Decompressed

Philly Podfest, Podcast Movement 2019, Woodstock 50th

Well, I’ve finally decompressed after a much longer than anticipated hiatus. In late July, I participated in the Philadelphia Podcast Festival or Philly Podfest for short. I recorded a live show at the Tattooed Mom on South Street. The locals call it TMom’s.

At Philly Podfest with (L to R): Hal Aaron Cohen, Dan May, Lizanne Knott and Ciara Grace

Podcast Movement 19 in Orlando

A few weeks after the Philly Podfest, along comes PM19 – Podcast Movement 2019 in Orlando Florida. What an ordeal.

Hal (that’s me!) standing at the entrance to the Great Hall before the commencement of Podcast Movement 2019

PM19 didn’t begin until Tuesday, but I wanted a day to take in the surrounding and familiarize myself with the neighborhood.  So okay, I arrived in Orlando on Sunday night.  Got to the condo about 11:30 and figured I’d find a local bar and get a Heineken.

First Day of PM19

Registration time for PM19. Stay calm. Form six single file lines!

Met some of the biggest names on podcasting including Jared Easley,, Dan Frank, Steve Stewart, Dave Jackson, Jim Collison and Chris Curran.

IM19 Week

Over the course of the next few days, I attended seminars, classes and workshops. But, mostly I just wandered from booth to booth, meeting other podcasters and picking brains.  

Join me as I recount some of the highlights of my week at PM19 in Orlando, Florida.

FNU Intern, Hal Aaron Cohen (me again), Perennial at the fake News Update booth

Hal Aaron with Dave Kanyan from Dumbing It Down With Dave

Response to Email

I responded to a reader  about the Lisa Nemzo episode.  Shoutout to Martin H.  Samuel – thank you for writing!@

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Woodstock and The Atlantic City Pop Festival

When most of us think of rock festivals in 1969, only one usually comes to mind – Woodstock! And no wonder… a half million people, that’s five hundred thousand! 500,000 showed up for three days of peace, love and music! Folk, rock, hard rock, acid rock, jazz rock and genres still being invented at the time.

I didn’t attend Woodstock. I had already purchased tickets to another event that was scheduled for about two weeks prior to the one on Yasgur’s farm. I’m talking about the Atlantic City Pop Festival at the AC Racetrack in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

While there were some minor issues with off and on rain (I don’t remember it ruining any performance), the theft of some merchandise and a few did try to climb the fences, but for the most part this was a very well organized event. Perhaps you have to be totally disorganized to get real attention.  Woodstock was certainly a mess compared to the AC Pop Festival.

The promoter was Larry Magid from Philly’s famous Electric Factory. And most of the acts that were at Woodstock, played the AC Pop Festival first.

Friday’s linup: Chicago, The Chambers Brothers (who ended the night with people dancing to “The Time has Come today”, Iron Butterfly, Joni Mitchell (who ran off stage in tears after in the middle of “a Morning”), Procol Harum , Mother Earth (with Tracy Nelson),  AUM, Booker T & The MG’s and Lothar & The Hand People.

Saturday: The Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, B B King, Tim Buckley, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Byrds, Lighthouse, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Hugh Masakela, and The American Dream (from Philly!)

Sunday: Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, Canned Heat, 3 Dog Night, Santana, Buddy Miles Express, Dr. John (in his night tripper persona spread his gris-gris magic dust all over the audience), Joe Cocker, Buddy Rich, Sir Douglas Quintet (Leader Doug Sahm called the AC POP Festival the best festival he ever played) and Little Richard.

Now here’s the kicker…  (and I have never heard anyone else mention this!) David Peel and the Lower East Side!

Please COMMENT in the  comment section below the transcript! Or email me at halinphilly@gmail.com. I love to get feedback. And 5-star ratings  on Apple Podcasts 🙂

Resources and Links Talked From This Episode

Steve Stewart – Learn to  Edit Podcasts With Audacity

Dave Jackson & Jim Collison – Ask the Podcast Coach

Dave Kanyan – Dumbing it Down With Dave
Be sure to comment. Dave loves comments (and so do I!!)

For the full account of the rarely discussed Atlantic City Pop Festival, here is the full…
Jonathan Takiff article from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Full Show Transcript

Road Warriors Come out to Playayyy…

Well, I’ve finally decompressed after a much longer than anticipated hiatus. In late July, I participated in the Philadelphia Podcast Festival or Philly Podfest for short. I recorded a live show at the Tattooed Mom on South Street. The locals call it TMom’s.

(Hey, you ever notice how Philly people always have to shorten everything or give it a nickname? I can do a whole rant about that. Actually, I think I’ll save that for a rainy day.)

For the live show, I tried something completely different. I thought I’d try a panel discussion with three singer songwriters including local folk rocker Dan May, and his close friends Lizanne Knott and her daughter Ciara Grace. Lizanne is a well known singer songwriter, too. She just released a brand new album, and Ciara is recording one now. There’s a lot of buzz surrounding Ciara’s project, so I’ll keep you posted. See the show notes on the Tales of the Warriors website for links to all of this music as it unfolds!

Podcast Movement 19 in Orlando

A few weeks after the Philly Podfest, along comes PM19 – Podcast Movement 2019 in Orlando Florida. What an ordeal. They were expecting over 3,000 podcasters to attend workshops, presentations, classes, network events, vendors showing of the latest technology and products for podcasters and the biggest, wildest parties, the biggest one sponsored by iHeart radio on the last night. Just a crazy crazy cry cray intense time.  I had been anticipating this for months! I arranged for a nice room through AirB&B, secured my tickets to all three days of the event, booked my flight and arranged for a rental car. My neighbor agreed to watch my dog, which was perfect, because his dog and mine are besties. So no worries. Still, I don’t really like to travel that much, and I hadn’t flown to another city in years or attended a big convention like this –  so this was a huge deal to me. So just a few days after the Philly Podfest thing, I get an email form AirB&B informing me that the person that was renting me the room?

Cancelled… I mean WAIT! WHAT???

Yes, for whatever reason, they decided not to rent the room and now here I was with everything ready to except a place to stay when I got there. BTW, just so you know what kind of great deal I had, the Rosen Shingle Creek, where the convention was being held would could over $500 per night. Theplace I got through AirB&B was about 20 minutes away and would only have cost $48 dollars a night. So where in hell was I going to find another deal this close to the date of the event!?  Believe it or not, Craigslist!  I had immediately put out the word in a couple Podcasters Groups Facebook, on my profile page and on Craigslist – which I fully expected someone would attempt to scam me out of my life savings… which ain’t much, so no worries there. I even made a few phone calls to people I though might have some Florida connections, nope. Nothin. Nada. Zero, Zip.

Next day I get an email from Craigslist, from a guy who offered me a room in his condo. A half-million dollar condo in Winter Park, Florida about 40 minutes from the Rosen Shingle Creek. $49 bucks a night – only a dollar more than the AirB&B deal. TO make a long story short – it turned out to be completely legit. The guy, his name is Alan Peck, is a real estate guy, he owns a little 13 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Bell. She looked a lot like my Cooper, my late Cavalier who I still miss a lot. I knew this guy was cool because I had gone to his Facebook page and his LinkedIn account and found he was pretty well respected. Turns out he used to do AirB&B himself, but his condo association frowned on it so he stopped taking in strangers. But he saw I was in trouble and reached out! So, thank you Alan! I owe you one! And please – give little Bella a hug for me.

The Elusive Heineken

PM19 didn’t begin until Tuesday, but I wanted a day to take in the surrounding and familiarize myself with the neighborhood.  So okay, I arrived in Orlando on Sunday night.  Got to the condo about 11:30 and figured I’d find a local bar and get a Heineken. Now, I hadn’t had a beer in about 3 months, because I just don’t really drink very much these days, but I thought I’d treat myself to a nightcap since this was a special occassion. Alan directed me out to Park Avenue and I figured whether I made a left or a right, I’d hit a bar or restaurant that was still open. So I made a left. Should have made a right. Of course I didn’t learn that until I had chased that Heineken till every last bar and closed. The first place I came to had just closed 5 minutes before I got there, but they told me there was a place about 20 minutes away that was open until 2. So I found it. But it was Sunday night, and they had decided to close early as well. When I got there, all of the employees were milling around the parking lot  saying goodnight to each other. They told me there was a place close to where I had started from, also open late on Sundays. So I head back tow where I started. Then I come to an intersection where the light was broken, but being from out of town, I didn’t know that. I just thought it was an unusually long traffic signal. By the time I figured out that light was never going to change and made California turn (That’s where you turn right and swing back around and make another right since you couldn’t rum the red light)… I had given up all hope on that beer. And as it turns out, I never did have that Heineken until a week later, after I got back to Philly. And then I had two.

The next morning, I checked Facebook and saw that a member of the Podcast Movement Group, named Dave, had arrived at his Air B&B Sunday night, just like me. And he had posted a picture of a little college dorm-sized fridge that he had stocked full of Miller High Life! I think I commented below the picture something like – I wish I knew you were there last night. I would have helped you drink them. He probably though I was some gay guy coming on to him.

First Day of PM19

I got to PM19 early the next day. Coffee in my hand.  When I entered the building I found myself at the end of a massive hall. It was as big as the inside of a convention center. I don’ know, You might even fit a Convention center inside the hall of the Rosen Shingle Creek. Okay, I get the name Rosen. Old man Rosen probably named the hotel after himself. SO it was owned by the Rosen family I guess. But who named the place Shingle Creek. That’s not very appealing, really. Was there creek there at one time where people got shingles from going in the water? I think they should rethink that. Just call it the Rosen Universal. You don’t see people lining up for Disney World, Shingle Creek, do you? Okay, Maybe it’s just me – rant over.

So, as I was saying, it’s the first morning, but Tuesday was more of a meet and greet networking kind of day. The main event was actually Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So I was just wandering around taking in the grandeur of the place. It was only about 9:45, and who should I see sitting by himself with no one around to either him yet  was one of the biggest names in podcasting, David Jackson. He invited me to sit and chat, so I did. As far as I’m concerned, I got my money’s worth right then and there on the very first morning of the very first day. He was very gracious and we had nice conversation. I tried not to pick his brain too much, …just let him know I enjoyed his podcast School of Podcasting podcast and his  show, Ask the Podcast Coach  on Youtube, – which is true. I was hoping to meet his cohost Jim Collison, but Dave didn’t know where he was. That’s okay, though it was only Tuesday. I had lil Friday.

About 10 minutes later, I see Steve Stewart! Steve is also one of the people I had  hoped to meet . He teaches a free introductory audio editing course online…  and for only 50 bucks, you get access to the full course on how to edit a podcast using Audacity which is a free audio editing program for Mac or Windows, and considering the fact that there is no charge to download – it is a fairly robust and dependable program. The learning curve is NOT terribly steep and Steve Stewart’s course covers everything you need to know and then some! There is a link to it in the show notes in case you’re interested in learning how to edit audio. Even you’re not interested in podcasting, if you want to record music, it is a good way to learn how it works.

IM19 Week

Over the course of the next few days, I attended seminars, classes and workshops. But, mostly I just wandered from booth to booth, meeting other podcasters and picking brains.   

During one of the keynote events,  This guy is a contestant on a game similar to Shark Tank where you pick your idea for your podcast. I think they called it Goldfish Tank. Anyway, this guy is big heavyset  guy with a New York accent pitching a show called Dumbing It Down With Dave. I recognized him instantly. It was the same guy who posted the picture of himself in from of the fridge full of Miller beers. After he sat back down, I made my way over to the table to meet introduce myself. I had to meet this guy. So, I told him about my ordeal chasing down that elusive Heineken that never materialized. I’ve since listened to his show, too. It’s called Dumbing It Down With Dave. His name is Dave Kanyan and he’s a true road warrior – a truck driver and a comic. He does his show, the world’d fastest podcast every week while in his car at speeds up to 80 mph (maybe more) driving to pick up his truck. At the end of the week, he does another podcast, exhausted from a week of driving and

occasionally running over these bumpy things in the road that help keep you awake. He talks about whatever is on his mind. He’s very spontaneous and usually pretty funny. You’ll find a link in the Show Notes, so you can check out his podcast on Spreaker or Stitcher or whatever app you use to you get your podcasts.

I met a guy that calls himself Perennial (his real name is Isaac Young). He is the wild, crazy and manic host of a podcast called the Fake News Update.

In the meantime, I continued to wander around checking out mics and mixers, picking brains, and picking up puppies at Luminary’s Puppies and Free Beer booth. That’s right, this podcast company need Luminary actually brought live puppies and gave away free beer to attract new customers. Talk about marketing genius. Well, I don’t know how successful they were, but they were the cutest puppies and there booth was constantly crowded, so I’m sure that got some people signing up.

EMAIL LIST

Shoutout to Dave Cunningham from AWeber… a fellow musician from the Philly area and an expert in email newsletters. So I’m going to get out to see him gig soon with the Go Ham, his popular party band, and hopefully he’ll help me get my email campaign on the right track. Speaking of which, I am really trying to build my email list so sign up on the Tales of the Road Warriors site and don’t miss an issue. I promise I’ll only send news that’s relevant and fun — nothing spammy.

Eating for Free

I almost forgot to tell you – somehow, I managed to eat for free the entire first day of the show. Alan, the guy who let me stay at his condo treated me to a Krispy Kreme donut, which I enjoyed with my coffee before I left for PM19 that Tuesday. While talking to Steve Stewart, I somehow got invited along for breakfast at the Rosen Shingle Buffet where were joined by another big name in podcasting and podcast editing – Carrie Caulfield Arick.  I may have been slightly out of my league. I have no idea! Steve picked ups the tab for breakfast, which by the way, Steve Stewart if you’re listening – thank you, again.

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Woodstock 50th Anniversary/AC Pop Festival

While most people are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, I actually have a much more vivid memory of The Atlantic City Pop Festival which took place a couple weeks earlier on August 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the Atlantic City Racetrack. For a very thorough accounting of this amazing three-day event, there is an article by Jonathan Takiff, of the Philadelphia. Updated: July 28, 2019. He tried to contact me at the beginning of the summer through my Stuff For Baby Boomers site, to reminisce about the AC Pop Festival. But, I had been devoting so much time to this podcast, I didn’t see his message until recently.  So, I deeply apologize for not getting back to you, Jonathan!

Now here’s the kicker.  (and I have never heard anyone else mention this Heading back to my car, I saw an acoustic band in the parking lot.  with a pretty good size crowd clapping and chanting along. As i got closer, I realized it was David Peel and the Lower East Side. I guess since they didn’t get booked officially, they decided to make an appearance anyway.

Hey!  I just realized, some today is my 67th birthday, this all happened when I was 16 going on 17. Also the year I lost my virginity. Thank you, Lisa 😉

Atlantic City Pop Festival Lineup

Friday:
Chicago, The Chambers Brothers, Iron Butterfly, Joni Mitchell, Procol Harum,  AUM. Booker T & The MG’s and Lothar & The Hand People.

Saturday:
The Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival (one of the hottest groups in the world at the time), B B King, Tim Buckley, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Byrds, Lighthouse, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Hugh Masakela, and Philly’s own The American Dream.

Sunday:
Janis Joplin,  Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, Canned Heat, 3 Dog Night, Santana, Dr. John the Night Tripper, Joe Cocker, Buddy Rich, Sir Douglas Quintet, and Little Richard!

Now here’s the kicker.  (and I have never heard anyone else mention this Heading back to my car, I saw an acoustic band in the parking lot.  with a pretty good size crowd clapping and chanting along. As i got closer, I realized it was David Peel and the Lower East Side. I guess since they didn’t get booked officially, they decided to make an appearance anyway.

So, I just realized, today is my 67th birthday, and this all happened when I was 16 going on 17. Also the year I lost my virginity! Thank you, Lisa 🙂