Episode 040 - 2024 Year-End Wrap-Up

This week, we wrap-up the year with a review of the 39 previous episodes of the show that we've put out. It's a chance to take stock of what we've accomplished so far, and our chance to thank you all for joining and supporting us with every like, subscribe, and comment!

There's a lot packed into a 10-minute episode, so please join us for this review of where we've been on our path to today, the cusp of 2025, with so many good things on the horizon. And we wish you a safe, happy, healthy new year from The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!

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Transcript

Alex Gadd: 0:00

Welcome to The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week, we're wrapping up 2024, our first year, with a look back at the highs and the lows, as well as a first look ahead at what's coming up in 2025. It's been a blast so far, but there's so much more to come. So stick around for our year end review coming up right now. To start, let's take a moment to review how we got here. I got laid off from a job that I loved at the start of this past year, right after New Year's Day. I had just moved back to Connecticut where I grew up, and I couldn't find another job that I really wanted to do or was worth doing. So after about a month of looking, I took a break and asked myself, What else could I be doing that I could really enjoy? The only thing that made sense to me was to start a podcast talking about music. But how can I differentiate it and make some space for myself in the crowded world of music podcasts? Well, playing music and attending concerts have always been among my favorite things to do. Why not have a talk show where I talk to my guests about their experiences, playing and seeing live music. So that's what I set out to do. First challenge was the hardest for me coming up with a name that really spoke to what I was trying to do. I originally was going to call it"Rock-N-Roll Live!" until I realized that name would imply that the show itself might be a live webcast, which I wasn't interested in doing at all. So I took a step back and tried an exercise to distill my idea down to its most basic level and the name Rock-N-Roll Show sprung into my head. That name's so good, someone must be using it already, I thought. But after two days of searching, while also trying to come up with alternative names that I liked as much, I both didn't find any shows already called The Rock-N-Roll Show, and I didn't come up with any name I liked more, so I registered the domain name and off I went. I needed to design a logo next. That's anyway what I thought I needed to do. And I did it readily enough using Canva. Now this isn't an ad for Canva, but I do love using that platform for all my design needs. I still do envision hiring a professional graphic designer to design a more sophisticated logo at some point. But then, a) I love what I have. And b) one of my closest friends, Dave, was a graphic designer and would have absolutely been the right person to do this for me. But unfortunately he passed away in 2021 and using another designer still reminds me of losing Dave. So I keep the name, keep the logo, and I hope you'll indulge my rudimentary graphic design skills. Now I just needed a format. I came up with 10 or 11 questions about someone's experiences learning to love music. And going to see shows and that took about a week to refine. Since then I've refined it 10 more times, but I had a working set of questions. Now I just needed a guest. The first episode of the podcast went live on March 19th with my good friend and former coworker, Eric Blakeslee. We talked about his experiences as a music club employee and as a musician and as a fan. Since then, I've introduced you to a number of my friends, both old and new. That includes four current or former members of my longstanding rotisserie baseball league. You've heard a lot about that and about them. We've also talked to six musicians making original music, two of my closest friends from college, two more of my former colleagues, even a few people from other countries, all talking about the music that they make, the shows they've seen and the bands that they love. We've shared nine concert reviews and eight themed music playlists. Those have been really fun to do, the playlists especially, as I used to make mixtapes back in the 1980s and early 90s when that was still a thing to do. I always think of John Cusack's character Rob in High Fidelity. He captured the complexity of creating a mixtape perfectly in the final scene of that movie.

4:13

Great compilation tape. Like Breaking Up is hard to do. And takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer. To grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch. But you don't wanna blow your wad. So then you gotta cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway.

Alex Gadd: 4:30

One of the things I wasn't sure about but I've really come to enjoy is connecting with people I didn't already know to have them on as guests, people I initially found through connections, the first of which was Chandler Hutchison, he was episode two, and he was a connection from a lovely guy I had met earlier in the year named Luke. Chandler then recommended that I have his dad, Mark on, and Mark was the guest on episode four. Mark then introduced me to Dave Schneider, who's the creative force behind the hockey rock band, The Zambonis, as well as the co founder of the Hanukkah rock band, The Levees. Check out episode seven to hear more from him. That's a great episode. And after that, I started making connections with potential guests through a Facebook group that I joined, the first of whom was Soph Stafford. She's a cool lady from Australia who shared her love of traveling to go see live music with me. Now she flies to the U. S. from Australia almost every year to see shows. I believe she's coming to see ACDC here next summer. She's incredible. That was episode 11. More Facebook group guests joined the show, including Carl King for episode 16, Vanessa Cardenas for episode 20, and Nick DiMatteo for episode 34. Those are all great episodes as well. Vanessa and I remain in touch and I hope that we get to go see a show together in the coming year. I've got a new episode with a musician from Canada named Chris Evelyn coming up in February, who I met through another group on social media and he's great too. So look out for that. To date, the most viewed episode of the podcast has been episode 27, which was my concert review of the Jeff Lynne's ELO show at Madison Square Garden back in September. And it's the top viewed show for a very odd reason, at least odd to me. In the episode, I gave the show a very positive review overall, and it had the best video I've captured so far of any show I've been to in the past year, but it seems that I upset the militant wing of the Jeff Lynne fan club and they flooded the comments section with critical comments for me being not positive enough about the show. In their mind, not giving the show a fawning 100 percent positive review and lauding Jeff Lynne as the greatest musical mind of the 20th century was reason to give me a scathing review themselves, not only of my show, but of my being and my musical knowledge. So that was a fun. But at least it drew an audience. What did P. T. Barnum say about bad publicity? Oh, yeah. There is no such thing. Other shows I reviewed include Springsteen back in April in Syracuse, The Stones in May at MetLife Stadium, The Foo Fighters aborted show at Citi Field in July. Then I saw and reviewed both the Black Pumas and the Joe Bonamassa shows. They were separate shows. That was in August at the fabulous Capitol Theater in Portchester. I did a Kings of Leon review at the awesome Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater in Bridgeport in October. I had no idea that was such a cool facility up there. Then there was the Sturgill Simpson review. That was from the show in Queens in the Forest Hills Tennis Center, that was in November. And then one of the final Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes shows in early December at the Warehouse in Fairfield. It's been a great year of shows. And my last show that I saw this year was Phish at Madison Square Garden. That was just two nights ago, the 29th of December. And that's going to be reviewed for next week's episode. So look for that. It's interesting. Looking back, starting from scratch in March, I think I've made really good progress. I've moved from my original studio into a new one, and I've learned a lot along the way. 2025 holds a promise of some really great concerts to review, really cool people to speak with, and more great themed playlists to share for various holidays and other notable times of the year, but finally, as we get ready to turn the calendar to January of the new year, I want to say thank you to all of you, from the bottom of my heart. For all of you who've watched and liked an episode, subscribed to this channel, especially to those of you who've left a comment, good or bad. I'm sitting in a room alone, putting out these shows every week, hoping that what I think and the things that I like and don't like, and the people that I speak with will connect with you out there and will entertain you for even a short while. My biggest hope is that I can turn you on to some new song or some new artist and enrich your musical life for just a little bit. So I'll keep putting out these episodes. I'm really excited for what the new year holds for this podcast, and I hope you'll join me for the ride. And. That's it for this week's episode and for the year 2024. Let me wish you all a fun and safe New Year's Eve tonight and a happy, healthy new year. We'll be back next Tuesday with our first episode of 2025. That's a review of Phish at the Garden. And if you like what you heard today, we'd appreciate it if you would like and subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about every new episode. And please tell your friends. There won't be a playlist this week, but there are a bunch from past episodes to check out and more on the way. And as always, we want to know what you think, so please leave us a comment. We'll try to respond to every one of them. We love hearing from you. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and I look forward to bringing you more good rock-n-roll in the new year. So until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.