Friends & Neighbors

In the 90s, the CDC made the correlation between adverse childhood experiences like divorce, violence, substance abuse and mental illness and adult outcomes like anxiety, depression, addiction and many of the leading causes of death. It’s just that, well, no one told most of us. 

When what I thought was anxiety and depression was diagnosed as PTSD last fall, I suddenly saw trauma and its impact all around. Since April, I've been quietly crisscrossing the country, examining the roots of my own trauma, and the trauma and chronic stress that affect us all. I’ve been seeking insights, solutions, and strategies to help heal the anxious and uncertain communities around us. And now, I’m seeking your help.

As outgoing CEO of the world’s largest membership organization of digital journalists, Online News Association, Irving Washington has led programming and fundraising initiatives for journalists, media professionals, and students worldwide. This week, in the fourth of a series of Media Transformation Challenge-sponsored episodes, MTC Journeys, Irving shares how MTC helped accelerate the organization's transformation, and how a childhood passion for re-creating mainstream media through the lens of representation connects his career of service at RTDNA, NABJ and ONA.

Whether as a touring guitarist for the avant-garde rockers, Psychic TV, or producer for artists like Boy George, Lenny Kaye, and Pharoahe Monch, Jeff Berner makes a safe, creative space for those around him to make great art. This week, we trace Jeff’s life from first falling for “Sunshine of Your Love,” to building his studio career, performing in Russia with punk legend Genesis P-Orridge – and producing, performing on and brilliantly wedging an electric bouzouki into my new album, Constellations.

The fourth single, final track and thesis statement of my new album, Constellations, began as an expression of darkness and sadness but with time and telling, transformed into something altogether different.

Philly singer/songwriter Lily McKown & Wilmington psyche rocker, Hayden Chance (a/k/a Chvnce) have both graduated to national stages but are close enough to rock 'n roll's rickety attics and ratty basements to remember the stale smell of beer and sharp shock of an ungrounded microphone. This week, we discuss early influences, song craft and what it feels like to finally arrive.

From a chance meeting with Nashville waitress with a profoundly personal and deeply universal story to a lushly realized FAME Studios recording, then Brooklyn-mixed and mastered masterpiece, this is the story of one song's journey to your ears.

In 2019, AP’s Noreen Gillespie was tasked with evolving domestic news operations amidst a rapidly changing ecosystem. Today, the AP’s approach to US news is wholly transformed, and Noreen’s applying what she learned to the rest of the planet.

Sound Mind Live Executive Director Chris Bullard talks about growing up in L.A., sharing a mic with Kris Kristofferson, being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and his mission to end the stigma that surrounds mental health through the power of music.

We all have secrets, truths that gnaw at us, crush our spirit, and kill us from the inside out. The second single from my forthcoming album, Constellations, is that moment of realization and transformation made manifest. On this week's episode, I share the journey of writing and recording of "The Secret Song," from inception to release, and explore how it came to help me, as Fred Rogers often said, “make the mentionable manageable.”