A serendipitous meeting at a podcast session at SXSW EDU introduced me to Morgan McCray, a high school senior at Oakland Catholic High School in Pittsburgh. Rather than pretend to design a podcast, which was our assignment at the session, we decided to make one! I enjoyed hearing from someone with a bright future who gives me hope about the future leaders in the USA.

Morgan is a current Youth Board Member at the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh and former Youth Voice & Partnerships Fellow. She is a senior at Oakland Catholic High School, where she is involved in various extracurricular activities including the Global Competence Initiative and founding the Principal Advisory Committee. She also works as an intern and Advisory Council member at SLB Radio Productions, where they use radio and media to amplify the voices of young people in order to educate and build community. Outside of working, she loves to bake, explore new languages, and spend time with her friends and family. Morgan believes that youth voice is the future. She is motivated to open people’s minds to the importance of youth perspectives and exploring global issues with others.

We talked more about life than music, but we do have a brief playlist inspired by Morgan and her father’s musical inspirations.

I’ll let this episode speak for itself. Special thanks to Isabelle for her heartfelt spoken contribution of her thoughts about Sinead, and to the others who recorded clips but had some tech challenges. Thanks to Giannos Kanellopoylos for allowing me to use the photo she took this week in Bray of Sinead’s grave.

I did not build a playlist as I usually do for each episode. Sinead’s entire catalog would have to be on the list. I’ve dared to include some snippets, hoping they count as “fair use” in the context of commentary.

Special love to Sinead’s family.

This episode returns to the roots of the podcast - talking with friends about music. But there’s a narrative that goes beyond a shared love for music. You’ll learn that April Donovan and I breached our brains within a few days of each other back in 2018. We met a year a later and now we’re in a band - Funky Cranium.

April is a rapper, singer, and glocker (glockenspiel player) in her two bands, Vitamin D and Funky Cranium. She’s a talented visual artist, too, which we barely touched on in our conversation.

We trade stories about brain injury and recovery, and how our musical pursuits keep us growing and learning.

April and I set up with my fancy podcast gear on her patio and after several tries at recording, my Mac got too hot in the sun and gave up. I got tired of staring at the spinning icon, so we kept it simple and recorded into my phone. The downside is you’ll hear a lot of road noise because her house is adjacent to one of Hood River’s busiest roads.

I hope you enjoy this podcast. It is pretty personal to me, and I enjoyed learning some details about the journey of someone I consider a good friend. I also discovered some classic hip hop tunes that I missed in the 90’s.

Hope you enjoy this discussion and feel inspired to check out Funky Cranium, too. The playlist includes songs and artists discussed in this episode, with a few extras added from the outtakes.

After interviewing Sophie Mathieu, I was grateful to be friends with her family and excited to follow her career going forward. She made me feel like the world is in good hands with Gen Z-ers (and others). I sent her the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), hoping she’d compose music I can use in my teaching. I was inspired by her varied musical interests and ideas were running through my head about new ways to incorporate music in the teaching of science (or anything else for that matter.)

Am I gushing? I guess so. I’m friends with her mom, so some of my gushing is connected with her pride. (It is Mother’s Day Weekend, after all!) But I think I would have gushed anyway. If you know anyone considering a career in music, you’ll realize the diversity of opportunities for musicians to create while making a living.

This playlist combines Sophie’s early 2010’s pop favorites, classical cello pieces, music her parents loved, and music she has heard and made that combine classical and pop sensibilities. Even Kanye. No canceling here.

You can check out her masters thesis composition and more links below.

This photo is from Sophie's website

I was not sure how it would go talking to a complete stranger for this episode. And I was still figuring out my tech platform. Pleasant surprises on both fronts!

James and I had exchanged a few emails that resulted in this episode, but I had no idea what would happen. I figured he’d be enthusiastic because he agreed to be on the podcast. And he was so joyous and passionate about his music! He was also patient as we dealt with the fact that I had forgotten that my earbuds wouldn’t connect to my Mac. I had been running through the house 30 minutes before the interview looking for an adapter or anything to help prevent feedback! So we had to deal with a couple of experiments and he was so kind and cooperative. I’m pleased to say that the volume level is better matched in this episode and that I have a podcast microphone on the way, funded by early subscriber donations.

This episode gets a bit technical at times, but James explains the concept of microtones in such an accessible way and introduces us to its use in popular music. We also get to hear about Rush, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, and Bach. What’s not to love?

You can find James’ “Between the Frets” album in this link.

Thanks again to James for your passion, patience, time, and knowledge.

In this episode, my friend Jim and I talk about our musical touchpoints at the age of 15 and beyond. How have our tastes evolved? What inspires us now? Unfortunately, my Mac fan joined our conversation as a third guest soon after we started. I’ll shore up my tech for the next episode.

We thoroughly enjoyed meeting up at Jim’s house to ramble on about our favorite music and its effect on us. Hope you enjoy the discussion and the songs/artists we discuss. Jump right into the playlist if you want to hear the songs first!

Below are pictures of some of Jim’s musical memorabilia.

At what age did you first connect to an artist who is still important in your life today?

I love talking music and decided to try the podcast format. Episode 0 is just me introducing the series. The remaining episodes will be discussions with other people. Those of you who are readers are on my list as potential guests. Please post here, reply, or post on the socials what you think. Also, is it easy to access this on substack? Should I move it to a podcast platform? I just don’t want ads.

Here is “Fly on a Wall.” You can also find it on YouTube, Spotify, and other music streaming platforms. The album is called “Happy Ride.”