Over the past year, Peter Holsapple has toured with the reunited dB’s and enjoyed the overdue U.S. vinyl releases of their classic first two albums; seen the release of a book, compilation album and tribute album dedicated to his other band, the Continental Drifters; and, most important, recorded a terrific new solo album. The Face of 68 offers an abundance of Holsapple’s smart, melodic pop-rock songwriting with some extra grit behind it. In this freewheeling conversation, he discusses looking back, pushing forward, adjusting expectations, having music in your head all the time, and maybe or maybe not being the kind of record-obsessive guy he sings about. Talking with Holsapple is like getting together with an old friend with whom you share many musical passions, and he offers up obscure yet mind-blowing rock trivia tidbits as well as deep insights into his own songwriting and hilarious tales. (Photo by Bill Reaves)
Joe Harley oversees some of the best jazz vinyl rereleases around as producer of Blue Note’s acclaimed Tone Poet series. Harley picks the titles, and, as he did with the much-coveted Music Matters series, he preps each release with ace mastering engineer (and recurring Caropop guest) Kevin Gray. Here Harley reflects on how he went from growing up (and playing drums) in Nebraska to preparing audiophile versions of albums he loves. What criteria does he use in choosing the Tone Poet albums? How do he and Gray work together? Has the mastering process changed given that more listeners own high-end audio systems now? How do Harley and Gray evoke such three-dimensional soundstages? How did he get the nickname the Tone Poet? And does he still get excited the first time he hears an original master tape of one of these classic recordings?
Producer Joe Boyd (Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention/Richard Thompson, R.E.M.) has written a massive, highly entertaining, illuminating book about world music called And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, the title a lyric from Paul Simon’s Graceland song “Under African Skies.” That album is a jumping-off point for Boyd’s explorations of music from around the globe, with stops in Jamaica, Cuba, Brazil, India, Russia and Eastern Europe as well as the southern U.S. Here Boyd tackles such questions as: How important is cultural cross-pollination to music’s growth? Where’s the line between proper and improper cultural appropriation? What roles have oppression and religion played in great music? Boyd, who was stage manager at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival as Bob Dylan went electric, also weighs in on A Complete Unknown: what was true, what was false and what may have been false but felt true. And he has a few words about R.E.M.
No one mixes fury and vulnerability, ferocious energy and pop smarts like Bob Mould. His 15th solo album, Here We Go Crazy, comes out March 7, and he remains at the peak of his powers. Here he reflects on his tremendous, sometimes turbulent career, starting with his attending Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., meeting Grant Hart at Cheapo Records and launching the trailblazing punk trio Hüsker Dü. Why have the Twin Cities punched above their weight musically? Given his triumphs with Hüsker Dü, Sugar and the lineup on his most recent six albums, what does he like about playing in trios? How did “bright melody, dark story” become such a potent combination? How does he enjoy performing solo vs. with a band? Did he always envision Here We Go Crazy as a three-act song cycle? And what’s his strategy to address what’s happening in the world now?
Mike Mills of R.E.M. and the Baseball Project and a new supergroup with Darius Rucker is here, and we’ve got questions: How did R.E.M. come to share all songwriting credits, and why did Mills initially object? What impact did the albums’ producers have? Given the bandmates’ senses of humor, why wouldn’t R.E.M. smile in photographs? Had R.E.M. decided to call it quits before it made Collapse into Now? What songs did Michael Stipe transform in surprising ways when he added lyrics and vocals? Did Stipe complete every song handed to him by Mills, Peter Buck and/or Bill Berry, and if not, would they consider going back to any of them? Have the Michael Shannon/Jason Narducy R.E.M.-celebrating live shows given Mills new perspective on any of those songs or made him want to play them again with his old bandmates? Why hasn’t Mills been driven to make a solo album? And what happened when Mills joined Bruce Springsteen on stage? (Photo by Cass Bird.)