Introducing David Yas from the Boston Podcast Network

David Yas (Guest) 00:00:48
Well, started up as a lot of people did, I think, at the time as a side hustle. I was intrigued by the fact that any idiot could get into podcasting. And it's both the beauty and the curse of podcasting is just the entry level. I've always been an audiophile, never really trained professionally. I was a DJ in college. I was always the guy making the mixtapes and have dabbled in radio over the years. But once podcasting started up, I started a couple of podcasts and then realized that I come from the professional world. Having been a lawyer and a financial adviser, there are a lot of people that wanted to get in and get some of the podcast pie, and they didn't know how to do it. So with a little bit of humble investment from some friends, I opened a studio and off I went.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:36
So I've never really known anybody who dabbles in radio. I've only met people who are like completely all in. So let's talk a little bit about the radio side of things. You're in Boston and Boston's got a lot of great radio stations. What did you grow up listening to over the years?

David Yas (Guest) 00:01:50
My true love was the rock of Boston, WBCN Boston, and I had some common friends that knew some of the folks at the station there. But it was probably the first time as a young person that I really got that concept of your rock and roll personality. Heroes can feel like your family and a good morning radio show felt like you were kind of listening in on whatever was going on in that morning. So we had a charming, if somewhat cantankerous guy named Charles Lochwadera who was the morning host for BCN. And he had his cast of characters. And I liked it because they were humble. They were goodnatured, if it was snowing that day, they were complaining about the snow like the rest of us. They would complain about traffic like the rest of us. The music at the time, of course, was the classic rock radio and so, y'know, disco sucks. But got to know over the years some people in radio. I had an aunt who was in politics named Margie Claproot, who at one point had the number two talk radio show in Boston. And I at the time was working for a newspaper called Lawyers Weekly, and she would bring me in as the legal guy, and we did a segment called Lawyers, Guns, and Money. And then as the years went on, occasionally I would guest host for her and various radio jobs she had over the years, and I just always loved it. I would probably be accused of liking the sound of my own voice. We probably all have that, Matt. But the medium, which now has, in a way, transmogrified over to podcasting, is fun. It's intimate. And I remember one time when I was guest hosting, I was supposed to have someone come on and do a segment for me, and I realized she had canceled and left a voicemail on my machine. And there I am, like, behind the mic, and it's just me and the producer there staring down the barrel of 15 minutes of dead air. And I said, Chance, what the hell are we going to do? And he said, you and I will just bullshit a little bit. And I said about what? He goes, well, let's talk about why your stupid reporter just canceled and you've got no segment. Let's talk about her. And I said, okay. And he said, Dave, good talk radio is just like listening in on somebody else's conversation. So if we just have a good, natural conversation right now, we could do worse. And he was right. I don't know if you ever heard that credo. It's pretty simple, Matt. But the best radio shows and the best podcasts are just like- it's the reason why we care about what's going on in Howard Stern's office and whether he's about to fire an intern or something. Why should we care about such things? It's because it's a good, natural conversation and they let you into their family.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:11
What station was your aunt on? Because when I think of Boston Radio and Talk, I think of WBZ.

David Yas (Guest) 00:04:16
That was it. BZ or RKO? I think it was BZ. I mean, BZ was always more of the morning radio show, but she was on a show called Claproot and Whitley, she was the Claproot of the group. And it was the first time I'd ever heard the yin yang of liberal and a conservative. My aunt's a bleeding heart liberal, and this guy, Pat Whitley, was an old school radio conservative, of which, of course, there were many. And for a while they were the number two show. And then eventually that radio marriage turned into a divorce, as will happen. They had a pretty good run, though.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:51
Oh, back when liberals and conservatives used to talk to each other, you mean?

David Yas (Guest) 00:04:55
Yeah, because then and maybe now, too, you're a better person to ask, Matt. But for some reason, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this. Why do conservatives always win in radio? And liberals seem to use- I don't know if it's lose. I don't know if it's different in Canada.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:10
No, it's true. Was it Al Franken and Air America? At one point they launched that and it garnered no ratings. I think some of it is taken up in the public radio space, so I think some of the listening is already over there. But I guess I think conservative talk has now become such a brand that it just works on radio. And I think the type of talk that comes out from the left to center and off in the left, it doesn't have that same clash that wrestling does. I mean, I used to think radio is wrestling. I still think radio is wrestling just the same way that you had the liberal and conservative discussion in your family that was going on in WBZ or RKO. That makes a great radio, that clashing. But liberals don't like the clash. They want to try to convince you to come over to our side, as it were.

David Yas (Guest) 00:05:56
Yeah, by the way, it was RKO. And in fact, I think WBZ maintained the number one spot during those years, but RKO is a close second. But I think you're right. I remember that Air America thing and I was optimistic about it. I think Mark Marin was involved as well, but very short lived. And when I used to be in the newspaper business, there was that old rule that the number of- well, it was an undeniable pattern, that the people that wrote in letters to the editor were generally pissed off about something. You just didn't get as many letters saying, hey, nice job. And I don't know if this is a strike against all my conservative friends out there, but it seems like conservatism lends itself more just to being angry. And liberals, they get angry too, of course, plenty of things they get angry for. But they're a little bit more about the love, and that conflict. It really fills every form of entertainment. So maybe that's just the way things are.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:46
You mentioned that you did some newspaper work. So what did you do at a newspaper?

David Yas (Guest) 00:06:50
So I was a very strange and eclectic background. I've failed at many things, Matt. I was a lawyer for a short while, and then a job opened up for a reporter at the local legal newspaper, which is still around, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. And I sent a resume in and I said, Help me. I'm a writer trapped in the body of a lawyer. I always had a creative streak, but an analytical mind. And so the analytical mind was enough to prompt me to go to law school and thought, I'll figure out what I'm going to do after that. So I ended up at that newspaper for 15 years, and I ran the place for the last seven or eight years. And you'll appreciate as a person who has a creative outlet, it was something of a dream job. Now, meanwhile, I'm in the legal arena, so it's not all fun and games. And some of the stuff we were publishing was really dry. But we at one point were purchased by a company called Dolan Media, which, by the way, I always have to say is no relation to the New York Jim Dolan of the New York Knicks. Our Dolan Media is actually owned by a guy named Jim Dolan as well, different Jim Dolan, but he owned a lot of trade newspapers across the US. And he taught us that it's good to try new things and that he expects us to fail. And so we were able to try new magazines and new events. And I created an event called Battle of the Lawyers where I invited in a half dozen lawyers who had tried prominent cases and had them recreate their closing arguments for the entertainment of the fans and education, I suppose. And then even at the tail end of my run there, I started podcasting. That was probably around 2009, maybe into 2010. And that was when most people didn't know what a podcast was. And it was fun. I don't know if everybody got it at the time. I still think some people still don't get podcasting, but it was a good, fertile, creative ground for me. And so it was to me, it's kind of a natural, entrepreneur podcasting.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:38
Was that your first?

David Yas (Guest) 00:08:39
Yeah, we started like the Lawyers Weekly Podcast, and I just brought two reporters into my office with one of those hard Yeti Blue microphones that is supposed to catch everything in the room nicely. And it didn't really, but at the time it was passable. And we just talked about the stories of the day and just had them shoot the breeze. And we did have a captive audience, so we might have had a few hundred people listening to that thing. But the thing about podcasting is, I don't know if you agree. I think in a way we're still in the wild, wild west. In other words, the rules seem to change from year to year. And if you don't like the rules, just make it up. If you want to do a 90 minutes podcast, do a 90 minutes podcast. If you think a 15 minutes podcast is more compelling, then do that. No rules.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:19
When you say rules, you sort of mean best practices, right? Like, what's the best way to get a podcast out there? So when you think back to 2009 and you've got the Lawyers Weekly podcast happening, and then you think about some of the things that you're doing today, what were some of the things that you did back then that you look back on and go, wow, can't believe you were doing that? Aside from the Blue Yeti microphone.

David Yas (Guest) 00:09:38
I suppose my first reaction is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The best shows I can remember back then were just really good conversations with interesting people coming in to tell their stories. So eventually I left Lawyers Weekly and stay in the podcast game, created a show called The Boston Podcast, which still exists, I still do it. And we started out just by finding interesting professionals. The moment I remember was we had Whitey Bulger's lawyer in, and a guy named Jay Carney, who I was friends with over the years, big time criminal defense attorney in Boston, of course. And he did like the sound of his own voice. He could be accused of being pompous or arrogance, but he was always very interesting. And he came in and started telling us about Whitey. And this was at a time when Whitey was imprisoned, but before he had left the Earth. And so the case was closed in a way. But lawyers are always a little tight lipped. Even the bombastic ones tend to not tell you too many details about the case. But he came in and started telling us about his first conversation with Whitey Bulger. And I'll never forget he said, Mr. Bulger, you're accused of killing these people, and he had a laundry list of why his alleged victims. And why do you say, well, let's go down the list. This is the lawyer telling us, right? You said this guy? No, never heard of that guy. That guy? Yeah, that was me. But you ask anybody in Southie, that guy was the biggest asshole in the world. He deserved it, right? And then you go down and be like, oh, I remember this one. We walked up to the guy and we said, Guess what? And he said what? And we said, you're dead. And Steve Fleming shot him in the face. And so right away, get this story about his first meeting with Whitey and for him to tell us all these details, we were shocked and we thought that was going to go viral. And we probably got about 500 downloads, which at the time maybe wasn't so bad. But it taught me that if you get the right person talking and just let them go and listen and ask good follow up questions, you're going to have a good show. And that part continues to be true, I think you'd agree.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:29
What's the moment when you're saying, I think I can make this a company and make podcasts for people?

David Yas (Guest) 00:11:35
I'm not sure there was a single moment, but when I first started, I think I had two clients. There were times I always felt like Jerry Maguire with having Rod Tidwell as his only client and just barely keeping a phone. I thought if I could keep one or two clients, then I'm still going. And I had a show that I continue to produce called the CannaMom Show. This woman who was just very interested in the women in the cannabis industry and had a divorce lawyer named Evan Shine, and they both really took pride in their shows. And so when I realized I could find people that were as passionate about this as I was, and they just wanted me to kind of take them along their journey. That's what became exciting. And I think, Matt, you and I many times have talked about the sad phenomenon of pod fading, and it continues to be rampant in the industry. In other words, so many people come in with guns all ablaze, saying, I'm going to have the greatest show in the world, and they record for five or six weeks in a row. Then you don't hear from them for some reason, and life got in the way. But there are people who are genuinely their pride and joy, and it's just fun to talk about what can we do next season to shake it up? Can we create any new segments? Can we promote it differently? Can we create a new intro? Can we get different guests? And so that was probably the moment when I realized, as long as I find people who are passionate about their show, then I'll be in business.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:12:56
You have a great story involving, I believe, Evan Shine, who had a divorce case that involves parents, where one wanted to vaccinate the kids and the other one did not. And that actually went to court for discussion. And there was, I believe, a judgment that came out of it. And here you are sitting on a podcast and an opportunity to promote this podcast with a landmark case.

David Yas (Guest) 00:13:16
It was, and that was a cool moment. And Evan Shine is, in fact, the same divorce attorney I referenced earlier as being one of my oldest clients. He's into his third season now, and he in fact, had a case where his client was in court saying, hey, my spouse- I don't remember which side he had, sorry about that- but my spouse refuses to get the kids vaccinated. My spouse refuses to abide by the rules of COVID that we're supposed to be abiding by. And I don't want to let my kids go to my ex's house if the kids are in danger of getting COVID. And it was the first case, and the judge ruled in Evan's favor and said, no, there are certain things you have to do if you want to continue to see your kids. So that was a cool moment, I'll admit. I don't think we capitalize on that big enough. We did talk about it on Evan's show. It might not be too late to go back and revisit that case, but it was cool to stumble into a new story like that. Anytime you get that, of course, the natural inclination is to think, well, now a bunch of people could be listening to your show that haven't been listening before. And it's a theory that I think, Matt, you'll agree sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If you get a great guest or a great moment, the hope is that the listener will come for the guest, like, well, hey, you got Conan O'Brien on the show, you got whoever on the show. But then they'll come for the guests, but then they'll come back for the host because that guy does a good show. I'll listen the next time he gets on. It doesn't always work. I think you would admit, Matt, that you can get a spike for a single episode, but nevertheless, it's something that those moments where you're like, this is going to be a great show, I can't wait. And then the very least, you get some good feedback and you get some additional attention to the show. Yeah.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:14:56
Sometimes people just don't want to consume said popular guest in audio form. Maybe they just like the Instagram pages. Maybe they just like to connect on video or they already feel they know enough about the person that they're not going to get anything more out of this. So it is a bit of a mystery why that happens. And I think especially with the case with Evan, a lot of it's just timing and a lot of it might just think, you know what, it's Massachusetts. That law doesn't apply to us out here in California or in Texas or in Canada. So they might not gravitate to it then. It doesn't mean that the show doesn't have to get popular now. It could get popular later.

David Yas (Guest) 00:15:30
Well, that's true. And that is the thing that I tell a lot of people I work with, is it is something that differentiates podcasts from radio and maybe any other medium is the way people discover it is. I don't know, but when I find a good podcast, I'm kind of excited. If there are like a year's worth of episodes that I haven't heard, I don't care that they're old if it's information I'm interested in. But what you said about maybe I know everything I need to know about that comedian or that personality or whatever that is. One of the simple byproducts of podcasting is I'm a little bit of a comedy nerd. And just for example, your Countryman Martin Short, I'll usually listen to anything he's on, but if I ever meet the guy, I hope he doesn't start to launch into the story about how he was on The Tonight Show sitting next to Betty Davis Cuz. I've heard him tell that story about a dozen times on various podcasts and it's kind of a plus in mind. You get to know you feel like you get to know some of these people, but eventually those long form interviews, it's going to go over the same ground.

Tara Sands (VO) 00:17:00
The Sound Off podcast.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:00
As we record this, you're, by the way, a diehard fan. You're wearing your Patriots shirt this morning on a day where I just got back from Green Bay and Green Bay won in overtime against the Patriots, who put up a good fight. But to that point, my wife's a big Aaron Rodgers fan and I don't know where she would find the time, other than an eleven hour drive between Green Bay and Winnipeg, to listen to two and a half hours of Aaron Rodgers talking with Bill Maher.

David Yas (Guest) 00:17:27
Well, that sounds like something I would be interested to hear because we know Aaron Rodgers is on the eccentric side when it comes to certain things and Bill Maher is just the cynics to call him on all those things. Was it a good interview?

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:39
Yeah, it actually is. The second time I listened to it, but it was the first time that she got to listen to it. But it speaks to the fact that even though you might be a diehard Green Bay Packers fan, you might not have two and a half hours of your life to go and spend to listen to the whole thing. This happens all the time. Oh, I'm going to listen to that later. And then people don't listen to it.

David Yas (Guest) 00:17:56
True. Yeah. And it's the nature of on demand listening and yeah, of course it happens to all of us. A year'll ago by, you know, I meant to listen to that thing, and then you probably don't bother to go back and find it. But in the old days, prepodcasting, you just didn't have opportunities like this. And so maybe, I'm being Captain Obvious here is like, we know our celebrities and our prominent people in our community a lot better than we would have otherwise back in the old days. Because in the old days, like, my favorite baseball player growing up was Red Sox Collier Strumsky. And when I first got into baseball, he was already kind of a sturdy veteran and just seemed like such a cool, calm leader on the field and off the field. Come to learn later. Apparently. The guy was kind of a jerk and used to sit by himself and smoke cigarettes. I don't think he would have thrived in this world. I don't think he would have a lot to say on a podcast. But then again, when you get those great long form interviews, they're just golden. You're on the edge of your seat. This one hasn't aged well. But there was, I guess, kind of a legendary episode of Mark Maron's podcast where he interviewed Louis CK. And the two had had a feud in the past and over the course of 2 hours, they kind of hashed it out, and I would go to where I was driving and stop and sit in the car and listen to the rest of that thing because it was just so compelling.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:12
What's your infatuation with Top Ten charts? So much so that you have Past Tens, a Top Ten Time Machine. Did you always follow the charts when you're growing up and listening to the radio and buying cassettes and records?

David Yas (Guest) 00:19:25
Oh, yeah, big time geek. Casey Casem fan, would be glued to the radio on Sunday mornings to come out, or Saturday mornings, whatever it was. And I had a friend in college, and we knew we were brothers in arms, and we knew we had similarly music-nerd proclivities when- I forget if he asked me or I asked him, but it's a trivia question. It was, what song in the US Billboard chart holds the record for the longest number of weeks in a row spent at number two? And he said, oh, that's waiting for- Foreigner song.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:25
Waiting for a Girl Like You by Foreigner?

David Yas (Guest) 00:19:25
Yeah, that's right. Thank you. And we both looked at each other and we both said, Physical, because it was trapped behind Physical by Olivia Newton John, which was number one for so many weeks in a row. And so we thought, if we're the only two people on the planet that knew that and remember that, we need to stick together. And so in recent years, he came to me with the idea. He said, what if we did a music podcast where we, quote unquote, went back in time, just looked at the top ten on a given day, and then give some people some context, and it'll be a fun way to remember that stuff and what has held up and what hasn't. So we have a humble but very loyal audience. We're still continuing to grow that show, but I think it's a good example of if you're passionate about something, you can keep going. Matt, you and I were on a podcast that you have so definitely curated over the last several months, the Podcast Super Friends. And we talked about potential podcast marriages and divorces. And so immediately after we did that episode, I checked with Milt, my podcast partner, to make sure we weren't close to a divorce. And we both said, Well, I still enjoy it, don't you? And he said yes. And so to us, that has become a creative outlet, something we're proud of, and also just a great way to keep in touch with an old college friend. He's in New York, I'm in Boston. We don't get to see each other that often. And so we hope that I think the people that like the show enjoy the fact that repartee between us is genuine. It's not fabricated. It's not one of these like, Johnny in the Morning, we're best friends here, hopefully. It's not like that.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:23
I think one of the best things about it is it's unnecessarily long.

David Yas (Guest) 00:21:29
Guilty as charged. Yes.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:31
But you guys don't have any rules between you, and if you start putting rules on one another about, hey, we got to shorten this up and lengthen this up, it doesn't become as much fun anymore.

David Yas (Guest) 00:21:39
Yes. So the podcast consists of us going through those top ten songs, but Milt is a research freak, so he likes to give all facts, most of them very interesting about the origin of songs and where this came from. And I didn't know until he told me that that song 8675309 Jenny, which is by a band called Tommy Tutone, I didn't realize Tommy Tutone isn't an actual guy, it's a band. So that's just one example. Like, I was shocked when he told me that. But it is long. They do go as long as 2 hours. And Matt, we have taken great pains to figure out a way to cut it down. And I suppose in a way, to our credit, we might have been justified recently when we put out the survey that has dual goals. The one goal is to try to pull our listeners as to what the greatest songs of all time were. And it invites our listeners to go down a list of about 200 songs and we tell them, you don't have to rate everyone, but rate them as you see fit. But then it asked for feedback on the show and we had a multiple choice question. How long should the show be? Should it be about 30 minutes, about 60 minutes, or just as long as it takes? And so far, overwhelmingly they're saying just as long as it takes. So we don't make it long for the sake of making it long. We make it long because we're covering the stuff we need to. And as long as it's moving and still kind of a natural conversation, we still feel pretty good about it. Do you listen to any podcasts that are super long?

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:22:55
I mean the New Media Show with Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee. That's 90 minutes. I consider that to be long.

David Yas (Guest) 00:23:03
That is long. We do an entertainment podcast and by definition that means you don't need it. You don't need it if we were doing some kind of business. And you do a lot about the industry or radio and podcasting, and for a lot of people that listen to your show, Matt, I think they do it for education. It's almost like they're taking their vitamins. They want to make sure they know what's going on in the industry and if that's the case, going to be in the car for about 30 minutes, that's about the length of the show. Great. Makes sense with ours. I mean, they say you generally listen to podcasts one or two reasons you need the information or you just want the information. And if it's both, then great. But I can't pretend anyone needs. To know too much about my Sharona by the Knack. They just might enjoy going back and listening to some songs with us and taking a trip with us so they can also, as many will do, pick and choose. If we're going back to 1966, that might not suit everyone. They might feel more comfortable with Cindy Lauper and Dexter's midnight Runners in 1984. And so listen to that episode. And if you don't want to listen to the whole thing, of course don't. But we take the unusual step of posting it on a Friday because we think people tend to listen to in their car driving around on the weekends when they have downtime or they're just sitting around. So that's the theory so far. But like I said, things change from year to year and we constantly try to rejigger the format. At one point we decided the best way to go for a weekly podcast was to do one of our mega Baton Death march shows of up to 2 hours, but then stagger them week to week with a shorter show of about an hour, where we do some kind of specialty show, like the best songs containing cowbells. Or we did our favorite Deep Cuts last week. We did the best mashups we've ever heard.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:36
Why does it take you 2 hours to talk about ten songs?

David Yas (Guest) 00:24:39
Because we love our doodads, we love our jingles. We have way too much fun with them. We thought about cutting out certain things at the top of the show. If the time machine- there's this silly conceit where we play a sound effect and say, oh, now we're going back in time. Now we're back in 1985, and Milt will spend about three to five minutes talking about what was going on in 1985. And to me they're always interesting things like, oh, jeez, I remember that. I remember Bernie Gets, or I remember when so-and-so did that on the Grammy Award show or whatever. We do that, then we go into the song. With each song, he's got some research we evaluate and then we can't resist doing these things at the end. Like we rate the week, we pick a winner of the week. There's a part where I break in and say it's time for the playdate, where I'm going to quiz Milt on a certain category signs listeners can play along at home. We've gotten it down to like a minute 45, but that's not bad, right? I know it's long.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:35
What's the most unlikely number one song that you've come across? One that you said, I just can't figure out why this song got to number one.

David Yas (Guest) 00:25:43
There was a song, I want to say it was called In The Year 2025, or maybe it was in the year 5055?

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:43
2525, yep. 

David Yas (Guest) 00:25:43
2525, that's it.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:56
Sagar and Evans.

David Yas (Guest) 00:25:57
Yes. Oh my God, Matt. Major points for that one. That was probably the most bizarre moment. So that song- and I was able to quickly check the interwebs here- Came out 1969 and hit number one. And it is this bizarro kind of meandering song, imagining a day in the future. And I think they go through the lyrics, they talk- the first verse is about what's going on in the year 2025. And the next one is about in the year 3535. That's one that was very bizarre. I'd say the most pleasant surprise was when we stumbled upon this song, which was a hit. All these songs were hits, so it's always a little weird when we've never heard of it. But sung by the Osmonds called Down by the Lazy River. And we think of the Osmonds as these, like a toothpaste commercial come to life. These Mormons just being happy. And so this song Down by the Lazy River, it rocks. We were both dancing to it. We couldn't believe it. So it's fun to unearth, like, fun surprises like that.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:52
What is the worst year of the 1980s? And why was it 1981?

David Yas (Guest) 00:26:56
Yeah, I don't know. Who tortured you in 1981, Matt?

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:01
It's a lot of ballads.

David Yas (Guest) 00:27:02
Yeah. I mean, 1981 was probably before the 80s got really shiny. Is that the best word I can think of? I'm talking about Cindy Lauper and Kenny Loggins, Footloose and Huey Lewis. Those are all fun. A lot of them are silly songs and they're campy. But if you hit the right groove, I'll still listen to The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News and enjoy it very much. I remember the song. I remember Back to the Future. I can picture- he's another one of your boys, right? Isn't Michael J. Fox Canadian? Yes. See, we can't trust you people because you look like the rest of us and sometimes we can't tell. Yeah, I think you're right. In '81, those early '80s days, the decade had yet to sort of hit the fun portion of it. There was still some sort of crunch rock hanging around. I remember The Clash and bands of that ilk. The ballads are actually a sticking point between me and Milt because Milt will be more forgiving than I. But we've had so many Lionel Richie ballads that it's like, I Can't Help Myself, I get out the vomit sound effect. And a bad ballad is worse than anything because it feels like it never ends. Do you have one that most sticks in your craw?

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:11
I mean, right in that transition point between 81 and 82, really doesn't kick into the spring of 82. And we call this I think it's the MTV effect where stuff starts to get better. And then the British were releasing some more keyboards and they hadn't killed disco the way America had. So Don't You Want Me, Baby? That's still a cool song. And it goes right alongside Eye of the Tiger. But you still got this residual stink of Charlene, I've never been To Me.

David Yas (Guest) 00:28:41
We covered that one, yeah. We have a sound effect that says, what the f were we thinking? And that merited that badge. Of course, that song was famously featured in the movie, which is much better than the song of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which was if you haven't seen it, folks, it's the best movie you'll find around about drag queens making their way to the Australian outback. Very strange movie, but lovable. But, yeah, we spent a little time dissecting what that actually means. I've never been to me, it doesn't exactly make sense. In addition to being just kind of a brutally sappy song. 

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:41
I mean, I respect her needs to go and find herself, but does she have to do it for three minutes on my favorite radio station?

David Yas (Guest) 00:29:21
Yeah, and you know what? Now that you bring this up, it actually brings up what is kind of a fascinating concept to me, which I'm sure somebody has studied this, but by the definition, the top ten hits are pop. It's what people are enjoying. But it begs the question, who are these people? And during different eras and different years, there might have been different ages of people listening to the radio. So why does an Air Supply song make it alongside a song by, I don't know, ZZ Top or something? It's because your parents, they were listening to the radio, too. They needed something to listen to. And so it does blow my mind because it is direct. Much of it is direct. And so, yeah, I'm not going back listening to I've never been to Me too often these days.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:30:06
I don't mean to sort of look at all the podcasts that you work with and say there's a bit of a pattern, but you've got an awful lot of professionals up there from real estate. You got a couple from we got about three or four there from legal and a few businesses. Now I see you've even got one that involves cryptocurrency. So safe to say that you're heavily centered around professionals.

David Yas (Guest) 00:30:22
That was the plan originally, just because I personally had come from the legal world and the financial world. And so my grain of a business model was that those people in the professional world are going to want to market their services through podcasting. So that has worked to some degree. But it goes to show you how it's almost like there should be different words, because a podcast that I do for a divorce lawyer or an accountant or a speech coach is going to be a lot different than Joe Rogan's podcast or Adam Carol's podcast or pick a podcast that is at the top of the charts. It's almost like they're just not the same animal. And I tell people, please don't think you're going to be the next Joe Rogan. That's the biggest mistake. But think about what you want to do. A lawyer, a business person, someone who's an expert in crypto, perhaps they are creating the podcast for the purpose of getting their name out there a little bit in the same way that you get your name out there by, what, going to cocktail parties or attending conferences or speaking at conferences. And these are places where you've got a so called audience of like 200, 300 people, and that's just fine, and you just kind of keep doing that, and you get your name around. So it's not the same as, like, an entertainment. It's almost the difference between Wayne and Garth in their parents'basement doing the cable access show versus, like, Monday Night Football. They're just not the same thing. But that doesn't mean they don't serve both great purposes. And as I said, the the the the the sound off podcast relatively low entry level, and if you want to be really good, you can with some creativity. And why not create the best show that you can? Evan Shine, the divorce lawyer you mentioned that I work with, he's doing it to elevate his name in his industry, but he also loves the idea of making a great show. So we mess around with different kinds of segments and intros and outros and other things that are going to jazz to show up.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:32:09
It's the Boston Podcast Network, but you also have some takers and some equally obnoxious fan bases, like Chicago and Philadelphia.

David Yas (Guest) 00:32:17
That's right.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:32:18
I just want to make sure to hit all those fan bases at once.

David Yas (Guest) 00:32:21
I know you've got them. Yes, each fan base is more rude than the next. Boston fans are known as masssells. New York fans are New York, and Philly fans, you'll know, Matt, of course, are famous for booing Santa Claus, and they would do it again. But when I started the company, to be Frank, like a lot of entrepreneurs, is the first company I've ever owned. You kind of throw a lot of spaghetti against the fridge and see what sticks. And so I named the company the Boston Podcast Network, in part because no one had that name. But being centered in Boston and having that as sort of ground zero of my podcast world made sense. But I get introduced to people all around the country who want podcasts, and, of course, this Internet thing allows you to do things seamlessly. So we proudly produce a podcast called Binge or Cringe, which is Philly based and a very passionate woman with a background in PR named Jamie Joffrey. But frankly, it's all about television, and the fans are a lot of people who were on message boards talking about how they love the show The Affair, and she just blossom that into an extremely well traveled Facebook page. And now a podcast. And proud to say that podcast just won Best of Philly from Philadelphia magazine.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:33:30
Congrats.

David Yas (Guest) 00:33:31
Yeah. So we'll take that.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:33:33
David, thanks so much for being on the podcast and sharing your podcast experience, your radio experience, your music chart knowledge, and I guess we'll be listening to you in podcasts.

David Yas (Guest) 00:33:43
I hope so. And may I say, keep up the great work. What you do is you have just such a unique, cool corner of the radio and entertainment world to do this podcast, which is I know about the industry and so many other things. But listeners will not know that I secretly follow Matt and try to copy what he does because he knows what he's doing. So I hope you don't mind me being your occasional mentee on this ride, Matt. I don't mind saying.

Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:08
Oh, listen, likewise. Thank you. Thanks for being a podcast super friend.

David Yas (Guest) 00:34:12
I will see you at the hall of justice. Don't forget the secret password.

Tara Sands (VO) 00:34:16
That's Sound Off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.