Vinyl Emergency

Not everyone can say that both their first and last jobs were behind the counter of a record store. But that's how things ended up for Matthew Caws, before his beloved power-pop act Nada Surf became his main gig in the mid-2000's. Shifting time between New York City and Paris growing up, he points to an eclectic list of influences (classical, disco and late 70's NYC punk) that laid the groundwork...

A love affair with records has fueled Tracyanne Campbell for as long as she can remember: Before anyone else woke up in the morning as a kid, she'd already be spinning ELO; thanks to her grandmother, she became a devout listener of American country music and still has a profound memory of first hearing Tammy Wynette's groundbreaking "Stand By Your Man"; her mother even bought her a new 45 RPM sing...

Early in his career, John Moreland says he existed in a state of what he dubs "under-being": Living in perpetual humility to a fault, believing he wasn't deserving of appreciation for his art, let alone basic kindness. But in 2024, whether being championed by his Grammy-winning peers, or hailed by GQ as "the new face of folk rock," he's finding being one of the most talked-about singer/songwriters...

"Our old manager was always saying to me, 'Artwork's not really that important. No one cares.' That's why he's our old manager." That bit from this week's 200th episode, with Travis' Fran Healy, speaks to his genuine reverence for how music is presented. And though he's the voice and songwriter behind such anthemic rave-ups as "All I Wanna Do Is Rock" and "Selfish Jean," it's arguably the somber s...

This is an encore presentation of a previous episode, originally airing in September 2020. 4x Grammy-winning producer, engineer and mixer Vance Powell has worked with a wide range of artists and bands including Chris Stapleton, Buddy Guy and Phish. For vinyl collectors, he's arguably most known for being a consistent studio go-to for Jack White, not only being involved with proper studio releases...

While most music-focused kids picked up guitars or drums in the 60's and 70's, John Flansburgh says he was pulled toward the machinery that made art possible. With a reel-to-reel in hand before age 10 and an early love of graphic design, the detailed processes of printmaking, photography and analog recording seemed downright magical to his captivated, creative young mind. Once he reconnected with...

"I don't have stage fright, I have life fright." Indiana native Timothy Showalter -- the mind and voice behind the moniker Strand of Oaks -- has pulled no punches when it comes to combatting his own childhood trauma and lifelong anxieties through music. And while he says that touring and performing puts him in his most zen state, he has experienced a death or sorts with the guitar-centered music S...

To say The Long Winters had some bad luck getting their music on vinyl would be an understatement: After a hurricane in the mid-2000's sent most copies of an exclusive box set into the Atlantic Ocean, the band struck a relationship last year with Bandbox -- an LP-subscription service doing limited, colored pressings of modern classics and out-of-print material -- only to have the company go sudden...

Esquire editor-at-large and former MTV VJ Dave Holmes discusses how his ADHD allowed him to embrace the chaos of live television, why hitting up a NYC vinyl listening bar with The Mandalorian didn't go exactly as planned, and his new podcast docuseries examining MTV's cultural impact. Subscribe to Who Killed the Video Star?: The Story of MTV wherever you get podcasts, and follow @daveholmes on Ins...

Hello! For my day job, I host and produce Looped In: Chicago, a podcast for WBBM Newsradio . And this week, they allowed me to make an episode all about the city's ties, past and present, to the record industry. So while it's different from your typical Vinyl Emergency episode, I hope you'll find this one to be an equally engaging listen, with guests including Evan Weiss of Into It. Over It. , Sma...

This is an encore presentation of a previous episode, originally airing in December 2020. On today's show, keyboardist Derry deBorja (of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit) talks about the musical influence of his older brother, his time as a member of Son Volt, how experimenting with a modular synth has changed how he views composition, and the 400 Unit's relationship with David Letterman. Visit jason...

Since his last visit to Vinyl Emergency in August 2020, Nashville singer/songwriter Ruston Kelly has narrowly escaped a fiery bus explosion, sold off nearly every physical stage piece from his last tour, and rehabbed an old Victorian bungalow with his own two hands. And while all of these experiences are worth talking about, today he says that being a better listener has been a focused priority as...

In bands like Volcano Choir, Pele, Vermont and Collections of Colonies of Bees, guitarist Chris Rosenau has actively sought out a unique ambiguity. Whether through off-kilter tunings, a myriad of loop pedals or long-form improvisations in 130-degree heat, he says he finds his most interesting work comes from trusting others. And that trust has built fruitful creative relationships with enigmatic d...

While on the Milwaukee Brewers roster in 2011, major league pitcher John Axford created a buzz among indie-rock baseball nerds by forgoing the standard jock jams and using Refused's "New Noise" as his game entrance music. While exposing thousands to the Swedish hardcore band's chaotic screams and atonal, pummeling instrumentation, the choice also garnered some vocal complaints from opposing coache...

At just 16 years old, Amy Fleisher Madden was contributing to her surrounding Florida punk rock scene like a wily veteran. Through booking and promoting national bands visiting the panhandle -- as well as her DIY zine Fiddler Jones -- she had introduced, connected and championed emo, pop-punk and hardcore bands from all over, eventually leading to the start of Fiddler Records, which gave us the fi...

"If Nevermind was a peek into Kurt (Cobain)'s psychological/emotional world, then In Utero was a wide-open window." This comes from today's episode with author Michael Azerrad (Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991), who definitively knew better than most. Having extensive access to Nirvana between those two albums, Michael documented their rise for the...

Starting as an NBC page in the mid-80's, Jim Pitt eventually landed a dream job, for many: music booker for Saturday Night Live. From Nirvana's debut on network television to Sinead O'Connor's impactful and headline-making performance, Pitt booked it all starting in 1990, including mega-star appearances from Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young. Three years in, Pitt took his talents t...

Logistically and artistically, R.E.M.'s 1998 album Up marked a fork in the road for their trajectory: Prior to its recording, drummer and founding member Bill Berry had amicably left the band, having suffered a brain aneurysm while on stage three years earlier, leading the remaining trio of Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck -- for the first time in their career -- to create without a key pi...

North Carolina-based label Merge Records, inarguably one of America's most influential and prolific purveyors of indie-rock, is on the cusp of turning 35 -- a landmark that co-founders Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan likely couldn't fathom when they started the label in 1989. Then, Merge was simply a DIY avenue to release tunes by their scrappy quartet Superchunk. But along the way, as the band's...

Since his first book twenty years ago, musician/author (and all-around music appreciator) Warren Zanes has deftly chronicled what it means to be a rock star without a road map. His acclaimed 2015 authorized biography on Tom Petty -- released just two years prior to his death -- gave readers an engrossing glimpse into the mind of one of rock's great everymen, and this year, Zanes has released a mor...

As bassist Mike Mills tells it, on the cusp of their formation in 1980, he and his fellow Athens, GA bandmates had a simple goal: To make a cool, 45 RPM single with a picture sleeve -- the kind they grew up on. And, if anything else (or nothing else) were to come of their band, so be it. What Mike along with guitarist Peter Buck, drummer Bill Berry and enigmatic vocalist Michael Stipe couldn't hav...

The two sounds Tommy Prine says he remembers most growing up were having the AM radio on or his father (renowned singer/songwriter John Prine) workshopping tunes at the kitchen table. Journeying through adolescence, his eclecticism later manifested through acts like Outkast and System of a Down. But now, on the heels of This Far South — his debut album that dropped earlier this summer — Tommy has...

In her family, Louise Post says that there have been three usual career paths: Join the clergy, practice medicine or become an artist. Thankfully she followed the latter. In 1992, Louise co-founded Veruca Salt with fellow vocalist/songwriter Nina Gordon, and the quartet became one of Chicago's biggest exports of the alternative-rock era. The duo's buzzsaw guitars pushed hit singles like "Seether,"...

From making multitrack recordings as a kid to DJ'ing at her high school radio station to fixing turntables for her college dormmates in the 80's, Lisa Loeb has always been wired for sound. She made music history in the next decade, when her mega-hit "Stay (I Missed You)" became the first song by an artist without a record label to go #1. The song's unique structure — bookending stretches of non-rh...

As a child of the 1970's, vinyl records were intrinsic to Ben Harper's understanding of and approach to music. "If somebody came to the house and said 'We're gonna repossess either your refrigerator or your turntable,'" he states today, "they would've been hauling out the fridge." Growing up, the 3x Grammy-winner and heralded lap steel guitarist/vocalist's taste jumped from Ozzy Osbourne to Robert...