Dave Matthews Talks Music, Poop

Cara Carriveau, NBC Chicago Street Team

DMB just released a brand new album this week, “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King”.  Critics and fans are saying this could very well be their best album to date.  Their summer tour will bring them to Alpine Valley on July 18 & 19, and to First Midwest Bank Amplitheatre on September 26.

I spoke to Dave Matthews about how difficult it must have been to finish recording the album after the tragic death (due to complications from a nasty ATV accident) of band member LaRoi Moore.  And of course I couldn’t avoid the poop topic – years ago a bus in his tour dumped 800 pounds of human waste on the heads of unfortunate boaters in Chicago under the Kinzie bridge.  It was a horrific situation and Dave continues to be very apologetic about it, and he offers a very detailed account of exactly what happened. 

You’ll find our conversation in “Cara’s Connection” at www.WTMX.com, or just listen here:

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Interview: Adele

Cara Carriveau, NBC Chicago Street Team

Did you happen to watch the Saturday Night Live episode a few weeks ago featuring Sarah Palin?  Chances are you did – after all, with over 14 million people tuning in it was the most watched SNL episode ever.

Benefitting majorly from that large audience was that night’s musical guest, Adele.  She’s quite popular in the UK but her soulful song “Chasing Pavements” was released in the U.S. a few months ago with only moderate success.  Since that SNL performance her song has skyrocketed up the charts and she’s now looking for a place in New York to call home, at least for a while.

I spoke to Adele this week about her SNL experience, what it’s like to be so successful at a young 19 years old, and other stuff – check out our conversation by clicking HERE.

Adele will be at The Park West on January 19, 2009.  Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning (Saturday, November 1) at 10a – but you can get your tickets with a special internet presale today (Friday, October 31) until 10pm if you go to www.WTMX.com and sign up to be a “Mix Insider”.

FYI: You can hear more of my artist interiews at:

• Cara’s Basement
• WTMX
• Chicago Music Guide

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Interview: Josh Kelley

Cara Carriveau, NBC5 Street Team

True story: I ran into Josh Kelley in the hallway of his hotel and found myself in his hotel room within minutes. Granted, I was at the hotel to emcee a private show with him later — but we had never met and I had no idea I would see him randomly before the show. Since I had my portable recorder with me I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask him for an interview. Next think I knew, I was inside his hotel room chatting away. Yep, it was that easy.

Check out my conversation with Josh Kelley and many of my other interviews at www.CarasBasement.com – like with The Plain White T’s, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Nils Lofgren and more!

By the way, he put on a great show. Catch him perform live if you get the chance!

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Interview with Nils Lofgren

Cara Carriveau, NBC5 Street Team

There’s no way you haven’t heard the genius licks of guitarist Nils Lofgren. Besides releasing many solo albums in the past few decades, he’s also been a longtime member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and at one time was a member of Crazy Horse. He has enjoyed a very lenghthy musical collaboration & friendship with Neil Young since the late ’60′s – so Nils just released a tribute to his good pal “The Loner: Nils Sings Neil”.

Check out a sample of this spectacular album and hear my exclusive interview with Nils Lofgren in Cara’s Basement:

If the player above doesn’t work properly please visit the newly redesigned Cara’s Basement website to hear it (and more conversations with all sorts of interesting entertainers).

Click HERE to read more about CARA’S BASEMENT – if you’d like to keep up to date on who is in CARA’S BASEMENT, sign up to subscribe to this newsletter!

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Lollapalooza

Cara Carriveau, NBC5 Street Team

So here I am at 3:30am wide awake. Been up for hours. I had a blast at my first

Lollapalooza Main Entrance

Lollapalooza earlier tonight and was even invited to an after-party being thrown by Spin Magazine. I wish that after-party was the reason I’m still up. But, being a responsible person, I declined the party invitation knowing I had to work at 6am Saturday (and pretty much work straight through the rest of the day between WTMX stuff and Lollapalooza coverage) so I figured I needed a good nights’ rest. Ironically, I’ve been up since 1am with insomnia. Not good. I’m going to be toast later today. I suppose if anybody can keep me awake, though, it’ll be Rage Against The Machine.

I had a great time at Lolla Friday and to be honest I never actually ventured out of the press area. Too many interesting conversations and excellent people-watching. Plus, I had an interview scheduled with Duffy that kept getting pushed back and I didn’t want to lose my prime couch position so I never got up. Not that it was such a sacrifice – I was in the Spin tent where they were serving free whiskey-margarita’s. Who in the world thought to put whiskey in a margarita? Come to think of it, that’s probably why I’ve got insomnia!

The Duffy interview was fun, but I was taken by surprise when the publisher of Spin Magazine jumped into the conversation. He came over to offer Duffy a drink (and me since I was with her) and just sat down and started asking questions and commenting as I interviewed Duffy. She seemed to enjoy it and frankly so did I. When I listened back to the interview I laughed out loud. Then, I realized the interview was for WTMX and no one listening will even know who in the world that guy is so I’ll probably have to edit him out. I’ll post a link to the audio when it’s online (I hope soon).

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Absenstar At The Metro This Friday

Cara “Caras Basement” Carriveau, NBC5 Street Team

I love interviewing bands for the Chicago Music Guide as they work on their journey to success. A few months ago I chatted with Absentstar‘s Derek Ingersoll – you can listen to it here:

Absentstar recently completed a 22-date tour with Third Eye Blind and their single “For Gods Sakes” is getting radio play across the country. You have the opportunity to see them at The Metro Friday, July 11. You should – who knows, maybe they’ll be filling arena’s soon! It’s an 18+ show.

(if the player above doesn’t work properly, please click HERE to hear the interview)

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Politically Motivated Comedian Lee Camp

Cara “Cara’s Basement” Carriveau, NBC5 Street Team

First, I have to mention that it’s quite an honor to join the NBC5 Street Team! I really dig interviewing entertainers of all types and I’m absolutely thrilled to do it for you here.

Recently, comedian Lee Camp was invited by Fox News to appear as a “left wing” comedian vs. a “right wing” comedian. Everything went fine until he surprisingly spoke his mind after the segment ended…watch what he did on youtube. You’ll also hear the clip in the beginning and again at the end of this podcast. It’s one of those rare unexpected live TV moments that really made me laugh.

In our conversation he explains why he said what he said and why it wasn’t a planned move to boost his career (burning bridges isn’t exactly a great idea for an up & coming comedian).

Here’s my conversation with Lee Camp from my podcast Cara’s Basement:

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