Joe Boyd has had many job descriptions over the course of his nearly sixty-year career in music, and there was simply no way to cover everything in this conversation. That said, Paul and Joe focus on Boyd's important new book, And The Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music, and themes of cultural cross-pollination in music, the birt…

Master of the bass and pioneering Stick player Tony Levin regales us with tales from the court of King Crimson's Discipline era and more in this conversation recorded from the Beat tour. Our main focus is Levin's new solo album, Bringing It Down To The Bass (Flatiron Recordings) in a far-reaching chat that gets into his entire illustrious career as…

To kick off our SIXTH SEASON of the podcast, Kelly Finnigan talks about his soulful new album A Lover Was Born (out Oct 18 on the Colemine Records label) in a conversation recorded live last summer during RSD Summer Camp at the fabulous Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. Last year we featured the excellent documentary The Elephant 6 Recording Company…

Gun N' Roses founding guitarist Slash talks to us about his recent solo album Orgy Of The Damned, a collection of blues and R&B covers featuring a stellar guest list that includes Paul Rodgers, Steven Tyler, Beth Hart, Iggy Pop, Gary Clark Jr., Billy F. Gibbons, Chris Robinson and more. And Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Colliton checks in from…

Recently, the Oklahoma born singer, guitarist, and songwriter J.D. McPherson chats with us about his just released album, Nite Owls (New West Records), and how he aimed to blend such diverse influences as Duane Eddy, T. Rex, and Depeche Mode. The Record Store Day Podcast is a weekly music chat show written, produced, engineered and hosted by Paul M…

Grammy Award winning jazz vocalist/composer Samara Joy is already establishing herself as one of the hottest stars on the contemporary jazz scene. In the run-up to the October 11th release of her new album, Portrait (Verve), Ms. Joy is one of the featured performers at this years Monterey Jazz Festival (Sept 27-29). We chatted about how this twenty…

Big Star drummer and founding members Jody Stephens, R.E.M.'s Mike Mills, Wilco's Pat Sansone, and Jon Auer of The Posies join Paul for a discussion of The Big Star Quintet (a supergroup which also includes Chris Stamey of The dB's) as they keep the music of Big Star alive on the 50th Anniversary tour for Big Star's second album, Radio City (availa…

Nada Surf front person Matthew Caws chats with Paul about the themes and inspirations behind his band's shiny new album Moon Mirror (New West Records) and reflects on the band's three-decades making records, including tales of being mentored by the late great Ric Ocasek, having an early hit with "Popular," and working on the new one at the legendar…

UK breakout band The Heavy Heavy co-founders Georgie Fuller and William Turner are here to unpack their debut full-length album One Of A Kind (ATO Records), the followup to last year's 7-song EP, Life and Life Only. Recorded mostly at Turner’s studio in Brighton, England, One Of A Kind finds the band leaning away from Laurel Canyon-esque folk-rock …

Shelby Lynne's voice resonates with hard-won wisdom and the unseen scars of love and loss. After returning home to Nashville after years in Palm Springs, CA, she and a core unit of talented women collaborated on her stunning new album, Consequences of the Crown which her new label (Monument Records) accurately describes as "a haunting exploration o…

Legendary L.A. punk rockers X began their career in 1977, and this month they released the ninth album, Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum Records). Founder members John Doe and Exene Cervenka are here to talk about their long and storied career, and the significance of an album they are calling their "farewell." Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Collito…

Comedy records are records too! WTF podcast host Marc Maron returns to the show to talk about his new vinyl LP, From Bleak To Dark (Craft Recordings) and a bit about the comedy albums of his youth. And since we just lost comedy legend Bob Newhart, the deadpan comic responsible for one of the most historic comedy albums of all time, The Button-Down …

Brigitte Calls Me Baby is a Chicago-based band with a sound that, while rooted in 2024 could have easily made it onto the soundtrack of an 80s John Hughes' teen comedy. But as frontpserson and songwriter Wes Leavins explains to Paul, there's more to the story, including his involvement in Baz Luhrmann's biopic, Elvis. We unpack the band's just-rele…

Lawrence Rothman (they/them) is a gender fluid singer songwriter (and music producer) born in St. Louis, MO, and currently living in Los Angeles, CA. In the course of discussing their recently released album The Plow That Broke The Plains, Lawrence describes a lot of the pain and struggle that went into the songs. It's a frank and honest conversati…

American Aquarium frontman and songwriter BJ Barham talks about the inspirations behind his band's new album, The Fear of Standing Still, out this week from Thirty Tigers/Losing Side Records. BJ hails from from North Carolina, where he used to work with Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Colliton, who is also here to give us some deep background on…

There's kind of a theme to this week's show, which is admittedly a bit of a mashup of two previous episodes plus a new chat with Travis & Lisa from The Guestroom in Louisville, KY. It all started last summer, when Lisa and Travis flew to London to see Blur in concert at the legendary Wembley Stadium. Cut to this year, and the July 26 release of the…

After last week's all-Memphis lineup (Episode #134) it's time for a little North Carolina love as we welcome Superchunk founders Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance to talk about their little indie label that could, Merge Records, as they celebrate 35 years with the big MERGE 35 festival in Chapel Hill, NC, July 24-27. Meanwhile over in Raleigh, RSD c…

Let's go to Memphis in the meantime, baby! Our featured interview is with Rob Bowman, the Toronto based academic scholar and Grammy Award-winning professor of ethnomusicology. Notably, Rob is a recognized authority on Stax Records, and has produced numerous Stax box sets in addition to writing an exhaustively researched book, Soulsville USA: The St…

This year, the genre-straddling Hawthorne, California rock band Redd Kross are celebrating 45 years as a band, and as such, founding brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald have been involved in a number of biographical projects including a memoir, Now You’re One Of Us (with author Dan Epstein), and director Andrew Reich’s career-spanning documentary, Bor…

Paul welcomes best-selling author and award-winning journalist Ann Powers to discuss her incredible new book, Traveling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell (Dey St). Plus, Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Colliton checks in from Raleigh, North Carolina. The Record Store Day Podcast is a weekly music chat show written, produced, engineered and hosted by…

Guitarist's guitarist and UK folk/rock legend Richard Thompson joins Paul to discuss his brand new album Ship to Shore (out now from New West Records), but also his early work with Sandy Denny in Fairport Convention, the great duo records with Linda Thompson, and his 90s solo work with Mitchell Froom. He also expounds on his memoir, the importance …

Getting Ringo Starr don't come easy, but we did it! Ringo is here to chat about his new Crooked Boy EP (written and produced by Linda Perry), while also sharing some Beatles memories about the Get Back / Let It Be documentaries, his love of Country music and why he'll still be touring on his 84th birthday. We also brought in Abe Laboriel, Jr., who …

Andrew Bird takes a slight detour into the world of jazz standards while keeping his own impeccable standards high on the brand new Andrew Bird Trio album Sunday Morning Put-On (Loma Vista). Paul has a forthright conversation with a virtuoso musician, smart producer, and as we discuss, an occasional actor (TV's Fargo). And listen to the end of the …

Shannon Shaw opens up about the tragic events that informed the new Shannon & The Clams album, The Moon Is In The Wrong Place (Easy Eye Sound) which is a surprisingly upbeat, yet poignant narrative on heartache and healing, grief and resilience in the aftermath of devastating loss, and a tribute to the power of art and community to triumph over tra…

Blitzen Trapper's Eric Earley explains the zen inspirations behind his band's newest album, 100's of 1000's, Millions of Billions (May 17 on Yep Roc). RSD co-founder Carrie Colliton drops by with news of a Blitzen Trapper adjacent promotion to win a Steve Keene painting of Bob Pollard's artwork for the new album (details at RecordStoreDay.com) and …