Carly Rae Jepsen — whose recent “Call Me Maybe” was the song of the summer — may look like a waif on the cover of her album “Kiss.” But she’s no newbie. Four years ago, after placing third on “Canadian Idol,” the Vancouver native, now 26, issued her first Juno-nominated album “Tug of War,” leading to her discovery earlier this year by Justin Bieber and his manager, Scott “Scooter” Braun. “I remember getting off the show and feeling so desperate to put out a CD of original songs after doing a season of covers,” she says of her folksy debut. “It was like ‘OK, that was fun. Read More

Alt-country kingpin and part-time thespian Dwight Yoakam lately has been offered prestigious acting gigs, like playing Gen. George Meade in the Civil War miniseries “To Appomattox” and Doc Miles in the Jason Statham franchise “Crank.” He even was briefly attached to Gore Verbinski’s still-filming reboot of “The Lone Ranger,” but after false starts, Yoakam, who plays Hardly Strictly Bluegrass on Sunday, opted to finish his new album “3 Pears” instead. Read More

Some artists stress lyrics in their compositions, others, melody. But Swedish techno-pop duo Niki & The Dove, who play The City this week, focuses on something else: an elusive, ephemeral element that sets their work apart. “It’s a difficult thing — how to find that spark — but it’s really important for us,” says keyboardist Gustaf Karlöf of his modus operandi with singer Malin Dahlström. Read More

Orange County proto-punk quartet The Offspring isn’t known for pointed, pertinent politics: Its 26-year career has been buoyed by singalong hits such as “Self Esteem,” “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” and the cowbell-clanking “Come Out and Play (Keep ’Em Separated).” But you can’t be a snotty brat forever. On the band’s new “Days Go By,” lyricist-frontman Dexter Holland has grown older, wiser and angrier since 2008’s “Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace.” Read More

When New Zealand synth-rocker Ladyhawke — aka Pip Brown — revisits the  title track from her new sophomore CD, “Anxiety” — with its opening lines: “I take a pill to help me through the day/I stay inside until I feel OK/ I’ve always been so cautious, but I’m sick of feeling nauseous” — she is shocked by her own honesty. “Because that song is true, and I’ve never put my emotions on the line so much before,” she says. “I’ve had quite a problem for years with anxiety.” Brown, who plays the Folsom Street Fair today, isn’t kidding. Read More

British singer-actress Paloma Faith has only appeared in a handful of films — but they’ve been fun ones, like Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.”  They were instructional experiences, as well, and Gilliam gave her sage advice. “He said you should never compromise your ideas,” she says. “If money prevents you from articulating them in the way you wanted, then you have to figure out a way to do it within your budget.” Read More

Considering the meteoric rise of Karmin — the pop-rap duo Amy Heidemann formed with her keyboardist fiance, Nick Noonan — vocalist Heidemann has reached one conclusion. “Everything that’s happened to us so far has been a freak coincidence,” she says. Read More