World Cafe

Have you ever felt the urge to drop everything and move, because maybe your hometown leaves you feeling like you can't totally be yourself in some way?

The idea of sleeping on a tour bus, waking up in a different city and playing late night shows to die-hard fans is fun, especially fun, when you're young. When you're a bit older, every night on a tour bus can be tiring instead of enthralling, every new city just as faceless as the last. Enter our old friends, The Hold Steady.

Van Halen is quintessential guitar rock. So what happens when an electronic jazz duo of self-avowed fans take on the band's blistering discography? the bird and the bee's latest album, Interpreting the Masters, Vol.

Today, we've got an interview with Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig about the band's latest album, Father of the Bride.

"There is something that truly unites all good songwriting," Ezra tells Talia Schlanger. "It's a type of wit, it's a way with words, it's poetry, it's a sense of humor."

As a World Cafe host, there's one question I'm asked more than any other: Who has been your favorite person to interview? My answer: Vince Gill. And while it's not the answer I expected, I can't think of more thoughtful and kind storyteller than Vince.

Today we're not worthy: Joining us, it's the legendary Rush frontman and bassist, Geddy Lee. While Rush has retired from touring, Geddy's kept busy, cataloging, photographing and writing about his collection of bass guitars for the almost-encyclopedic Geddy Lee's Big Beautiful Book of Bass.

In the lyrics to one of 1999's most popular songs, Santana's "Smooth," Rob Thomas repeats the words "Let's don't forget about it." Twenty years on, I'm betting that your memory hasn't faded, no matter how hard you might have tried.

When Madison Cunningham was in her late teens, she moved from Orange County, Calif., to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of being a songwriter. It's something that she's been working at since the age of 4. She's also been singing for almost as long.

Buddy and Julie Miller's latest album is called Breakdown on 20th Ave. South and yes, that's a real address and yes, it refers to a real-life car breakdown that needed to be repaired. The songs on the album address that.

Girl group vocal pop has evolved across many generations, without always getting its due as a legitimate musical tradition. Thanks to gendered, rock-centric notions of artistry, people have tended to overlook the creative labor and performing precision it takes to not just polish a multi-voice sound and repertoire, but present a cohesive and engaging group identity.

Raphael Saadiq is one of the most accomplished musicians in pop and R&B over the last 30 years. He's also one of the most respected. He fronted Tony! Toni!

Every month, Heavy Rotation features the best songs from public radio stations across the country. This month's list includes upbeat folk from Gruff Rhys, an electronica cut from Octo Octa, and a new track from Cigarettes After Sex.

"This is a marvelous thing..."

It was about a year ago when Steve Perry said these words to me towards the end of our conversation for World Cafe. I've thought about the exercise he proposed next many times during the year that followed. So as I say farewell on this, my final day as the host of World Cafe, let's do it together now. It starts, as he told me, with picking a song you love:

When you're lucky enough to work at a place where you talk to musicians, you get excited. It's easy to have a good experience talking with the people whose music you enjoy. It's even easier to tell random people how much you enjoyed the company of those musicians and the music they made. The problem, of course, is that it's easy to get hyperbolic and lost in the message.

Earlier this year, World Cafe host Talia Schlanger announced that she is leaving World Cafe in order to pursue new creative endeavors.

In this special dispatch from Paris, Keren Ann shows us around the artistic neighborhood Montmartre, which has inspired a lot of her writing and is the place she calls home, even though she's lived in many different places. (She was born in Israel, grew up for a bit in the Netherlands and lived in New York City.)

Pascal Danaë was born just outside of Paris and the first time he went to the French overseas region Guadeloupe, he was given the "Letter of Freedom" that belonged to his ancestor, Louise Danaë. She was freed from slavery in 1841 at 27 years old. At the time, she had four children, one of whom was Pascal's grand grandfather.

There may be more theremins than pieces of furniture in Marc Chouarain's apartment on the classic Parisian street Rue Montorgeil. The multi-instrumentalist, film composer and rare instrument enthusiast believes he has one of the biggest theremin collections in the world and invited us over to learn about the the very first electronic instrument.

Lisa-Kaindé Díaz and Naomi Díaz are twin sisters who make music as Ibeyi. Growing up, the twin sisters split their time between Cuba and France. The music they make now delivers West-African and Afro-Cuban influence through an electronic filter you can feel deeply in your bones, and the blend between their voices is nothing short of spectacular.