Sean Ongley

Author: Sean Ongley

  • Quiet Spirituality with Steve Simeone

    Quiet Spirituality with Steve Simeone

    Steve Simeone is a religious man, and quiet about it. He doesn’t announce it and perhaps my show was a rare break from pure comedy, I don’t know. All I know is that he’s got that positive energy that I’ve never really had and it is something to behold.

    We start with the fact that he’s from Delaware County, which is so close to Philly and so similar, we got to bond over that. I saw him do his Wawa bit in Royersford, PA, and it crushed. It is totally relatable and there is something about that place that puts everyone on their best behavior. It represents who we all should aspire to be.

    Getting to talk with him was a big deal, he’s the most successful comic I’ve had on the show, broadly famous and well connected to my favorite comics. I tried to make this the most professional presentation of the Not-a-Podcast Show yet.

    Audio bit me in the butt.

    Even after setting everything up, I moved the laptop downstairs and there was an auto-switch to the internal mic of the laptop and I couldn’t hear it because these systems don’t give you direct monitoring of the output signal. As an engineer that drives me nuts.

    So my good mic was not even the source, it became a prop. Ugh. Thankfully, I produce from a soundproof room, well padded, and the ambient noise is reduced to my creaking chair.

    Not just that, but the background audio feature on the streaming platform cut off randomly just as I was about to do a fade in.

    This blog is where I admit everything that went wrong and give a little personal side to things. Don’t take it as complaining.

    However, it did step a notch up for this show and my process is working. I appreciate Steve for joining me. He’s the best.

  • F Drone for Philly

    F Drone for Philly

    F Drone for Philly by Yours Truly

    I dedicate this piece of ambient music to Philadelphia. It is in F minor.

    This is also my first piece of music produce from my new bedroom studio. When my last tenant left, I took over the room as an office and post production room. Every “post production” room works great for electronic production.

    I am using my usual ax, the Arp Odyssey, record in Ableton with a single soft synth track in midi. Mastered in Logic and posted as a single here and SoundCloud.

    When I have enough of these drone to release a volume I will. Also the vision for short films, very simple ambient films, should also be produced for these. Let it happen. Let it come.

  • A Hot Flow with Madison

    A Hot Flow with Madison

    Madison is a new yoga instructor based in Orlando, Florida. Her practice has become a core aspect of her life and she will very likely make it a larger aspect of her livelihood. We met through an online community.

    Over the last seven months, we’ve developed a long distance friendship, and she is truly an honest person, logical and compassionate at once. She prefers not to discuss topics or expose more details about her personal life than what I’ve given, at this point. Maybe another time.

    I ain’t gonna lie. This was a tough session. I turned off my AC because on a summer evening it converts into a hot yoga room in no time, but actually because I was afraid of the noise in the background.

    I was correct. And I needed to mix my mic down, but not turn it off. To hear the breath of the student is a good thing, if they are breathing well. I am pretty good. The big problem I had was mic quality. It was atrocious.

    I apologize for the audio on this video.

    However, if you can get used to it and follow Madison’s lead, then we have provided a valuable document. You can come back to this and master the lesson. I haven’t yet, but I plan on it. Of course, I learned from it, and she offered pointers after the session.

    Again, it is a tough session. I am an intermediate yogi and I fell apart on the last pose. Part of that is trying to do this with bad perspective to the computer and her camera I guess was mirrored, but really, she brings a complex series of poses together with a lot of double work.

    She said that I wanted a power workout but I never actually said that. This is my blog and I’m going to say my side. I told her what I have learned and stressed that she do what she does, no more. When she rehearsed this flow, she told me it went fast and easy. So that’s a lesson as a teacher.

    I love to learn and I am willing to air my mistakes. This blog is all about that.

    I hope you enjoy it.

  • Drum’n Demo Series

    Drum’n Demo Series

    Interpreting “Reckoner”

    Three dual-camera videos to demonstrate that, to at least a presentable level, A) I can play the drums B) produce the drum tracks and C) cut multi-cam video for whatever purpose.

    The first of these three videos came out the best. It is a jazz interpretation of “Reckoner” by my favorite rock/pop act Radiohead. This is one of my favorite songs and even they struggle to capture what they did in the studio with this song.

    Someday, it could almost be done with this drum take and different musicians dubbing in the music, I would like to cover the song with a complete band live. This video should help illustrate to people what I want to produce.

    Covering a few songs.

    The next is a few songs that I’ve butted up together to show a range. It’s all rock, but it’s a range, and these are songs that I practice regularly, amidst roughly thirty songs that I’ve been learning.

    The editing is not as good as I’d like, the playing is not as good as I’d like, and those go hand in hand. Part of this is to show that I can edit mistakes seamlessly into a Multicam situation. The average viewer can’t spot each jump in the song, but good players and editors will see it immediately.

    One problem is that I threw out two complete sessions because the iPhone video was somehow lost. This one is honestly the third coming back from a trip and not having played drums for a week.

    The songs are “Y Control” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Manic Depression” by Jimi Hendrix Experience, and “Achilles Last Stand by Led Zeppelin.

    Improvising a little bit.

    Finally, it’s just me. What is interesting is that I used to be a total improviser. I barely have discipline now. I should take all of these songs and transcribe the core drum parts as well as the musical sections and have them on my music stand.

    I don’t even run the fundamentals like I did when I improvised. I’m very weird like that. All I do now is sit down and start playing my playlists, and I almost never play a song twice. It’s like I’m forcing myself to know what it means to be prepared to play at any moment.

    Something else that has been good for that and has accelerated my playing has been the open jams at The Grape Room in the Manayunk neighborhood. You can find me there many Wednesday nights just jumping on stage and facing whatever the players throw at me.

    No doubt, by the end of the year, I’ll run another round of these with my new camera, giving me three angles and a much higher quality camera.

    The drum session can be opened up and tweaked as well, rather than rebuilt from scratch. I hear a gate that’s releasing to abruptly on the mid tom. Not awful but it’s there and I’ll have to fix it.

  • Holding it Down with Chris Neff

    Holding it Down with Chris Neff

    Live Interview Recorded June 11, 2022

    It is always fun to get on a live interview with someone whose podcast I listen to, such as Cash Daddies, where I like to pick up both humor and financial information. That program is co-hosted with comedian Chris Neff.

    He was the third host to come on the show. Like Lebowski’s rug, he ties the whole thing together. The other hosts are former Goldman Sachs trader and Manhattan-based comedian Howie Dewie, and Sam Tripoli, whose conspiracy podcast Tin Foil Hat remains one of my favorites.

    Chris has been performing in Los Angeles for many years, sharing the stage with the best of them. Early in his life, surely he was chasing the illuminati dream, and landed himself a lucrative career in commercial acting.

    With the internet era, the sort of checks put out for a relative select number of actors for television royalties eventually waned. The career dried out. And in the process of all that, he started operating a small business pretty much out of his home, which remains successful today.

    As a stock trader comedian business owner, his perspective is unique and fits snug in the comedic styles of Dewie and Tripoli.

    It was great chatting with him for the hour in this interview. We talk about life in Los Angeles, the markets, creative careers, and of course the biographical stuff mentioned above.