Holiday visits with friends around town brought Sam Sessa to Amicci’s in Little Italy to tell Nestor everything he ever wanted to know about public radio life at WTMD, WYPR and the massive summer magic created by their incredibly successful First Thursday summer nights of music at the Canton Waterfront Park.
Sam Sessa discussed the success of WTMD’s First Thursday festival, which averaged 10,000-12,000 attendees per month this summer. Despite complaints about overcrowding, the event has become a significant cultural attraction in Baltimore. Sessa highlighted the challenges of managing such large events, including weather and logistics. He also mentioned the impact of changing alcohol consumption trends among young people, noting that WTMD’s alcohol sales were up compared to industry averages. Additionally, Sessa talked about WTMD’s non-profit status, which prohibits direct advertising but allows for underwriting. He also mentioned the success of their family-friendly concert series, Saturday Morning Tunes, which has reached 30,000 families since its inception in 2017.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
WTMD events, First Thursday, Baltimore bands, festival season, crowd management, weather impact, public radio, nonprofit underwriting, concert series, family-friendly, Taylor Swift, Frozen show, Mariah Carey, Pearl Jam, concert reviews
SPEAKERS
Sam Sessa, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 to house of Baltimore, Baltimore. Positive. We’re positively down here at AMI cheese. That is like saying that we’re a little Italy. The old ads, people still come up to me every day and they yell, where are you gonna get your dick? Schneck, a me cheese. And I’m like, when I was ad was from 1997 so I know they’ve been list. Been listening for at least three decades. I was reading this guy’s work maybe two decades ago. Sam Sesa is our defending champion, one time Baltimore Sun Music critic. We share that in common. We do it’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery and our friends at Jiffy do multi care market. Debbie gonna get some Raven scratch offs here before Seth gets here as well. I’m gonna give him lucky 50 and lucky 51 here. So we get some winners. How are you what’s going on at WTMD, last I checked, you guys are having that party down in that park every Thursday. You do that thing the weather, I check, and I’m like, It’s tonight, the night. And I’m like, it’s like, Yogi Berra. It’s like, nobody goes there anymore, because there’s too many people, you know? I mean, I so I, when I lived downtown, I used to come to it all the time and be a part of it. You’ve built a brand with that thing. But I think more than that, the TMD brand is an NST guy. I’ve never felt or heard it be more vibrant than what you guys are doing right now. You appreciate that. So a lot of love going on over there. This
Sam Sessa 01:23
was our biggest first Thursday festival season we’ve ever done. We were averaging 10 12,000 people a month this summer down there. We
Nestor Aparicio 01:30
that’s a lot of people. Dude, that’s what I’m talking about. I know. And to your point,
Sam Sessa 01:34
one of the biggest complaints we get on social media is there’s too many people. I don’t want to go anymore. I’m like, Well, what do you want me to do? The parks only so big and it’s such a beautiful spot. A beautiful spot along the
Nestor Aparicio 01:43
water, if you get the right weather down there that, and that’s you’re always a weather watch, though, right? Oh my
Sam Sessa 01:48
gosh. I try not to look, because until the day before, I can do hurricane coming in. But we had, have you heard of this Baltimore band? They’re in the jam scene, pigeons playing ping pong. I
Nestor Aparicio 02:00
know, I know what a big deal they are, yes. So we had them. They reached
Sam Sessa 02:04
out to us and said, Hey, can we play a first Thursday? We want, really want to do one. They’re a big band. Never played one before. You know, they’re a band that, like, they’ll do two nights at 930 and sell it out. You know, both nights. And they’ll do, like, big theater runs and sell them out. So, you know, one of the biggest, one of the bigger bands to come out of Baltimore in the last 10 years, right? And you’ve had some
Nestor Aparicio 02:22
nice regional bands down there, and you really have, you had revivalist before they were, like, I was there that night. That thing was insane. Yeah, it was about 155 degrees. That’s the other thing, man, it’s summertime. You just can’t control. I mean, I always think about this like being a Baltimore guy like Preakness. Sometimes Preakness is 51 degrees and raining, and sometimes it’s 112 and I got pit stains all day, I know, and I feel like I want to be out there in the tank top. Weather is everything. And when I think of your festival, all I think about is I cross my fingers and say, if you how many, you do six. It
Sam Sessa 02:54
used to be six. We shaved it down to four after the pandemic, so we could really focus on making them as big and like, you gotta go back to six, dude, don’t. Don’t. No,
Nestor Aparicio 03:02
no. Nobody wants that. Hold on, July, August. No, right. June through September. June through June, July, August, September. We cut May, cause it kept getting rained out, because May is always so rainy and, well, they put that concert at the beach now with Def Leppard. So no, but you know, boardwalk at the beach that looks awesome. Sam says, is our guest, and I, like, you know, you’re an Eastern Shore guy. You and I’ve had these conversations. I don’t even know your pathway to getting to the Baltimore Sun. I started seeing your bylines. You were writing about more sort of hip, contemporary kind of things. And I got to know I met you at a Springsteen show 20 years ago. I guess, crazy, how long ago this has been. But like, you’re a music guy, What? What? What exactly do you do at TMD, except pimp TMD, which is what you’re gonna do, sure,
Sam Sessa 03:50
so I will. Thanks. I was on air for 15 years, and then a couple years ago I started doing, like, seven or eight years ago, started doing more events for TMD, and then when YPR bought WTMD, and three years ago, they were like, do you want to do events for both radio stations and not be on air anymore? And I was like, Yes, please, because I don’t know how you do this. Nestor, but doing one thing for a long period of time, it just makes me stir crazy. Makes me nuts.
Nestor Aparicio 04:14
I stopped doing this. I retired in 2005 from doing it ever. I did it every day for 14 years, which is a long time, yeah, and then I took a break and I wanted to manage the business, which I did. And then my wife got cancer in 14 and I’ve been back on 11 years. My wife would tell you, I’m enjoying this. And even just like literally reaching to friends like you that haven’t been on, I zoom with you during the plague, whatever the beauty of the crab cake tour, even when there’s not a crab cake. Today is I got nine or 10 friends coming down for the holidays doing it. You know mano, a mano having a grown up grape soda, if I wish, with Jody down here to me, she’s i. There is a point where, like, you have to love what you do. And I would not love being I know, I know the phones fan, the fans at the fan would find hard to I wouldn’t enjoy working for Odyssey and being on afternoon drive and taking phone calls and doing five days this week of nothing but Steelers ravens for four hours a day, right? And being limited in saying I I’m not allowed to talk about concerts or the government or Donald Trump or meatballs or whatever I want, eggnog, whatever I feel like talking about. So owning the place has been a great benefit to me to do what I want to do, but moving around in every day I’m doing something different. But I this is tough work, I know, and I didn’t realize in the 90s when I did it. I’m like, this is easy, compared to writing a story on a deadline, which I was familiar with at the paper, right? This was more like a different kind of deadline with traffic and in the clocks and stuff in radio that I had to deal with, but the the notion that I would get tired every day of talking about the ravens, you couldn’t have convinced me of that when I was 35 okay, right? Like, you know, it’d be like saying, If I don’t know, I think you can get tired of anything. I mean, I can only lay on the beach five or six days in a row. I love the beach, but then that’s enough for me. What did you did a different you were a jock, right? I mean, you spoke in and played songs, right? You didn’t do talk radio, right? No, you’re
Sam Sessa 06:26
so right. That was a host of a show that was all about Baltimore music and regular music and interviewing those bands and all. So you did have an interviewing part of it, though? Yeah, I did what? But you don’t miss that part. You still get to do some of that, right? I do. But here’s the thing, like that was always my favorite part. My least favorite part was the part where you have to, like, process it and put it on the air and editing like, Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 06:47
nobody edit. I edit like this. Don’t drop an F bomb, because I’m not editing. I don’t edit. So when I know better,
Sam Sessa 06:53
when you were a writer, because we were both writers, my favorite part was always talking to people seeing the show. My least favorite part was saying, Okay, now I got to sit down and actually distill all this into an article, really. That was my least favorite part of the whole thing. You have writers reluctance. Yes, writers reluctance. What I did then, you’re not a writer. It was I was a writer because I did it, but it wasn’t my favorite part of it. And I’ll tell you one more thing. I mean, I could
Nestor Aparicio 07:18
see words like being a cook in the kitchen and being Anthony board making the same dishes every day
Sam Sessa 07:23
like there’s there is a mundane part of that, but there’s a beauty in that. Sure there is. But here’s the thing like, so when I was the nightlife I was doing, I was covering music, nightlife and sometimes food, right for the sun. And, I mean, I did the take out food column on the side for three or four years. And Nestor, there’s only so many words to describe a burger, like out there, and I just couldn’t do it for more than four or five years, because I was just like, Oh my God. What is it juicy? Is it dry? Is it? You know, every time I
Nestor Aparicio 07:52
go to ecumen, I come up with a new, new adjective for like, okay, but one
Sam Sessa 07:56
more thing, one more thing, 10% of the things are really good, 10 are really bad, and then there’s 80% which are just good, right? And that’s the part that was would always drive me nuts, because it was very satisfying. You get excited about writing about the best places and the worst places, but everything that’s in between is like, okay, it was a good show, it was a good album, it was a it was a good dinner. You know? It was fine. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 08:19
I mean, I guess that’s where like variety becomes the spice of life as you get older. I is no question for me. I mean, I’ve been thinking about this through the holidays and planning in 2025 and I have this idea for this app that we’re gonna do at Baltimore positive next year, that I’ve been working on my business, aside from all this and and really, like looking through this time of year, I get nostalgic and bringing people like you over, it’s talking about shows and people I met and places I was and all that for you guys at TMD and YPR, give my audience, and, quite frankly, me, because I don’t know the answer to this question, give me the whole like low down of the business. And what it is I knew Tony Brandon and YPR for a long time. I’ve kind of known him for 30 years, right? And I know of both of the entities with Jim Ward, who’s the person that put me on the radio, worked at YPR years later, he’s the first guy to call me nasty Nestor. He’s the guy that sat with me in his office, rubbing his feet in his office, like if you call yourself nasty Nestor, you better damn well be nasty. This is 1992 this way left the paper. But for me, with what they used to be and this quasi thing that I wouldn’t work there as a salesman, because I couldn’t sell like I sell advertising. It’s because it’s different, right? And it’s governmental, and the YPR part of the talk format, I’m doing much more of a rogue and stern, sweaty balls kind of, you know, sure format, but YPR is the is that and TMD was always like a college music station where Adele would come and hang out before she was anybody right. Like, I mean, there’s an incredible history to both of those, W, y, p, r. W t, M, D, even W N, S, T or W b, a, l, they all have their own little thing. But trying to figure out what you are in a modern world where you have different restrictions governmentally than I do Sure. Yeah, we’re nonprofits. Nonprofit. Yes, okay, so start with that.
Sam Sessa 10:16
Okay. So Well, I mean, I don’t want to get too deep into the nuts and bolts of it, but we don’t have advertising. We have underwriting. So we can’t tell people what to do. So we can’t say go to amicis and buy the new whatnot, but we can say amicis has been serving fresh Italian food in Little Italy for 40 years.
Nestor Aparicio 10:32
Do you know I’m 56, years old, and I’m learning about this? Okay, okay,
Sam Sessa 10:40
no calls to action. That’s what it’s got. You can’t call somebody to action on the radio in the same way that you can on, let’s say wnsc or God,
Nestor Aparicio 10:47
I couldn’t do that. I can you make recommendations? Can you say I had the
Sam Sessa 10:52
best cheeseburger ever? Last I can, but not advertise, but that’s payola. Yes,
Nestor Aparicio 10:57
you’re right. I’ve read about that, so that’s the FCC about that, yes,
Sam Sessa 11:01
but yeah. So you know, but what I love about Public Radio, because YPR and TMD are both the they’re like, the two main public radio stations, yeah, sure, is. There’s a bit more freedom and a bit more flexibility to go out and try new, weird stuff. So like, in my role, they’re like, What do you want to do in 25 and I’m like, Well, what about this? And how about that? They’re like, Well, okay, well, let’s try it.
Nestor Aparicio 11:22
But where did the concert thing come from? The first Thursday thing? Because they it’s such a big thing, I don’t, I don’t remember the genesis of it. I lived, you know, I lived down at the harbor for 19 years. I can’t say that I ever thought about it much. Maybe before, like 910, 11, that revivalist night, whatever that was. Yeah, I was at that show. I had heard about it for a little while, and some buddies went over, and it was, like a million people there, reminded me a little bit of Preakness, or like something that, like, would be at the zoo, like a like, a Boo Zoo kind of thing, or whatever. But that festival idea and that park, I mean that park, by the way, and I don’t know if you know this Ed Hale is the reason for that park. Do you know about that? No. Ed Hale has told me this story many times on the air, maybe not, but definitely off the air, because Ed and I been friends. Ed went down when he first had some money, first got, you know, business support east, and what he was doing over there, yeah. And he stood in that park and could see Fort McHenry, right? And he’s like, Well, they should never develop. But, you know, like, this was his baby. He’s like, that park looks at Fort McHenry. You know, that’s the most beautiful piece of Lake, like he way. And I’m you should talk to Ed, have that on, maybe talking about that next year, because that piece of land there. Ed is a big part in that, and as to why it’s a park and what it gets used for the other 361, days of the year or two in a leap year, I don’t really I’ve parked at that park and I’ve maybe walked through there holding hands with my wife once or twice across some dew burns or whatever. Sure, yeah, and you could get crab. There was a crab deck there when Ed built all of that stuff. But that park is like your park now, right? Like most people that have been to that park have experienced your thing in that park,
Sam Sessa 13:09
sure. So first Thursdays, when WTMD came on air in oh three, it was first Thursdays was a concert series run by city paper in Mount Vernon, okay? And they got tired of dealing with the old women that deal with the grass on the Mount Vernon park, you know, which was a handful the preservationalist Jen Marsh would know all about all that small to more. Sam says, so they were like, do you want this? Do you want to take this concert series a couple 100 people once a month in the summertime. Was
Nestor Aparicio 13:41
it like, jazz, or was it pop, or what? Just Yes, yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay. And so
Sam Sessa 13:47
TMD took it over, and they said, Okay, well, let’s keep it as a kind of a picnic in the park at brewers art to come bring some beer down. And it was like, four or 500 people for a few years there in, like, the aunts, okay? And then we had a new program director come in, and he was like, you know, I’m gonna book some big bands in here. We’re gonna get some, like, real legit bands coming through. And he did, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger and then uncomfortable and kind of unsafe. We have like, a couple 1000 people coming into that little square on Mount Vernon. Wow. Streets are shut down. People are kind of getting a little bit more squeezed, a little hilly there. Yeah. And then the earthquake hit. Do you remember the earthquake? Like, I just
Nestor Aparicio 14:22
want to take a moment to sit to talk about the earthquake, because I was three mornings ago, ever since Nacho mamas went, Yeah, you know, like Finn was on my show. I did the show at Mama’s last month on the half show up in foundry row, up in Owings Mills. So the first thing is, the Ursa dummies are in both the nacho mamas. I hit Finn I’m like, can I get the Ursa dummies back and give him back to receipt? Because they’re his dummies, you know? And I was with him at Cocos two weeks ago, and Nacho Mamas the other day. I was really I told you, I get wistful this time of year, yeah. And I got a little emotional. I saw a picture of me and Scotty. He was dressed as. Elvis, sort of fat Elvis. It was great, sonny. I loved you, and I remembered like I thought about Nacho mamas was the place. And I’ve told this story this week. My wife and I got engaged on Federal Hill on a cold night in April of 2003 nice she was stunned, shocked. I didn’t tell anybody but Pete Karin G that I was gonna propose to her. I’ve been dating her three months, down on a knee, right by the cannon right at the top, where the Baltimore’s best bench is. Yeah, and at that moment, we had cell phones. We weren’t texting yet. It wasn’t text. Cultures still call. I said, Why don’t I not call my mother or son. You not call your mother father. And let’s just go and get a beer and that will call them later. We’ll go home. We’ll call them from the house. And we went to Nacho mamas, nice. And we had scaney. Was the first human that I told I’m engaged to this woman. All right, so, and we did it in the second booth at Nacho mamas in Canton. And I’m thinking to myself, that’s a pretty monumental thing like to go, you know, like in your life, that you would tell somebody that that’s where I would be. And I thought, I’m going to Nacho mamas this week with fan and I’m gonna have a pub cap, and I’m gonna do all that. And I thought, what else did I ever do at Nacho mamas? And I think the night that scunny threw a guy out who was trying to pick a fight with me, and Scotty, just like, grabbed him and said, the F like, scunny threw a dude out onto the square who was not just starting to fight with me, starting to fight with everybody. So I’m thinking all these moments and journey after 10 o’clock and, you know, all the times I went there and dates I had and all that, and I think to myself, that’s where I was when the
Sam Sessa 16:45
earthquake, you went Nacho mamas. Okay. Did you feel anything in the restaurant at the time?
Nestor Aparicio 16:51
I was actually at the cruise lady on the corner. Okay, okay, so the cruise lady’s from my neighborhood, so I was with her, and we were in the corner building, I ran the nacho mamas for to make sure everybody was alive. Yeah, I had a beer there. That was gonna say, like, I had to know I had a beer. Like hands were shaking. People were in the square crying. There were girls that came running out of their house in their pajamas crying on the streets. It was crazy. But that earthquake, when it happened, the beams in the cruise lady, they started moving, and I saw the wood, the wood move like a piano keyboard. Oh, my God, like I’m not no, no. And it was the sound of steel that sounded like teeth grinding, but as loud as you could possibly it was in a row house, sound like it was trying to eat you. So that’s where I was. It was two in the afternoon, right? And, you know, on a summer days I was spray. Maybe in May, it was a nice day. It was beautiful outside, and I ran into Nacho mamas, and I’m like, are we still here? And Scotty and I touched nubs because he was missing a finger. We did nubs. And so, yeah, I was at Nacho moms during the earth so, okay, back to the earthquake. So what happened with your so the earthquake happened and that changed your thing. It damaged
Sam Sessa 18:10
the Washington Monument, which is in the park where we did the festival first Thursdays, yeah. And so the city was like, can’t really do it here. We’re gonna have construction for we don’t know how long you gotta find a new space. So we looked around and we landed on Canton waterfront park. What
Nestor Aparicio 18:26
had ever been done there? Had there ever been a festival? No,
Sam Sessa 18:29
no, there were some city festivals there. And there was, like, I think, in the years since there’s been, like, you know, a wine festival or
Nestor Aparicio 18:35
a flea market, you know what? There was a beer festival there? Yeah? Joe gold did a beer festival there many years ago. Yeah, he did a Charm City. He did do a thing there. So I remember that, yes, like that, yeah. But I mean, not, it’s an underutilized space. Can I say that? Is that fair to say that? I think that’s fair. Yeah. I mean, you guys have brought it to life, which is why I want to give you love. And Ed bail saw it, and it’s still a park, and it’s not a building, and, yeah, and it’s, um, I would think it’s a sacred space. Now for your business, babies were made, their couples met, their people get me. I mean, it’s, it’s a thing. I mean, you really, really is, and I’m, I don’t have a thing in NST. I’m just, just me, but like doing road trips and tailgates and my barn shows in the crab cake, like it’s, it’s what keeps the brand together, and you’ve got, I mean, a sensation, not just a little, not a double off the wall. I mean, you hit four grand slams, and I’m saying, do six, and you’re like, no force, plenty, man. It’s like too much work. What goes into that and the evolution of that? Because I think that’s just a great part of what you do. And then we’re talking about format a little bit too, sure,
Sam Sessa 19:40
yeah, well, I mean, it’s kind of like a small army of people that we need, people that we hire volunteer, but it’s not
Nestor Aparicio 19:45
what you do your radio station, right, right? And you’re not an events company, right?
Sam Sessa 19:49
Probably 100 vendors that come now at this point for each one of them. And, you know, there’s just a lot of there’s a lot of moving parts. It takes probably six months to, i. At all the paperwork and planning together to do no one and then the weather has to hold up exactly. No one told me this when I got into events, that events are 99% emails and phone calls and 1% event, you know, it’s Oh, run up. It’s
Nestor Aparicio 20:13
a wedding. You’ve been six years planning it and three hours to do it. Yeah,
Sam Sessa 20:19
yeah. I don’t get to really enjoy the events, because I’m running without fires and stuff. The night that pigeons
Nestor Aparicio 20:24
played. I text you and I’m thinking, and I probably said, I probably can look at my text. Probably sent you some jackass thing, like, Hey, man, are there a lot of people there? Is there gonna be room for me? You know? Because I did think, like, am I gonna have to park an upper Fells Point? You know, there’s a little part of that. Hey, my dudes are playing Saturday at soundstage, Trump city devils. And my guys, John’s played John Allen’s, one of my best friends in the world, and they’re playing Saturday night. And one of my other dear friends, Brian pool, hit me. He’s like, Hey, dude, you want to go see John’s band Saturday night? I’m like, well, the Ravens game ends at 745, there’s gonna be 68,000 people downtown. It’s a holiday Saturday to begin with. So there’s Christmas parties, there’s all that going on. I’m like, I don’t know that I can utilize the space. I don’t know that I’m physically going to be able to get in and out of downtown on Saturday night, eight o’clock at night. And I feel that way about Canton on one of your nights, when things is getting crazy down there. There’s a
Sam Sessa 21:22
great story from George Carlin. Somebody asked him, when did you know that you’d made it I don’t know if you heard this, but he’s like, it was the time I was going to a show, my show, and I was late because I was stuck in the traffic to get to my show. Oh, I created a traffic jam, and then I got stuck in it. He’s like, that’s when I realized, Oh, this is because of me. This is, I’m a big deal. But I have gotten, you know, I’ve had to leave occasionally, which I can’t do anymore. But there were years where I would go out to get something, a guitar string, because somebody broke one, or, you know, whatever else, and it would, you kick it back 45 minutes to get back, you know, because there’s just so much traffic in and out. But, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 22:02
it’s like me trying to get an Uber at a concert after in it, right? It’s great. You know, you’re just not doing gotta walk. Make another plan, dude, just do another plan, right, right? Well, what do you got? Have you given the schedule or No, any hints we’re working
Sam Sessa 22:14
on the headliners? We won’t announce it probably stones YouTube, exactly, I don’t know, but you know, I will tell you one thing. One of the reasons why we know this is one of our biggest seasons ever this year is because alcohol sales are down all across, you know, the industry, right? 15, 20% your bars will tell you that restaurants and it’s because of weed, yeah, in part, and also cure your wellness. I love you. Young people don’t want to drink as much alcohol. There’s a perception of is being this is a toxin, you know? We don’t want to put this in our body. There’s a whole new like mindset around alcohol among young people, right? Okay, and so I say all this to
Nestor Aparicio 22:51
say, See, I would say, which is a shame, that’s my punch line. But, you know, not such. But my parents are alcoholics. I got you, you know? Well, sure, so Says the guy with three bottles them all back in his back seat for drug city last night. Oh,
Sam Sessa 23:03
I love that spot. Yeah, but I sail this to say our alcohol sales were up year over year this year, which means you have to have that many percent more people drinking. It just
Nestor Aparicio 23:14
means they’re thirsty. Over in Canton on a summer night, it’s hot, I wouldn’t come down without drinking more beer. I’ll be honest with how I wouldn’t comment down there to not be thirsty. Sam sess is here. He is w, T, M, D, and that meant Towson Maryland. Or am I wrong in saying that? No,
Sam Sessa 23:29
it didn’t. It didn’t mean Towson really. It meant something else, and we changed it to music discovery. Everybody thinks that. We thought it was Towson Maryland forever. But it turns out it wasn’t. It
Nestor Aparicio 23:39
was, see, I was W N, S T, little known story, or people ask me the history of my little thing. When I bought it, it was wkdb. Kids broadcasting kid KDP was WKD, before that was WTO W. Okay, so WTO W was, you know, I screwed this up, and I knew the folks that had sources Tavern in Towson, right on the square, yeah, and the folks that that had at the last time, it was sources before became the liquor store. They had a clock. It was a circle, old, old 1950s faded clock that had WTO W AM, 1570 if anybody has a clock at TMD or yprk, $100 I get, I give you free lottery. And I can’t do that, I’ll give you a me cheese. I’ll do something but, but I saw that there. And I think these old call letters people come to me and they’re like, what was NST? Because it’s been NST since 1998 now 2026, years we’ve been doing this. Yeah, so people, but it was w, T, O, W, and when these licenses were given out in the 40s and 50s, and my tower was built in the 50s, and w, l, i s on the backside of my tower in Towson, they were given out for the am radio. There was no f m, right. Phil CO, you had 569, 10, and you had the little button, yeah, and a little like in. Old cars my dad’s Torino in 1973 and they were community based, public. There was no internet. There were television and radio and newspapers were privately owned. The only way the federal government, if the Germans were bombing us or the Japanese were bombing us, it was public radio, right? And certainly the public. But they were all like, w, T O, W, W H, A G in Hagerstown, W s, a L, and so W B, A L in Baltimore, w m, A R in Maryland, right? I don’t know what the hell Jay Z was for, but I thought T, M, D was Towson for some reason, because I was the other Towson. It turns out it was something else.
Sam Sessa 25:38
I forget what it was. Maybe it was like Towson media department or something like that, because it was the college state was the college station for a while. Don’t quote me on that, but it was something like that. I can tell you, wYP ours is your Public Radio. Your public radio because it’s owned by the community. It’s not owned by a college or something else. Well, that did
Nestor Aparicio 25:53
PBS stations were kind of like that too. Like they had a DCA kind of thing for in DC. Or, sure, yeah. Sam says is here. He’s doing things over TMD, so do you have your dates together? Do you have, do you want to promote anything ahead of time? Don’t do it. The Orioles do spend the whole offseason not doing anything to promote something here for me, so sure. I love them. They are first Thursday. So we know the dates, right? So one of the other things that we do, and this is for all my parents, of young kids out there, we talked about this in the past a little bit. So we had this family friendly concert series called Saturday morning tunes. We launched it in 2017 you and I did a piece with Jimmy’s Chicken Shack. Yes, we did. And you did like a Grateful Dead thing. Did you do a dead thing? I had you. You were doing it. The Lyric, right? Meyerhoff, yeah, something like that. Okay, keep going. Okay, but doing
Sam Sessa 26:39
this. So, yeah, we’ve been doing it, and we’ve had since 2017 we’ve had, we’re gonna hit this year, 30,000 parents and kids that have come to this the series over the course of the last seven years. That’s amazing. Less because the pandemic, we took off, and we one of the shows that we do that was a big hit this year was Taylor Swift for kids, which is basically like, we got one of the best dance party. It’s a dance party, yeah, one of the best bands in town, like, you know, doing all Taylor Swift songs, and we sold out the record twice in a day, and it was all these, like, six to 12 year old girls, just like, packed all up against the same screen, and they’re reaching up for her, as if it’s actually Taylor, and she does a meet and greet after the show. It’s an hour just to get your picture taken with this person who’s not even Taylor Swift, but they love it so much.
Nestor Aparicio 27:27
I only got to meet Captain Chesapeake when I was, you know, I didn’t get to also a celeb. Oh my. There’s no bigger celeb than Captain C he’s on TV so long. Crew member John maroons gonna be our next guest here. Sam says, is doing great stuff always. The last time I saw you was during the plague. You were on on the pirate ship in the harbor. Yeah, rocking out on a Saturday night. You wouldn’t let me on. You squirted at me. You know, everybody was calling me a wench, or my wife was a wench, I think, yelling at the harbor. But you guys do some fun events. I don’t know where your brainstorming is, and all this stuff. I used to be fun, back last century, fun. But you guys are fun. You do fun things. Can I plug one more thing? That’s why we’re here. Okay, cool. So are that in the meatballs, our next Saturday morning tunes? Is this show we’ve been doing for like, almost 10 years, or almost the whole run of the show. It’s called frozen. It’s the frozen one and two stage show. And basically what it is is these two classically trained opera singers and this Baltimore band out calls, and they sing all the songs from Frozen, and they do a play that kind of makes fun of frozen, because Frozen is kind of ridiculous if you’re a parent and you have to suffer through these movies where they dress up. That’s why this six to 10 year old girl thing, like, it sounds like fun, except for the entertainment part.
Sam Sessa 28:43
So, but the thing is, I want these shows to be enjoyable for the parents as much as it is for the kids, which why we did Jimmy’s Chicken Shack. They just did a normal show in the morning. You could take your kids and say, check out this band. I love this band. And so for Taylor Swift, it was like, Oh, I love Taylor Swift. Let me bring my daughter. Let’s highlight with that for frozen it’s more that is a little bit more for the kids, but they have a lot of jokes about how bad the frozen movies are during the show, and we’re doing that up at the Carver Center on january 25 so
Nestor Aparicio 29:11
it’s like a good cartoon. You go take your kids, but the jokes are really for the adults and the kids don’t get it a Pixar movie, exactly. Okay, yeah, I don’t go to the movies too much, but you mean by that, so
Sam Sessa 29:21
that’s the idea, and it’s a lot of and all the kids get dressed up as the princesses, and we do a meet and greet. It’s like a parent now, right? Oh yeah. I mean, my kids are almost out of this demo. They’re 10 and 11 now, yeah, they’re getting
Nestor Aparicio 29:31
like, I think of you as a parent of little kids these days, and I think it’s changed you, Sam, I don’t see you at Springsteen concerts anymore. So what’s your music jam these days? Would you have anything on the calendar? I’m gonna go see the black crows on Thursday night this week. Oh, fun, where they’re playing the MGM. I almost went two weeks ago. Don’t laugh at me. I’m big. Engelbert Humperdinck fan, whoa, and he played up in Carteret New Jersey. I think maroon knows Ricardo. Red is even as how to pronounce it as well. Exit is too the Smithereens were playing the next night in Carteret, and they’re my buddies. So I was gonna go for the weekend. Here’s my deal, when New York’s 28 degrees, I can’t hang in New York. So therefore I didn’t do the whole trip because I just like it was cold. Yeah, and engelbert’s 88
30:15
I was gonna say, How’s he still alive?
Nestor Aparicio 30:17
He’s 88 and you can google Engelbert, go up to YouTube right now, and you will he still sings. It’s still entertaining. It’s not like Frankie Valli, where the lips are moving. No, no, no, no, none of that. He’s singing. He’s talking. He still does all of his jokes and has his drink. And he have a king chair for him now, and he does perform a little bit sitting down, fine.
30:42
He’s 88 Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 30:44
please release me. So I, I almost went, but I didn’t, and I’m gonna regret the hell out of it, yeah, because he’s 88 be your last time one of my regrets is Lou Rawls played over a turf Valley at the end of his life, and he was doing a Sinatra turn. Oh, wow. He was doing, you know, you’ll never find Yeah, but he was also doing, like, Sinatra stuff, and I didn’t go. So the I had a chance to see Bob Newhart. I didn’t go. I had a chance to see Don Rickles. Oh, see that one? I would, oh, yeah, I didn’t go that one. So my wife and I are still I mean, I did see the great Tony Bennett. Tony Bennett did my show one time. So he did so like these elder statesmen when I when I get a chance to see it, I go to the internet and say, I said to my wife that week, I’m like, engelbert’s playing. And she said to me, is he still alive? Same thing you said. And I said, Yes, I kind of want to go. I call it Commando, which means, like, I’m not gonna look at the video. I’m just gonna throw the 40 bucks at it, go up to Jersey, see the show. Yeah, I don’t do that anymore. When I when there’s a band involved, no matter what the band is, any metal band, any band, because they’re all over 50 years of age, and I’m over 50 and I’m falling apart. I want to see like how it feels and looks for spend money my time and go do it. Sure. Wasn’t gonna do it with engelberg. And I did it about three days before the show, and I went on, and it was really, it was good enough. It was, it was, it was good for 88 it was fine. And I said to my wife, I want to do this, but we are getting to the point now where a lot of the bands and I’m wearing my Tom Petty belt buckle today. Oh, my heart break. Belt buckle, I can’t see them anymore. Yeah, right, right. So when I see these bands that I can’t see anymore or will never see anymore, or it’s their last tour, or, quite frankly, it’s like Iron Maiden, and it’s just too damn loud for me to do anymore. Sure, it’s just I don’t like maiden like that. 40 years later, enough to go and deal with it. I have gotten picky with concerts, and my bar has been raised that I really it needs to be a really good experience for me. I can’t endure a bad concert. I can’t endure Axl Rose not knowing how to sing anymore. Yeah. So like, I see less concerts, but I think about more concerts now, because I’m going to less, and when I try to, like, is that going to be a great night? Is that good? Here’s the thing with the Engelbert weekend, Engelbert smithereens, and you know, I love you guys, my wife and I Jersey Turnpike parking, tolls, gas. Two nights in Jersey tonight. It started to look like an eight or $900 kind of couple days in New Jersey. Yeah, and I’m like, it’s gonna be 28 degrees. No, I’m gonna wait for so weather dictates, like, your event, whatever. Where are you with concert? Because you’re a generation behind me. You’re a little younger than me. You got kids and like all that you’re talking about, all these kitty concerts, music was your jam. Sure you and I both were music critics. Yeah, do you go a lot? Or do you like, no, not as much as I used to for a couple reasons. So doing events, I don’t get as many opportunities. If I might be like, super candid here. I’m married, I’ve got young kids, yeah, if I’m working on a Friday night and a Saturday night, I don’t want to be like, Oh, I’m gonna go out again on a Sunday night and pay money and go to drive somewhere do a show. I’d not be there with my kids. I miss a lot of concerts. I would go to Duran. Duran was 15 bucks. It was a Monday night. My wife was away, and I just at seven o’clock. I just decided I don’t feel like it right now, yeah, for eight months, I was going, I mean, I was right, like, literally, yeah. And then in that moment, at 645 my cat was there, my energy level. I’d done radio all day. The Ravens played, and I just didn’t go. I don’t regret it, but, like, I would have run into friend, would have been a night, you know? I mean, and that’s what I regret, is when I don’t do these things. I don’t get to see my friends. I don’t get to just randomly run into people I would accidentally and serendipitously sure bump into, and that’s the opportunity cost for me. But there are so many shows I look at and just like that. Duran. Duran, like, did you go? Yeah, no, I was going to and I didn’t. Okay, can I
Sam Sessa 34:57
tell you real quick about two shows I saw in the last Sure? Any reviews, okay, all right, so I saw Pearl Jam. Oh, cfg, unbelievable. I was here, which, I mean, just incredible. She was great, trolling Ted Nugent. That was fun. Like, well, the
Nestor Aparicio 35:09
Amon wearing the Baltimore bullets jersey, yes, the old the orange Baltimore ability, the great did their
Sam Sessa 35:14
homework, you know, like, I loved it, yeah, fantastic. And a small venue for them, like, on this tour, like, no
Nestor Aparicio 35:20
sky boxes. That’s makes it intimate. Yes, yeah.
Sam Sessa 35:22
But then last year, I saw for the first time the Mariah Carey Christmas tour, the holiday tour, right? I got good seats for this. And my wife was like, What are you doing? And I was like, I
Nestor Aparicio 35:35
almost went last week, so,
Sam Sessa 35:36
so I went, right. And, you know, it’s a DJ before great gets everybody super hyped. It’s all basically people our age, right, right? And she comes out, she does her thing, and about halfway through the show, she goes in one of the only unscripted moments of the night, she’s like, I’m so glad this tour is almost over. It’s like the last couple nights, and where I’m like, that’s kind of insulting. And she’s like, I don’t know what your favorite thing to do at Christmas time is but my favorite thing is to go on a real Sleigh Ride with horses. But you know what? We always forget the soft blankets. We always bring these scratchy blankets, and then she turns off stage and she goes Stephanie,
36:14
the blankets, the soft blankets, this year for the sleigh ride. Okay, where were we? This? Everyone was,
Nestor Aparicio 36:25
well, I saw the first night of the tour, lip syncing. Was she really, yeah, like, it was a month ago and the songs were coming out, but she wasn’t, like, there’s no way she was singing. She
Sam Sessa 36:38
was singing. What I saw right near the end of the end of the tour, right? This was like
Nestor Aparicio 36:41
two weeks ago. This was like a month ago, okay, yeah, I don’t know. I love Mariah Carey, so, you know, I that’s a thing for me, though, when people don’t sing, it really bothers me, yeah, yeah. I’m like, it’s a performance. It’s not a concert,
Sam Sessa 36:53
unless you go into it knowing, like, I saw, I had to review Britney Spears years ago, and that was the thing. Like, it was a circus tour. So it was a production, you know. And there were
Nestor Aparicio 37:03
like, Donna’s like, that, Janet, if you’re moving around that much, it’s like, and if there’s like, you know, it’s amazing these guys did yeah, Usher and yeah, I mean, I’m all for it. Oh, Sam, Sesa, I love you, man. Kids, I’m gonna get him for being our guest. He’s gonna get meatballs in a raven scratch off to go. Courtesy the Maryland lottery. We are not underwritten here. We are sponsored. And you should come down and eat the meatballs. You should eat the calamari. Get the red sauce. Get the gravy. Down here, where to meet cheese. It’s the only crab cake to have ever done without a crab cake. And I’m I, I’ve lost control in the show. It’s a Pawnee Rotunda. It’s just as good as a crab cake. I
Sam Sessa 37:40
was gonna tell salad, but maybe I should get the meatballs. You want to get? Should I get the meat?
Nestor Aparicio 37:44
Here’s what you do in a meat cheese. You get the garlic cheese toast. Okay, so that’s and then you get the side of the meatballs, and you make it into like a little bit of a meatball sandwich. Okay? With the cheese? Okay. It’ll change your life. I will do that. Get two appetizers when you’re here. Get the meatballs and get the cheap garlic cheese bread in your set. John rood is gonna be our next guest. He came early. I’m making him stay late. Seth Elkins gonna be here from the Maryland lottery. Alan McCallum is gonna be here a little later on. And Chris Corman, who is the sports editor of the Baltimore banner, I’m trying to be nice to him so I can get a gig later on. Great guy, yeah, yeah, I’m trying to be nice to him. We’re at a me cheese. We’re eating meatballs. We have friends here. It’s the holidays. The place looks beautiful. They have the Oreo countdown the 99 days to opening day, and they will have the full American League East standings here, except when the Yankees are in first place, because they don’t allow that. Here I am Nestor. We are W N, S T, E is, W t, M, D, W, y, p, r, their first Thursdays. Support them their local even though you can’t give them money, give me the money. I’ll take it back for more. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us.
