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!
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Craig Finn (The Hold Steady)
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?
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Gina Birch (The Raincoats)
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.)
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Dennis Dunaway (Alice Cooper)
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.)
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Chris Stamey 2025
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.)
There may be nothing more inspiring and entertaining than relaxed, candid conversations among creative people. Mark Caro, a relentlessly curious journalist and on-stage interviewer, loves digging into the creative process with artists and drawing out surprising stories that illuminate the work that has become part of our lives. The Caropopcast is for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the music, movies, food and culture that they love.
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