Youthful rebellion wasn't to blame. Instead, Stocco was indulging a budding curiosity in the more unconventional ways music can be made — one that would lead him to his current occupation as a composer and sound designer with a mad-scientist streak.

A federal loan program to build more fuel-efficient cars became the latest budget flash point, with House Republicans wanting to raid the fund to help pay for FEMA disaster aid. Senate Democrats refused to go along. The standoff comes in a bill that would fund the entire government beyond next week.