"Talking At The Diner" Podcast

I met up with my friend Jace Miller  at Silk City  on Spring Garden St. for this latest episode of TatD. A revered Philly diner - a little more on the upscale side than your typical greasy spoon - Silk City has vibe to spare. It's also a spot that hosts full-on rock shows and other eclectic musical events in its back room. You could hear someone sound checking for a show around the time we sat dow...

 **Host's Note ** Streaming platforms have become a huge pain in my a$$ by flagging recent episodes for what I can only assume is the use of very short clips of both my and my guests' music. It didn't used to be this way, but here we are. So, unfortunately, episodes on said platforms will no longer contain music clips or even my own theme song, which I now kind of regret releasing as a single. I'l...

I first became aware of Kelsey Cork and the Swigs during pandemic times when my Instagram was blowing up with posts referencing their snarky single “That’s Cool (Good 4 U).” Since that time Kelsey and the Swigs have been on a creative tear, releasing the EP “Weird Bones” in 2021 and the full length album “Lollygagger” in 2023. All of their releases are packed full of fun, catchy songs with just th...

I met up with Katie Hackett at a south Philly vegan diner called The Tasty. Katie is the driving force behind The Lunar Year, an art rock project that serves as an umbrella for a very broad spectrum of sounds and styles. Since its inception in 2017, the band has gone from dreamy piano-based songs to to guitar-based ferocity, which can include everything from beautiful melodic moments to onstage po...

My special guest for this episode of the podcast is none other than Jim McGuinn.. no, not the guy who sang for the Byrds in the 60's. This Jim McGuinn is a Philly musician, who has seen the music business from more sides than most. He’s been a songwriter, guitarist, and bassist in many bands, including his latest project The No Good Crowd, he’s also run his own indie record label, and most people...

Jeremy Savo is a super-talented musician and songwriter who is originally from the greater Philadelphia area - south Jersey to be precise. His band Out of the Beardspace has spent the last decade PLUS as one of the most popular groups in the regional jam scene, not only due to the fact that literally every member of the band is a bonafide virtuoso on their instrument, but because they single hande...

I met up with singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rob Tait at Little Pete’s, which is tucked away in a 60’s-era high rise called the Philadelphian. Rob has been methodically building up to the 2024 release of his full length Americana album called Here and Now with a couple of killer singles in 2023 - “Matilda” and “Space Fire.” His third single “End of the World” is out now and you can he...

Over the past couple of years, Emily Drinker has released a full length album, played at Firefly and the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and opened for artists like Pat Benatar and JD Souther, and along with her band and housemates has brought the Philly music community together with a festival thrown in her backyard called CINNAMiN Fest .  Her soulful folk pop goes down smooth whether she’s performin...

I recently met up with my friend and fellow songwriter Brian Seymour at the Blue Jay Restaurant at 29th and Girard in north Philadelphia, where we encountered a charming, cash-only gem of a restaurant (tax evasion anyone?), run by a kindly Greek couple, who clearly have a deep history there. From the vintage booths, to the timeworn handwritten menu hung clothesline-style behind the counter, the Bl...

On Episode 25 of "Talking At The Diner," I ventured into the outer Philly burbs to Phoenixville, PA to meet up with singer songwriter Alexis Cunningham , a powerful and charismatic performer who has done some very cool things in her still-ascending career. In 2022, she appeared on American Song Contest on NBC, where she performed her song “Working On A Miracle” and completed against some serious m...

My guest on this episode of TatD is Philly guitarist and songwriter Ben O' Neill . One might accuse me of some form of nepotism having Ben as a guest on the pod because he happens to be married to my dear friend and IKE V1.0 bassist Joann Schmidt , but he's more than earned his bona fides in the music world. 😉 Not only is Ben a Philadelphia music vet from his bands the MLMs and the Mini Q's , he'...

Hey all! I am so excited to bring you this convo with Blue Barnett , who is the lead singer, primary songwriter, and driving force behind Philadelphia's Best Bear - a band whose 2022 debut album When had me singing along and practically sobbing in my car over dozens of listens last year. I have known Blue as a friendly acquaintance over the past decade - they are yet another great singer / songwri...

Episode 22 of "Talking At The Diner" features a fellow musician, whom I first met in 2005 when he was an undergrad in Drexel University's Music Industry Program, where I had just started teaching that major's required course in songwriting. Jayson Verdibello was part of a stellar group of young music industry students who took that class and I’m lucky to say I’ve kept in touch with him and many of...

Alyssa Garcia and I met when she was a student and I was a songwriting professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Before she ever took my songwriting class, she was one of a handful of private-lesson students I taught each term in a dusty and desolate 4th floor practice room in the campus "Main Building".. the room had a piano and one working power outlet from the early 20th century. During t...

I am so excited about this episode with my friend Jamie Salvatore - the man who puts the "Jamie" in Jamie and the Guarded Heart . JatGH is honestly the type of band you can’t help but root for. Their name is fitting yet a little deceptive, because so many of Jamie’s anthemic songs wear their rock 'n' roll heart right on their sleeve for all to see.  I appreciate Jamie doing this episode of the pod...

I got a chance to sit down with my dear friend Jason Miraglia (the 'G' is silent, as you'll hear ;) at Olga's Diner in Marlton, NJ. When I first met Jay, he was the drummer in one of the most popular Philly bands of the 2000's - Fat City Reprise . He would later sit behind the kit in the last lineup of IKE and also play drums on all of records I did with John & Brittany . He currently still pl...

Well, my friends, it was bound to happen. This is officially the first episode of this podcast where my guest got a flat tire on the way to the diner. Melissa Menago hit a gigantic pothole on Rt. 476, barely making it off the highway to the relative safety of a parking lot next to a hair salon. Luckily, Melissa was no worse for the wear after she Uber’d over to the Springfield Diner, in the heart...

In the early 2000's (aka the aughts), Derek Fuhrmann 's band Omnisoul and my band IKE were very simpático.. we played many shows together and eventually had the same management. Derek actually interned for IKE when he first started working with our manager Jim Johnson and he also played the lead role (of a cocky young rock star) in our music video for our song "Deathbed (Na, Na, Na)" which was an...

I have known Nicole Zell for a little over a decade. Over those years I have watched her come into her own as an artist with some pretty unusual twists and turns along the way. She has toured as the guitarist for alt-rock band American Wolves and fronted the synth-pop band THRILLCHASER, and although I would consider her a seasoned musician and songwriter, she is, at 27, just about to release her d...

After just celebrating the 20th anniversary of a band he was reluctant to name after himself, Anthony Renzulli has earned the right to say he’s in it for all the right reasons. You have to be when you decide to put our a solo record in 2022 that sounds like it could have been made in 1932. Anthony has played just about every sub-genre of rock in his career, starting out as a drummer in metal and r...

Maggie Poulos is a fascinating example of a talented musician, who is also deeply embedded in the business side of the music world. She’s fronted numerous bands such as the all-female NYC trio The Crushes. And as the founder of Mixtape Media, Maggie has done PR for such high-profile clients as Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, Cake, Fitz and the Tantrums, and Duncan Sheik. Since moving from New Yor...

Underestimate Annalise Curtin at your own peril! She may be diminutive in size but so many things about this dynamo of a human are BIG.... big personality, big smile, big laugh, big talent (I am in perpetual awe of her finger picking abilities on guitar), and big, BIG voice.   I met Annalise back in 2011 at an open mic (the weekly "Late Night Series" at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where I w...

Joe Trainor first landed on my radar as the front man of the aptly named Joe Trainor Trio , known to us super fans as JT3.. his Ben Folds-y piano rock was a first-state staple for a full decade in the earlier part of the 2000’s but then he moved into a different musical space entirely, forming The Rock Orchestra , an entity that features multiple large lineups of various musicians playing the musi...

Ron DiSilvestro - RAHHHHHHHN as I like to call him - is one of my closest friends from the Philadelphia music scene in part because I have worked with him in several different capacities over the 20+ years I’ve known him. The man does so many things at a high level. He's a go-to record producer, engineer, mixer, session drummer. He's also an inspiring audio recording educator with his own music sc...

I met up with my friend Erin Fox recently at the Fishtown Diner in Philly to have breakfast for dinner and we had a fascinating conversation that actually lasted long after the lavalier mics were turned off, but what we did capture in the recording was the backstory of a person who truly embodies the name of her alt rock band Resilient, because she has faced down some serious life and career chall...