Musician / Songwriter John Faye (Caulfields, IKE, John & Brittany) loves nothing more than sitting across from musicians and other creatives at their favorite diners and letting the conversation go wherever it takes them.. origin stories, road stories, and plain ol' $hit talkin'. Everything is on the table!
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Hey Diner Buddies! We've reached another cool milestone with the "Talking At The Diner" podcast.. we are officially 60 episodes into our mission to amplify the voices and stories of working musicians and creatives. SIXTY! That's five years of monthly conversations that have become a living document of the Philadelphia music community (and beyond). I wanted to do something special for the 5-year anniversary of the show and I can't think of a more appropriate guest than Lisa Schaffer. Perhaps surprisingly, she is not a musician, but for the past two decades, Lisa has been a major presence and fo
It's hard to believe we are at Episode 59 of "Talking At The Diner" - my quest to shine a light on the stories of working musicians is like a bottomless cuppa coffee from your favorite greasy spoon. And this month's episode is another great fly-on-the-wall chat with a musician it has been a pleasure to get to know over the past couple years. Quentin Scott Jones is a member of David Uosikkinen's In The Pocket, and like many members of this collective, he has forged a long arc in his music career. Informed by his younger years growing up in his family's horse business, pivoting into car sales, t
Greetings Fam! Here's a great listen for you as you drive off to your Memorial Day Weekend destinations.. Episode 58 of "Talking At The Diner" features an up-and-coming artist who is just beginning to gain some well-deserved recognition, but one of my goals on this show is to shine a light on musicians at all different points on their journey. Professionally speaking.. my guest Máty Rodriguez goes by just her first name.. something very few people can actually pull off. You know: Elvis.. Madonna.. Britney. But from the first time I saw her perform at the Iris Music Showcase back in 2024 I knew
My guest on Ep. 57 of TatD is a real "get" (as they say in the biz)! Many rock fans know this guy well because his resume goes on for a country mile and his talent stretches even further. Kenny Aaronson first caught this once-young fella's attention as the bassist with the coooool hair in the Billy Squire music videos that were all over MTV back in the day, but when you look at all the people he's played with, both as a sideman and an official band mate, it's kinda insane. Kenny was Rolling Stone’s Bassist Of The Year in 1988 and he’s played onstage with a list of artists that’s just too exten
My guest on Ep. 56 of TatD is someone whose persistence and sheer tenacity in keeping her music career alive and thriving is something I deeply relate to. Zou Zou Mansour - the driving force behind Philly rock band Soraia - has seen so many changes in her over twenty years fronting the band that she knows “better than this” when it comes to being attached. And this makes the longevity of the creative core of her band all the more special. While Soraia has definitely seen its share of guitar players come and go - I even did a brief stint with the band back in 2022 on some dates opening for Joan
What's up, diner buddies! Well, with yet another major snow event heading toward my hometown of Buffalo.. errrrrr.. Philadelphia, I'm happy to report I was able to find a window of decent weather to head back down to the hometown of my youth - Newark, DE - to meet up with my friend Marcus Slade, otherwise known as Marchitect. I recently got to hang with Marcus at Smiley's Diner, which holds the distinction of being the first "diner" where I really spent a lot of time, housing many a "Moons Over My Hammy" (iykyk) back in the day when it was a Denny's and I was coming up in the Newark scene, pla
I'm excited to bring you the first installment of "Talking At The Diner" for 2026.. the year of our lord. My guest on Ep. 54 is is none other than my bandmate from the John Faye Power Trip and IKE..... Drumroll please...... that's right, it's Cliff Hillis! Now, even though Cliffy and I officially stopped playing together in 2006, we have never stopped supporting each other and getting back together when the stars aligned. Last year, in fact, we played a fun acoustic show together for Record Store Day at Forever Changes in Phoenixville, and we also got loud for the first time in a long time at
Happy December, FAYE-treon Friends! For the final 2025 episode of "Talking At The Diner," I got together with one of the Philadelphia music scene's most compelling personalities. Kara Koser is the bold and dauntless leader of KOSER .. the band that - rightfully so - has her name on it. Her musical vision blends alt-rock stylings with her soulful voice, electronic flourishes, and a band of high-level players to create a musical collective that is equally potent and at-home in front of traditional rock audiences, jam-leaning festival crowds, or a room packed with 20-something college kids (as yo
Hello Breakfast Buds! For episode 52 of "Talking at the Diner," I'm back at Bob's Diner in the lovely Roxborough section of Philadelphia.. AGAIN! There’s clearly something in the "wooder" round those parts.. lots of the city's most creative artists live there, and my guest Lia Menaker is one of the most talented and unique performers on the rise in our music community. if you’re not familiar with Lia.. when get on the bus, babe.. because her music is an addictive blend of soulful jazz-inflected vocal hooks, piano chops, live looping, and an easy-going charm. I first encountered Lia at a songwr
Back in late August - the first time I recorded an episode of the pod "out of sequence" - I met up with my friend Eric Cooper, known to most in the Philly music scene as Coop. Coop is a virtuoso bass player who let's loose in bands like the Funky T, but also plays with singer songwriters like Emily Drinker and John Gilbride. His solo project Coop A Loopfeatures trippy melodic soundscapes created primarily on bass guitar using loops, effects pedals, and a whole lot of imagination. Our meet-up at Bob's Diner in Roxborough (a popular spot, having been the setting of three episodes of the show) wa
I’m excited to share Episode 50 of “Talking At The Diner!" I wanted to ask a heavy hitter to be my 50th guest on the show and when I think of heavy hitters in the Philadelphia music community, my guest really fits the bill not only in terms of his experiences and accomplishments, but he’s literally a heavy hitter sitting behind the drum kit for Philly rock legends The Hooters. David Uosikkinen was raised in Levittown and came of age in the early days of FM rock radio. If you are of a certain age in this part of the world, you already know of the Hooters rise from local heroes to international
Greetings Diner Buddies! My guest on episode 49 of TatD is a rising star in the Philly indie pop community - singer/songwriter Caroline Quinn. Caroline is a relative newcomer but has in the past year achieved impressive success on TikTok and Spotify on the strength of her cool and quirky sense of style and her super-catchy viral single “Alien On My Mind” - produced by recent TatD guest Ross Bellenoit. Full disclosure: for this episode, I made an exception about what some might consider the very foundation of the podcast - eating in a traditional diner. You know, with vinyl booths, and off-bran
Mackenzie Johnson is supremely talented singer-songwriter who grew up in Bucks County, PA about 30 miles up I-95 from Philadelphia and now splits her creative life between Philly and New York. A poised and confident performer, with the soul of a musical theater kid, Mackenzie is a bonafide social media heavyweight. Her Youtube channel has over 620K subscribers and her TikTok has over 226K followers. Yes, you read that right. In our conversation, we get into how she navigates and tries to bridge the gap between her impressive online communities and the more "analog" world of DIY gig promotion a
I went out to Bob’s Diner in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia for a repeat visit after having first been introduced to this charming spot by Emily Drinker in 2023. I was very excited to meet up with two uber-talented musicians’ who happen to be a married couple. Ross Bellenoit and Andrea Weber are both hugely respected members of the Philly music community. Both highly educated in their respective instruments and both are themselves music educators. Ross attended the now sadly defunct University of the Arts in Philadelphia and studied jazz guitar and eventually joined the faculty there.
Very often on TatD, I seek out guests I don’t know all that well because it’s fun to get to chat with and learn about new people, but sometimes it’s fun to sit down with friends you’re known a long, long time. And such is the case on this episode with my two guests, both of whom play in a Philly band I have been close with for twenty years. We’ve played countless shows together, in front of thousands of people, and they've both played music with me in my bands and projects. One of them has produced records of mine, one has done a vast amount of the graphic design on my projects. I’m talking ab
This is a very special episode of TatD. I mean verrrrry special. During a "social media day" we shared back in February, I was thrilled to hang out with my fellow bandleaders of Asian American Pie II coming up on May 17th at MilkBoy in Philadelphia. Carissa Matsushima is the powerhouse band leader of Kikashima. Judah Kim is AAPie co-founder and my first two-time guest on the show. Listening back to the conversation, which happened at the West Chester Diner in lovely West Chester, PA, I think both Judah and I were more than happy to focus on hearing Carissa tell the story of her upbringing in s
I recently got a chance to hang out at one of my favorite haunts - the Broad St. Diner in south Philly - with my friend Taylor Kelly. Taylor caught the music bug as a young school kid in upstate New York and moved to Philadelphia from Boston after college in 2016. By the time she was in her early 20's, she was already a seasoned touring musician, playing trumpet in a big band (an actual 18-pc big band!) and getting a degree from Berklee College of Music. Taylor occupies a space in the music scene that I am honestly not as familiar with as I’d like to be but she is now my gateway drug into the
I met Philly musician / singer / songwriter Deirdre French in 2019, less than a year before Covid, when she walked into the open mic I was hosting at the Khyber in Philadelphia, and basically silenced a loud, chatty room with a pin-drop performance showcasing her impressive vocal and songwriting chops. In the intervening years, she’s done a lot of personal and artistic exploration and now she’s just released her debut full-length album "Sensitive Girl," an eclectic blend of her many artistic shades, from 90’s rock bombast, to Costello-esque lyrical snark, to jazz-inflected introspection. Deird
Happy 2025, diner buddies! I am so excited to begin the new year of "Talking At The Diner" with this conversation. Tyler Asay is the lead singer and band leader of The Tisburys, a Philly-based indie band who are close to my musical heart because they are at the forefront of what I like to think of as a Philly power pop renaissance, which has been bubbling under with fellow torch bearers like Log Flume, Second Grade, and the Jette Planes. Tyler is one of those musicians who loves the lineage of music in a particular genre or scene, and the Tisburys land squarely in the Philly pop rock tradition
I met up with Brendan Johnson - guitarist and primary songwriter of Stella Ruze, a band that he started in 2014 with vocalist / mandolin player Katie O' Donnell, keyboardist Mason Hunter, and trumpet player Alex Styer. In the ten years the band has been together, their sound has evolved past early comparisons to The Lumineers and Mumford and Sons to a more complex marriage of modern folk melodicism and jam band experimentation, dropping beautifully melodic gems with four-part vocal harmonies that can morph into psychedelic instrumental odysseys at any moment. Celebrating their tenth year as a
I first met Camille Peruto when she was just 14. We were the designated opening acts for 80’s rocker John Eddie at Coffee Works - a long gone music venue located in a shopping center in Voorhees, NJ. Even then, you could tell she had something special. In the decade-and-a-half I’ve known her, she’s gone from Coffee Works, to American Idol, to her current life as a can’t stop / won’t stop gig machine. Self-managed and self-reliant, she can be seen playing solo acoustic shows all over her home state of New Jersey practically every night of the week. At the same time, she has also amassed an impr
I recently met up with Philly podcast host and longtime musician Dan Drago at the Penrose Diner in south Philly and before we even walked in he kindly hooked me up with a bag of homemade goodies made with stuff from his own garden. I scored jars of homemade tomato sauce, salsa roja, pickled green tomatoes, and even figs. FIGS! I got all that, and all he got was a John Faye Power Trip CD from 1999.. somebody got the short end of the stick there! ;) If you don't know Dan, he is the host of 25 O’ Clock - Philadelphia’s longest running music podcast.. he thinks. I am a devout follower of this pod,
I’m super excited about Ep. 38 of the show because I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Olivia Rubini.. now, those of you familiar with my story know that the last name Rubini is a very important one in the long arc of my musical life. Ritchie Rubini has been my partner in crime with the Caulfields for three decades. His late brother Rudy played a huge role in getting the band signed to A&M. Suffice it to say I am deeply connected to the Rubini family. So, it is particularly cool to have been privy to the journey and the ascent of Olivia, daughter of "Richard," as she likes to call
As the 2-headed driving force behind onyx&honey., Rob Perna and Nikki DiGiorgio are a musical love story that has become the heart and soul of the music scene in West Chester, PA. West Chester is a bit of an island unto itself.. it’s not too far from Philadelphia but it is not what you would call a Philly satellite either. It’s a unique scene that has had its fair share of cyclical change and Grateful Dead cover band over-saturation. 💀 But it also has a great annual Porch Fest, the Turk’s Head Music Festival, alignspace (where we all met), and a whole lot of very kind and talented musicians,
This episode of the pod brought me back to The Tasty (see Ep. 31).. a lovely vegan spot in south Philly, where I met up with singer / songwriter / producer Max Davey and her partner in crime, multi-instrumentalist and producer Steve Novoa. I’ve known Max for a lot of years - we first met in the early 2010s when I was the open mic host at Dobbs on South St., but that really feels like a lifetime ago for both of us. In much more recent history, Max Davey has made a mark in the Philly music scene in 2023-24 with a string of eclectic singles. In addition to some killer originals, Max and Steve hav
