Vinyl Emergency

After a long break, it's the big 4-0 today, and I'm thrilled to have music industry guru Jim McDermott joining us for our fortieth episode! From Warner to PolyGram to Island to Universal to Sony, Jim's three decades of experience in marketing have seen him at the helm of album campaigns for the likes of David Bowie, New Order, Sheryl Crow, U2, Depeche Mode, Guns N' Roses, The Replacements and more...

While we're still taking a break from the regular weekly schedule between now and the end of 2016, you can get up to speed on some upcoming guests, our confirmed date for the LIVE first anniversary episode of Vinyl Emergency and more by checking out this mini-episode!   If you like what you hear on Vinyl Emergency, send us a screenshot of your iTunes review of the show or donate to keep us up and...

Derek Jones and Gene Priest -- hosts of the Sharing Needles With Friends podcast -- return to the show to help me go through this year's list of exclusive releases for the Black Friday edition of Record Store Day, happening November 25th . On top of discussing our own relationships with RSDBF and which releases seem worthwhile this year, we also talk about live albums, jazz favorites, whether addi...

Here's something a little different this week! I recently guested for the second time on The Great Albums podcast -- a fantastic show hosted by Bill Lambusta and Brian Erickson -- that dissects classic records track-by-track, defining what makes them so special. I was ecstatic that they invited me back to talk about 1998's "Yield," recently reissued on vinyl and the fifth album from one of my favo...

It's time for another Collector's Club episode, where we discuss the shopping habits, preferred record stores and unique experiences of your everyday vinyl collector! This time, it's Las Vegas native and current Brooklyn resident Trevor Ingerson from the Record Nerdz Podcast, which you should be subscribing to if you don't already. Today, Trevor talks about how hometown sports began his quest for...

Benmont Tench, founding member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, has played on nearly every Petty album over the years -- even the ones not credited to the Heartbreakers, such as Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers. His trademark keys are all over classic songs like "Refugee," "The Waiting," "Don't Do Me Like That" and so many more, which you can hear on the recently-reissued Greatest Hits 2LP set, no...

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, rock cellist Gordon Withers became fixated with the Washington, DC music scene early on, making pilgrimages to cities with killer record stores just to pick up new releases from influential bands like Jawbox. Fast forward to 2016, where Withers is now bandmates with Jawbox frontman J. Robbins in Office Of Future Plans -- not to mention a collaborator with BELLS≥,...

If you heard my recent chat with Rocky Votolato, you may remember us discussing a new 7" he appears on as part of the Live On Lacquer series, where artists cover each other's work and do so without any overdubs or tweaking -- all sounds are directly recorded onto acetate as a lathe machine cuts the record's information in real time, before it's sent off for duplication. Today, Levi Seitz from Live...

  When Seattle-based singer/songwriter Rocky Votolato began releasing solo albums in the late 90's -- at a time when vinyl was all but out of the mainstream consciousness -- it was important to him that every single release of his was pressed to wax. Fast forward to 2016, and he's now celebrating the 10th anniversary reissue of "Makers" on Barsuk Records -- his favorite in his discography, and vie...

Vinyl For A Cause is a Chicago-based record label based around music being a driver for charitable good. Every release features two bands covering each other on both sides of a limited-edition seven-inch record that'll never be repressed. Each band also chooses a charity of their choice, where a large portion of the record sales are donated to. Joining the show today are VFAC co-founder Adam Victo...

Brother O'Brother vocalist/guitarist and Romanus Records founder Chris Banta has been wowing vinyl collectors as of late with incredibly innovative pressings ranging from the world's first four-color, glow-in-the-dark, liquid-filled LP to a recent seven-inch on Fonoflo Records with customized Monopoly money inside. Based out of Indianapolis, the band's creativity when it comes to vinyl -- as well...

Visiting from England, one of my best pals Joe Goodbody stops by to discuss record shopping in the UK, the recent Brexit disaster, the Blur/Oasis feud and his dad's days booking bands for Socialist Workers Party benefit concerts in the 70's. As a stonemason at Westminster Abbey -- regarded as the Queen's church and the final resting place for some of Britain's most respected names  -- Joe also dis...

This year marks the 30th anniversary of alternative guitar-pop hero Matthew Sweet's debut album. His stretch of critically-acclaimed classics from 1991 through 1997 -- Girlfriend, Altered Beast, 100% Fun and Blue Sky On Mars -- delivered some of the most memorable college-radio hits of that decade, mixing sonic ambitiousness with a knack for lovelorn nostalgia and pristine vocal harmonies. Before...

Through his various jobs in music marketing, Tom Mullen has always been and still is a fan, first and foremost. Making a website for one of his favorite groups led to a storied career with punk/indie labels like Equal Vision and Vagrant to larger companies like EMI and Legacy Recordings/Sony Music, where he is currently Senior Director of Creative and Marketing Partnerships. He's had the pleasure...

Through projects like Pedro The Lion, Headphones, Overseas and Lo Tom -- as well as his solo material -- David Bazan is known as one of today's most prolific, affecting songwriters. In recent years with manager Bob Andrews at Undertow, he has explored various ways to bring his music directly and more intimately to his fans, whether through his 7" vinyl subscription series, doing house shows vs. la...

Host of the Record Nerdz podcast Kristian Sorge joins me to discuss his 5,000+ collection of records, his urge to collect only the rarest forms of any particular album, digging at the world's largest record fair in Holland, and his day-job as a casting director, working on films like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." We also talk about specific rare...

For 13 years, Doug Sohn was the purveyor and head chef of Hot Doug's, one of Chicago's many must-eat establishments before the encased-meat emporium closed in the fall of 2014. During that time, Doug served up to 800 sausages a day -- with each usually being named after a musician, actress or former Cubs player. Lines wrapped around the block no matter the weather, and Hot Doug's gained acclaim fr...

Chicago's Smoking Popes are one of my seminal favorite bands, having released several crucial albums of lovelorn power-pop including 1994's Born To Quit and 1997's Destination Failure. Gaining notoriety via soundtrack appearances on films like Clueless, Tommy Boy and Angus, the band split up at the turn of the century, reformed 11 years ago, and have since added a few more proper full-lengths to t...

Aside from music and vinyl, baseball is my next biggest passion so it's a thrill this week to welcome former Milwaukee Brewers and current Pittsburgh Pirates play-by-play radio announcer Joe Block to the show! Today, we discuss record stores he remembers in his native Detroit growing up, how collecting vinyl is not unlike having baseball cards as a kid, his love for Motown and hip-hop over the yea...

Music discussion and vinyl news podcast Sharing Needles With Friends has been both a favorite of mine for years as well as an inspiration for me to start Vinyl Emergency. Based out of Knoxville, TN and fueled by the nearly 20-year camaraderie of hosts Derek Jones and Gene Priest, SNWF is an always informative and hilarious listen, whether they're talking about their own record collections, what ex...

In 2015, Chicago-based company Gramovox launched a Kickstarter campaign for their gorgeous Floating Record Vertical Turntable. With over $1 million in backing and now almost a year to the date of their Kickstarter launch, Gramovox is still turning heads in both the vinyl/audio realm as well as the tech world, with both the Vertical Turntable and their Bluetooth Gramophone, as they strive to meld s...

Matt Shiverdecker -- member of the Austin Film Critics Association and former music director/on-air host of WOXY -- joins me this week to discuss his record collection, how vinyl bootleggers are making a killing off of today's major hip-hop artists, the many phases of WOXY over the years, how Nielsen ratings currently work for radio, the struggles of music programming immediately after September 1...

Vinyl Me, Please has been supplying record lovers with exclusive album presses each month -- whether they be well-known classics, brand new releases or long-buried gems -- since January 2013 as a subscription-based service. Today, VMP's head of label relations Cameron Schaefer and I discuss their growth over the last three years, the feedback they get from their subscribers, how each Album of the...

On this Collector's Club episode of the show, I chat with Indianapolis resident Nicholas Lynch -- an aficionado on all vinyl and novelties released by Jack White and Third Man Records! Whether a TMR release is liquid-filled, tri-colored, triple-decker,  pressed onto old x-rays or can only be played at just 3 RPM, chances are Nicholas has it in his collection! We discuss how he's traded baseball ca...

We all know what it's like to listen to vinyl, but what's it like to hand-pour or physically press them? Heather and Sarah from Gotta Groove and Wax Mage join me this week to talk about their side of the record industry and their unique, one-of-a-kind colored vinyl creations that are gaining them fans from all over the world. We also discuss the age old question of whether colored records sound be...