Caropop

You may know Sally Potter as the groundbreaking English director of such films as Orlando, The Tango Lesson and Yes, but now she also is a recording artist. At age 73 Potter has released her first so…

Michael Shannon is an Oscar-, Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor who, the night before this conversation, sang R.E.M. songs at the Chicago club Metro. He’s multitalented, thoughtful and fearless, with a …

Los Lobos was doing its label a favor when it played on what turned out to be a big album: Paul Simon’s Graceland. Why did the band wind up feeling burned? Los Lobos sax/keyboard player Steve Berlin …

Saxophonist/keyboard player/producer Steve Berlin played with the Blasters before joining Los Lobos, and he noticed a stark contrast between how those two L.A. bands operated. He stuck with Los Lobos…

Booker T. and the M.G.’s were an all-time great band on their own and while playing with such Stax acts as Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, Albert King and Otis Redding. Guitarist Steve Cropper, who made eve…

It's no wonder that Peter Zaremba was the star of the recent Lenny Kaye-hosted Nuggets all-star concert in Los Angeles: He has been keeping ‘60s psychedelic garage rock alive for decades through his …

With Mike Peters belting out anthemic songs such as “Sixty Eight Guns” and “Spirit of ’76,” the Alarm could rouse an audience no matter the size—and it often was big. “Rain in the Summertime” and “So…

When you want to add joy and beauty to your life, listen to the Roches. There’s magic in these three sisters’ harmonies and good humor and heartbreak in their songs. They are Maggie and Terre and Suz…

The Los Angeles-based Love had one of the rock’s great first-three-album progressions, culminating in the 1967 masterwork Forever Changes, before leader Arthur Lee started over with an entirely new b…

The Urge Overkill singer/songwriter/bassist/guitarist spoke with Caropop on the 30th anniversary of the swaggering Chicago alt-rock band’s breakthrough album, Saturation (and before the death of powe…

Even if you don’t recognize his name, you should know the music Dave Robinson has brought into the world. As co-founder of Britain’s Stiff Records, Robinson signed (and in some cases managed) Elvis C…

Few bands have maintained such consistent vision, quality and stability as Cowboy Junkies. The same people who made the 1986 debut album Whites Off Earth Now!! and the recorded-around-one-mic breakth…

Inventive Devo guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh belongs to one of the band’s two sets of brothers and one set of Bobs. His older brother is Mark Mothersbaugh, and he was Bob 1 to the late Bob Casale’s Bob …

After his on-the-rise cult band Camper Van Beethoven imploded, singer-songwriter David Lowery formed Cracker, which delivered smart, tuneful, sharp-witted Americana through songs such as “Teen Angst …

Multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Ivan Neville has carved out an impressive career of his own, and he has memories: of being a 7-year-old when his father, Aaron Neville, hit No. 2 with “Tell It…

Lenny Kaye has secured his place in rock history as the Patti Smith Group’s longtime guitarist, but he also helped define rock history with one of the most influential compilation albums of all time:…

In the second half of this free-flowing conversation with producer Brad Wood, he digs into the recording of Whip-Smart, Liz Phair’s follow-up to her groundbreaking debut album Exile in Guyville, and …

Singer-songwriter Michael McDermott is in a good place now, but what he went through to get there could fill a book and did. His early ‘90s emergence was met with hype, acclaim and public praise from…