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- Bobby's Snacks Vol. 36: A Dissonant Whisper
Bobby's Snacks Vol. 36: A Dissonant Whisper
Bob Raymonda
January 12, 2025
Happy #AudioDramaSunday & New Year Friends!
It’s been frigid cold here in the northeast this last week and change, but right now I’m feeling incredibly warm. Last night, my band Ghost Tour had our first show of the year at Yonkers Brewing Company alongside our friends Polish John, Cautious Funday, and Honey Daze. We absolutely packed out the room, and despite some unfortunate technical difficulties, still put on a set that I’m extremely proud of chock full of new bangers that we’ve been hard at work on. I’m so stoked to be regularly getting onstage again alongside some of my best friends, and really appreciative of all of our friends and family for turning up in full force. On top of that? We’re trying to lock in some studio time to cut another 5 tracks, and I am so beyond thrilled for y’all to eventually be able to hear them.
Sam and I have been hard at work on the home front, trying to prep our tiny one bedroom apartment for our impending transformation into a family of three. So far, that’s mostly meant packing up piles (and piles… and piles) of books, clothes, and other sentimental items and slowly filling up a storage unit so that one of our closets can be free for all the baby stuff we’ll soon be inundated with. Sooner than later, we’ll have to think about upgrading the whole place, but while she’s a tiny peanut, I think we’ll do AOK.
One last thing before we get to this edition’s reviews: I’m gonna vague-post about a couple of new audio fiction projects I’m currently working on. Up first is The Perfect Sentence, an incredibly personal record written and performed by my pal Jeff Van Dreason and a host of other incredible voice actors that will be crowdfunding mighty soon, along with a brand new (and improved) pilot for a project I recorded and then abandoned all the way back in the sludgy mess that was 2020, Seven Little Ghosts, starring my friends Dallas Hawthorn and Tau Zaman, with sound design also by Jeff. While I can’t tell you all too much more than that about either thing at the moment, I think 2025 is going to continue to be a special year in far more ways than one.
And now, we audio drama:
I had one final episode of this brilliant miniseries after our last update, and what an episode is what. BB and Gabe have Ed in their sights as they’ve made their way to the year of our lord 1987. The war is coming, battle lines are drawn, and this millennia-long relationship between angel and demon will be put to the test. But lucky for us, we know whose side they’re on in present day, and know that as far as Jerusalem, OR is concerned, they’ll do their best to be on the right side of history. If only because things are more interesting that way.
It becomes mighty impossible for Candy to wait until after Minty’s sister is married to investigate the North Pole’s newest string of murders when the groom-to-be turns up dead. From here, we learn the true meaning of this ill-fated union, and why it was never meant to be in the first place. There’s murderous intrigue, cinnamon-flavored empires, and true love to contend with, and while everyone probably would’ve preferred no one to end up dead, the ultimate results are copacetic all the way around. I want so many more episodes of this show. PLEASE go listen to it. Now. I don’t care that the holidays are over. It’s hilarious all year-round.
I’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of this episode all year long. Lauren Shippen already tested herself by creating a long-running (week)-daily show in Breaker Whiskey that’s already released well over 200-episodes, but now we’ve finally returned to her equally ambitious, if smaller-scale project where a pair of immortal magicians/illusionists meet up once every 13 years on New Year’s Day to compare notes on their endless existence and will release for the next 9 years. Performed by longtime Atypical Artists collaborators Briggon Snow and Andrew Nowak, this show has so much of what we should know to love and expect from this team, and more. There’s barely simmering, long held resentments, jealousy, but also? A real tenderness for one another. Can’t wait for the next one!
Things are getting mighty tense out here in the wasteland, with the approaching Great Horde growing ever-closer to the Golden Gate community every single day. And yet, while we know there are dangerous consequences to eventually come from this clash of communities, there’s still plenty of time for our beloved cast to spend time together. Hannah and Cali will always be my safe space, even if they are having to waste a lot of their energy on planning how to confront impending doom.
Oof. That episode was JUICY. We finally get a long-needed heart to heart between Fel and Leona that digs deep into what they both have been running away from in their time with the troupe. And while there’s a whole lot for them to not be proud of, the care and understanding that they show one another through this difficult conversation is pitch perfect. Ishani Kanetkhar is always a dream no matter where she pops up, but Sam B. Nguyen absolutely gives her a run for her money here. I honestly never would have expected the developments we learn here (be it a light bit of patricide, or outright enforcing fascism), and yet it makes me love and understand both of these characters that much more where they’re at now. Stellar stuff all the way around.
This is the first of two new-to-me shows in this week’s update! Gabriel Urbina pitched this show to me the last time we all got together back in the fall, and I immediately knew it was right up my alley. A podcast-radio show from a bunch of high schoolers in the wake of the shuttering of their newspaper edition dealing with local gossip and intrigue? I’m all the way in. I’ve only listened to the pilot so far, but this charming series has a lot of legs in it and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.
Speaking of Gabriel Urbina, we’ve gotten another addition to his run on this perfect specimen of a show and hot damn. It starts simple enough: there’s a new volcanic mountain that’s causing the sky to look as if it’s literally on fire, and people are stoked to look at it. Of course, ever the prepper family, we get some practical tips from Jamie’s dad on how to best view the phenomena without causing yourself or anyone else around you any greater harm. But what really hurts here is the end. When Jamie finally has the courage to admit to Malik that she isn’t coming back to Chicago. At least not any time in the immediate future. And despite all the weight she’s carrying from that statement… what really shocks here is Malik’s admission that he knows. It’s a heartbreaking exchange that sends the episode in to an earlier end than we’d expect, and fuck. It hurts.
And here’s the second new-to-me show on this list! I’m ashamed that I missed the launch of this one last year, as it’s so clearly up my alley. A weekly show where a mysterious figure named Sir and his erstwhile Apprentice determine the fates of souls lost to this world by reviewing pockets of their lives through the remnants they’ve left behind. It’s hauntingly beautiful and ephemeral in the kind of way that I’m always looking for, with top notch narration and an eerie score to boot. I’m only two episodes in here, but very ready to keep powering through. Fantastic work by Eira Major, a creator whose work I’ve long been meaning to dig deep into!
What better place to continue down the path of murder and mayhem than a socialite’s lavish birthday party? Hampton Fawx and James Stallion have two very different reasons for being here, whether that be incognito information gathering, or celebrating the life of a man who, unbeknownst to you, has been scamming you for weeks now. It’s a hilarious jaunt, as always, with unforeseen consequences that only deepen the mystery at hand now that we’re at the halfway point of this season. I’m so ready to learn who’s doing the killing this year… but also, in no rush, because then that’ll mean it’s time for our friends to hang up their pipes and hats until it’s time for season 3!
Oh my god. Every time I think this show can’t get any better than it already is, it goes and releases another episode that tops all of the rest. I can’t say that I ever expected this interstellar cosmic journey to have the time for a LARP-style mystery dinner theater put on by one of the ship’s passengers. It honestly gave me flashbacks to a time in college where I worked at an Apple retail store and got passed over for a promotion (in name only, not pay bump) because I declined to participate in a pirate-themed murder mystery night. But in a good way! This group had everything you’d expect: the people who get really into it, the folks who spend every moment out of the host’s earshot talking about something else, and someone who figures everything out way faster than they’re supposed to. And then that final moment? Where the party is over but the mystery is just beginning? chef’s kiss
Things are really heating up over here for the Menendez siblings! Junie, who is still mostly incommunicado, has given her brother and sister a fresh lead in the form of plane tickets to Mexico City. A journey they’re not entirely sure they should undertake… but obviously do anyways, because this is their call to adventure, and they damn well won’t ignore it! We also get some juicy tidbits about when Junie was first recruited, and who she may have linked up with in the time since her disappearance. PLUS! A necessary check-in with the kids parents who don’t want to believe that their remaining (not missing)children will disobey them, and choose instead to ignore what’s right in front of their faces.
It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here! Just kidding, I know I already talked about the first season 2 prologue in my last newsletter, but this is the one I’ve really been waiting for. When Caroline Mincks first shared the scripts for this season with me, I knew that Van was going to be a special character. Even more so when they told me that Ishani Kanetkhar would be playing her… and god, did their chemistry jump off the page from the first sentence. But this is the first time I’ve actually gotten to hear the two characters in action, and good god, does everything translate even better than I ever could have imagined. So perfect! Can’t wait for more!
Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum was my mentor in undergrad at SUNY Purchase College, and honestly one of the best educators I’ve ever encountered in my life. She understood how to develop and foster a deep love of reading and writing better than anyone I’ve ever met. And her work speaks to that same power: literally on a word by word, sentence by sentence level, her craftsmanship has always been supreme. So I was thrilled to learn that she would be publishing her first novel (after three knock out short story collections) this year, and gosh: did she deliver. This Nordic-noir takes place in the same Puget Sound where Sundberg Lunstrum grew up and still calls home, and follows a young single-mother professor in the 1950’s who’s tasked with imparting language to a seemingly wild girl found roving along the shores of a island penitentiary. Alone in the wilderness for who knows how long. The mystery of Atalanta’s parentage and abandonment play second fiddle to the harsh necessities of navigating a man’s world with passions and ambitions all her own. I tore through this book in a day, and genuinely hope you’ll consider picking it up. It’s a triumph.