Last night, my friend Dave and I channeled our inner Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.
Except we’re not kids anymore.
But we were just kids when we worked at 97X.
It was the station that played either weird music for weird kids or cool music for cool kids, depending on your perspective.
Dave and I have been doing a podcast about 97X since 2018. We’ve posted more than 120 episodes. That’s a lot of scheduling, recording, editing, posting and promoting.
But a couple of months ago, I floated the idea of doing a live event for the small-but-mighty crew of 97X faithful. We reached out to our friend and former 97X co-worker Julie Maxwell, who lives in Detroit but has a daughter living in Cincinnati, to see when she might be in town. Oct. 10th was a viable option. As fate would have it, another friend and former co-worker, Mike Taylor, also was going to be in town as well — from France!
Better yet, The Columbia – an old church that my friend Laura owns — was available that evening.
The fates were aligning. We HAD to do it.
So Dave and I cooked up the first-ever “97Xtravaganza.” A live podcast recording with Julie and Mike. Music trivia. Playing some old audio clips from the station. And just hanging out with old friends.
It should be noted that we had no idea how to actually record the podcast. Or how to set up the music trivia. And we had no idea if anyone other than Julie and Mike would actually show up.
But show up they did.
Better yet, they had a great time.
You can call us weird all you want. But I think it was cool that “the future of rock and roll” still means a lot to a lot of people, 22 years after it went off the airwaves.
Don’t let the title of this post fool you. Even if it IS Spooky Season.
This has nothing to do with pumpkins (or David S. Pumpkins).
But it IS about strangers inside our house.
They show up when I host a house concert. Which has been roughly once a year since 2017.
This is all my friend Joe’s fault. He’s the one who — way back in 2017 — told me that Craig Finn (lead singer of The Hold Steady) was looking to book a house concert in either Cincinnati or Louisville to promote a new solo album.
That house concert tour was booked by a company called Undertow, which helps all sorts of artists book similar shows from coast to coast. They’re good people doing a great service – helping artists go the DIY route and play intimate shows attended by (and hosted by) enthusiastic fans.
Since that Craig Finn gig in ’17, we’ve also hosted Eric Bachmann, Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker of Wussy (four times – including one trio show with their Wussy bandmate Mark Messerly), Jason Narducy, and last Thursday’s show featuring Lisa Walker and Elizabeth Nelson of The Paranoid Style. (On a tour they’ve jokingly called “Walker Nelson Overdrive” or WNO for short.)
(Jason’s show wasn’t via Undertow, he goes full DIY – but he knows and respects the Undertow folks.)
Some people think I’m crazy for letting 25-40 strangers into our house. (And my wife sometimes falls into that category.) But the folks who attend these sorts of shows are not beer-swilling hooligans. (They swill beer – shows are BYOB – but they aren’t hooligans.) They’re true fans who appreciate the opportunity to see artists they love up close and personal. They’re not going to mess that up by creating a ruckus (or stealing the silverware).
Last Thursday’s show included an audience member who lives in Florida but has clients in Ohio and Michigan. He planned a sales trip around the show! And another super-fan brought a cake to celebrate the start of the tour.
No, not the YA book series. The kind on your skin. Every show provides multiple goosebump moments, when the singer (or better yet, singers) play a favorite tune of mine, and you’re right there, and the moment feels magical.
Goosebumps!
It’s well worth the extra effort to rearrange the living room furniture once or twice a year. Speaking of which, a huge hat-tip to Mrs. Dubbatrubba for making the house clean-clean instead of just Dubbatrubba-clean, and to our son Peter for being an unpaid employee of Dubbatrubba & Sons Moving & Storage.
Jane Street is the best quant trading company I know. It’s also the only quant trading company I know. And the reason I know about it has nothing to do with “global liquidity.” They publish a new brain teaser puzzle every month or two. My son Peter discovered them several months ago, and he will usually enlist my help in trying to solve them. A week ago, he told me the newest puzzle was right up my alley, because it was music based:
He was right. But being cuckoo about music wasn’t a guarantee that we’d crack the code and figure out the final answer. I spent quite a bit of time trying to solve even one of the “songs” on the album cover. But eventually I got one (see below if you’re OK with a spoiler) which then led to Peter and I tag teaming on the others. (With me as the lead on the older hints and Peter tapping into his pop music knowledge for the more recent ones.)
This may seem weird to you (or to anyone who is more familiar with typical father-son pursuits such as fishing, camping, and baseball games), but I love the time we spend together working on these puzzles. Especially when one of us cracks part of one of the hints, and the other builds off that to bring it home. Two heads really are better than one. And it does my heart good to spend some quality time with my adult son. (Ditto for going to concerts by my oldest son’s band… and going to IU football games with my youngest… and going to concerts with my daughter.)
Once we understood the pattern, we were off and running. Some came rather easily, others took a bit of pondering. But like most Jane Street puzzles, solving the first part creates a second level challenge, which then leads to a final answer. Once again, we put our heads together to solve it – I got it started, and Peter brought it home.
If you solve the puzzle, you can submit your name(s) on the Jane Street site. Damn straight we took credit for our work!
And it’s smart marketing on Jane Street’s part to publish new puzzles. It’s great for building their brand and attracting the smartest minds to their company.
They even made their “why we do puzzles” explainer a puzzle!
Using our minds and putting our hearts into it – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why that’s so satisfying.
spoiler!
This was the clue that opened the floodgates for me:
At first my head went to Nine Inch Nails, because they originally did the song “Hurt.” But the Johnny Cash version is more popular, mostly based on the amazing music video (see below). So “Cash” + (in a fender bender) became “Crash.” Giving us an “R” for the next level hint. The other songs on the album are similar – artist’s name + an extra letter, and that extra letter helps spell out the next hint. Happy solving!
“Dubbatrubba, what’s your writing process?” — asked No One Ever.
Why, thanks so much for asking, Mr. or Ms. N.O. Ever!
Whatever weirdness oozes out of my brain usually starts as scribbles. Pen on paper. It looks like gibberish.
It IS gibberish. Or maybe shorthand. But after all the scribbles and scratch-outs and circles and arrows, I usually figure out what I really want to say. And turn to the typewriter to whip it into shape. (OK, it’s a computer – sorry to let you down, Tom Hanks.)
The example above was when I was brainstorming ideas for promotional audio clips (i.e. mini-commercials) to be played on Inhailer Radio. They’re playing old episodes of the “97X Rumblings from the Big Bush” podcast that my friend Dave and I have been doing for several years now. You can catch the new/old episodes Sunday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern.
The time slot is a radio dead zone – I know this from experience because back when I worked at the AM oldies/FM country radio stations (WDJO-AM and WUBE-FM respectively) the program director of the country FM station would let me do air shifts during the Sunday night slot. (With the on-air name of “Cincinnati Redd” so kindly bestowed upon me by the PD…) And there was only one possible explanation for his largesse:
But hey, this new/old medium required very little effort on our part. And perhaps it’ll introduce a few new listeners to our labor-of-love podcast, since Inhailer is a kindred spirit of 97X.
The scribbles above yielded two longer promos (you can listen to one below), two short promos, and three mid-episode “cut-ins” (“you’re listening to…). Not bad for a page of paper and some ink.
Your process may be different. (And it’s probably better.) But if you want to write, start scribbling.
In the Robert Frost poem “The Mending Wall,” the narrator’s neighbor says “Good fences make good neighbors.”
But I say “Open porches make new friends” At least, that was the case this past Saturday as my daughter Leah and I attended a “Porchfest” event in the St. Anne’s Hill neighborhood of Dayton.
It’s a cool concept (especially for music lovers like my daughter and me): free music performances on different porches (and yards) all around the neighborhood.
Explore the neighborhood and support local music at this unique annual festival celebrating the richness and diversity of the Dayton music scene.
It’s not a new concept. The first one was in Ithaca, NY in 2007. But I’d never heard of it until my friend Dave mentioned it a few weeks ago.
Dayton Porchfest was founded in 2017, inspired by the original Porchfest started in 2007 in Ithaca, NY (www.porchfest.org) and Larchmere Porchfest in Cleveland (www.larchmereporchfest.org), which started in 2009. Today there are over 200 Porchfests throughout the United States and Canada. Dayton was the 94th.
They had musicians/bands slated for every hour, with several music genres represented.
Leah and I got there around 3 p.m. – we had just found a parking spot when the heavens opened and a summer downpour commenced. But that didn’t dampen our spirits (just our footwear). Once the rain let up, we caught up with my friend Dave and caught all or parts of several sets. Bluegrass. “folkedellic,” Indie rock, Americana, soul…
We would’ve had fun just exploring the neighborhood – but we never would’ve made the trek to Dayton and explored it without the lure of bands.
Good fences may make good neighbors, but I’ll pick “pickin'” on porches every time. Because nothing creates community quite like live music.
Many moons ago, Nora Guthrie, the daughter of legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, found a shoebox full of her dad’s lyrics. British punk-folk musician Billy Bragg and the alt-country/Americana band Wilco agreed to put them to music, and an album called Mermaid Avenue was released in 1998 to much critical acclaim.
A couple of weekends ago, Billy Bragg and Wilco finally performed those songs live for the first time ever. You can check out the concert audio here — but note that it will only be available to stream until Thursday.
But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for the forgotten genius of that era of the band Wilco. His name was Jay Bennett.
As is often the case with bands, there was an acrimonious split. Wilco founder Jeff Tweedy fired Jay.
Which is a shame, because Jay had so much to do with shaping and expanding Wilco’s sound during that era, as a multi-instrumentalist, and engineer, and producer.
According to friends and former band members (Wilco would not comment for this story), Bennett’s contributions helped transition the group from its ragged folk and country roots to the multidimensional pop that gave them critical and commercial flight. — From this 2009 Chicago Magazine article by Mark Guarino
He was part of three Wilco albums: Being There, Summerteeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. In my humble opinion, that was the best version of the band. And Jay doesn’t get enough credit. Quite to the contrary, he was portrayed as a bit of a villain in the Wilco-authorized movie I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
It got ugly. Jay eventually sued Jeff for breach of contract. This was in May of 2009. Per Wikipedia: The suit came less than two weeks after Bennett publicly revealed that he needed hip replacement surgery which he could not afford due to his health insurance considering the situation a “pre-existing condition.
And then it just got sad. On May 24, 2009, Bennett died unexpectedly in his sleep… The Champaign County coroner reported about one month later that Bennett’s death was accidental, and was the result of an overdose of the prescription painkillerFentanyl.[12][13] He was wearing a Duragesic patch on his back when his body was found, said Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup.
Jay needed something for the hip pain. It’s the same way Tom Petty – who did his last tour with a broken hip – died.
28 years after Mermaid Avenue, Jeff Tweedy gave a lovely shout-out to Jay from the stage.
“Jay Bennett was a huge part of all these songs… these songs wouldn’t be here without Jay… He was a big champion of this project… Continue to think about him and continue to remember him, please…”
It’s funny how life paths diverge. Jeff Tweedy has had sustained success for decades with Wilco. Jay Bennett died waiting for a surgery he couldn’t afford. I’m sure both Jeff and Jay wished things had ended differently, if not professionally then at least personally. But I’m glad Jeff paid tribute to Jay at the show. Giving credit where credit was due.
Woody Guthrie’s lyrics were lost for a long time, but finally came to life thanks in a large part to Jay. It’d be a shame if his contribution were lost to the mists of time.
“The great thing about the work that he did is that it’s there for others to hear forever.”
Ken Coomer, Wilco’s former drummer
If you really want to dig deeper, check out this Medium post and the Jay Bennett documentary below.
Kevin Sullivan on 43-3=1,001: “Reading while listening to Keith Jarrett, “Guess I’ll Hang Out My Tears To Dry”, good good stuff Damian, thanks.” Oct 3, 09:29
Thomas Kuhl on We did it!: “Well done! Good and Honorable man!” Sep 29, 01:29
Thomas G Kuhl on Get on the bus!: “I am glad that bus keeps circling………” Sep 8, 03:37
Kevin Sullivan on The full-brain workout: “Yep, keep writing .. in your voice. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/opinion/artificial-intelligence-ai-writing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4VA.JFCf.Lr_UK5tlpBRR&smid=url-share” Aug 10, 10:57
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