Vinyl Emergency

After years of playing upright bass for cult country act BR5-49, Jay McDowell stumbled into a dream job for any music geek: Multimedia Archivist for Nashville's Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, established in 2006. From the actual drumkit Santana's Michael Shrieve played at Woodstock to the original lathe used to cut Elvis Presley's first recording to hand-written lyrics from some of the greates...

Today, we focus on R.E.M.'s polarizing yet passionate ninth album from 1994, Monster. Craft Recordings just released a 25th anniversary package available on 1LP, 2LP, 2CD or 5CD/1Blu-Ray formats, available at remhq.com or wherever you buy music.   Growing up, renowned visual artist Chris Bilheimer's first introduction to what record covers looked like was -- serendipitously -- by staring at R.E.M....

It almost sounds like a song in itself: An acclaimed musician on his big album release day, three years in the making, finds himself on jury duty for a murder trial. As crazy or poetic as it may sound, that was the story for Maryland-based Joe Pug back in July, as his latest LP The Flood In Color hit shelves. Though born in the mid-'80s, his tales of destruction and redemption ring with a wisdom t...

As a member of Foo Fighters for the last twenty years, guitarist Chris Shiflett is regarded as one of the most consistently versatile personalities in rock: From his punk roots in Rat Pack and core Fat Wreck Chords alumni No Use For A Name to goofing off with sped up covers in Me First & The Gimme Gimmes to one-off back-up duties for Norah Jones to recording his own albums drenched in country musi...

Racking up an astonishing 13 proper albums within the last two decades -- not including singles or EP releases -- Matt Pond has solidified himself as one of the most prolific singer-songwriters working today. Though the name Matt Pond PA was retired in 2017 (a moniker for his recording and touring band of which he was the sole consistent member), his work over the last 12 years with musician and e...

Enjoy this encore presentation of Episode 73, featuring our conversation with Dan Didier of The Promise Ring and Maritime. "Don't Break Down," a documentary on the influential punk trio Jawbreaker which Dan co-produced, was released earlier this month on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube and other digital outlets. His current musical project Dramatic Lovers can be found online at  dramaticlovers.com .

In a relatively short amount of time, Matt Ross-Spang has grown from Sun Studio tour guide to one of the most sought-after producers and engineers in music. Having moonlighted behind the boards at Sun after business hours while juggling high-school, Matt helped bring the historic studio back to its analog roots and eventually stepped out on his own at the behest of Grammy-winner and Nashville stud...

For close to a decade, Cleveland's Gotta Groove Records has earned its reputation as "the artist's preferred pressing plant." By having their quality assurance team play every 25th LP or 7" that comes off their presses, they're known for going the extra mile and implementing some of the highest standards in the industry, whether manufacturing limited 100-copy runs or thousands upon thousands for w...

Enjoy this rerun of Episode 64, featuring our conversation with the great Rosanne Cash. Tour dates and more are available at  rosannecash.com , and her latest album She Remembers Everything is available wherever you get music.

Since the late 1970's, both Evelyn Shriver and Susan Nadler have worked with an impressive list of country music's biggest names. Armed with their shared PR experience, the duo headed up Asylum Records as the first women to ever helm a major country music label and flipped Nashville's Music Row on its ear, building longtime partnerships with Willie Nelson, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Emmylou Harr...

Over three proper full-lengths and nearly a decade of touring, NYC quartet Soul Coughing merged spoken word, jazz, hip-hop and various avant-garde subgenres into a sound completely their own, notching a few 90's college radio and alt-rock hits in the process. This year, vocalist/guitarist Mike Doughty is on the road celebrating the 25th anniversary of their critically-acclaimed debut LP Ruby Vroom...

As an in-demand session musician, keyboardist/pianist Jeff Babko has built a diverse career, both on record and on the road. Aside from his own original music, he's recorded or toured with the likes of Neil Young, Smokey Robinson, James Taylor, Sheryl Crow and Frank Ocean, while working on scores and soundtracks for films and TV, including Garden State, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, The Good P...

Vinyl Emergency may not have existed without inspiration from Billy Fields. Within the record industry, he's known as the resident vinyl expert for Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, the artist and label services arm of Warner Music Group, overseeing all aspects of vinyl production, including marketing, sales forecasts and strategy. For record lovers on Twitter, Billy is a required presence, keeping the wor...

Since launching in 2007, the Los Angeles-based comedy label ASpecialThing has churned out laughs on 7, 10 and 12" formats, putting influential voices such as Patton Oswalt, Cameron Esposito, Karen Kilgariff, Jonah Ray and Kyle Kinane to vinyl. Today, on top of his early love for hip-hop, how he swayed his parents to buy him a Muppet Show album and what it's like to get a Grammy, AST co-founder Mat...

As popularity rises for vinyl subscription services, Table-Turned continues to stand out as an option for those looking to take a deep dive into specific genres of their choosing. On this episode, co-founder Dane Erbach provides some history on the company, as well as how his local record store is becoming a prime spot for punk rock in the suburbs, how Table-Turned is humanizing music, what vinyl...

Today, we round out our discussions with the main four voices of the acclaimed RecordNerdz podcast: Jason Davis grew up in Brazil, only visiting the states a couple times a year during his teens, before moving to America permanently as an adult and eventually settling down in Brooklyn. On this episode, Jason chats about how he regards his collection as his own private record store, which Metallica...

Without the influence of J. Robbins, the indie-rock landscape from the 90's through today would be missing a specific tonality, seeped heavily in both nuance and bite. From his songwriting and musicianship in bands like Jawbox, Channels and Burning Airlines to his production/engineering work with The Promise Ring, Jets to Brazil, Texas Is The Reason, Shiner, The Dismemberment Plan and a slew of ot...

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more diverse client base than that of Portland, Oregon's Draplin Design Co. From corporations like Nike and Ford to some of his favorite bands (Dinosaur Jr., Old 97's) to the Obama administration and NASA, Aaron Draplin's visual talents run the branding gamut. But out of all the work he's ever done, designing for vinyl records remains his favorite gig. On today's ep...

This year brings with it several anniversaries for songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone: 2019 marks his 50th birthday, two decades as part of The Autumn Defense (formed with Wilco bassist John Stirratt) and subsequently 15 years within Wilco itself. Entering the band during a pivotal shift between A Ghost Is Born's riveting complexities and the more serene nature of Sky Blue Sky, Pat h...

Since being founded in 2011, Cincinnati-based indie label Soul Step has been running a unique business model for musicians who are unable to afford the massive investment of getting their music on vinyl. By Soul Step fronting and recouping all production costs, then splitting profits 50/50 with the artist for a short run of impeccably colored and incredibly limited pressings, everyone from the lab...

An obsessive record collector since third grade, Josh Berwanger's adoration for glam-tinged rock and synth-heavy new-wave led to the formation of indie quintet The Anniversary, who toured heavily in the early 2000's behind a pair of full-lengths for the Vagrant label at its zenith. On today's program, Josh dishes about his days behind the counter at Lawrence, KS record store Love Garden, spotlight...

Andy Barron has made a career of visually documenting life on the road for musicians, both on stage and off, over the last decade. He's currently Chris Stapleton's official tour photographer, and he's done similar work for groups like Foster The People and Switchfoot. His résumé also sports freelance photography for the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Paramore, Joy Williams and New Kids On The Block. A...

For over two decades, Polyvinyl Records -- which started in the small Midwestern town of Danville, IL -- has been releasing various offshoots of indie-rock with touches of folk, hardcore punk, chamber pop or new wave, including records from Braid, Japandroids, Of Montreal, Joan of Arc, Deerhoof, Alvvays, Beach Slang, Jeff Rosenstock, Matt Pond PA, Owen, Jay Som, Mates of State and countless others...

As director of business affairs at the Country Music Association, Aaron Hartley clears rights for online content, works with music publishers on payments for song placements and acts as a liaison between artists and the CMA for television properties. But before working in the world of country music, Aaron cut his teeth by launching Theory Eight Records, a small indie-rock label that has released m...

Eric Astor — CEO and President of Furnace Record Pressing in Virginia — returns to the show to discuss last month's 2nd annual Making Vinyl conference in Detroit and Furnace's recent addition of several new record presses. Plus we go over this year's Record Store Day Black Friday releases with former podcast guest Nick Digilio from WGN Radio in Chicago.