What Am I Making Podcast

When my longtime friend and musical sherpa Todd Stonehouse handed me his copy of Secret Stars, the Greatest Underdogs Of The Rock n Roll Era , he grinned and said, “You are gonna love this.” Just looking at the ten bands listed on the book jacket, I knew I had found one of my new sacred texts.  Inside the blazing red cover lay chapters on Nick Drake, Robyn Hitchcock, Elliott Smith, Big Star, and m...

I have admired the work over at New Bands For Old Heads since my early days here at Substack. The conceit is pretty simple; take a snippet of old, often familiar music and then use it as a reference point to find new artists currently working in the same sonic vein. Gabbie, the woman behind New Bands, does a marvelous job of taking a few seconds of a song by a band like New Order and turning it in...

Jami Smith grew up with MTV as a babysitter. As a latchkey kid she would come home from school each day to sit by the set and take in the glorious carnival that was the golden age of Music Television. Music, and its attendant culture had an outsized influence on Jami, who grew up a tomboy spending her free time hanging out with dudes and eschewing the normal interests of a typical American girl. A...

Most theater kids grow up dreaming of one day being a part of a smash on Broadway. Jeffrey Seller has not only made that dream a genuine reality, he has doubled it by producing a pair of wildly successful shows that have transcended the confines of the Theater District and found their way into the very fabric of our everyday culture.  To call Rent and Hamilton hit shows is to completely miss the p...

This past Wednesday, May 7th I performed a live set from the Sheddio via Substack Live . This show was a total blast. A bunch of you came by and experienced the set in real time. It was a treat to see your comments during the show, and to even take a couple of your requests. If you were there on Wednesday night, thanks so much for being a part of it. While the audio component of the recording here...

Jon Carroll’s the sort of guy who lights up a room. Sure, he’s a world class piano player, singer, and arranger. He’s been the musical director for Mary Chapin Carpenter’s touring outfit for years on end. You might even know him as a founding member of the Starland Vocal Band. Despite his talent and experience, the first thing you notice about Jon is his ebullient persona.  Jon is a born storytell...

Back in mid-March, I had an amazing two hour discussion with Beth Lisogorsky , the mastermind behind the terrific Substack, Beth’s TV & Film Recommendations . We talked about film, television, identity, representation in culture, slow burn films, and so much more. More than 90 minutes into that discussion, I realized that I had never hit the record button. I was devastated, embarrassed, and terrif...

I first found John Strohm when I stumbled across a piece he had written about Uncle Tupelo for his terrific Substack, Ready For Nothing . In the piece John described his experience falling in love with the Belleville, IL trio that blended hardcore and roots music, and how that love eventually became the inspiration behind his 1996 alt-country album Caledonia with backup band The Hello Strangers. ...

S.W. Lauden was a guest once before back in January of 2024. It was a tremendous chat about the waning power of guitar pop and why it needed to go underground again to gain relevance. We dove deep on subjects like cultural inheritance and the power of pop.  Steve Coulter, the real dude behind the S.W. Lauden pen name lost his Altadena, CA home in a matter of hours to the Eaton fire that raged acro...

Just a few days after I recorded this conversation with podcaster and comedian Pete Dominick , I hopped on a plane to Las Vegas for a long weekend with his Stand Up Community for Podjam 2. The first Podjam, held in March of 2024 was a smash success and brought a very tight virtual community into the real world as online friendships and connections blossomed with face to face meetings. As Pete and...

Thea Wood’s work at HERizon Music , her remarkable Substack, is the outpouring of a life in music. As a kid growing up in suburban Detroit she soaked up the sounds of Motown and heard myriad tales of legendary shows. In late elementary, Thea’s mom took her and a group of girls from their church to see heartthrob and pop sensation Andy Gibb at an outdoor amphitheater. She was officially hooked.  At...

Over the last couple of years a good portion of the new music I have become excited about came to me from Christian Finnegan and his great Substack, New Music For Olds . As I have aged, my excitement for new sounds has waned and my voracious musical appetite is a fraction of what it once was. Christian and his terrific newsletter give my old ears regular suggestions that run the gamut of genre and...

If you’ve been paying much attention to this space in the last few weeks, you’ll know that I spent a couple of weeks traveling in Peru with my Mother. This is the third consecutive winter we have been lucky enough to travel together internationally. It’s a tradition that we began after my Father died unexpectedly in 2020. My parents' shared love for travel was bequeathed to me and to my sister. It...

Seth Werkheiser has spent the last ten years walking away from social media. If you ask him for his two cents, he’ll tell you that you should walk away as well. For more than a decade, Seth has been helping creative artists build community and teaching them how to engage more intentionally with their fans and followers. In the process, Seth has found a new way of looking at life, creativity, and c...

Kevin Alexander is unabashed about his love for New Order. They are probably his favorite band if he’s pressed on the issue. He fell in love early and stayed deeply smitten through the intervening decades. It was with this knowledge that I asked Kevin to share his assessment of the first four albums by New Order. If there was a single person that I knew who was within my own orbit that was most qu...

If you have been paying any attention to this space, any at attention at all for the last year or so, you’ll know that I spent much of 2024 on the road. Over two legs of touring, I covered more than 17,000 and saw huge swaths of America and its denizens. A full year after walking away from a career to begin a life as an independent artist, I set off on a pair of tours that would mark the largest l...

Michael Gilbride spent several years in the financial trenches as a bond trader. Armed with a finance degree and a penchant for capitalism, Michael saw trading as a way to build a life of prosperity and financial security. However, during the entirety of his schooling and his early career his passion for music was always there, calling out. After several years in the bond game, Michael took his am...

After a lengthy hiatus from the podcast, I am back in the captain’s chair. Season 3 is sure to be packed with in-depth interviews, special guests, and more forays into the hidden corners of our culture. What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Jeff Gower and Jason Lantrip are two of my favorite people...

This week on the podcast, there is no guest. It’s just me, Matty C. That doesn't mean it’s a clunker of an episode though. To the contrary, I cover quite a bit of ground on this one. The solo episode provides me with a chance to reckon with the fact that for a couple of weeks, there have been no new episodes of the pod. As I have prepped for my massive west coast tour, work on the pod has taken a...

Barry Hummel has become something of a regular fixture here at What Am I Making. Along with his daughter, Abigail, Barry is half of the Pops On Hops podcast, a father-daughter exploration of music, beer, and family. The Hummels have become frequent guests here on the show, and they have even hosted me twice on my house concert tours. They have also become true friends. What Am I Making is a reader...

Abigail Hummel has become something of a regular fixture here at What Am I Making. Along with her Dad, Barry, Abigail is half of the Pops On Hops podcast, a father daughter exploration of music, beer, and family. The Hummels have become frequent guests here on the show, they’ve even hosted me twice on my house concert tours, and they have become true friends. What Am I Making is a reader-supported...

Eddie White is the sort of man who never stops. By day, he is a dentist in the Charleston, SC area. Every Wednesday night is the impresario of the Awendaw Green, a spacious outdoor compound hosting live music every week unless there is a holiday or a hurricane. Eddie describes the Green as “arrogantly shabby”. It’s a perfect descriptor.  Old instruments, broken bicycles, reclaimed lawn decorations...

Back in March, I attended Podjam in Las Vegas and got a chance to see Christian Finnegan live. I’ve long admired Christian as a comic with a terrific wit, a tremendous vocabulary, and a fascinating view on the world. His stand up is hilarious, insightful, and sharp. Getting to see him perform was a highlight of the Vegas trip and confirmed my theory that he is still one of the funniest and smartes...

As you are almost certainly aware of by now, I just returned home from a month-long US tour that took me to 28 states and covered the eastern half of the US in extensive detail. The journey took me across much of America that I had never seen before as I played my songs in houses, backyards, on patios, decks, and in breweries, historic buildings, and even the grotto of a pie shop. Nearly every nig...

This year for Father’s Day, we present a very special episode of WAIM. I am joined this week by my dear friends Abigail and Barry Hummel of the Pops on Hops podcast for a special crossover episode. Barry and Abigail hatched an idea after hearing my episode with my daughter Maddie and her favorite records of 2023. Maddie was kind enough to join us for a lengthy discussion of Shana Cleveland’s Manza...