Third Gear Scratch

Laurent Schroeder-Lebec's love of heavy, ground-breaking, earth-shaking music is well established by his band Pelican and their diverse discography over the past 20 years. But somewhere around 2012 LSL began to feel the tug of a different calling; starting a family and supporting that family to the best of his ability, and that included becoming beverage director for Big Star here in Chicago. Certainly Pelican had been experiencing success and was making money as a professional band, one that tours 8 months of the year and can sustain itself when not on the road. But raising a family is a different beast so he made the tough decision to leave Pelican. Shredder Dallas Thomas filled Laurents role heroically for several records until just recently when the band began to reissue their first 3 records on Thrill Jockey with new remasters and in the case of the last reissue, The FIre In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw, they were able to add a new remix in addition to remaster by original engineer Greg Norman, with spectacular results. These reissues sparkle and roar in all the right places and bring these records to the sonic level of later releases. With Laurent firmly back in the band, Pelican have been enjoying their reunification and showing the world they still got that thing that put them on the map in first place: the fire in their throats!

When Vinyl Emergency podcaster Jim Hanke was in school at UW Milwaukee with a double major in Communications and Journalism, he probably never dreamed that one of his future endeavors would be an answer to a question on the famous game show Jeopary. But that's what happened with Biscuits and Jam, a podcast he was producing for Southern Living Magazine. He spent a couple of crucial years there and helped to transform that show into a Jeopardy-answer-sized-pod, but only after producing his own beloved pod called Vinyl Emergency. This podcast has been a labor of love over the past 5 years and has grown from interviewing nobody's like Allen Epley to rapping with somebody's like Adam Duritz from Counting Crows, Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Chris Shifflet of Foo Fighters about what vinyl has meant to them. Jim has moved from Southen Living on to the Audacy company where he now produces many shows for them in addition to VE still going strong, and raising a beautiful family in the Chicago burbs.

Travis Talbert has made the music biz his living, or maybe it's the music that made him do it. He's a touring and session pedal steel player and guitarist for other touring artists like Arlo McKinley but has also busied himself with his band Frontier Folk Nebraska and now more recently with his solo music as Mavis Guitar. He's been releasing music under that moniker for some time now but his most recent offering, Tony Delks' 53 Point Game (self-released) is an expansive and eclectic mix but still stands as cohesive and focused. It's music that uses traditional instruments phrasings but has a kind of meditative ambience to it that transcends the trappings of folk or rock. He's doing all this while teaching guitar/piano/pedal steel, touring at length, working at his fave record store Shake It Records and raising a beautiful family.

Chris Neville is a busy man; As the core member and founder of Tributosaurus, a collection of session killers from Chicago that regularly honor a certain artist or band with sold-out highly perfected tribute concerts featuring almost granular details of that artists recordings (i.e. 6 people to play a proper Rush concert), as a composer for a huge gaming platform called Everi Holdings, as a longtime venue owner whose club fell victim to the pandemic, and as a weekly performer in various ensembles including but not limited to his newest band of assassins, The Meadowlark Lemons. Chris has remained humble and driven to make his life revolve around his strongest skill set as band-leader, keyboardist, singer and all-around show man. He's also found time for the most important parts of life, being a dad and husband while following his dreams.

Tim Rutili is not only from the influential and highly regarded art folk skronk rock band Califone, he in fact is that band. Certainly not to say he's not the only person who makes Califone Califone, indeed that band is more like a collective, often made of 15 humans or more for any given record, and it continues to involve many of the same talented humans he's been making music with for the past 30 years including his time as the main maker in 90's SubPop heros Red Red Meat. So it goes with Califone's new offering, Villagers (Jealous Butcher) due May 19 2023, and follows the theme of these friends exploring new sonic territory, widening their scope of influences and finding lyrical themes of seemingly mundane moments which slowly unfold into profound epiphanies. It's a giant record; a huge step forward but also on par with his best offerings. Tim Rutili is a person with a complusion to create, whether it's composing for film scores, directing and scoring his own films, working on his own paintings, or riding the Califone machine into a new record for the 15th time in 23 years, he will happily continue to satisfy this need as long as he is able.

Gabe Larson was actually closer to his maternal grandfather than his paternal grandfather, Waldemar or Wally, the one he named his band after and most likely the man from whom he inherited a bit of his sadness and ennui. And it's this general bout with depression that plays a central role on his new album called Ruthless (Self-Released), an expansve and intimately beautiful record that has taken most of 5 years to create. In that time, Gabe and his brother Nick carefully rebuilt a 130 year old barn on his Eau Claire WI property, outfitted it with studio gear, and then began to track this big recording, which accurately reflects the open-sky of his surroundings. The pandemic allowed him time to finish his work and to make a baby, Ruth, who was influential in the songs as a matter of course. In his young life after graduating college with a music degree, Gabe has worked tirelessly in decidedly non-music professions like school bus driver, roofer, and now owns his own business with his brother refinishing hardwood floors all over the Chippewa Valley. But most importantly, he's made a career-defining record that makes him so very happy.

The idea to rerelease a remixed version of The Badge, a notoriously anti-cop song, from Jerry A Lang's highly influential punkrock band Poison Idea's 3rd album Feel The Darkness (Vinyl Solutions/American Leather) was not exactly his. In this chat it becomes clear how a current Portland police officer approached him and the idea was hatched. In the mid 80's Jerry A (as he was known) had made his mind up to live his life as he saw fit--make punkrock, tour punkrock, drink, drug, heavy drug, rinse and repeat--until the mid 00's at which point members began to die off for various reasons, the biggest loss being guitarist Tom "Pig Champion" Roberts by heart attack. Jerry has lived a focused and mostly clean existence since then and has channeled his new energy into a recent Covid era solo record From The Fire Into The Water (American Leather). In addtion, he wrote his biography Black Heart Fades Blue (Rare Bird Books) which ended up initally as 3 separate volumes, but now with the repress in sight, Rare Bird is putting all the volumes into one very large, Bible-sized tome for all to enjoy.

Both Sarah and Mario Quintero of the post-everything band Spotlights have been guests on TGS previously, but never at the same time. It is clear that regardless of the music that they make together, beautifully crushing songs that push sonic boundaries with every release, these two are best friends and would be together even without this music. They're deeply in love and have a connection to being the best fucking band they can be and are proving it with every new release. Their newest, Alchemy For The Dead (IPECAC) is another perfect cog on Spotlights gear but sees them grow their brand in very big ways; the vocals and lyrical content on this record has pushed them beyond their post-post-post roots into territory relatively uncharted for them. They've always had singing on their records but it's a big jump for this band. They're embarking on a 9 week tour and explain exactly how they do it and how they make sure their children (aka their dogs) are taken care of while they're out proving it.

Producer Santi Garcia was just 12 years old when he approached the radio station in his town with an idea: his own radio show playing new music he loved. His exuberance and love of music led him to recording bands who came to him wanting to be recorded. He borrowed the only 4 track recorder in the small town north of Barcelona called St Feliu De Guixols and began plying the trade which would make his name and put bread on the table for his family to this day. Santi has expanded his successful studio, Ultramarinos Costa Brava, by including his brother Victor, who is now a sought-after mastering engineer at his own studio, Ultramarinos Barcelona. Both are always busy, recording and producing bands from the region like Standstill, Nueva Vulcano, and Delorean but has made fantastic recordings with Jeremy Enigk in his small studio that overlooks the Balearic Sea. Santi continues to live a music lovers dream in his small hometown; it's a beautfiul success story.

DC punk icon Pete Stahl and his guitarist brother Franz were heavily influenced by their father who was in the biz in the 60's as a band manager. Pete has ridden his simple and profound love of music through a long life of traveling the globe not only as a musician with his band. the godfathers of the DC Dischord scene, Scream (featuring former member Dave Grohl), but also with Wool, Goatsnake and many others, but also as a tour manager for Rival Sons and Coheed and Cambria. It's a life that is as thrilling as it is exhausting but this ageless creator continues to make outstanding music for his masses and it continues with a new record from Scream called DC Special (Dischord), their first in over 25 years and includes contibutions from Bad Brains members and of course, Dave Grohl.