You Could Be My Aramis Podcast

WYSO Music Director Juliet Fromholt and freelance music journalist Taylor Ruckle join me for our annual conversation about our favorite albums of the year. We hope you discover something new to you in our conversation that you end up loving. You'll find each of our lists along with links to the albums in the show notes.

Mery Steel is Canadian and Ohioan and multi-instrumental and delightful, and you will enjoy this conversation very much.

This is a conversation from back in December where I am joined by two actual music journalists for a discussion about our favorite albums of the year. Sure, I'm posting this late, but if you haven't heard these albums, they're new to you, right? The show notes have a listing of the albums we discussed.

Victoria Park releases music under the name Pictoria Vark. She is a bass player, songwriter, recording artist, and experienced touring musician. Victoria just released a new album called Nothing Sticks, and we get into some in-depth discussion on the album and songwriting in this conversation.

Nathan Peters joins me to talk about the 20th installment of Dayton Music Fest, which takes place on October 11th and 12th.

Tod Weidner is back again to talk about his experience recording "Favorites", one of his recent singles. We're also chatting about his upcoming shows here in Ohio with Peter Mulvey on May 2nd and 3rd.

Valerie Vonn is an independent musician currently based in Germany. How did she get started making music? Why is she based in Germany? You'll learn the answer to those two questions in this episode, as well as several insightful thoughts on the music business.

Anthony Church is a fellow Ohioan, a music producer, and a podcaster. What are his musical influences? What's his podcast like? What does he see as the role of a producer? You'll get the answers to these questions and more from this episode. Don't forget to check out the Show Notes for applicable links, including a Spotify playlist of Anthony's music, and his LinkTree.

Three music nerds talk about their top 10 favorite albums of 2023. Here's hoping you discover something that you'll love! Links in the Show Notes.

The more you learn, the less you're going to know about Golden Guy. That being the case, listen to this episode and learn a little less about this enigma of your fascination.

Do you know what a cigar box guitar is? I didn't, and then I had this conversation with Max B. Greene.

Taylor Ruckle is back on this episode, and we're talking about some albums we enjoyed. I hope you find something here that you like. The albums are listed with Bandcamp links over in the show notes.

Cherimondis J is an outrageously talented multi-instrumentalist, a classically trained concert pianist, and a soon-to-be college graduate. Our conversation goes to some deep and introspective places, mostly because Cherimondis clearly does a lot of thinking about how making art fits into her life. I asked her to contribute to my new concept EP I Am Experienced, she kindly agreed to do so, and you can hear her singing and playing violin on a few of the songs. We talk about that, the album Dove Archer that she released last year, being Black in the classical music world, her creative process and plans, and all sorts of other things.

Hiba Loukssi just graduated from Xenia High School, and is headed to Cornell. She's an enthusiastic, eloquent, intelligent individual who you are surely going to love. This episode is for all the 2023 graduates: I hope that you all groove to my new song "Good Times" as your song of the summer, and that you look back fondly upon this time someday in the future.

Linsey Rogers is a vivacious multi-instrumentalist and pinball enthusiast. There's more here, of course, but that's the hook. We had an enjoyable conversation, and I think you'll also find it quite entertaining.

Lisa Wagner is Executive Director at Levitt Pavilion. They're a non-profit organization with the mission of building community through the power of music, and they bring 50 free concerts to Dayton every year. How in the world do they pull that off? Find out in this conversation.

Kyleen Downes is a professional musician, and one of my favorite people here in our Dayton music community. In this conversation, you'll learn how she decided to study music in college and what her songwriting process looks like, among other things.

Tracy Bunn is my first Australian guest. She is an experienced musician and songwriter with lots of stories to tell. I think you'll be able to tell how much she cares about the music she makes from our conversation.

OriSoaring is a multi-instrumentalist and painter who I've known for a few years now. She's an intriguing individual with lots of stories. You'll get to hear some of them in this conversation.

LeeAnn Tooker is a comedian based in Los Angeles. I saw her do a set the last time in Los Angeles, and she made me laugh. You'll get to know LeeAnn in this episode, and get a picture of how much work it is to do stand up comedy.

Left-handed rock & roller Dirty Doc joins me today. You know her out in the streets as Dirty Metal Lefty. We'll get into how she learned to play music, what her songwriting process looks like, and all of the various musical projects she's participating in.

Tim Minneci is a musician, podcaster, and author based in Columbus, Ohio. Our lengthy conversations answers some important questions, such as: How does Tim decide which characters to kill off in a book? What authors, films, and music give him inspiration to write? What does he hope readers take away from his books? You'll the answers to these questions and more in this episode.

Briget Boyle is here to tell us about "Mandolin", the second single from her upcoming album Heartbreak Residue.

Jed Craddock & Joey Berrios cover a whole lot of ground in this conversation with me.  Our chat goes from light-hearted to serious and heavy, from artistic reflection to ridiculous conjecture, and from remembering the past to looking forward to the future.  It's all sincere.  Please enjoy getting to know these gentlemen.

The Wag are a band from New Jersey who have been doing the music thing for 25 years.  All four of the band members join me for this conversation.  What's their story?  What is their sound like?  Who are these people?  Listen to this episode to find out about these lovely people, and check out their new album Blue Bottles and Copper Coins on March 25th.

Nora Rahimian is an anti-capitalist business coach.  What in the world does that mean?  Listen to our conversation to find out!

Maxime Cholley est batteur professionel savoyard que habite maintenant en New York.  On a parlé en anglais sur l'episode 84.  Notre conversation en français et un petit peu différent.  Maxime a des observation très intéressants au sujet de quelques différence culturels entre la France et les Etats-Unis.  Vous allez aussi découvrir comment il a pris la décision d'étudier la musique à Boston au lieu d'en France.

Today's guest is French drummer Maxime Cholley, who is based in New York these days.  This conversation is in English.  (Come back Friday for our conversation in French.)  How did he end up choosing to come to the United States to pursue his career as a professional musician?  You'll find out in this episode. 

Meet Marcelo Maccagnan, Brazilian born bassist!  He's currently based in New York.  You'll be able to hear his passion for music in our conversation.  Why did he choose bass?  Tune into this episode and find out!

Simona Smirnova is my first Lithuanian guest.  She is known for playing the kanklés, a traditional Lithuanian instrument.  She's on tour right now promoting a book she just released called Kanklés in New York.  A fascinating fact: her band consists of someone from Brazil, someone from France, and someone from Italy... that's four nationalities in one band!  You'll find out more interesting things about Simona when you listen to our conversation.

Josh Roush grew up in Middletown, Ohio.  Liv Roush grew up in Australia.  They live in Los Angeles now.  Josh wrote and directed independent punk rock feature film Wrong Reasons.  Liv produced the film.  Kevin Smith is the executive producer.  Josh and Live are on the road right now, taking the film on tour to audiences across the country.  How did they manage to finish this project on a small budget?  How did Josh and Liv meet?  How did Kevin Smith get involved?  What in the world does a film producer even do?  You'll learn the answers to these questions and more from this conversation.

You'll really enjoy getting to know Jovi Espina, a talented songwriter from Virginia who is currently based in Los Angeles. Among other things, we talk about her EP Act Accordingly, which I strongly recommend you listen to.

Nina Nepa is a songwriter and musician from Pittsburgh who is currently based in Los Angeles. We get into her songwriting process, and I ask her specifically about three songs so that she can break them down for us. (I link to those in the show notes.) You're going to find one of her stories especially touching.

Ben Monat is an amateur guitarist from Massachusetts who has a palpable enthusiasm for the instrument.  In this conversation, you'll learn about his musical background, his influences, and what he likes to play these days.