Todays podcast is an interview with Christie Front Drive bassist Kerry McDonald. Not only is Kerry the bass player for a seminlally influential emo band, he’s also a tour manager having worked with artists such as The New Pornographers, Tom Waits, Camera Obscura, The Vaselines, Pinback, and Passion Pit. You can also find Christie Front Drive on Magic Bullet Records.

An interview with Cameron McGill and What Army? feat. Cameron McGill, Rodrigo Palma, Darren Garvey, And Daniel McMahon recorded at Middlewest Festival 2011 in Dekalb, Illinois on September 10th. Topics include: music, making music, marketing music as an independent musician, trains, hobos, and current events. Visit CameronMcGill.com for all your CM+WA? updates.

An interview with Nicholas Kelly and Nicholas Papaleo of Brontosaurus at the 2011 Middlewest Music and Arts Festival. Visit them at brontosaurusmusic.com, brontosaurus.bandcamp.com or at their Facebook page.

Todd Bell from the band Braid, joins Chip for a casual one on one talk about standing in lines, old venues in Rockford and Atlanta, his experiences with Braid as well as his post-Braid band, Hey Mercedes. We also discuss his cowboy hat modeling career. Todd, Chris Broach, Bob Nanna and Damon Atkinson released a new EP this year as Braid, Closer to Closed, produced by J.Robbins and released on Polyvinyl and are playing a sold out reunion show at The Metro in Chicago August 27 and at the Pygmalion Music Festival . Thanks to our buddy Jim Hanke for help setting up this interview with Todd. Visit Braid at www.braidcentral.com

Former guest and sometime co-host and contributor David Pedersen drops by the studio for a chat about his forthcoming book Love is Meat. You can follow Dave at davispedersen.com. The book release will be held August 5th at Memorial Hall in Rockford, IL.

Rocky Votolato is a singer songwriter from Seattle while born in rural Texas he was raised in the Pacific Northwest indie scene (where he fronted the acclaimed rock band Waxwing). His most recent album, True Devotion was released in 2010 on Barsuk Records and like his friend and recent guest to our show David Bazan, he tours relentlessly playing both living room shows and club dates. We had a very casual conversation about his plans for his upcoming release this year, Joel vs. Springsteen, as well as the question that boggles everyones mind: What IS Sock Monkey Sound? http://rockyvotolato.com

We welcome David Bazan back to Sock Monkey Sound for the 2nd time to celebrate today’s release of his latest album on Barsuk Records, Strange Negotiations. We touch on the recording of Strange Negotiations, Bob Dylan, political activism (or lack thereof), the recording of Pedro the Lion’s 2002 release Control, Elliot Smith; and much, much more.

We resurrect our old radio format as SMS welcomes Warren "The Firehose" Franklin back to the hot seat. We talk about his signing to Count Your Lucky Stars records along with how the recording of his forthcoming record went. This episode is also about Joie de Vivre’s last show EVER (yeah right) that will be hosted at Rawkspace in Rockford, IL with bands from all over the midwest. Also, we premiere a new song off of Joie de Vivre’s next (and last) album and a new one from Warren Franklin.

This episode features a young band from Rockford, IL called Bloom. We talk about the local all ages scene, the RAMI Youth Charity Jam, their influences, what the future holds for them; along with a live studio acoustic performance by Bloom.

Today we are presenting an interview with Javier Romero, founder of BandSurfing.com, a website that matches bands with venues when setting up one off gigs and tours. Recently featured on Mashable.com, we talked to Javier about the service, how it works, and how he came to create BandSurfing. Check out the service at http://bandsurfing.com