Tour Stories/The Check-In with Joe Plummer

Bibi Club is the Montreal based pop project of singer-keyboardist Adèle Trottier-Rivard and guitarist Nicolas Basque. Their newest record, Feu de garde, is out May 10th via Secret City Records. Adèle and Nicolas tell us how the intersection of a chaotic living situation and nature inspired the record and why Adèle’s experience in the “dude world” of rock music informs her lyrics. We learn how thes...

Julia Shapiro and Gretchen Grimm are one half of Seattle's noisy dream pop legends, Chastity Belt. Their 5th album, Live Laugh Love (out March 29th via Suicide Squeeze Records) is a dreamy layering of guitars, vocals and gentle rhythms that guide the listener through both emotional sincerity and lighthearted nostalgia, all with the sheen of cheekiness that the band has celebrated from the beginnin...

Joe Wong is a LA based musician, film and tv composer, producer, and podcaster. His newest record, Mere Survival, is a lush orchestral psychedelic pop odyssey laden with timeless song structure and stacked with the heaviest of heavy hitting guest musicians (Mary Timony, Nate Mendel, Money Mark, Jim Keltner and Matt Cameron, to name of few). Joe (Wong) shares the motivation behind this realistic, y...

         Stephen Buono is a producer, songwriter, and devisor of the collective project Church Chords. The debut record, Elvis, he was a Schlager is out Feb 23 on his new label, Otherly Love. Stephen takes us through the process of making this expansive and cohesive record, how it was initially inspired by the University of Miami marching band, and why the first version of the record was scrapped....

Justin Pearson is a singer, bass player, podcaster and founder of the record label Three One G. He has recorded, toured with and founded such bands as The Locust, Dead Cross, Deaf Club and Retox. He latest project, Planet B, is a collaboration with Luke Henshaw that celebrates hip-hop, hardcore and noise, all coated with a danceable sheen of Sci-Fi. Their second record, Fiction Prediction, is out...

Nate Kinsella is a singer, multi-instrumentalist and song writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Since the mid 1990’s he’s has recorded, toured and or been a founding member of the bands Joan of Arc, American Football and Make Believe. His most recent project, Birthmark, has released a new LP titled Birth Of Omni , and is out now on Polyvinyl Records.   Birth Of Omni is a rich sonic tapestry of eclectic el...

Allen Karpinski is a song writer, guitarist and founding member of the Ohio band The Six Parts Seven. Fellow Ohioan, Joey Beltram is this the singer, songwriter behind Goodmorning Valentine. Over the course of a weekend in 2006, the two bands came together in a small in studio in Kent, Ohio. What yielded was a beautiful collaborative collection of songs called Kissing Distance (out February 16th v...

Hatis Noit is self-taught vocalist and songwriter based in London. Her inspiration and vocal style ranges from Japanese folk, western classical, Gregorian chanting to Avant-guard, ambient and pop. In 2018 she released her debut record, Illogical Dance, which was praised not only for its unique vocal interpretations, but also her moving live performances. Her most recent and widely acclaimed releas...

Maria BC is a singer, songwriter and ambient musician based in Oakland, Ca. Growing up in a musical household, Maria was encouraged to sing and is grateful for the 10 years of vocal training they enjoyed throughout their childhood. Since 2020, Maria has self-recorded and released two well received records and the third, Spike Field (out now on Sacred Bones) is a sprawling and spacious ambient jour...

Simon O’Connor is a musician and composer from NYC. O’Connor has been releasing records with various projects for over 20 years. He is currently the touring bassist of the psychedelic pop band, MGMT , as well as the lead guitarist of Modest Mouse . He is also the bass player, co-vocalist, and founding member of Spiral Heads, who’s newest record is out February 23 via TrashCasual/AcademyFight Songs...

Eva Walker is the singer and guitarist for the Seattle band The Black Tones. In this episode Eva shares her experiences with the weird practices of a bizzarro sound guy on a recent week long West Coast tour . The Black Tones Episode supported by Distrokid Episode supported by Izotope Episode supported by Native Instruments Mentioned in this episode: Izotope Schecter Guitars Distrokid

Joseph Shabason is a songwriter, a film and TV composer and a multi-instrumentalist based in Toronto, Ontario. He has recorded and collaborated with The War On Drugs, The Operators, Destroyer, DIANA and has released several solo records.  His newest record, Welcome To Hell is a concept record directly inspired by the influential 1996 Toy Machine skate video of the same name. This re-imagined sound...

Mary Timony is a singer, songwriter, and guitar wizard from Washington DC. For the past 30 years she has fronted, founded, toured, and recorded with such celebrated and influential bands as Autoclave, Helium, Ex Hex and Wild Flag. Her fifth solo release, Untame The Tiger (out February 23 via Merge) is a beautifully elaborate guitar pop, riff driven record that touches on familial loss, emotional f...

Joe speaks with John Familglietti, bass player, founding member and songwriter from the band HEALTH.  Following two widely collaborative records, HEALTH’S newest record, Rat Wars ( out 12.7 via Loma Vista) , is proving to be the bands most inner focused, vulnerable, and sonically generous output yet. In this episode Joe and John discuss the San Diego scene where John grew up, how John was introduc...

This episode is special because it's the first tour story Joe captured. His pal Kyle Crane, drummer, songwriter, and producer from Los Angeles, tells us how his band experienced a vegetable oil spill, an overheat, a poison ivy infection, and a pedestrian hit and run all in the span of 48 hours. We also hear a few tunes from Kyle's record " Crane Like The Bird" ( featuring James Mercer). Kyle Crane...

Matt Pryor a singer, songwriter, podcaster and author form Lawrence, Kansas. He is a founding member of the Get Up Kids, The New Amsterdam’s and host’s the podcast Nothing To Write Home About and 25 Years On The Street . His debut memoir, Red Letter Days (out 1.23.24 Washed Up Book)  is taken from journal entries between 1990-2000 and is made up of short vignettes that follows his life as a musici...

Vera Sola is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and poet based in Los Angeles, CA. Her newest album, Peacemaker (out February 2 via City Slang) is a sprawling and lyrically ferocious follow up her first record Shades and will take the listener on a joyfully painful sonic journey through the cinematic west. In this episode Vera tells us how cinematic framing shaped the new record, why anger...

Brett Netson is a guitarist, singer and song-writer from Boise, Idaho. He has toured and recorded extensively with Built To Spill, Mark Lanegan, Earth and is a founding member of Caustic Resin. His most recent contribution is a re-imagined version of Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine by Earth, and is out now on special "low frequency" re-release of the classic Earth 2 record on Sub Pop Records. In th...

Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards are the drummer and guitarist respectively for the Los Angeles based band, Deap Vally. Since 2011 they have recorded and released four LP's three EP's and have consistently toured the world. On February 1st , they will release Sistrionix 2.0, a newly recorded version of their 2011 LP Sistrionix. In this episode, we hear what motivated the two to form a band, how earl...

Shilpa Ray is a singer, songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist based in Queens, NY. She has been recording, releasing and touring on records in various incarnations from 2006 to the present. Her most recent release, Portrait Of A Lady (via Northern Spy Records) is her most personal, direct record to date, and delivers a jarring honesty that keeps the listener engrossed in the wide batch of sonic a...

Jim McCullough is a founding member and singer for the Melbourne based proto-punk band Civic. Civic has embarked on their first North American tour with three-pronged support of their most recent single Hourglass, the US release of their record New Vietnam and their most recent record, Taken By Force (all available via ATO Records). In this episode, Joe and Jim discuss the punk evolution of the ba...

Justin Moyer is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Washington D.C. dance punkers, Light Beams. He's also an original member or El Guapo, Antelope and a reporter for The Washington Post, where his work with the Post team was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the January 6th Capitol insurrection. Light Beams newest record, Wild Life is out November 3rd via Dis...

Jenny Pulse is a visual artist, singer, songwriter and one half of the collaborative duo, Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse. They're newest release, Giddy Skelter (out now via Kill Rock Stars), is a multi-textured collage of live instrumentation, samples, electro beats and experimental hooks. The recording is accompanied by a beautifully written zine titled Giddy Skelter : A Case Study. How to Make The...

Caleb Nichols is a poet and singer/songwriter from San Luis Obispo, CA. He has written, toured and recorded with Churches, Port O'Brian and many solo endeavors. Caleb is a PhD candidate in Creative and Critical Writing at Bangor University in Wales where he's writing about queer ecopoetics in contemporary poetry, films, and media. His poetry and prose have been published worldwide. His newest reco...

James Bertram is a bass player, guitarist and founding member of Northwest indie luminaries Lync. He has also toured and recorded with Built To Spill, 764-HERO, Beck and Red Stars Theory. This episode not only celebrates James's experiences in the 90's DIY scene, but the re-issue of Lync's 1994 record, These Are Not Fall Colors, out via Suicide Squeeze records October 20th. James takes through his...