The Vinyl Me Please Podcast

Andrew Winistorfer, Senior Editor extraordinaire for VMP, is in the building for the last episode of 2017. We talk through VMP's top 10 albums of the year list and wander into a number of other topics as the two of us have a habit of doing. We love you guys and we'll see you next year!

Bill Bentley, author of one of the coolest books I've come across this year Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen, is on the show today to talk about what it's been like to spend his entire life in music. We get into what it was like to work for Neil Young for 30 years, what it was like to see The Rolling Stones when he was 15, and how the hell he managed to get hundreds and hundreds of concert and band photographs taken by fans. He will certainly be back on the show but this was an amazing first visit from him.  

I found out about Satica maybe a month ago and got addicted to her track “Honey Whiskey” on Soundcloud. She was nice enough to come on the show to talk about her music, but we ended up also getting into some pretty heavy stuff related to family and growing up as the daughter of Cambodian refugees in Long Beach, CA. This conversation was equal parts illuminating and funny and I've been hooked on her new Drippin' EP for a few weeks now. Check out the interview and then hop into the music itself, I think you'll be just as addicted to her music as I am once you do. 

Huge day today folks. Red Bull flew me out to Chicago for their Red Bull Sound Select festival and hooked up an interview with one of my personal heroes and a legend in the Chicago music scene, Andrew Barber. He's the founder of Fake Shore Drive and was there at the beginning to watch Chance the Rapper, Vic Mensa, Chief Keef, King Louie, Lil Durk, G Herbo, and many more rise to local and then national fame. We go deep on the Chicago music scene, how he started Fake Show Drive and made it what it is today, and where he sees the music industry going along with many more topics. This is my favorite episode we've ever done and I'm so glad this worked out. Enjoy!

Sharon Van Etten has become a force to be reckoned with within the world of Indie music over the last 8 years, and it all began in 2009 with the release of her debut album Because I Was In Love. Sharon stopped by the show recently to discuss the album and the impact it's had on her career since its release. 

She opened up quite a bit about what her life was like around the making of the record and the different twists and turns of recording it. We also got into what her life has been like both personally and as an artist since then, what it's like creating albums that are so honest and personal, and what her hopes are for her future projects as she sets out to create her next record.

I’ve been pretty curious for a long time why it is that as soon as there’s the faintest nip of cold in the September air, I’m immediately in my flannel stuff and listening to For Emma Forever Ago and relating every line of it to every girl that I have ever been in a committed monogamous relationship with or seen in line at the bagel place. It’s genuinely sort of strange how seasons can affect our moods and the music we listen to during them, and Allie Baughman stopped by to talk about the whole thing.

We got pretty deep here into some mysticism stuff, the nature of aesthetics, and how we’re tied much closer to the natural world than our iOS 11-crippled iPhones would like us to believe. It may sound a bit off the beaten path for you but this was genuinely one of my favorite conversations I’ve had in quite some time.

It takes a special sort of artist to pull the listener into a different world entirely, and there are far more examples of folks who have tried to do that than ones who have pulled it off. Like Twain said about the difference between the right and the almost right word, the difference between immersion and depiction is like lightning vs a lightning bug. Daniele Luppi's work falls squarely on the lightning side of that comparison and Milano, a concept album meant to bring you into the jungle that Milan, Italy in the 80's was, is a masterpiece from an artist at the top of his game. 

I recently got some time to sit down with Daniele to talk about his childhood in Milan, the inseparable bond that visual art and music share in his mind, and what it is that pushes him into projects like these over and over again. Daniele is treasure, as his is work, and you're going to love getting to hang with for 30 minutes or so today.

This week Katie Bain and I jump into Four Tet and his meditative new album New Energy. We get into Four Tet's backstory, why his work has stuck with both of us so closely over 9 releases, and what makes his new work so special. We also get way deep into what makes IDM music so important, why Four Tet is one of the most important electronic musicians of his generation, and why the club dance floor is the perfect space for a particular type of meditation and enlightenment.