Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk gives a rare interview to the Guardian, who also have a rather nice interactive feature on the bands influence.
posted by Artw on Jun 19, 2009 - 15 comments

Vangelis: The Man And His Music (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) profiles prolific Greek keyboardist and composer Evanghelos Odyssey "Vangelis" Papathanassiou in a rare 1984 television interview. [more inside]
posted by hippybear on Apr 30, 2009 - 36 comments

"I was listening to the radio and it’s one of those moments where you have to stop what you’re doing and pay full attention.” Dory Previn, met composer Andre' Previn while working in MGM's music dept. in the 1960s. They collaborated on movie music such as "A Second Chance" and "Valley Of The Dolls". Andre' divorced Dory in 1969 to marry Mia Farrow. Following this, Dory Previn recorded six original albums known for their wit and confessional tone. Dory Previn unofficially retired in 1976 and has been reluctant to give interviews. However, she released a free online album, Planet Blue in 2002. She gave a rare interview to the Times in February. She talked about her influences and meeting Howard Hughes with Bernadette Cahill in 2005.
posted by The Whelk on Dec 3, 2008 - 6 comments

Post-hardcore/noise rockers No Age discuss their latest album, Nouns, track-by-track. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston on May 1, 2008 - 14 comments

"I mean he quite literally -- and in no way do I exaggerate when I say -- [Paul Simon] stole the songs from us." [more inside]
posted by Sys Rq on Apr 19, 2008 - 75 comments

For the last year, the Vice TV program Soft Focus has presented an assortment of "discussions about art, culture, politics, personal history, personal feelings, fashion, and the like" with a series of noteworthy musicians. Host Ian Svenonius manages to wrangle dialogue with of some of the music world's most colorful and idiosyncratic characters: The Fall's Mark E. Smith, My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, The Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder, Crass' Penny Rimbaud, Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV's Genesis P. Orridge, Cat Power's Chan Marshall, Thee Headcoats' Billy Childish, The Specials' Terry Hall, Andrew WK, Fugazi's Ian Mackaye, and Palace/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Will Oldham. [more inside]
posted by Item on Jan 27, 2008 - 21 comments

Lengthy interview with The Bad Plus in All About Jazz
posted by klangklangston on Oct 2, 2007 - 17 comments

Frank Zappa - The Gigantic Spoken Word Project. Numerous volumes of a very large collection of Frank Zappa spoken word releases. They consist of radio interviews and journalist reporter type personal interviews. During the radio interviews sometimes music was played as background or added before the broadcast in between questions and answers. Sometimes FZ acts as D.J., plays records from his collection and talks to the radio audience. But the main focus of this series is FZ interviews which to me is as interesting as his music. (Just a quick warning; the download mechanism is a tad annoying)
posted by KevinSkomsvold on Jul 5, 2007 - 6 comments

On May 14th, 1967, the new British pop group The Pink Floyd makes one of their first ever TV appearances. Despite a stellar performance of the song Astronomy Domine, the pretentious host of the show, Hans Keller, has nothing good to say about the band. During the interview (youtube, performance comes first, interview starts about 5:50 in. transcript here.), he chastises the band for their "continuous repetition", "terribly loud" volume, and their "proportionately a bit boring" sound.

However, it seems that all Hans' show will ever be remembered for is this single interview. Pink Floyd, on the other hand.. Well, we all know what happened to them. Syd Barrett, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
posted by Afroblanco on May 29, 2006 - 67 comments

Culture Catch is an online "magazine" featuring vid and podcasts of musicians such as Mark Kozelek, American Music Club, Les Paul and Tony Visconti. Plus: Todd McFarlane, Sir Richard Branson, Henry Rollins, Gisele, David Cronenberg and more.
posted by edlundart on Mar 30, 2006 - 7 comments

Random Rules , a new[ish] feature of the Onion: A.V. Club. They ask a rocker/writer/comedian/whatever to set their MP3 player to "shuffle" and comment on the first few tracks that come up. This probably could have been very boring, but it actually ended up kind of interesting. See Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse call Belle and Sebastian a “one-fuckin'-trick pony”. Enjoy David Cross waxing poetic about R.E.M.’s Murmur. From the main link, read the description of the raw sexual chemistry that existed between David Berman of the Silver Jews and the actress that played Ginger on Gilligan's Island.
posted by ND¢ on Mar 1, 2006 - 137 comments

"The iPod’s a great product. However our experience in dealing with them, as regards licensing music for iTunes, has been quite depressing." Coldcut member and indie label Ninja Tune co-founder Matt Black in a pixelsurgeon interview about the new album, the relative relaxation on sample licensing, and iTunes. For another independent perspective on iTunes see The 99c Question - addressing the pressures on iTunes from major labels to raise prices.
posted by nthdegx on Feb 2, 2006 - 21 comments

"Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist." Les Paul interview and his recent 90th birthday celebration. via Kill Ugly Radio. (more...)
posted by madamjujujive on Jun 18, 2005 - 12 comments

So, why don't you like doing interviews? Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock takes the piss. [wmv]
posted by dobbs on May 16, 2004 - 19 comments

The seminal shoegazing band My Bloody Valentine hasn't released a record since its ground-breaking 1991 release Loveless (Amazon samples). MBV's primary voice and reclusive in-general genius Kevin Shields finally gives an interview to The Guardian after 12 years of silence.
posted by xmutex on Mar 12, 2004 - 28 comments

The definitive Ray Davies interview by Candy Darling, Tinkerbelle and Glenn O'Brien
Tinkerbelle: You've probably made a lot of money. Do you ever get carried away with the material side?
Ray: I'm not wealthy. I never made that much. You probably don't want to talk to me now.
Candy: People really are more interesting when they're rich sometimes. You just can't help but like them better. Do you feel that way?
posted by y2karl on Nov 13, 2003 - 29 comments

"The early bird may get the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese." Willie Nelson in New York. An Adam Gopnik profile.
posted by semmi on Oct 1, 2002 - 11 comments

Karlheinz Stockhausen talks trash... A wonderful interview with the composer picking apart some young electonic upstarts.
posted by nonreflectiveobject on Jan 14, 2002 - 24 comments

An interview with the lawyers from Napster and Metellica. Good points, both.
posted by Mick on May 22, 2000 - 6 comments

Quitting? Again? Here's an interesting interview with Robert Smith, full of contradictions as usual. The most interesting part is the supposed trilogy of Pornography, Disintegration, and their newest album, Bloodflowers.
posted by Awol on Mar 2, 2000 - 0 comments