When I started podcasting in 2012, I couldn’t find any podcasts about Dayton. Today if you search “Dayton” or “Dayton, Ohio”, a lot of podcasts are available. That makes me happy.
I started podcasting in 2012 with “Tales From The Hardside”, about my life growing up in East Dayton. That quickly became something more than I could have expected. I ended the podcast at episode 313 in 2018.
In 2013 I became a contributor to Gem City Podcast. Eric Ruiz started the podcast and contacted me before he released any podcasts. I advised him, but he had someone set it up.
In 2015, Eric told the group of people working on the podcast he was leaving town. He turned the podcast over to us. At that time it was myself, Libby Ballengee, Mark DaGrossa, and Scott Epic. We had help behind the scenes with Josh Gwin and David Sparks.
Scott Epic & Izzy Rock are in the Oregon District doing “gonzo” style podcasting while they pub craw
My thought was the podcast should be a local audio magazine, similar to a ‘zine. I wanted three episodes a week that covered various topics.
Monday would be “Community Conversations” with Libby and Mark having long form conversations with personalities, politicians, police, professors, businesses, authors, filmmakers, comics, and also release some important discussions of redlining, disinvestment of West Dayton, and so many more historical conversations. I welcomed Libby to have full creative control of her episodes and would never censor her. It was an honor to edit her podcasts.
On Wednesday’s, I wanted to do Storyteller episodes and cover the local music and podcast community. Offering a voice and support to any and all, uncensored. We featured artists releasing new albums, we did live shows from Sideshow and Miami Valley Music Fest, and during that time I invested researching the various musical communities. I was proud that we gave a voice to hundreds of different musical artists in this historic area for music.
When it came to podcasting, I didn’t believe in competition. I wanted community. I welcomed local podcasters, wanted to showcase them to the community. I hosted two Dayton Podfests, and a podcast workshop. I began listening in 2006 and they changed my life.
Mark DaGrossa, Libby Ballengee and “Izzy Rock”
I found a local podcast called, You Can’t Make This Up with DJ Killa Kev and Kev Nash of HOT 102.9 and invited them to release their show on our feed for our Friday episode. I believed if we were going to be about Dayton, we needed diversity in our audio magazine. Those guys would release their podcast on Sunday and then it would drop in our feed on Friday. They covered sports, pop culture, and we’re a welcome voice to the community. I love those dudes and thank them for the years of partnership.
We won Best Local Podcast, I was named Daytonian of the Week, I was respected by my peers, and even Joe Rogan followed me on Twitter. I have influenced many people to podcast and if you’re reading this and want to do it, do it.
We made no money from the podcast because of how it was set up. We did have a GoFund me that raised a little bit of money, but we spent way more of our time and money putting content out because we love this community and believe in the people of Dayton and Southwest Ohio. We inherited the podcast, but did not have the email and phone number associated with the website host GoDaddy.
On the morning of August 10, 2020 I tried uploading Episode 900 and the website was down.
After reaching out to the person who set up the podcast, I was told that they no longer work in IT and could contact GoDaddy, but without the email and phone number of the website or at least someone willing to be on the other end of those, I could not get the website up and running.
I contacted the creator of the podcast for the info and was told, “no idea. social media is social conditioning and virtue signaling thru attention seeking. with countless studies of how it’s actually hurting people i can no longer allow myself to aid in the corruption of other humans, even when the majority of those humans are hypocritical hive minded sheep. good luck. I’m not sure who this is, and I’m not giving another second of my energy to anything on a screen. I got out for a reason. If you need a hug let me know. Sorry for being rude, but I’ve seen enough truths to know which side I wanna be on when this game comes to an end. peace.”
So that’s it. We can’t release a podcast right now and to be honest, we had flirted with stopping at Episode 937 since that’s the area code for the area.
I’m a bit burned out after releasing nearly 1400 podcasts since 2013. I’m not done podcasting by any means and I bought the LLC for Gem City Podcast a year or so ago. And you can still stream those podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or Overcast. I could never get on Spotify because of the email situation.
So here we are, the end of an era of Dayton Podcasting. We’re not sure if we’ll return, Libby and myself are effectively ending the current version of Gem City Podcast. We love all of you. We loved having conversations with you. We loved sharing your music and projects and giving a community a voice.
I still love the local music scene. Like a lot. I’ve made some wonderful friends and some legendary memories. I hope 2020 and what we’re all going through makes us all stronger and better off. Please be kind to each other and especially yourself.
Thank you to all the people who made this kid from East Dayton who was inspired by the local scene in the 80’s and 90’s that was being covered by Spin magazine and producing artists like Guided By Voices and Braniac, feel part of the scene.
Terry @TheIzzyRock Martin
