Sean Ongley

Author: Sean Ongley

  • Wading Upstream with Nicco Augustave

    Wading Upstream with Nicco Augustave

    Nicco Augustave is co-host of Aquarian Anarchy and I was interested in how he swam his way upstream to that podcast. He half the age of the other guys, and society would have him going a totally different direction in his politics let alone social life.

    This conversation went two hours as we slow simmered a stream of consciousness discussion about the issues surrounding the Anarch way of life. It is wide ranging and touches deep territory while swiftly moving on in the stream.

    I’ll be honest. I lost track of this conversation. I always try to keep just enough control over the interview that it remains recognizable as such a thing. I also enjoy free-flowing conversation and don’t like to hold the reigns on it.

    I enjoyed it however and look forward to another talk.

  • Self-Empowerment and Community with Nathan Brannon

    Self-Empowerment and Community with Nathan Brannon

    Video livestream with Nathan

    Yesterday, I sat down in the basement with Nathan Brannon in the yard. He won Portland’s Funniest Person contest a decade ago, subsequently debuting a comedy album to Kill Rock Stars. Today, he focuses on growing food and sharing his experience on social media.

    The conversation moved quickly from humorous to serious, digging in the weeds of communities challenged with healthy food scarcity, concepts surrounding systemic poverty and state intervention with food benefits that enable poor people to continue buying bad food.

    We agree that growing our own food and engaging with our own communities is the solution, while struggling with the problem of motivation and engagement.

    You can find Nathan at www.nathanbrannon.com.

  • Creative Process and Finding Our Place with Estevan Munoz

    Creative Process and Finding Our Place with Estevan Munoz

    Livestream with Este

    Joined by Estevan Munoz for an hour plus catch up session, we go into topics surrounding the creative process. Portland versus Philadelphia and how an artist evolves from their home base.

    One of my first contributors with THRU Media, he was only 19 and searching for a portal to Portland. The time he spent helping build that foundation for the publication was mutual and it reinforced the direction he continued to go. I always thought he had the spark and I continue to see it.

    You can find his work at www.estevanmunoz.com.

  • OHS Sessions Volume One

    OHS Sessions Volume One

    In 2017, when I had settled into the THRU Media studio, I began to host music sessions of my own for the first time in years. I asked my friends Jerry Soga and Doug Haning to come over and do some good old “free jazz” with me.

    Jerry played acoustic bass. Doug played reed instruments, and a little bit of electric piano. I played drums. We didn’t have a band name, I just wanted to produce some sessions. In the end, I have called it Ongley, Haning, and Soga (OHS).

    Each volume consists of two sessions. Each session was combed through for pieces that could be recognized as having an organic start and end point. Each piece was labeled by sequence: sessions 1-6, cuts 1-xx.

    After isolating those cuts, I mixed and mastered them. Once I had the complete sessions, I listened through all five and a half hours of content to slim it down by half.

    The result is three volumes in diminishing length. The first is out now and the remaining are being staged for monthly release.

    It is interesting to hear how we progress over those sessions. By the end, we have a band with a certain kind of sound. My drumming tightened up, but it’s still sloppy, and difficult because we play outside of time. Sometimes we are united by tempo and rhythm, sometimes we each have a different sense of it, but we’re always listening.

  • In the Psych Ward with Joe Nami

    In the Psych Ward with Joe Nami

    Peering Into the Darkness with Joe Nami

    While the thousands of fans of Joe and myself waited patiently on Twitter for our long anticipated talk, the two of us were bemused with the lack of a microphone signal. But alas we got through it and still had another hour to talk, and the clamoring audience joined us.

    We start with his trip to the psych ward. We don’t linger there because I wanted to get to the root of his madness. We take all kinds of deviations into topics like JFK, the tragedy at Astro World, Dave Chappelle, Dune, and mushrooms. Of course we talk a lot about comedy.

    This was my third installment of the livestream series, setting the groundwork for a forthcoming podcast.