What Am I Making Podcast

When I approached Barry Hummel with the idea of talking about a film he loved that had flown under the radar, I am not even sure if I really had a sense of what I was after. Somehow, Barry was still game. The vague conceit I had pitched was for Barry to choose a film he loved that had a foundational impact on him, but was a lessor known film. In essence it would be a chance for us to use a persona...

Writer Rich Tupica is a rock and roll archaeologist. Sure, his CV will tell you that he is a published author and the staff music writer at The Lansing City Pulse. What Rich Tupica really does is dive into the past and unfurl the music and the stories that most of us missed. Rich’s book, There Was A Light chronicles the all too brief life of Chris Bell, half of the mercurial duo that founded the l...

My mother gave the gift of travel to my sister, my Dad and to me. She had first been given the gift of adventure by her own Father who willed a trip to Mexico into being for her, despite financial obstacles when she was still in high school. My grandfather’s own experiences in Germany at the end of World War Two and a Jack Kerouac style cross country trip after the war had profound impacts on his...

The first time that Lillian Werbin and I were supposed to get together to record this chat was the week that her mother died. Naturally, we postponed and I waited a few weeks to reach back out again. By the time we were able to reconnect I found her trying to keep Pepper the puppy entertained on a warm Summer day in Michigan.  During our chat, Lily fights with her home internet connection, strolls...

This is a podcast version of an essay published earlier here at What Am I Making. Enjoy. Get full access to What Am I Making at whatamimaking.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve introduced Jennifer Toms as my sister on more than one occasion. It’s not true, except that it is. Jenny is technically an only child in her birth family. I have one sister in my birth family. Jenny is, nonetheless, my sister. Our bond has been forged over a two decade long friendship built on a shared love for music, cinema, and the beauty of words. Culture is our shared love language. In ea...

Last week, my guest Matt Berenson and I dove deep into the heroes in his book,  Secret Stars, the Greatest Underdogs Of The Rock n Roll Era . From Elliott Smith to Nick Drake to our beloved Guided By Voices, we spent the better part of an hour waxing poetic on the genius of these under-appreciated icons.  In this episode, we take a look at Matt’s career as a film producer. From his huge hit Daddy...

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 cover, 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 more. The...

Not to be outdone by the great Bill Boyle and his tales of travel in episode 017, Kevin Richberg has returned for an hour of stories on Southeast Asia (mostly). Kevin was a guest already on episode 009 where we heard about his legendary world travels; visiting 122 different countries, and reporting from virtually across the world via the Huffington Post and other outlets. Inside this chat, you’ll...

Joe Pernice can spin a melody as well as anyone in indie rock, and can turn a phrase better than anyone in the game today. Over the course of 30 plus years in the rock and roll salt mines, Pernice has amassed an impressive catalog of songs, piled the mileage up on the van, and is in many ways, still learning how to hit record.  Our conversation begins with me asking how his recent reunion shows in...

What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I first got to know Bill Boyle from his insights and analysis at Stand Up with Pete Dominick . While Bill’s day job is owning and running a series of parking garages around the DC Metro area, his real genius is breaking down complex information into discernible...

When I was a teenager, I would have told you that my dream of a trip to England was to play Royal Albert Hall, The Hacienda or The Cavern. I envisioned of my own version of Live At Leeds. To my teenage brain, success meant hallowed halls, superstardom and household names. What I could never have imagined was that more than three decades after I held that calcified belief aloft, my own dream of suc...

This is a pod version of an essay to announce some big news about my Sad Bastard Summer Tour. Get full access to What Am I Making at whatamimaking.substack.com/subscribe

I hate explaining my mental health conditions to people. That might seem weird since I spend so much of my time and energy here talking about that very subject. I am willing, often happy, to explore my mental health. Explaining my conditions and struggles to others is not an exercise in improving my state of mind. It is a recitation of justifiers and simplified terms to make the listener comfortab...

What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Chris Piascik’s inner teacher was what drew me to his YouTube channel. I’d first found Chris as I was beginning to learn the Adobe tablet drawing program, Fresco. Chris’ informal style, conversational tone, and incredible illustration skills had me hooked fat t...

All it took for me to feel comfortable enough to reach out to Kevin Alexander at On Repeat was reading his writing. His bio started with the phrase, “playlists are my love language”. How was I not going to get along with a dude who identified himself that way to the outside world? Even after seeing just a couple of his pieces, I was intrigued. Here was a dude my age, from my beloved midwest, follo...

What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. Please consider a paid subscription today to help fund this work. Thank you so much. It feels as though everyone has a podcast anymore. I mean, I have one and you are listening to it right now. Back in 2016, the market wasn’t quite as saturated as it is today. As the podcast boom began to gain momentum, the DC newsroom at USA Today offered a chan...

What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This week’s pod is a bit of a left turn. Instead of focusing on a conversation this week, I engaged in a bit of an experiment and a dash of collaboration. No worries, though. It’s a one-time thing for now. Rest assured I will be back next time with one of the s...

What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Kevin Richberg is brilliant. It’s not a euphemism, or a way of saying he’s a pretty smart dude. He is actually brilliant. He has earned master's degrees in chemistry and molecular biology from safety schools like CalTech and MIT. Then, he took that knowledge an...

Chad Patterson is more than just a friend. He is family. In fact, he’s the very best kind of family, the chosen sort. We collided into each other’s lives just after high school in the halls of the theater department at Lansing Community College. Our separate paths that led to the same spot on the planet were mirrored in many ways. Sports and pop culture, specifically movies at an early age, drove...

The first time I told my bandmates in The Stick Arounds about my blossoming online friendship with Jon Carroll, the other dudes seemed to think it was cool that I had made pals with a veteran who had spent his life working in the music industry. The second time I told them about it, they were somewhat shocked when they finally realized that I had made a genuine connection with somebody that we all...

I love listening to Barry and Abigail Hummel talk about records and beer. Certainly, it helps that there are few things in this world I would rather do than talk music over a pint. But the real joy of Pops on Hops is the connection and conversation between a daughter and her dad.  On each episode , the Hummels choose a record, and then pair it with a flight of beer from a specific brewery and Barr...

What Am I Making is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Andrew Sandstedt is one of those people that makes the cultural clock of a community tick. It seems rare to attend an event of much import in our beloved city of Lansing, and not see his boyish grin surrounded by a frock of white beard. He is a man about town,...

I would guess that Jared Yates Sexton and I would have either been the best of friends, or hated each other if we had gone to high school together. We would simply have had too much cultural overlap to be apathetic about each other. The enlightened, mature side of me is sure we would have been fast friends had our ages and geography coalesced in a different cosmic plane. The more reasoned and logi...

The first time that I interviewed Maura Quint, we got interrupted. Like a lot. That was a damn shame, because we were hitting on some really good stuff. But after eight or ten internet drops, and a series of awkward and stilted attempts to restart the conversation, I called it off and begged for another opportunity. In that first chat, Maura and I got going on the concept of adulthood as a destina...