If you've spent any time in the Chicago tribute scene, you've probably seen Chris "C-Bob" Bobrowski on a stage somewhere — Rok Brigade, Super Unknown, Ten, No More Tears, No More Faith, and roughly ten other projects depending on the weekend.

C-Bob returns to Hogpod with Pete Jansons and Bongo Mike for a wide-ranging one: AI and musicianship, the Chicago tribute scene, shrinking attention spans, David Lee Roth, legacy bands with zero original members, and Reggie's full-album Halloween shows — all circling the big question underneath: is live music becoming a dying art form, or is it just changing?

Plus the Long Grove bridge that's been hit 75 times, C-Bob's line of the night — "Everybody wants to be a rock star; they just don't want to pay for it" — and the reveal that the man has roughly 28,000 albums catalogued in Excel and backed up on a NAS.

🎯 KEY MOMENTS

00:00 An AI companion sings C-Bob the Lane Tech fight song

00:46 Two Lane Tech alums reconnect — room 144 & the drafting-to-engineer path

03:02 Welcome back — and congrats, C-Bob married Amy

03:47 The Coterie's comeback & the one-hit-wonders scene

05:20 Herding 30 musicians — the Wolfie jams & how these events come together

07:58 In memoriam: Peter Katsis — Ministry, Riviera & The Firm

09:45 C-Bob's 15 bands — Rok Brigade, Super Unknown, Ten & No More Tears

13:08 The Long Grove bridge that's been hit 75 times

15:30 Reggie's Halloween full-album night — Ten does Pearl Jam's "Vs."

17:10 Rock House — the band playing what nobody else plays

19:13 Why the Discord jam ended — Andrew Blake takes the torch

22:00 Orland Park fest, the rain & Wedding Band at 25 years

25:55 Ronnie Platt — Shooting Star to Kansas

34:58 AI & musicianship — "a tool, not a creative element"

37:16 Glenn Hansard, "Falling Slowly" & the live-music conversation

43:57 Can AI replace the musician? The synthesizer question

47:14 Are younger fans still coming out to live shows?

51:11 Is live music a dying art form?

51:53 "Everybody wants to be a rock star" — nobody wants the 10,000 hours

55:34 Keeping people engaged — video walls, medleys & showmanship

1:01:11 "Nobody watches the whole thing" — the Shorts game

1:07:03 Old bands with zero original members — the Ship of Theseus

1:07:59 David Lee Roth: showman, not singer

1:10:44 Rapid fire — favorite new band, Jerry Garcia & getting old

1:14:15 28,000 albums, an Excel list & a triple-backed NAS

📍 Chicago music - Chicagoland music scene - tribute bands - Rok Brigade - Ten - Super Unknown - AI and musicianship - David Lee Roth - Ship of Theseus - live music - Reggie's - Pearl Jam - Chicago tribute bands

🎤 FEATURED LINKS

Rok Brigade — Def Leppard tribute

https://rokbrigadeband.com/

/ rokbrigadechicago

Ten — Pearl Jam tribute

https://tenchicago.com/

/ tenpearljam

Super Unknown — Chris Cornell / Soundgarden / Audioslave / Temple of the Dog

https://super-unknown.com/

❤️ Support Hogpod on Patreon

/ hogpod

🎙️ Hosted by Pete Jansons and Mike "Bongo" Orfanos (Bongo Mike)

📞 Booking — booking@hogpod.org

#Hogpod #ChicagoMusic #ChicagolandMusicScene #ChicagoPodcast #MusicPodcast #TributeBands #RokBrigade #LiveMusic #AIMusic #ChicagoMusicScene #PearlJam

How does a suburban music teacher end up interviewing Blind Melon, an Allman, and the guy who wrote "Wagon Wheel"? She just slides into their DMs.

Rachel Locker — host of the Rachel Locker Music podcast and a teacher at Our Music Institute in Northfield, IL — joins Hogpod to explain how she lands big-name guests the low-tech way: a direct message on Instagram. Along the way she walks us through the interviews that stuck with her — Blind Melon guitarist Christopher Thorn opening up about the loss of Shannon Hoon and how differently mental health was treated in the '90s, Devon Allman on growing up without knowing Gregg Allman was his father, and Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor on how "Wagon Wheel" grew out of an unfinished Bob Dylan demo. We also get into teaching five- and six-year-olds, why she ditched guitar for bass, meeting her husband (Pino Farina guitarist Mike Popko) on Facebook, and a live drive-by tour of the OMI studio to close it out.

🎧 Rachel Locker Music — on Spotify and Instagram (@rachellockermusic)

🎸 Our Music Institute — lessons, teen bands & a recording studio in Northfield, IL — https://loveourmusic.com

🎤 Pino Farina — the band featuring Rachel's husband, guitarist Mike Popko

🎯 KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Cold open — the music teacher who DMs rock stars

01:15 Welcome — and Rachel's on the clock (she's got a class to teach)

01:58 How Pete met Rachel — the Mosquitoes opening for Pino Farina at Sundance

02:35 "Big time married" — her husband, Pino Farina guitarist Mike Popko

03:43 Two and a half years of the Rachel Locker Music podcast

05:03 A Blind Melon in the guest list — Christopher Thorn

06:03 "I just DM them on Instagram" — how she books the big names

07:49 Her favorite guest ever — Christopher Thorn

07:56 Thorn on losing Shannon Hoon — the guilt, and mental health in the '90s

08:18 The eerie Blind Melon documentary — the last footage

09:35 How many albums did Blind Melon really make?

11:14 Devon Allman & the "Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul" documentary

12:05 He didn't know Gregg Allman was his dad until his teens

12:37 Spotting Devon Allman in the crowd at Summerfest

14:37 "Two wrongs don't make a right" — Gregg's on-stage lesson during "Midnight Rider"

15:17 Warts and all — why live is nothing like the studio

16:16 Pete's disco-ball disaster with Heart of Glass

16:51 Bass over guitar — learning, and chasing the calluses

18:11 Inside Our Music Institute (OMI) in Northfield

19:02 Recitals at Mad Catz & the Black Diamond sessions

21:36 Facebook dating & the newlywed story

22:44 The OMI teacher roster — Amanda Rebecca from Hairbanger's Ball

23:23 The co-host invite — "you get the guests, put 'em on here"

24:04 "Wagon Wheel's" secret — Ketch Secor, a Dylan demo & a shared songwriting credit

24:46 Boone, NC & the tobacco-spitting meeting that actually happened

26:18 Ketch playing with Ringo Starr

27:44 Dylan going electric & the Timothée Chalamet movie

28:35 Rapid fire — first concert, favorite movie & the Pop-Tart rule

30:58 Where to find Rachel Locker Music + loveourmusic.com

31:52 Bonus: a live drive-by tour of the OMI studio

📍 Rachel Locker Music - Blind Melon - Christopher Thorn - Shannon Hoon - Devon Allman - Gregg Allman - Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel - Ketch Secor - Our Music Institute - Northfield - Pino Farina - Chicago music scene - music teacher - podcasting

❤️ Support Hogpod on Patreon

/ hogpod

🎙️ Hosted by Pete Jansons and Mike "Bongo" Orfanos (Bongo Mike)

📧 Booking — booking@hogpod.org

#Hogpod #ChicagoPodcast #MusicPodcast #RachelLockerMusic #BlindMelon #ChristopherThorn #DevonAllman #OldCrowMedicineShow #WagonWheel #ChicagoMusicScene #Podcast

Dan Volpe has kept the same band alive for forty years, figures he's owned something like a thousand guitars, and still flat-out refuses to carry a setlist. He's the mastermind behind My Metal Heart and the guy who's run Exide since 1984 — and he just became the third member of My Metal Heart to land in the Hog Pod chairs, after Elise and Mark Molloy.

He gets into the Thirsty Whale nights when the smoke machine hid the whole band for five songs, naming a group after WVVX 103.1 blasting metal till 1 a.m., the day the guy who wrote "Switchin' to Glide" tracked him down over a cover — and whether a cover-band lifer is ready to let AI write his next song. If you came up in the Chicagoland bar scene, this one's for you. Grab a cold one.

🎯 KEY MOMENTS

0:00 Cold open

2:00 Back from vacation — straight into two band practices

2:43 The 3rd My Metal Heart member to hit the Hog Pod (after Elise & Mark Molloy)

4:45 Exide since 1984 & the birth of My Metal Heart

5:24 Why he built VVX to play Van Halen to Metallica

6:18 The band named after a dead radio station: WVVX 103.1

7:02 Suits on, "Cuddly Metal" — the My Metal Heart rebrand

9:18 No rehearsal since 1991 — and it still works

10:01 Walking in and playing last night's leftover setlist front to back

11:31 "Switchin' to Glide" — the guy from The Kings tracked him down

13:32 Thirsty Whale tales: smoke machines & an amp on fire

17:16 Northwest suburb haunts — Chances Are & Dirty Nellies

23:44 Are kids still getting into hard rock?

25:25 Running a music store through the grunge takeover

29:22 Does anybody still support live music?

35:05 How DUI patrols quietly emptied the bars

36:29 Why he brings earplugs to every show now

40:18 Older brother, Van Halen '78 & the spark

44:07 The best guitar players going right now

45:19 The power-chord "aha" that unlocked everything

46:03 The AI snobbery segment: can a machine write your next song?

50:35 How many guitars? Try 1,000

53:16 Les Paul vs. Strat — the real difference

55:05 His one-of-a-kind Hamer out of Arlington Heights

56:49 First concert: Doobie Brothers, front row, age seven

1:00:03 The vacation where he set up a friend's entire guitar collection

1:01:38 Pop Tarts: the final verdict

📍 Chicago cover bands - Exide - My Metal Heart - VVX - WVVX 103.1 - The Kings - Thirsty Whale - Hamer Guitars - Rick Nielsen - Van Halen - guitar collecting - Chicago live music scene - AI music

🎸 Guest links

My Metal Heart — MyMetalHeart.com (Facebook / YouTube)

Exide — on Facebook

Book Dan — dan@vvxlive.com, or Joey DeMarco at United Talent

❤️ Support the Hog Pod: patreon.com/hogpod

Hosted by Pete Jansons & Mike "Bongo" Orfanos

🎤 Want on the show? Booker / club owner / shredder → booking@hogpod.org

#Hogpod #ChicagoMusic #DanVolpe #MyMetalHeart #Exide #ChicagolandMusicScene #ChicagoCoverBands #TributeBand #HairMetal #GuitarCollector #ChicagoLiveMusic #PeteJansons #BongoMike

What do you do when Jam Productions calls with five days' notice and asks if you want to open for Bob Newhart at a sold-out Chicago Theatre?

Heather Moran said yes — and walked offstage to a wink and three words she never forgot. This week the Bluewater Creek singer (with husband Mike Moran riding shotgun on the couch) covers a career that runs from opera training and Second City to Chicago jazz rooms, storefront theater in Andersonville, and the Lake County scene she now calls "a little Austin." Along the way: the Heatherita, the night the orchestra hated her charts, playing Janis Joplin for Soundtracks of a Generation, the deep-cuts lesson every bar band learns the hard way, why somebody told her she sings "too pretty for rock and roll," singing the national anthem from the top of a firetruck, Mike's DJ etiquette rules, booking bands through Moran Event Group — and the first-ever puppy on Hogpod. His name is Alan. He slept through it.

🎶 Catch Bluewater Creek live: Jul 23 Long Grove Music in the Park · Jul 31 McHenry Riverwalk · Aug 7 Libertyville in the Park · Aug 8 Sunset Pavilion, Lake Zurich (free) — billed as Bluewater Creek Lite

🎯 KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Bluewater Creek live — cold open medley

4:47 Heather arrives + the Heatherita recipe

6:23 Puppy news & the midnight-to-two shift

8:00 Three years of Hogpod, zero monetized episodes

13:03 Bongo's intro — the washboard & djembe at Toadstool Pub

14:22 How they met: Mosquitoes + Bluewater Creek at Sundance

16:02 Sal & Soundtracks of a Generation — 18 shows

18:34 "I've got a band in me" — the Bluewater Creek origin story

21:48 Deep cuts vs. hits — the 80/20 flip

23:50 2013: five days' notice to open for Bob Newhart

25:48 "Good job, kid" — the Johnny Carson wink

27:08 Signing the Chicago Theatre green room wall

30:10 Mom of three, gigging till 2am — the career takeaway

31:20 Opera → theater school → Second City → Factory Theater

33:04 Moran Event Group — working both sides of the stage

40:01 "DJs aren't musicians?" + the wrong-coast DJ disaster

42:06 DJ trends — TikTok kids going back to the 70s

43:33 Alan the puppy makes his public debut

44:49 Let's talk Janis Joplin

49:19 Why the Janis songs come last in the show

50:31 Classical training & 30 voice lessons a week

52:38 "You got to smile and sing"

54:39 "Too pretty for rock and roll"

56:59 The rooftop stage going up at Doc's

57:59 The national anthem from the top of a firetruck

59:20 What's new on Main Street Wauconda

1:00:22 Pitching 30 bands to book one gig

1:02:39 How to book Heather & Mike

1:07:04 Bongo's rapid fire begins

1:07:42 First concert: Shaun Cassidy, third grade

1:10:38 Boulder days — opening for Big Head Todd & the samples

1:12:46 The Pop-Tarts question

1:13:38 Cheese fries: Portillo's vs. everybody

1:14:21 Berwyn, Fitzgerald's & the Fire Alarm

1:15:27 The right way to request a song from a DJ

1:17:02 Hams from the Land of Clear Blue Waters — sign-off

🎸 FEATURED LINKS

Bluewater Creek

https://www.bluewatercreekband.com/

Heather Moran

https://www.heathermoran.com/

Book bands & DJ — Moran Event Group

moraneventgroup@gmail.com

❤️ Support Hogpod on Patreon

/ hogpod

🎙️ Hosted by Pete Jansons, Mike "Bongo" Orfanos (Bongo Mike) & Chris "Rhodesy" Rhodes

📧 Booking

booking@hogpod.org

#Hogpod #ChicagoPodcast #MusicPodcast #HeatherMoran #BluewaterCreek #BobNewhart #ChicagoTheatre #ChicagoMusicScene #LakeCountyMusic #Wauconda #Americana #LiveMusic

What does it take to build a world-class music museum from scratch?Ron Romero, Founder, CEO and Board Chairman of the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66, joins Hogpod for an inside look at the museum preserving Illinois' incredible musical legacy. From honoring legendary artists like Cheap Trick, Survivor, REO Speedwagon, Muddy Waters, Curtis Mayfield and countless others, to creating a destination for music fans in downtown Joliet, Ron shares the vision behind one of the Midwest's most exciting cultural projects.We also talk about rebuilding after the devastating Joliet tornado, the Illinois Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, rare artifacts inside the museum, Cars & Guitars, Route 66 tourism, artificial intelligence and music, and why preserving our state's musical history is more important than ever.If you love rock & roll, Chicago music, Route 66, or the stories behind the artists who shaped generations, this episode is for you.🎯 KEY MOMENTS00:00 Welcome to Hogpod02:16 Rob Stepen on The Generations' summer schedule08:48 Meet Ron Romero12:41 How the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum was born17:14 Recovering from the Joliet tornado20:56 Cars & Guitars and creating a destination24:33 The Illinois Rock & Roll Hall of Fame29:07 Preserving Illinois music history34:09 Legendary Illinois artists and museum artifacts39:38 How the community can help the museum grow43:05 AI, technology and the future of music48:37 Ron Romero's journey as an entrepreneur53:18 Rapid Fire58:12 Favorite concerts, Beatles, Pop-Tarts and closing thoughts🎸 FEATURED LINKSIllinois Rock & Roll Museumhttps://roadtorock.org/Insperityhttps://www.insperity.com/The Generationshttps://thegenerationsband.com/❤️ Support Hogpod / hogpod 🎙️ Hosted by Pete Jansons and Mike "Bongo" Orfanos 📧 Bookingbooking@hogpod.org