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 podcast “That’s How I Remember It,” which explores the relationship between memory and creativity, and writes the Substack “Versions of Security.” Finn has thoughts on the power of his own memory and how it fuels his songwriting. As someone who formed the band Lifter Puller in Minneapolis and the Hold Steady in New York City and recorded his new album in Los Angeles, he also considers how a sense of place factors in. How much back story does he conceive for his characters? Does he write the songs in the order of the plot? Did Finn ever consider becoming a short story writer, poet or journalist? And what’s with the Randy Newman nod on the cover of Always Been?

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 the Hangovers, but it wasn’t until 2023 that Birch released her first solo album, the acclaimed I Play My Bass Loud. Now she’s made Trouble, which again draws on dub, reggae and electronica textures while exploring the intersection of art and the often-troublesome outside world. Birch is fierce, funny and down-to-earth as she tells how she approaches and creates her art, which includes painting, filmmaking and an appearance in the Tate Gallery’s “Women in Revolt!” exhibition in London last year. She also reflects on Kurt Cobain’s Raincoats fandom—and his death a week before the Raincoats were slated to open Nirvana' 1994 UK tour—and the power of female artists “Making Trouble Again.” (Photo by Dean Chalkley.)

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" and "School's Out") before the singer Alice Cooper (nee Vince Furnier) went on to a successful solo career. Now the surviving members of the Alice Cooper band, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, have reunited to record their first album in 52 years, The Revenge of Alice Cooper. Dunaway, described by the singer as “one of the few true surrealists that I've ever met,” reflects on what it was like finally to write and record again as a group, with producer Bob Ezrin also back. Did old tensions resurface? What’s the deal with the band touring—or not touring—to support this album? (Photo by Jenny Risher.)

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 Is Possible (out July 11), as do the Brian Wilson-evoking “I’d Be Lost Without You,” the Wilson-covering “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” and the optimistic, guitar-driven title track. Stamey has a well-thought-out reason for every musical choice he makes. Here we dig into one of my favorite subjects, chord changes, and discuss writing songs in one's head, on an instrument or on paper. He also reflects on the impact of playing with the Big Star Quintet and the reunited dB’s. What’s the connection between “getting the notes in the right place” and creating magic? (Photo by John Gessner.)

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 this time as “lost” for Lennon. Not only did he record two albums (Walls and Bridges and Rock ‘n’ Roll) and produce another (Harry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats), but Pang reunited him with his son Julian and was there when he reconnected with Paul McCartney and considered writing with him again. She puts Lennon’s Los Angeles nightclub antics in context, describes Rock ‘n’ Roll producer Phil Spector’s crazed behavior and details the night she and Lennon saw a UFO from their New York City balcony. She also recounts interactions with Yoko Ono, who set her up with her husband when Pang was the couple’s assistant, and offers a surprising take on the recent Beatles release “Now and Then.” And she explains why George Harrison ripped Lennon's glasses off his face. (Photo by Scott Segelbaum.)

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 label was hit with controversy almost three years ago with the revelation that it included a digital step in the production chain of albums sourced from original master tapes. Davis issued an apology for “using vague language, allowing false narratives to propagate and for taking for granted” customers’ goodwill and trust, and the company settled a class action lawsuit for $25 million. Speaking inside Music Direct’s Chicago headquarters, Davis weighs the lawsuit’s impact on the company and whether it was more about listening or price speculating. He explains the use of a high-resolution digital step and why it results in superior audio quality. He also discusses the significance of MoFi’s new SuperVinyl formulation and Fidelity Record Pressing plant.

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 surge 20 years earlier as John Lennon and George Harrison played Ricks in A Hard Day’s Night and prompted the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn to get a 12-string Rickenbacker and basically to invent folk rock. Hall tells a hell of a story about meeting the Beatles and McGuinn, and he reflects on company’s history, which dates back to 1931. He explains why Rickenbacker still makes all of its guitars at one California factory instead of expanding its production; discusses the company’s fierce trademark protection; weighs distinctions among hollow-bodied, solid-bodied, 6-string and 12-string models; addresses whether pricey vintage Ricks are actually better than new ones; and, once and for all, clears up the pronunciation of “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 he tells stories about those stories, reflecting on the recent Camper shows to mark the debut album’s 40th anniversary and speculating on whether the band would have had its career if he hadn’t written “Take the Skinheads Bowling.” He also discusses the almost accidental ways in which Cracker’s “Low” and “Eurotrash Girl” became hits, tells whether he’s surprised by which of his songs have had legs, ponders whether he and his bands appreciated the good times, notes his preference of his new album on CD or vinyl, asserts how record companies blew it with streaming, shares new song ideas and weighs the economics of recording them with Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker or on his own. (Photo by Jason Thrasher.)

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 packages for his label, Resonance Records. This past Record Store Day featured such Feldman finds as live albums from Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham and Charles Mingus plus a limited-edition double album of previously unreleased Patsy Cline performances, Imagine That: The Lost Recordings (1954-1963). Feldman also co-produced last year’s incendiary Blue Note release from McToy Tyner and Joe Henderson, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs. In this expansive conversation, Feldman tells his Jazz Detective origin story and describes how he finds these recordings (or vice versa), he gets specific about the importance of Record Store Day and these projects' tight margins, and he reveals his white whales. (Photo by Jean-Louis Atlan.)

Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill, who are married to each other, have been making music for many years but recently released their first album together, Long After the Fire. Peterson has been singer-songwriter-guitarist for the Bangles and Continental Drifters. John Cowsill began drumming for the Cowsills at a young age, more recently was the Beach Boys’ drummer and now fills in as lead singer for the Smithereens. The new album features songs written by John’s two late brothers, Bill and Barry Cowsill, and John and Vicki harmonize beautifully and, as you’ll hear here, crack each other up. They recount how they decided (and occasionally tangled over) who would sing what and tell great stories too, covering Vicki’s long connection with the Cowsills (which dates back to 1978) and John’s cosmic if heartbreaking moment with Brian Wilson. (Photo by Henry Diltz.)