Label Luck

by Chris Aponick

Nick Lowe may have proclaimed his appreciation for his record company with his tongue-in-cheek ode “I Love My Label," but San Francisco garage rocker Ty Segall genuinely is head over hills for his musical home, Drag City Records.

“Drag City is the f--king best man. They're really cool and they give a shit,” Segall says.

Segall says its the sort of label where he can call them whenever, just...

A New Groove

by Chris Aponick

Mat Kearney set his acoustic guitar aside during the songwriting sessions for his new album, Young Love.

The Nashville-based Kearney instead created tunes by starting with programming beats and grooves on a computer, then building songs around the rhythmic skeleton.

“It's probably not the most traditional album I've ever made,” he says.

Kearney says it can be paralyzing to create songs...

On the Same Page

by Chris Aponick

Over the course of six albums, Gomez have built a reputation for warping their Brit-pop sound with plenty of genre-hopping tics and off-kilter arrangements.

But the band had a new vision for its seventh album, the recently-released Whatever's On Your Mind, guitarist/vocalist Tom Gray says.

It's a very melodic record, he says. It's a refined, streamlined take on what the band does. The...

Heavenly Confluence

by Chris Aponick

The seeds for collaboration between Man Man’s Ryan Kattner and Islands’ Nick Thorburn were planted in 2006.

They just took five years to sprout into Mister Heavenly, a trio rounded out by drummer Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse.

Kattner, who performs as Honus Honus, says he wanted to see how his voice, a low, rough and husky carnival barker’s call, would pair with the higher-register voice of...

On And Up

by Kyle Eustice

When a major label executive with an extensive history in the music business makes several trips from his cushy spot in Los Angeles to a frigid basement in Omaha, there must be something special about the band.  Atlantic Records A&R Jeff Blue saw something in Emphatic, Omaha’s hardest working rock band.

“I flew out to Omaha 8 or 9 times and worked with them in a basement. It was very organic....

Live Connection

by Chris Aponick

Matisyahu is rolling now, in a musical career that began in 2004.

That's why the rap-reggae-rock triple threat says he doesn't have a set pattern or schedule for how he works as an artist.

So far the 32-year-old artist has released three studio albums, plus multiple live releases and a remix record.

His two biggest studio albums were separated by more than three years. It's been more than...