Elizabeth Ziman invites me into her Brooklyn apartment for tea and ravioli. A New York native, Ziman talks about growing up in Greenwich Village and explains how a landlord battle forced her to reexamine a stack of old journals she found during the move. Combining their contents with imagery from fever dreams, she fashioned the songs for Elizabeth & the Catapult's fourth LP, Keepsake. She also discusses having an ex for a producer, why she still busks in the subway, and why it's important to acknowledge the real world while she's onstage.

elizabethandthecatapult.com

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Matthew Logan Vasquez revisits a changing Brooklyn as he joins me for a drink at the Williamsburg Hotel's lobby bar. After a decade of fronting Delta Spirit, Vasquez has been steadily releasing music as a solo artist since 2015's Austin EP. On his second album, Does What He Wants, Matt does just that, taking the listener on a stylistically diverse journey through rock and roll. MLV tells why he had to "strike out on his own" in order to keep making music for a living, and how he strategized his son's birth around touring.

matthewloganvasquez.com

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Americana artist Caleb Caudle joins me for a drink at Rockwood Music Hall in the Lower East Side before his show downstairs. Now sober, Caleb explains how his previous partying lifestyle had informed many of his lyrics in the past, but how he's looking forward to tackling new subject matter. Last year, he released his seventh LP, the critically acclaimed Carolina Ghost, which he describes as all love songs. With the woman from those songs now his wife, what will the tunes on his upcoming Crushed Coins be about?

calebcaudle.com

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Mike Savino a.k.a. Tall Tall Trees has a quick beer with me at The Magician in Manhattan's Lower East Side before his show at Rockwood Music Hall. Savino tells how he originally went to school to be a doctor before dropping out to pursue his true passion. He also explains why and how he built his trademark "Banjotron 5000," a Swiss Army knife of an instrument that allows him to create sounds you never thought you'd hear coming from a banjo. Having recording his first two albums as a band, Mike describes what it was like to write and record his third LP, Freedays, as a solo project.

talltalltrees.com

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Katy Frame and Marie Cecile Anderson of country comedy group Reformed Whores chat with me over handcrafted cocktails at the Shanty in Williamsburg. The bawdy duo explain why they gravitated to their unconventional instruments (accordion and ukulele), reveal how they relentlessly researched other comedy bands' careers as a blueprint for their own, and recount the whirlwind recording session at the legendary RCA Studio A in Nashville for their second album, Don't Beat Around the Bush.

reformedwhores.com

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Cris Jacobs knocks back a bourbon to stave off a cold before his show at American Beauty in NYC. After noodling around on acid in his backyard with friends in high school, Cris dedicated his college years to practicing bluegrass guitar for five hours a day. It paid off, with Jacobs spending a decade in Baltimore jamband The Bridge before going solo. Cris explains how becoming a father influenced his stunning sophomore effort, Dust to Gold, and shares his plans for an upcoming LP with Ivan Neville.

crisjacobs.com

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R&B songstress Emily King has a quick drink with me at YN in Manhattan, NY. Her debut record, East Side Story, was nominated for the 2007 Best Contemporary R&B Album, but she was dropped by her label the following year. Having just released the deluxe edition of her second full-length, The Switch, King discusses navigating the music business, the main difficulty she has when writing songs for someone else, and why it's important for her to keep performing in spite of the troubling times we're living in.   emilykingmusic.com   drypaintsigns.com

Funk icon George Clinton has a beer with me directly following his concert with Parliament-Funkadelic at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas.  Clinton gives an overview of his six decades in the music business, from his early days of auditioning for Motown to his current struggles in attempting to regain the copyrights to many of his classic works.  He explains why the hard-rocking Funkadelic has taken the forefront in recent years, and how having his grandchildren in the band has influenced their latest record, First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate.

georgeclinton.com

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Pop Etc's Chris Chu and I go on a Cobble Hill bar crawl, stopping for drinks at the Long Island Bar and Henry Public.  Chu reveals how seeing Elliott Smith in concert made him realize that an artist's success isn't necessarily tied to their own happiness.  Instead, Chris' hope is that people will listen to Pop Etc and bond their personal experiences to it, which is why the band's latest album is called Souvenir.  With a tune in the final scene of the final Twilight movie and couples asking him to use his songs for their weddings, he's getting his wish.

popetcetera.com

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Lissie chats with me over a drink in the backyard of Muldoon's Irish Pub in Midtown Manhattan. Originally hailing from Rock Island, IL, she explains how she received an early confidence boost from G. Love, which inspired her to move out to California to pursue her music career.  She recently bought a farm in Iowa, but her latest album, My Wild West, focuses on her times back in the Golden State.  Lisse reveals that she views songwriting as a form of therapy, and how this LP represents a shift away from her typical song fodder, romantic relationships.

lissie.com

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