For the past four years, I have written and produced an audio documentary series called Shuffle and Repeat. Up to this point, it has been mostly available as a podcast. I've always been fascinated by the interconnectedness of music and history. Music tends to reflect the times in which it's created, perhaps more so than any other medium. As a result, music not only tends to reflect the times but it also usually becomes a part of that history in motion. Music is also our greatest common denominator, and it has proven to be an immeasurable agent of change. Moreover, Shuffle and Repeat allowed me to use music to talk about significant, universal truths about where we come from, where we are, and where we may be going.
The series has been the most fulfilling thing I've ever created. It led me to a broader understanding and appreciation of music and history. It has also opened up a dialogue with so many people; friends, family, and complete strangers have been actively supporting the series since 2016. The show, which I create from my bedroom, has had tens of thousands of downloads, across nearly three dozen countries and five continents. Together, this global audience and I have explored topics ranging from the fun, to the superserious, from one-hit wonders and summer festivals, to matters of politics, protest, race, and gender. And if nothing else, I have consistently used the show to stage a philosophical question that (I believe) makes us all more contemplative people: this time tomorrow, what will we know?
Though not a musician myself, my love of music stems from nearly two decades working in and around the music industry. I have the utmost respect for the talent and hard work that goes into making live and recorded music. As such, I have always been careful to walk the line of using copyrighted music because, while I don't own the license to play this music, I only use it for instructional purposes and never make any money off of it. In fact, every song I ever used on the show, I went out of my way to pay for, to ensure as much money as possible goes back to the artist and the people involved in making it.
Nevertheless, I always knew this day could come, and today, it finally has. The recording industry has asked my distributor to begin deleting my episodes because they don't want me to use the music without paying licensing fees. While I have a fundamental disagreement about the ideology at play, I absolutely respect and appreciate their reasoning, and at the end of the day, it's just good karma for me to comply.
So, as of today, Shuffle and Repeat episodes are no longer available in the usual places, and the series is on hold. But as one of my favorite music films put it, "Don't dream it's over. All over the world, young men and young women will always dream dreams and put those dreams into song." I have been having some exciting conversations for the past year about new directions to take Shuffle and Repeat. I genuinely believe that it will return someday again and hopefully be bigger and better than ever.
“Thank You”
I want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who took the time to download an episode, listen to it, react to it, reach out to me about it, and share it with others. I can't count the number of emails and texts and DMs I've received over the years, from so many friends and strangers. I've had the great good fortune of even interviewing some friends and featuring their music along the way. Knowing that this show brought families together to listen to episodes about the recording process, or the history of Motown, the Sound of Philadelphia, and the Laurel Canyon songwriters is a compliment the size of which I could never possibly measure.
Thanks so much for being a part of Side A of Shuffle and Repeat. As soon as I can figure out how to flip this record over and start off Side B, you'll be the first to hear about it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Peace.