Trey Elder has worn many hats since arriving in Chicago, ranging from sound engineer at the infamous Double Door, Head of Sales & Consulting at Intelligentsia Coffee, American whiskey connoisseur and educator, and Operations Manager of Jerry’s restaurants While at Jerry’s, Elder booked an eclectic array of music 7 nights a week for several years, organized many craft beer and spirits focused dinners and events, as well as oversaw all PR and marketing. In 2019, Elder launched Quiet Pterodactyl, a non-profit that creates experiences, enjoyment, education, and entry into arts and music. In his “spare time”, Elder has created music in various original projects, as well as booked/promoted local and national touring acts at venues all over Chicago. Elder is a member of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, and currently serves on planning committees with the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce on Chicago’s north side. In this episode we dive into Trey's history with involvement with various facets into Chicago's music community along with the history of Quiet Pterodactyl and his work during the pandemic to help both artists and venues. Featured Tracks: Miirrors: Sinistry Moritat: Weapons Neptune's Core: Turning Red

Al Rose is a Chicago-based singer-songwriter and musician with a unique and powerful vision which has helped drive his work as originally co-leader of Buffalo Trout, to his years spent as a solo performer and also leading his current band, featuring a roster of top-shelf musicians, The Transcendos. Al's latest release and eighth album, Again the Beginner is a set of 13 good and true songs which features some of his best work musically combined with some of the most nervy and scathing set of lyrics he’s yet composed. It’s a heartening and bracing experience; one man’s attempt to come to terms with modern times and that broken feeling many folks today feel in the pit of their stomach. The stakes couldn’t be higher: this is your life; our time is running short, and every personal crisis seems tied to an accumulating sense of public dread. After all, a lot has happened since Rose dropped his last album in 2016, a resurgence of authoritarian encroachment, COVID-19, and unstinting attacks on democracy at home and abroad. Featured Tracks: Don't Know Why Shooting Straight Sign on the Doorpost Said & Done Dignity & Grace

Like most musicians operating under the new normal, Mark Lofgren (The Luck of Eden Hall, The Thin Cherries) has been spending time in his home studio crafting intimate recordings. Black Moon Book II, an album of exquisite bedroom pop that touches on relationships, memory, isolation and, most explicitly, the healing power of hope and love, is the follow -up to his Black Moon Book released in 2020 and his 2014 solo debut, The Past Perfect. In this episode Erik and Mark have a pretty wide-ranging conversation around pets, family, studio work, coping with the pandemic, work-life balance in the tech/creative space while diving into the creative process behind making of Black Moon Book II. Featured Tracks: Waxing Crescent We Don't Leave The Yard Waning Crescent More at markalanlofgren.bandcamp.com

Idol Throne is a Power-thrash metal quintet from Northwest Indiana with strong progressive tendencies. [FFO: Crescent Shield, Destiny's End, Jag Panzer, Helstar, Fates Warning] In this episode Erik Oldman chats with guitarists Jason Schultz, Martin Bowman and vocalist Jake Quintanilla about the band's formation and the process for creating their full-length release "The Sibylline Age" (Stormspell Records) Featured Tracks: Unholy Warrior Raven's Blade White Wolf

Unto the Earth is a four piece metal band out of Chicago, straddling the lines between stoner, desert, doom, and sludge, with shoegaze and heavy psych influences. Formed in 2019, they have embarked on a musical odyssey that combines driving drums, melodic basslines, layered guitars, and evocative lyrics, while paying tribute to the influences of their youth. Erik Oldman chats with bassist and vocalist Simeon and guitarists Yosh and Jed about the collective creative process around their debuit full-length "The Dawning", how the band came together and what they have coming up for this year as part of the release plan. Featured Tracks: It's a Good Day To Die Awake the Elders Demons of Demolition Strange Riders

Colin Peterik is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer from Chicago, IL. His songwriting style, drawing from pop, psychedelic rock, hip-hop and soul influences, is eclectic. Expertly produced and featuring powerful vocals, his music is infused with infectious hooks, strong melodies and poignant lyrics. In this episode Erik Oldman chats with Colin about creative process and background of his latest release "Everything and Nothing"; The Jam Lab, his full-service production facility; what it's like growing up as the son of Jim Peterik, founding member of Ides of March and Survivor, and what he's up to for the Fall of 2022. Featured Tracks: Smile Everything and Nothing Michiana My Secrets Cocaine Nights

In this episode Erik Oldman chats with producer, engineer and Chicago punk scene veteran Chris DeQuick about what he's been up to since the on set of the pandemic, his background and experiences in recording music and highlighting some of the work he's helped record. Featured Tracks: Old Identities - The Damn Tracks Evil Men - Torch The Hive Sundowning - The Damn Tracks

Dust Biters are a four-piece dirty rock outfit from Chicago that you only wear on nights that call for cheap beer and whiskey chasers. Dust Biters is the music they play on the fast rides with height limits at the county fair - taboo and macabre subject matter trojan-horsed with D beats and guitar leads. The band formed in 2019 months before the pandemic hit and have used the last two years to write, record, play shows, and begin cultivating a community of like-minded musicians and visual artists. Last year we released a single and an EP and will be releasing our debut full-length record on August 12, engineered and produced by Alex Lackner - guitarist of Lazarus A.D. (Metal Blade) and producer and engineer of Repentance’s latest release, “Volume I-Reborn”. Parallel with the album release, They have a collaboration beer with Metal Monkey Brewing and a burger with Kuma's Corner in the works. In this episode, the band sits down with Erik Oldman to talk about what it is like being a Covid band, navigating the music industry landscape, how we network and cultivate collaborative relationships while learning to balance life, work, and art. Featured Tracks: Pray For Me Progeny Lushed Up Dear Evil

Chicago-based quintet Polarizer creates "loud, spacey, and epic rock" combining heavy walls of sound with echo-laden, introspective passages and progressive-rock sensibilities. In November 2021 they self-released "Love from the Underground" as sort of a culmination of a decades worth of work and a document of material with their latest lineup. In this episode, Erik chats with vocalist and lyricist Taylor Brennan and guitarist Ian Palmer about the creation of the album, the lineup changes, getting through the pandemic and the changes that becoming a parent brings to a musician. Featured tracks: Metronome Le Drame De Os Eventually you get caught One for One

Cosmic Bull is a brand new project from vocalist, songwriter and scene veteran Mark Vickery, Vickery's deep vocal stylings were featured while he served as guest vocalist for Chicago acid jazz pioneers Liquid Soul before fronting a loose collective who would become the acid jazz/trip hop juggernaut Sumo, who took over Liquid Souls residency at Elbo Room during their heyday and then went on to gig around the area for many years before calling it quits in the mid-2000s. Mark started writing new music of a different sort during the lockdown of 2020, releasing it under the name of Cosmic Bull. For his latest release he collaborated with former Sumo colleague and notable saxophonist Paul von Mertens, also of Poi Dog Pondering fame, along with scene vet drummer Kevin O'Donnell and Scott Tallarida at his Trigger Chicago studio. Cosmic Bull's 27x2 EP was released last March. In this episode Erik and Mark discuss what Mark has been up to since coming out of his hiatus with Cosmic Bull and the creative process behind getting the EP together, along with the changes in the music industry over the last 20 years. Featured Tracks: Joe Namath Moment Unless You Know People The Sweet Art of Holding On

My guest for this episode is the jam band Lost Pyramids. The band's sound is inspired by the music of Phish and the Grateful Dead with a hint of jazz fusion. We talk about the formation of the band, their creative processes, the language of improvisation, plans for their upcoming release and the summer. ​

Derek Allen and Brian Sutton from Chicago-based math-punk trio Lower Automation are my guests for this episode. Lower Automation creates a hyper-anxious blend of math rock, noise rock and hardcore Back in August 2020, the band sequestered themselves in a secluded cabin in Western Michigan to record their first full-length release. With guitarist and vocalist Derek handling engineering duties the frenzied sessions lasted until the very last second of our rental agreement. The band's result is a 21-minute collection of tunes. In this episode we dive into a bit of the backstory and making of the album and learn about what the band has in store for their summer plans. Featured Tracks Six Degrees from Phrenology Father's Shirt is a Dress on Me Combover

The guest for Episode 27 is Elijah Cirricione, the main man, guitarist, and vocalist for the band Dismalimerence. The band started off as a side project for Elijah in 2011 and throughout the last 11 years it slowly evolved from a studio project into a full band and his main gig. Their sound is best described as atmospheric black metal band with a lot of progressive leaning. In this episode Erik and Elijah dig into the band's back story and how it has evolved from beginnings to the release of their first full-length "Tome 1" in 2020 to the four-way split "Recurrence" they released with fellow black metallers from around globe Nurez, Olim, & The Wolf Garden. Featured Tracks Sequestered Hearts Vernal Musings My Only Love

In this episode, Erik chats with Bridget and Haley from the experimental indie duo OK Cool about their latest music, creative processes, the value of playing live again, in a post-pandemic reality and also their label, Take a Hike Records. Featured Songs Time and a Half Five-Finger Exploding Heart Technique Self-Sow Hypervigilant

In Episode 25 Erik chats with Adele Nicholas, a Chicago-based civil-rights attorney and activist. Adele's practice focuses on fighting systemic abuses in the criminal justice system and accountability in the workplace in regards to worker's rights. Adele is also the front person for the indie rock trio Axons, who just released the full-length album "I Object to Everything". The album provides a lens into Adele's advocacy work through her songwriting while giving light to a more empathetic perspective on what prisoners deal with in the criminal justice system. The song cycle for the album documents one of the city’s most notorious jailbreaks in recent memory. Back in December 2012, Joseph Banks and Kenneth Conley, two prisoners awaiting sentencing for bank robbery, escaped out of a five-inch wide window at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in down town Chicago using a rope fashioned from bedsheets and dental floss. Adele talks about the story behind the album, her songwriting process and all how Axons has evolved over the years. Featured Tracks: Past, Present, and Future. Suspended Close Enough To Dream Shove It Photo by Jazmyne Fountain

Erik chats with Birdy V, vocalist and guitarist of Chicago-based duo, Sweetie, Sweetie has been lighting up stages around the city and burbs since 2019. Their sound is a sonic cocktail of punk and garage rock, balanced with a drop of blues, Their sound draws comparisons to The Distillers, Misfits, and the Cramps. In the episode Erik and Birdy chat about what's in a name, producing the video for their track "Devil Girl", finding a different and rewarding path as musicians and performers working with Chicago's drag performance community, and dealing with the challenges women in the music industry are still facing in 2022. Featured tracks: Danny Boy Devil Girl Catholic Boy Mamma

Erik chats with Dave Marsalek of SPIZM about their latest full-length release "B4UDie", how he has been coping with the effects of the pandemic, his background, and also the upcoming plans for SPIZM. Dave Marsalek has been a part of the Chicago music scene for two decades. Originally from Baltimore, Dave moved here to immerse himself into Chicago's free jazz, post rock and experimental music scenes. Dave formed the drum and bass duo SPIZM in 2003 with upright bassist Pablo Pascoll hand has toured nationally. He also hosted regular live drum n bass/IDM, Jazztronica, and Junglebop sessions at The Muse Cafe in the late 2000s and founded his IZM Records imprint as a way to catalog the recorded output of a myriad of projects that intersect at jazz, rock, electronic experimental music. Featured Tracks: Flight of Light Slither Twin Speaks

Featuring Johnny Wator, guitarist and vocalist for the Evictions - A chicago-based high energy garage rock n roll trio with fuzzed-out riffs and punk-rock scream-a-long choruses. The Evictions have been rocking out stages since 2015, sharing bills with Cheetah Chrome and the Sonics. The track we just heard was Cut Me Up from their self-titled EP. Johnny is a veteran guitarist with experiences recording and touring nationally over the last two decades. in 2012 Johnny started his effects pedal business, Daredevil Pedals - Unable to find a pedal that created the tone he was looking for, he sought out and ripped apart pedals learning how they worked, his search quickly turned into an obsession. Ten years later Daredevil Pedals is going strong as a one-man operation, with an sold word of mouth and online reputation from musicians around the globe and an astonishing brand presence and catalog with distribution across major musical instrument retailer sites and brick and mortar stores alike. The pedals are still all 100% hand built in here in Chicago In this episode Johnny takes us through a brief history of his business and also with what's going on with The Evictions. Featured Tracks: Cut Me Up Head on Right Off the Rails

Erik chats with Dan Stewart from Damager about the origins of the band along with his work as a filmmaker and the state of the local indie scene in Chicago. Featured Tracks from Damager: I Am Made of Solid Gold Liquor Song Tired Bad

In this episode, Erik chats with Dan Asio, an independent singer-songwriter from the suburbs of Chicago and the cohost of the local music podcast The Underbelly Hours. The conversations focus around Dan's latest EP "Still Jaded", the suburban brewery circuit, last week's Spotify debacle with Neil Young and Joe Rogan, and the importance of artists taking time to develop their sounds and the process of curation from a peer review and community perspective. Feature tracks "Still Jaded" Dan's latest EP: Hardly Know Ya Jaded Don't Know Anything