Released in October, It's Only Rock n Roll is a celebration that has formed the backbone of Michael Des Barres' life. The album's one dozen tracks find the singer paying homage to the biggest names of the glam era, from T. Rex to Roxy Music. Des Barres' own musical career spans more than half a century, including an appearance at Live Aid as the head of The Power Station. As an actor, Des Barres has appeared in more than 100 TV shows, including a notable turn as MacGyver villain, Murdoc.

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Tom Petty's unexpected death in October 2017 effectively marked the end of the Heartbreakers. The band reunited a handful of times to pay tribute to the late singer, but its members have otherwise used the unfortunate opportunity to explore life beyond its confines. For Mike Campbell, the event marked the beginnings of a second career. His guitar playing and songwriter were foundational to the Heartbreakers' massive success, and he'd cowritten with Don Henley and Stevie Nicks, including the Billboard topping "Boys of Summer." But now it's his name on the band, performing as Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs. This June, the group released Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits, its third full-length since 2020.

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Released at the end of August, Kantos is a “party album about the possible end of humanity as we know it.” A few months later, that possibility seems ever more probable. A one-time resident of both New York City and Athens, GA, Kaoru Dill-Ishibashi now spends his days in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Central California, heading over Highway 17 to surf when not making music. The singer and multi-instrumentalist is an industry veteran, fronting Brooklyn indie band Jupiter One and spending time as a member of Elephant 6 offshoot, Of Montreal. The Berklee grad has also performed with a wide range of fellow musicians, including Regina Spektor.

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When I Get Through follows Breymer's (Sarah Walk) journey up to the day of their top surgery. It's a candid account of the conversations and emotions that precede such a life alternating moment. The musician joins us to discuss the journey and the decision recount the events on their new LP.

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Halloween comes early this year, as Matt Wagner and Kelley Jones join us to discuss the final days of their Kickstarter campaign for Dracula Book II: The Brides. The comics veterans talk about their planned four volume series and the lasting legacy of Bram Stoker's monster.

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New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler returns to the show. The artist recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to release a new book collecting minicomics and other appearances by his best-known creation, Too Much Coffee Man.

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Band People is part music writing and part business book, rounded out by academic research and a host of footnotes. It's a pragmatic look at the life of road warriors in an increasingly untenable industry. More than anything, however, it's a labor of love from lifelong touring musician, Franz Nicolay. Transcript available here.

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He's quick to laugh with a twang that betrays his Southern Missouri origin. Steve Cropper discusses his accomplishments with modesty, rarely offering a glimpse into a career that profoundly impacted the course of 20th century popular music. As a core, founding member of Booker T & the MGs, the guitars helped form the backbone of the Stax Record sound. Cropper cowrote some of the era's most iconic songs, including "Knock on Wood," "In the Midnight Hour" and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay, the latter of which he almost mixed following Otis Redding's untimely passing. The MGs made their own mark with the massive success of "Green Onions," before Cropper transitioned into a successful producing career and served as the longstanding guitarist for comedy duo, The Blues Brothers.

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In November, Tokyo Police Club will play its final show. Saying goodbye is never easy, but the Ontario-based band's members seem surprisingly okay with the whole thing. At the end of the day, very few of us manage to eke out a 20-year career playing with high school friends. Graham Wright acknowledges that, perhaps, the reality of the situation hasn't entirely set in, but for now, the band is enjoying what's left of the ride.

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Comics and animation can both be grueling -- especially drawing a 400 page comic or animated a hand-drawn, feature length film. As such, one must be discriminating in choosing such projects. For Dash Shaw, the choice comes down to two principles: 1. It has to seem like he's the only one who can create it and 2. It needs to contain an element of "why would anyone do that." Both can be seen in his most recent, deeply idiosyncratic works in comics ("Blurry") and film ("Cryptozoo").

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