The Lunar Laugh was a power pop band based in Oklahoma City. Their final album, In The Black, was released on November 3rd, 2023. The album features Jared Lekites (guitar, vocals), Connor Anderson (guitar, vocals), Campbell Young (guitar, vocals), Triston Lightner (bass, vocals), and Levi Sherman (drums, vocals). On this podcast, we heard from Jared, Connor, Campbell, and Levi. We talked about the events preceding and surrounding the album's creation, each individual track and its production, and a quick retrospective on the history of the band.

I'm sad to say goodbye to this band, but they left us with a great album, which you should listen to.

You can follow the individual members of the band on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/jaredlekites/

https://www.instagram.com/connorandersonn/

https://www.instagram.com/campbellyoung14/

https://www.instagram.com/shrmn8r/

https://www.instagram.com/tristonlightner/

Or you can follow the band's Instagram still:

https://www.instagram.com/thelunarlaugh/

The song playing at the end of the podcast is "Born Weird", which you can listen to here:

https://open.spotify.com/album/24no7nR9Td7LXRMJM27AQH?si=32IVFsc0RN6kwh4AtRbZGw

Bit Depth:
https://santiagoramones.com/podcast
Music:
https://santiagoramones.com/music
Discord:
https://santiagoramones.com/discord

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet.

No Justice, No Peace is a one-act opera composed by Chris Prather and co-written by Kenneth Ray Woods and Megan Prather that presents the real-life effects of police brutality on families and communities, specifically following one fictional family. We talked about how the opera began as a 10-minute opera, how it grew into a full one-act opera, the challenges and successes in the process, and our personal experiences and perspectives about police brutality.

You can watch the whole opera on YouTube here:
https://youtu.be/aZEl8lbvNd8

You can follow each of them on their respective Instagram accounts here:
Chris
https://www.instagram.com/chrisprathermusic/

Kenneth Ray Woods
https://www.instagram.com/mister_woods/

Megan Prather
https://www.instagram.com/meganpratherjpg/

The music at the end is from this trailer:
https://youtu.be/rHBYg3KDbw4

Bit Depth:
https://santiagoramones.com/podcast
Music:
https://santiagoramones.com/music
Discord:
https://santiagoramones.com/discord

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet.

Ryan Smith and Nich Allen met doing compost-adjacent things. When Nich heard Ryan play his music, he knew he wanted to play music with him, somehow. They’ve been playing together for some time. They both frequent the Red Dirt Poetry Open Mic, at which I was playing, too. I actually know Ryan through mutual friends, and I went to the same high school as Nich. So we got to reconnect through the open mic and I asked them to be on my podcast, that night. They agreed to my chaotic request and here they are, giving them the push they needed to decide on a band name. We talked about music, how they got together making music, academic musical knowledge and how much it isn’t needed, emotional communication, and how we grow through the music we make. Get to know Compost Adjacent!

You can follow them on Instagram here:
https://instagram.com/compostadjacent
https://instagram.com/nallenwrites
https://www.instagram.com/rsmithtxco123/

The song at the end is “Linger” by Compost Adjacent, for which this is the first recording, and had to be a little quiet because we were trying not to wake Sable up. Catch it live to hear the big screams.

Bit Depth:
https://santiagoramones.com/podcast
Music:
https://santiagoramones.com/music
Discord:
https://santiagoramones.com/discord

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet, but it is the song I mentioned.

Benjamin Rosfeld is back and we mostly talk about artificial intelligence, but we also end up talking about music. Some things we touch on include ChatGPT, personhood and life, the nature of the algorithms we’re dealing with, free will, ethics surrounding artificial intelligence, video games, music theory and music education, signal to noise ratio in regards to musical interpretation, and more!

You can find Benjamin Rosfeld on Instagram here:
https://instagram.com/brosfeld
The track playing at the end is “Out of Time” by Benjamin Rosfeld:
https://open.spotify.com/track/6QNAN7gzgjpz3Xnc3GXaL6?si=18206454ce304ac6

Bit Depth:
https://santiagoramones.com/podcast
Music:
https://santiagoramones.com/music
Discord:
https://santiagoramones.com/discord

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet.

Benjamin Rosfeld is a composer, performer, and listener. Their primary instruments are piano and cello, but they are also an avid electronic musician and has a number of synthesizers, along with a modular synth system they’ve built. You can see them playing around Oklahoma City for various functions such as church services, weddings, etc. but they’re also a DJ and are very involved in the experimental music scene. Their passion project for last few years has been SHIFT, an electronic/progressive rock band, and they are currently working on their second album, Jagged and Bold. We talked about music, music school, composition, artificial intelligence, and the usual morality and spirituality. Get to know Brosfeld!

You can find them on Instagram here:
https://instagram.com/brosfeld

The song playing at the end is a scratch mix of “The Listener” by SHIFT, which will be out on April 30th, but you get the exclusive here on Bit Depth! So follow them on Spotify so you can catch when they drop it for real:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3fcn65Bw0kSxSi6TycRMTH?si=9kU8PxVETZKTkabvpyBw-Q

Bit Depth:
https://santiagoramones.com/podcast
Music:
https://santiagoramones.com/music
Discord:
https://santiagoramones.com/discord

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet either.

Rowan Weathers and I discuss love: loving intentionally, passionately, actively, with friends and romantically. We also talked about the dating scene of today, participating in communities, friends, the gray areas of romance and friendship, therapy and what can come from it, and our own queer experiences, including pronouns, nonbinary, labeling (or lack thereof), how we change over time, and much more. Yes, the title is a reference to the Portal 2 OST.

You can follow Rowan on Instagram here:
https://instagram.com/rowanoakie
The song playing at the end is “sinking” by Rowan, which is not released yet.

Bit Depth:
https://santiagoramones.com/podcast
Music:
https://santiagoramones.com/music
Discord:
https://santiagoramones.com/discord

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet either.

Rowan Weathers is a self-proclaimed “Jackass of All Trades”. They draw, do improv, comedy, write poetry and scripts, music- a lot of stuff! Because of this, we don’t just get into the things themselves, but we get into the communities surrounding those things. We also talked about spirituality and religion, morality, and their time doing disability activism. Rowan is a homie and you should get to know them!

You can follow Rowan on Instagram here:
https://instagram.com/rowanoakie
The song playing at the end is by Rowan but it’s not released yet.

Bit Depth:
https://santiagoramones.com/podcast
Music:
https://santiagoramones.com/music
Discord:
https://santiagoramones.com/discord

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet either.

Caleb Collins returns and we talked about comedy in media, metamodernism, how the medium of media affects the message, nuance, and the Taking Back Sunday/Brand New beef in the 2000s.

Bit Depth:

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet.

Caleb Collins is a comedian. He hosts an open mic night at Fair-Weather Friend Brewery on Mondays. We talked about comedy, how he got into it, what it’s like in Oklahoma City, and the usual Bit Depth philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Get to know Caleb Collins!

You can follow him on Instagram here:

The song playing at the end is “Kpop Band” by The Nghiems:

https://open.spotify.com/track/6QfVjSG4RJVoFZuXhEO4bd?si=6952e60de7354873

Bit Depth:

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet.

Stefani Heller is a producer, manager, and audio engineer, among other things. She started Heller Music Group, started Women In The Studio, and this is her third time on Bit Depth. We talked about what she’s done since the last time she was on, like working at Castle Row, managing artists, going to law school, and more. There’s some great music business wisdom that Stefani shares on here, so any musically inclined person might benefit from giving this one a listen.

You can find Stefani on Instagram, which has links to other things:

The songs playing at the end are “don’t need u” by ROZ and “Do What We Want” by Original Flow:

Bit Depth:

The song by me playing at the end is not released yet.