HISTORY DELETES ITSELF

Back in 2017 my old friend Blake Ross and I started talking about doing a podcast together. After some deliberation we settled on the idea for HISTORY DELETES ITSELF: a podcast where old friends discuss history, dissecting a decade one year at a time. We decided that Season One would be about the 1980s because that is when the two of us met as young boys still in our teens. Originally, we sat at my dining room table with one microphone positioned between us. We took our research seriously but our recording process was decidedly lo-fi and often we’d drink so much beer and bourbon while recording the show that Blake would have to crash on my couch for the night. On at least one occasion he passed out in his car parked in my driveway, only returning to his home the next morning. We were absolute beginners, just having fun, doing our best. Usually we would get together about once a month to bang out an episode, and I would spend hours at my laptop editing, adding sound effects and music. Over time the quality of the show improved both in content and sound. Late in 2018 I became a father and that is a life change that will seriously limit the free time you have to work on your podcast. Our production schedule slowed to a crawl. And then we experienced a worldwide pandemic. We scrambled to figure out some way, any way that we could continue. We did this via Zoom calls and other segments recorded by Blake alone that I would drop into whatever segment I was working on at the time. We started to incorporate contributions from friends like Chuck Neal, Andy Schwertman, Matt Schlasinger, Tony Keefer, and more. We briefly enjoyed a phase where our pal Kip Roe was a regular contributor. Good times, great oldies.

Your hosts: Blake Ross and Ric Hickey I moved away from Cincinnati in 2021 and our piecemeal remote production schedule continued at a snail’s pace. Somewhere along the way we lost the RSS feed so graciously provided to us by some friends and so History Deletes Itself is no longer available on iTunes or any of the other well-known podcast providers. I figured out how to upload all previous episodes on Bandcamp and that’s where you can find us now. Born in the late ‘60s, growing up in the ‘70s, and coming of age in the ‘80s, both Blake and I had a great time digging deeper into the decade of 1980s. As we went along it quickly became obvious that this podcast is predominantly about the music history of that era, although we try to cover ALL the bases by talking about movies, television, pop culture events, sports, books, politics, and other events that took place around this great nation of ours and the so-called civilized world in the 1980s. The SOUND of the show has really evolved and grown over the years. Between 2018 and this writing in October 2023, we have changed up our recording equipment and editing software several times over. The most recent episodes sound nothing like the first few. And that’s okay. Change is growth. We’ve never had a huge audience nor have we ever really had a way to gauge exactly how many listeners we have. I suspect it’s very few and that’s okay too. We started this thing as a labor of love, an interesting new hobby to explore, and most importantly in those early days it was Blake and me looking for an excuse to spend more time together. Even with all the changes of the past few years I definitely feel like the experience of producing this show together has drawn us closer together as friends. If anybody is actually listening to the show that’s just icing on the cake. But there are a handful of hardcore supporters and regular listeners out there. You know who you are. Thank you all for your emotional contribution to the show. We have some friends and family members that we both feel extremely grateful for and this silly little podcast has given us an opportunity to interact with you all on a more regular basis. Blessings on top of blessings. In recent months, I have been slowly cobbling together what will probably be the swan song for this podcast. After covering 1980 through 1988, Blake and I have found that our “season finale” calls for an extended mini-series of sorts. Covering not just the calendar year of 1989, we’ll be wrapping up our coverage of the entire decade very soon. I can see the finish line from here and it is a bittersweet feeling.

My daughter Ava is already five years old. I live in a new town with a new job and currently I’m writing a book. As many of you know I am also an artist, a musician and songwriter. My sense of creative expression has taken on an almost explosive rate of output in recent years, as if subconsciously I can hear my biological clock ticking and I want to crank out as much stuff as I can in my remaining years. At 56 I have a lot of time left, hopefully. But even with my accelerated rate of output I do find that I must pick and choose carefully the creative projects that I will pursue. There’s only so many hours in the day. Which is not to say that the podcast isn’t fun anymore. It’s a blast even though it is kind of a lonely endeavor now as I’m wrapping up Season One in a neat little bundle, knowing full well that it may ultimately turn out to be our only season. Thanks to everyone who listened. I’ll attach a link to our Bandcamp page here of course, in case you might wanna circle back and check out the show. Blake and I are really proud of the whole thing. When it’s all said and done, all those hours spent discussing the 1980s will stand like a row of encyclopedias on a bookshelf for anyone interested in our overview of that time in history. Honestly, by this point I feel like Blake and I could teach a college level course on the ‘80s! And who knows? Maybe someday we’ll decide to do a Season Two. When I think about how much our world changed between 1960 and 1969, it’s hard to not think about firing this up again and going for it. Here’s where you can find the HISTORY DELETES ITSELF podcast on Bandcamp: https://historydeletesitself.bandcamp.com/ THANKS FOR LISTENING.