To kick off our SIXTH SEASON of the podcast, Kelly Finnigan talks about his soulful new album A Lover Was Born (out Oct 18 on the Colemine Records label) in a conversation recorded live last summer during RSD Summer Camp at the fabulous Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. Last year we featured the excellent documentary The Elephant 6 Recording Company…

Congratulations! You've successfully relaunched the Rocky series for a whole new generation, perfectly encapsulating what made the franchise great while updating it for a modern sensibility. So, now what? Where is a sequel to a legacy sequel to go next? That's the task ahead for Creed II. With Steven Caple Jr. stepping in for Ryan Coogler as direct…

Gun N' Roses founding guitarist Slash talks to us about his recent solo album Orgy Of The Damned, a collection of blues and R&B covers featuring a stellar guest list that includes Paul Rodgers, Steven Tyler, Beth Hart, Iggy Pop, Gary Clark Jr., Billy F. Gibbons, Chris Robinson and more. And Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Colliton checks in from…

After Rocky Balboa restored the franchise to its former glory — winning back fans and critics who were left cold after Rocky V — it really had seemed like this time the world had seen the last of Sylvester Stallone's iconic character. But that was before director Ryan Coogler got involved. Coogler is now best known for the cultural phenomenon that …

Recently, the Oklahoma born singer, guitarist, and songwriter J.D. McPherson chats with us about his just released album, Nite Owls (New West Records), and how he aimed to blend such diverse influences as Duane Eddy, T. Rex, and Depeche Mode. The Record Store Day Podcast is a weekly music chat show written, produced, engineered and hosted by Paul M…

While the story started by Rocky had seemingly come to a close, Sylvester Stallone's dissatisfaction with the fifth film — and perhaps the declining state of his own career — led him to consider bringing his signature character back for just one more fight. And thus, he returned to write, direct and star in Rocky Balboa, released 30 years after the…

Grammy Award winning jazz vocalist/composer Samara Joy is already establishing herself as one of the hottest stars on the contemporary jazz scene. In the run-up to the October 11th release of her new album, Portrait (Verve), Ms. Joy is one of the featured performers at this years Monterey Jazz Festival (Sept 27-29). We chatted about how this twenty…

With Rocky IV taking the franchise to new commercial heights, the film represented, in some ways, the biggest victory yet for both writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone and his fictional counterpart. However, that success — which saw the scale of the franchise expand to international levels — might have set unfair expectations for the future. Ent…

Hello music fans! Welcome and thanks for stopping by for episode 19. This time out, we have the very exciting Indianapolis-based band…Moon Goons! Devin, Jacob, Corey, and Brooke stopped by the Enlighten The Soul studio to hang out and talk about their soon to be released album, Lady of Many Faces, dropping Saturday, September 21st. It is a powerful…

Big Star drummer and founding members Jody Stephens, R.E.M.'s Mike Mills, Wilco's Pat Sansone, and Jon Auer of The Posies join Paul for a discussion of The Big Star Quintet (a supergroup which also includes Chris Stamey of The dB's) as they keep the music of Big Star alive on the 50th Anniversary tour for Big Star's second album, Radio City (availa…

If Rocky III marks the promise of how the franchise could grow beyond the championship belt, then the next film arguably shows its limitations. With star Sylvester Stallone again serving as writer and director, Rocky IV sees the iconic cinematic hero facing his most devastating blow yet, sending him all the way to Russia to represent his country on…

Nada Surf front person Matthew Caws chats with Paul about the themes and inspirations behind his band's shiny new album Moon Mirror (New West Records) and reflects on the band's three-decades making records, including tales of being mentored by the late great Ric Ocasek, having an early hit with "Popular," and working on the new one at the legendar…

Rocky (and, by extension, Rocky II) tells one of the greatest underdog stories in cinema history. But with audiences clamoring for more of "The Italian Stallion," how could writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone build upon Rocky Balboa's story after he has achieved the ultimate goal of claiming the heavyweight championship? The answer lies in the …

UK breakout band The Heavy Heavy co-founders Georgie Fuller and William Turner are here to unpack their debut full-length album One Of A Kind (ATO Records), the followup to last year's 7-song EP, Life and Life Only. Recorded mostly at Turner’s studio in Brighton, England, One Of A Kind finds the band leaning away from Laurel Canyon-esque folk-rock …

Even decades after its release, 1976's Rocky stands as the ultimate cinematic underdog story. But following its critical acclaim, box office performance, and awards wins, it's only natural that everything involved — including star and screenwriter Sylvester Stallone — would explore what happened next in the lives of Rocky, Adrian, Paulie, Mickey, a…

Shelby Lynne's voice resonates with hard-won wisdom and the unseen scars of love and loss. After returning home to Nashville after years in Palm Springs, CA, she and a core unit of talented women collaborated on her stunning new album, Consequences of the Crown which her new label (Monument Records) accurately describes as "a haunting exploration o…

Long before Franchise Detours began, the Rocky/Creed series was well on our radar. Following the Crooked Table Podcast's (now Close Watch) monthly coverage of the Star Wars and Harry Potter films, "The Italian Stallion" was eyed as the next long-running, beloved series to take the spotlight. Alas, plans changed, and we didn't enter the ring until n…

Legendary L.A. punk rockers X began their career in 1977, and this month they released the ninth album, Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum Records). Founder members John Doe and Exene Cervenka are here to talk about their long and storied career, and the significance of an album they are calling their "farewell." Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Collito…

Six years and one major studio acquisition later, Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool finally joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But after Deadpool seemingly shattered the superhero movie formula and Deadpool 2 doubled-down on the scale of the Merc with the Mouth's particular corner of the universe, where could "Deadpool 3" go to keep upping the ante? In a …

Comedy records are records too! WTF podcast host Marc Maron returns to the show to talk about his new vinyl LP, From Bleak To Dark (Craft Recordings) and a bit about the comedy albums of his youth. And since we just lost comedy legend Bob Newhart, the deadpan comic responsible for one of the most historic comedy albums of all time, The Button-Down …

Brigitte Calls Me Baby is a Chicago-based band with a sound that, while rooted in 2024 could have easily made it onto the soundtrack of an 80s John Hughes' teen comedy. But as frontpserson and songwriter Wes Leavins explains to Paul, there's more to the story, including his involvement in Baz Luhrmann's biopic, Elvis. We unpack the band's just-rele…

Lawrence Rothman (they/them) is a gender fluid singer songwriter (and music producer) born in St. Louis, MO, and currently living in Los Angeles, CA. In the course of discussing their recently released album The Plow That Broke The Plains, Lawrence describes a lot of the pain and struggle that went into the songs. It's a frank and honest conversati…

Despite its crass humor and ultraviolence, 2016's Deadpool professed itself to be a self-described "love story." Likewise, its even more over-the-top sequel fancies itself a "family film." With a budget roughly twice that of its predecessor, Ryan Reynolds' second turn in the iconic red suit was a similar box office hit, expanding the first film's t…

American Aquarium frontman and songwriter BJ Barham talks about the inspirations behind his band's new album, The Fear of Standing Still, out this week from Thirty Tigers/Losing Side Records. BJ hails from from North Carolina, where he used to work with Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Colliton, who is also here to give us some deep background on…

Deadpool. That sounds like a f**king franchise. Right? After the character's big-screen debut (kinda) in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it sure didn't seem that way. Ryan Reynolds' take on Marvel Comics' fourth wall-breaking quasi-superhero Wade Wilson aka Deadpool seemed like it had its one shot. Then some leaked footage later, the Merc with the…

There's kind of a theme to this week's show, which is admittedly a bit of a mashup of two previous episodes plus a new chat with Travis & Lisa from The Guestroom in Louisville, KY. It all started last summer, when Lisa and Travis flew to London to see Blur in concert at the legendary Wembley Stadium. Cut to this year, and the July 26 release of the…

After eight films (including the meta-horror of Wes Craven's New Nightmare) and nearly 20 decades, Robert Englund wore the razor glove for the final time. But in keeping with the history of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger's curtain call wasn't what anyone expected it would be. Clare Brunton of W-Rated helps us close down this mega-series …

After last week's all-Memphis lineup (Episode #134) it's time for a little North Carolina love as we welcome Superchunk founders Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance to talk about their little indie label that could, Merge Records, as they celebrate 35 years with the big MERGE 35 festival in Chapel Hill, NC, July 24-27. Meanwhile over in Raleigh, RSD c…

Given its title, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare seemingly plunged the final nail into the coffin of Robert Englund's infamous horror villain. And yet, it was ultimately Wes Craven — writer-director of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street — who gave Freddy Krueger a new lease on life. Film professor and author Ryan L. Terry joins Franchise Det…

Let's go to Memphis in the meantime, baby! Our featured interview is with Rob Bowman, the Toronto based academic scholar and Grammy Award-winning professor of ethnomusicology. Notably, Rob is a recognized authority on Stax Records, and has produced numerous Stax box sets in addition to writing an exhaustively researched book, Soulsville USA: The St…

In hindsight, it makes sense the diminishing returns of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child might signal Freddy Krueger should quit while he was (at least relatively) ahead. So two years later, longtime creative collaborator Rachel Talalay took the director's chair for the "final" entry. Kev Smith of Suns and Shadows-Cast joins us to discu…

This year, the genre-straddling Hawthorne, California rock band Redd Kross are celebrating 45 years as a band, and as such, founding brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald have been involved in a number of biographical projects including a memoir, Now You’re One Of Us (with author Dan Epstein), and director Andrew Reich’s career-spanning documentary, Bor…

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master introduced fans to a brand-new final girl in Lisa Wilcox's Alice Johnson. So all its sequel had to do is build on that character and her story to keep that momentum going. But does A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child deliver a winner? David Rosen of Piecing It Together joins us to discuss how t…