Day One of the Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville is in the books and man, it was a scorcher! Jake and Jeff, Shine, Nolia Joy and the Ramblers and so many other fantastic musical acts and I met a ton of super friendly, enthusiastic people who were a blast to hang out with and talk…

Inspired by the wonderful Brian Colburn from the My Weekly Mixtape podcast, I decided to take a hard left turn this week, as I prepare to fly down to Gainesville, and do something a little different! We’re going to take listener suggestions for artists to use as a starting point from which we’ll attempt to…

In 2013, the Heartbreakers played a five night mini-residency at the Beacon Theatre in New York city. Among the tracks from the archives that the band pulled out during that run was today’s song, When a Kid Goes Bad. In an interview with Relix magazine, Tom says “I will make a point of playing that…

The incomparable Dan Spiess is back to talk about the upcoming Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville, from November 7-9! We talk about the lineup for this year’s shows including the two brilliant headline acts for Saturday and Sunday. We chat about how organizing for this year has been different from previous years, especially the complications…

Tom is hugely proud of this song. In Conversations with Tom Petty, he tells author Paul Zollo, “Dreamville” is one of the best songs I ever wrote. That was about innocence.” And it’s this innocence that contrasts so starkly and so effectively with the corporate interference in The Last DJ, or the commodification of Johnny’s…

Tom is hugely proud of this song. In Conversations with Tom Petty, he tells author Paul Zollo, “Dreamville” is one of the best songs I ever wrote. That was about innocence.” And it’s this innocence that contrasts so starkly and so effectively with the corporate interference in The Last DJ, or the commodification of Johnny’s…

This disconnect between the artist and the audience is one of the subjects that Tom uses to explore the theme of greed that was the overarching construct behind the album. So this leads me to another quote from Tom in that 2002 interview that really does just get down to the nub of the matter….

The specificity of the song got Tom into a little bit of trouble and the single was banned on a lot of stations who didn’t reach for the deeper meaning and saw it as a direct attack on radio itself. In 2010, Tom told Mojo UK, “Radio was just a metaphor. ‘The Last DJ’ was…

I didn’t want to start the new season in earnest while I was away as I knew I wouldn’t have as much time to prep and barely any to record and edit, so I wanted to get a special episode and was trying to think of what to do to ease into the season. These…

Today’s episode is a fantastic chat I had with my friend Eric Senich, who has been on the show previously, back in October of last year. As well as being an outstanding podcaster and rock historian, Eric also spent a large part of his early career as a DJ, so I thought it would be…