Caropop

Dave Specter didn’t pick up a guitar till his late teens, yet in his 20s he was Son Seals’ rhythm guitarist for two years, and soon he was a bandleader himself. Specter grew up amid Chicago’s blues scene and became one...

Running a boutique audiophile label is not easy, as Shane Buettner has learned in the 10 years since he founded Intervention Records. There are licensing agreements to be negotiated, artists to please, mastering...

It's our Thanksgiving message for 2025!

Louie Pérez has written many great songs for Los Lobos, but “Saint Behind the Glass” is especially close to his heart. It was inspired by a saint statue from his family’s home and now is part of the exhibit American...

Bob Merlis ran the Warner Bros. publicity department for much of his 29 years at the label, and he has tales to tell. He recalls his adventures as a Columbia University student presenting concerts by the Byrds and...

Paul Kelly has been one of Australia’s—and the world’s—premier singer-songwriters for decades, having been introduced to American audiences with the mid-‘80s albums Gossip and Under the Sun and songs such as “Before Too...

Paul Myers is one of those do-it-all guys: author of the new John Candy: A Life in Comedy, host of the Record Store Day Podcast (which he also writes, produces, engineers and composes the music for), radio and TV host...

After Camper Van Beethoven performed the final show of its recent tour in Washington, D.C.—and perhaps its last show ever—violinist/multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Segel returned to Stockholm, Sweden, where he has lived...

This conversation with Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave guitarist-songwriter Tom Morello took place immediately after the final preview of the new punk-metal-hip-hop musical, Revolution(s) at Chicago’s Goodman...

Peter Guralnick, an author I've long admired, wrote the definitive Elvis Presley biographies Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love and has returned with The Colonel and the King. Drawing on fresh research and volumes...

I’ve been a Peter Orner fan for a long time, appreciating how—whether he’s writing short stories, novels or essays—he makes every word count. Stories and chapters are short, sentences lean, zero fat. His justly...

Emma Swift is a sublime singer of her own songs as well as those of Bob Dylan, as she demonstrates on her new album, The Resurrection Game, and the previous Blonde on the Tracks. She says The Resurrection Game is about...

Scott McCaughey returns to Caropop as busy as ever. He’s currently on the Baseball Project/Minus 5 September Doubleheader tour, with each band consisting of Steve Wynn, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Linda Pitmon and...

Robbie Fulks released his debut album back in 1996, and here we are in 2025 with him, at age 62, still on the rise. His awesome guitar-picking skills and singing drew the attention of Steve Martin, who added him to his...

Squeeze’s Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook are one of rock’s greatest songwriting tandems, with Tilbrook crafting indelible melodies around Difford’s emotionally detailed lyrics. Here Difford digs into the evolution of...

We're going on summer recess--for a good reason: Caropop is getting a long-awaited tune-up. We’ll be tweaking the presentation and improving the way we let you all know about episodes. In addition to keeping them on...

No surprise, talking music with Craig Finn is stimulating and a lot of fun. The Hold Steady’s frontman/lyricist recently released his sixth solo album, the character-driven song cycle Always Been. He also hosts the...

Bassist Gina Birch is a founding member of the legendary British post-punk band the Raincoats, whose self-titled 1977 debut album is an off-kilter classic. More Raincoats albums followed, as did stints with Dorothy and...

Bassist Dennis Dunaway was—and is—one of the key figures in the 1970s rock band, Alice Cooper. That’s right, the band Alice Cooper, which recorded seven albums between 1969 and 1973 (and had such hits as "I'm Eighteen"...

When I spoke with Chris Stamey way back for Caropop Ep. 30, he shared a sheet music collection called Marvelous Melodies Songbook, New Songs Vol. III. Several of those songs appear on his wonderful new album, Anything...

May Pang was John Lennon’s companion for the late-1973-to-early-1975 period that has become known as Lennon’s “lost weekend.” Although Pang has used that phrase for her documentary and photo exhibition, she doesn’t see...

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has been a top audiophile label since its 1977 founding and 2001 reboot after Jim Davis, president of the high-end audio equipment company Music Direct, bought it out of bankruptcy. But the...

John Hall has been CEO of the family-run Rickenbacker guitar company since 1984, right around when R.E.M.'s Peter Buck was inspiring a generation of jangly bands with his Rick riffs. The Beatles had led a Rickenbacker...

David Lowery is looking back while pushing forward. The brainy, witty Camper Van Beethoven/Cracker frontman just released a two-CD, three-LP solo album, Fathers, Sons and Brothers, that’s a sort of musical memoir. Here...

Zev Feldman, a.k.a. the “Jazz Detective,” has turned his crate-digging passion into a career: He tracks down previously unreleased recordings and jumps through the necessary hoops to get them released, often in lavish...