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- Bobby's Snacks Vol. 43: Cowabunga, Dude!
Bobby's Snacks Vol. 43: Cowabunga, Dude!
Bob Raymonda
November 02, 2025
Happy #AudioDramaSunday Friends!
Long time, no talk. It’s been just under 6 months since our daughter, Adeline Bird (Birdie for short), was born and it’s been an absolute whirlwind. Everything you can conceive about having children in advance is true, but also: there’s something about it that’s just impossible to grasp until it’s happening. Fumbling through our first couple (hundred) diapers, assembling various gadgets and gizmos, making a mad dash through outfits that will only last a couple of weeks, feeding both on and off a schedule… It’s all been a lot, a magical lot, but frankly the thing that I find better than anything else? Is the contact naps. I genuinely don’t care what anyone says about us “spoiling” her with those hazy daytime hours where she’s passed out on our chests—we know full well that the time we’ll have that distinct privilege is fleeting at best, so we’re just allowing ourselves to live for it right now.
Last night my band Ghost Tour played a Halloween show at Singlecut Beersmiths in Queens as ¾ of the Ninja Turtles. It was one of those Halloween parties that encourages costumes, but then you show up in one, and realize that a majority of the other people in attendance didn’t take the note. That being said, it was a blast, and I was home before 10 pm, which as a new parent? Was a huge perk of the situation. In two weeks we’ll be releasing our second EP, Feel Some Good Again, that we recorded back in March with our friend Joe Rom of Hilda Music, and celebrating it with another show at Alewife Brewing in Sunnyside, Queens with our pals Kate Keller and The Buddy System Forever. I’m beyond excited for this release, as it features the first song I brought to the band directly that’s quickly become one of our favorite tunes to play out. If you happen to be in the five boroughs, I’d love to have you!
I’m really excited to be back writing about this medium that I hold dear, but I have to be honest with you all (and myself) about how things are going to need to look different for the time being. There’s obviously no world in which I’ve got the bandwidth to cover every single show I’ve listened to over the last six months, nor is it realistic for these updates to remain as long as they used to be. I don’t have 2.5-3 hours to dedicate to writing them every Sunday morning (and am, in fact, currently pre-writing a lot of this dispatch on Thursday). I’m going to keep myself to writing about 5-10 shows max per newsletter, when in the before times that was really more like 15-20. That certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t love you all! It just means… I’m tired. And, as far as cadence is concerned? It’s going to be purely dictated based off when I have the time to throw one together! Not that any of this really matters to anyone other than me, but I want to be up forward about it with you folks, who I do appreciate so much for sticking with me for this long. Especially after the extended break.
On that note, let’s get right down to brass tacks:
I’m going to dive right back in here by talking about where we’re at with my own show: now that we’ve finally released the penultimate episode of our second season. These recent adventures have turned out better than I ever could have imagined. I’m particularly proud of the work being done this year by my old friend Marcus Xavier Stewart, who plays Argus, a character I’ve never been shy about saying is my baby in this series. Also stunned by the new depths that Jess Miller has brought to Queen Wanda, who can switch from gut-busting comedic relief to deeply felt emotion at the drop of a dime. Adam Raymonda has been killing the score and sound design, and it’s just making me think that maybe we will actually finish this show after all. On top of all that? We just received Gold in the Fourth Annual Signal Awards for Best Scripted Fiction Podcast!
I won’t lie, when I first read the pitch for this one, I wasn’t sure it was going to be for me. I’m just not typically a magic-based-urban-fantasy girly. I’ve always liked a heaping of space with my speculative fiction, and was never really into that ubiquitous series of books by She Who Must Not Be Named. That being said, there is quite literally nothing in this world that would stop me from listening to a new joint from Gabriel Urbina and Audacious Machine Creative. And I am so glad that I did: this dark academia legal thriller about two academics who become the first two known people in the world to actively practice magic? It is chef’s kiss all the way around. I’m obsessed with the work that Lauren Grace Thompson and Andrés Enriquez are doing with these two leads, but also PARTICULARLY thrilled with Joshua K. Harris as their difficult to please professor, Julian McCandless. I’m so excited to hear where this show goes next. I just know it’s going to be a wild ride.
You’re telling me it’s the year 2025 and there’s an entire first season of a blisteringly funny and relatable independent show written, created by, and starring Lauren Shippen? Sign me all the way the fuck up from minute one. I still haven’t caught the season finale that aired on Halloween just yet, but the journey of Harper, a mid-thirties millennial just struggling to get by in her Upstate NY hometown, and Havoc, the literal demon from hell who has shown up 20 years late to possess her is fantastic. Putting the whole thing against the backdrop of an anti-capitalist fight against the Amazon stand-in Mammoth? And you’ve read me all the way to filth. I’m especially interested in the way that Lauren has been able to create video content in character on Reels (and presumably TikTok which I’m too ancient to ever bother to understand). I’ve always been so impressed with the way she’s been able to meet the moment when rolling out a new show, and I’m convinced this one will gather the adoring audience it deserves.
Continuing along the trend of new shows from the titans of audio fiction, Andas Productions has released the first three episodes of their first serialized independent show since Temujin. Roshan Singh Sambi and team have been killing the game with their work on DC High Volume: Batman, but THIS is what I’ve been waiting for from them. Their adaptation of Miles Tay Yan’s Singaporean noir thriller is everything I’ve been looking for in a show by this team. It’s dark, it’s gritty, with pulse-pounding music by Marcus Thorne Bagala & Jamie Leidwinger and immersive sound design to match by Nathaniel Mah. I’m not entirely caught up yet (still have to hear Friday’s update), but am so beyond chuffed to be going along for this ride every single week for the next several months.
I’m honestly bummed that this show came out after my kid was born and I didn’t have the spoons to cover it episode-by-episode. This post-apocalyptic road trip folk musical following Odessa on her journey across the wastes of America home to her beloved wife Penelope gripped me every single time I pressed play. The writing, performance, and lyrics by creator Jo Chiang are all top notch, and give me the queer American mythical re-telling that I’ve been looking for ever since Ella Watts and team brought us season one of Camlann last year. I am beyond thrilled that we’re going to get an album cut of the music from across the brilliant ten episode season, because trust me when I tell you it is absolutely full of complete bops. It’s made all the more wonderful knowing that the team recorded much of the score inside their own local bar hangout in Brooklyn, which adds all the extra juice and flavor you’re looking for. Please listen to this show as soon as humanly possible.
Mac Rogers, Jordana Williams, Sean Williams, and the entire Gideon Media team are on a whole other level with the third season of their indie sci-fi masterpiece. It is of the current political moment in a way that few other shows can even begin to scratch at: between Avi, a once queer and liberal friend of Talia’s falling down a Christo-fascist internet rabbit hole, to the citizens of Red Camp trying to earn their place in this country by taking jobs at a local fast food place, and those same Christo-fascists camping out nearby to continually threaten their status and future. What I’m really loving this year is how much Graham/Joshua have taken a bit of a backseat to the wider ensemble, because while their adventures are what sent us into the world of this show, it’s the greater cast who is bringing so much new flavor this season. Special shout out to Nat Cassidy who continues to kill it as the secret evil trio, The Committee.
After too long away, Jonathan Mitchell has revived this landmark audio fiction anthology series alongside the core four writer’s room of Hunter Nelson, Davy Gardner, Mary McDonnell, and Louis Kornfeld. Their first episode back was a fun, richly sound-designed jaunt through a FBI-op at a pinball bar in the 70’s, and became an immediate classic. But it’s the second release of these first four, Here I Am, where the team proves they’ve got a whole new bag of tricks up their sleeves. Kornfeld’s story of a family with a nonverbal child, whose mother learns piano in order to access the music that he’s been beaming into her head, while his father remains disengaged and in disbelief? It’s stunning on every single level, between the hauntingly gorgeous score, to the painfully relatable script, and the magical performances across the board. It was a such a massive shame when this show first ended… I’m so glad it didn’t stay gone for too long.
We’re on the third and final season of Faith McQuinn’s COVID-inspired pandemic thriller and it’s better than ever. I had the distinct privilege of reading a lot of these scripts in advance, and trust me when I tell you that it’s going to continue to be the special gripping series that it’s been from the very beginning. The dueling journeys of best friends/scientific colleagues Theo Ramsay and Gabriel Larson as they deal with the emotional and professional fallout of mentor Savreen Khanna’s very public delivery of a bombshell about their research is brilliant. The cast here is firing on all cylinders and the endgame feels like it’s just out of reach. I’m going to be so sad when this show is over… but also thrilled, because that means it’ll be time to find out what Observer Pictures have on the docket next. I’m positive it’ll continue to be some of the best work you’ve ever heard.
Season two of Critical Role’s impossible to put down Midst-follow-up recently concluded and I’m already chomping at the bit for what is next. This year leveled up over last in almost every single way: pushing the ensemble cast to their absolute limit while also introducing more and more exciting/terrifying new things for them to confront in the mysterious new cosmos where they traveled to at the end of season one. I will never get over how insanely intriguing it is to have not one, not two, but three narrators who are seemingly disconnected from the main narrative, and yet so inexplicably wrapt by the story that they’re delivering. It’s just as whimsical and miraculous now as it was when the original show first stumbled into my queue, and I’m looking forward to years more of these mischievous bastards.
It would be frankly impossible for me to return to covering audio fiction without acknowledging yesterday’s surprise Epilogue to celebrate this show’s tenth anniversary. While Welcome to Night Vale is the show that brought me to this medium, and Limetown, Archive 81, and ars PARADOXICA that kept me here in those early years, it was Lauren Shippen’s voice that truly showed me that this world was something I needed to play an active part in. It was so punk rock, the way in which she took her friends from acting class and together willed their careers into existence by simply making stories that they believed in. We were take to such wonderful heights across 7 brilliant seasons, and I would have been completely okay never visiting these characters again. And yet the way in which it’s delivered? As Dr. Bright delivers updates about this strange and wonderful found family at the graveside of Agent Green, with a brief appearance from Shippen’s own Sam, who was visiting her parents’ plots nearby. It doesn’t feel conspiratorial. It doesn’t feel like we need to be ripped back in because the intrigue never stopped happening. In fact, it feels like we know all we need to know: that these characters we loved are all doing okay. That they love each other. That they’re growing and changing and just doing their best to be the people we loved all along. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
BONUS SNACK
I’ll never forget discovering this band after seeing the music video for All That’s Left on Steven’s Untitled Rock Show in 2003. Sneaking a $20 from the lockbox in my mom’s bedroom so I could go to Wal*Mart at lunchtime and picking the album where the single was from up, so I could run it ragged in my walkman. And in the 22 years since, they’ve put out countless songs and records that have continued to mean so much to me. It was like, the more they grew and changed as artists and musicians, they were meeting me at the exact moments where I was when they came back. And that was no more true than on their recent twelfth record.
They’re a band who has never been content with sitting within the same genres or trappings that they’ve visited before, while also never shying away from dipping back into their different musical palettes when they make sense. This record is the heaviest, vibiest, synthiest thing that they’ve done in years, and it translated so perfectly into their live show when I got to see them at Irving Plaza last night. These old knees are tired, and my voice is run ragged, but I’m so glad I got to shout songs I’ve loved for decades alongside a room full of people to whom they were as important to me. And even happier to have seen them all reacting as ravenously for the new work as I felt. Thrice Forever. And Ever. And Ever. And Ever.
