Caropop

Scott McCaughey returns to Caropop as busy as ever. He’s currently on the Baseball Project/Minus 5 September Doubleheader tour, with each band consisting of Steve Wynn, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Linda Pitmon and McCaughey. This comes after a three-week jaunt in England with Luke Haines and Buck and another Minus 5 variant. He also has recorded an upcoming Young Fresh Fellows album on the heels of the Minus 5’s Oar On, Penelope, which delivers jubilant power pop in contrast to the disorientation of 2019’s Stroke Manor. McCaughey tells of how he writes differently since his 2017 stroke, what it’s like to tour two bands with the same personnel at the same time and whether they all take turns choosing the music in the van. He also shares a couple of illuminating anecdotes about what it’s like to travel this country at this very moment.

Robbie Fulks released his debut album back in 1996, and here we are in 2025 with him, at age 62, still on the rise. His awesome guitar-picking skills and singing drew the attention of Steve Martin, who added him to his bluegrass band for performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, at the Hollywood Bowl and beyond. Fulks also has a brilliant new album, Now Then, that covers much stylistic ground while digging deeper than ever into his memories and the past's impact upon the present. The sharp-witted Fulks is a freewheeling conversationalist who tells how his move from Chicago to Los Angeles affected his life and career, how he got connected to Steve Martin, what happened the first time he went to Martin’s house and why he continues to hit artistic peaks in his early 60s. Has Robbie Fulks become an overnight sensation at last? (Photo by Beth Herzhaft.)

Squeeze’s Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook are one of rock’s greatest songwriting tandems, with Tilbrook crafting indelible melodies around Difford’s emotionally detailed lyrics. Here Difford digs into the evolution of his and Tilbrook’s partnership. When Difford hands over his lyrics, does he suggest a musical direction to Tilbrook? Did Difford know that “Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)” would be a rocker, “Labelled with Love” a country song, “Slaughtered, Gutted and Heartbroken” an old-timey shuffle? Was he surprised that "Hourglass" became their biggest hit? When they write together now, is there tension over tackling more political topics versus pursuing Difford’s brand of personal storytelling? Difford also discusses singing in octaves and taking the occasional lead, the impact of producers such as John Wood and Elvis Costello (and the song he co-wrote with Costello), why so many keyboardists joined and left Squeeze and the reasons the band broke up and regrouped the first time.

We're going on summer recess--for a good reason: Caropop is getting a long-awaited tune-up. We’ll be tweaking the presentation and improving the way we let you all know about episodes. In addition to keeping them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the RSS platform and caropop.com, we’ll also be posting them on a new Caropop YouTube channel. Stay tuned for more details, and please subscribe to all of the above. We encourage you to explore any of the 191 Caropop episodes you may have missed, and we’ll be back after Labor Day with more great conversations with artists you love about their creative work. Happy end of summer, everybody!

No surprise, talking music with Craig Finn is stimulating and a lot of fun. The Hold Steady’s frontman/lyricist recently released his sixth solo album, the character-driven song cycle Always Been. He also hosts the podcast “That’s How I Remember It,” which explores the relationship between memory and creativity, and writes the Substack “Versions of Security.” Finn has thoughts on the power of his own memory and how it fuels his songwriting. As someone who formed the band Lifter Puller in Minneapolis and the Hold Steady in New York City and recorded his new album in Los Angeles, he also considers how a sense of place factors in. How much back story does he conceive for his characters? Does he write the songs in the order of the plot? Did Finn ever consider becoming a short story writer, poet or journalist? And what’s with the Randy Newman nod on the cover of Always Been?

Bassist Gina Birch is a founding member of the legendary British post-punk band the Raincoats, whose self-titled 1977 debut album is an off-kilter classic. More Raincoats albums followed, as did stints with Dorothy and the Hangovers, but it wasn’t until 2023 that Birch released her first solo album, the acclaimed I Play My Bass Loud. Now she’s made Trouble, which again draws on dub, reggae and electronica textures while exploring the intersection of art and the often-troublesome outside world. Birch is fierce, funny and down-to-earth as she tells how she approaches and creates her art, which includes painting, filmmaking and an appearance in the Tate Gallery’s “Women in Revolt!” exhibition in London last year. She also reflects on Kurt Cobain’s Raincoats fandom—and his death a week before the Raincoats were slated to open Nirvana' 1994 UK tour—and the power of female artists “Making Trouble Again.” (Photo by Dean Chalkley.)

Bassist Dennis Dunaway was—and is—one of the key figures in the 1970s rock band, Alice Cooper. That’s right, the band Alice Cooper, which recorded seven albums between 1969 and 1973 (and had such hits as "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out") before the singer Alice Cooper (nee Vince Furnier) went on to a successful solo career. Now the surviving members of the Alice Cooper band, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, have reunited to record their first album in 52 years, The Revenge of Alice Cooper. Dunaway, described by the singer as “one of the few true surrealists that I've ever met,” reflects on what it was like finally to write and record again as a group, with producer Bob Ezrin also back. Did old tensions resurface? What’s the deal with the band touring—or not touring—to support this album? (Photo by Jenny Risher.)

When I spoke with Chris Stamey way back for Caropop Ep. 30, he shared a sheet music collection called Marvelous Melodies Songbook, New Songs Vol. III. Several of those songs appear on his wonderful new album, Anything Is Possible (out July 11), as do the Brian Wilson-evoking “I’d Be Lost Without You,” the Wilson-covering “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” and the optimistic, guitar-driven title track. Stamey has a well-thought-out reason for every musical choice he makes. Here we dig into one of my favorite subjects, chord changes, and discuss writing songs in one's head, on an instrument or on paper. He also reflects on the impact of playing with the Big Star Quintet and the reunited dB’s. What’s the connection between “getting the notes in the right place” and creating magic? (Photo by John Gessner.)

May Pang was John Lennon’s companion for the late-1973-to-early-1975 period that has become known as Lennon’s “lost weekend.” Although Pang has used that phrase for her documentary and photo exhibition, she doesn’t see this time as “lost” for Lennon. Not only did he record two albums (Walls and Bridges and Rock ‘n’ Roll) and produce another (Harry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats), but Pang reunited him with his son Julian and was there when he reconnected with Paul McCartney and considered writing with him again. She puts Lennon’s Los Angeles nightclub antics in context, describes Rock ‘n’ Roll producer Phil Spector’s crazed behavior and details the night she and Lennon saw a UFO from their New York City balcony. She also recounts interactions with Yoko Ono, who set her up with her husband when Pang was the couple’s assistant, and offers a surprising take on the recent Beatles release “Now and Then.” And she explains why George Harrison ripped Lennon's glasses off his face. (Photo by Scott Segelbaum.)

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has been a top audiophile label since its 1977 founding and 2001 reboot after Jim Davis, president of the high-end audio equipment company Music Direct, bought it out of bankruptcy. But the label was hit with controversy almost three years ago with the revelation that it included a digital step in the production chain of albums sourced from original master tapes. Davis issued an apology for “using vague language, allowing false narratives to propagate and for taking for granted” customers’ goodwill and trust, and the company settled a class action lawsuit for $25 million. Speaking inside Music Direct’s Chicago headquarters, Davis weighs the lawsuit’s impact on the company and whether it was more about listening or price speculating. He explains the use of a high-resolution digital step and why it results in superior audio quality. He also discusses the significance of MoFi’s new SuperVinyl formulation and Fidelity Record Pressing plant.