Tag: Music

Episode 21: The Limitations and Liberations of Genre

Do you like the sound of spring thunderstorms? Do you like conversations about aesthetic conventions? Do you wish the two could be combined somehow?

Well, join my old friend and accomplished musician John Charney in the lovely and beautiful St. Michael’s Cemetery in Loretto, Pennsylvania as we sit and discuss musical genres during a passing thunderstorm.  In the process, we don’t get hit by lightening but we do get all nostalgic and John busts out an amazing story about meeting Mike Patton.  He also plays for us.

John is a musician, musical director, and  music teacher.  He records and performs and will someday soon have a web site.  As of right now, you can find him at johncharneymusic@yahoo.com.

As always, I swear.

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Episode 17: I Know It’s Only Rock and Roll, but the Italians Like It.

The second time I saw Bill Toms perform I said that I though every bar in the country should have a Bill Toms clone or bot that can be pulled out whenever folks need to have gospel infused blues rock good time.   Bill has been performing music for 35 years and is a true master of his craft.  Anyone who has seen one of his joyous live shows can understand why I was super happy to spend part of a Saturday morning discussing songwriting, how an album is a document of a time and a place, why Europeans love American music, his awesome new album Memphis, and when those Bill Toms-bots will eventually rise up and take over the world they will only ask for dark chocolate.

You can find out all about Bill Toms at his website, buy all his merchandise here, and if you never saw a Bill Toms show, see what you are missing with this clip.

As always, there’s a little light swearing.

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Episode 13: Rock and Roll Rhetoric (Prequel)

We’re back from our unplanned late-summer hiatus!

In this episode, I talk to former Pittsburgh concert promoter Christopher Caresani (Aka Dr. Z).  We planned on talking about the power of lyrics to either inspire greatness or ruin a person’s life.

Instead, we talked about his awful taste in music, how he doesn’t actually like music (but swears he does), whether or not someone Elton John can inspire someone to commit a misdemeanor, and Dick Cheney.  Also, for some stupid reason I thought it would be a good idea to do a spontaneous Bruno Mars impersonation.   We will get back to our stated topic at some other time.

Christopher has a blog that he updates less often than I bother to do podcasts.  You can read it here.

As always, the f-word makes a regular appearance.

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Episode 6: I Wouldn’t Trust Anyone in Oasis to Water My Plants if I Was out of Town.

Join me as I talk to Adam Rousseau of Triggers and Chrome Baby Jesus about what it’s like to be in a band, write songs, and perform to a room full of strangers.  In the process, we also talk about when mommy chords and daddy chords love each other very much, why it’s better to be burned to death than buried alive, and just what happens to the bodies of people who fall out of airplanes.

You can find out more about the two excellent bands Adam is in at triggersmusic.com and chromebabyjesus.bandcamp.com

Adam’s used to being on the real radio so he was hesitant to swear, but I made sure I set the tone for another fine NSFW podcast.

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