Today is Sunday, and some of us lost an hour due to Day Light Savings Time. Some of us feel like we gained an hour according to our clocks; now, we get to show up early to every appointment today and figure out how to reset the dusty digital clock next to the bed. Happy day!

With A Shout hit the digital newsstand on Thursday, September 15th, 2022. The original goal, publish every day for 100 days. The thought process, everything we need to learn about how to create, write, edit and publish a daily newsletter will be easier and faster to figure out by writing a daily newsletter and publishing it. Substack helps us do that by reducing the steps it takes to publish a newsletter. Not without a few quarks, and those quarks, we have found and fixed or figured out a way to work around them. We see and set a lesson we know by doing the work daily, but we must remind ourselves to follow constantly.

Today is Sunday, day #53 for With A Shout; we are starting to feel our groove, and the newsletter is becoming more enjoyable to write each day. It is now less an obligation or goal to achieve and turning into the ultimate goal of something we would do even if we didn’t have to. We understand the state, “If you love what you do, it’s not work.” We believe if you love what you do, it’s less work, but it’s still work. We also love work!

There is a tactical benefit to writing and publishing daily, finding info, writing, testing, publishing, etc. We have found the strategic benefits are more significant than the tactical ones. We have changed the newsletter’s name in just under two months and tested several different sections. We have not yet promoted this newsletter to anyone, not even our friends. Substack does a great job of tracking info when a newsletter is published. We know who reads us and when and will continue not to promote the newsletter until we think it’s ready for it.

With A Shout is a newsletter about; news, writing, music, art, and events. We try to find interesting angles when analyzing the information we gather. If it makes With A Shout, we think it deserves a stage, and our audience will appreciate it. We use references from our favorite music, writers, and artist all over this newsletter. All those references are in tribute to artists we love; all the connections go back to our one true love, writing. Everything is based on our love of words; even music is based on our love of words. We are grateful we can share our love of words with you.

What’s next for With A Shout? Yesterday at a team meeting, we all hopped up on turning the curve from daily publishing obligations to the fun of creating this thing every day; we started to discuss moving the goal of 100 posts in 100 days to 1,000 posts in 1,000 days. That would get us to Wednesday, June 11th, 2025. Bold plans for a brave world. Before we reach 1,000 published newsletters, we will start a weekly podcast and are in preproduction on the Podcast now. Same bones, “great writing,” and we will take that and add great guests with something to say.

We find approximately 75% of the news and information we report from websites, paid news sources, and other newsletters. The next source of information is podcasts. Technology has made creating a podcast less expensive, but as we look into producing our Podcast, less expensive does not mean easier. We; write, report, and analyze information for a newsletter, the writing is number one, and the information is number two, at least to With A Shout. On the podcast side, we think writing is again number one; after that, ten new items tie for number two.

Sidekick from Morning Brew has a great article on a few items to consider if you consider going into podcasting. The article discusses high-end production podcasts with corporate oversight and indie podcasts with less oversight and preproduction requirements. We focused on the indie side. Our three biggest take-a-ways include:

Additional ideas and considerations With A Shout are thinking about:

The Guardian has an article about a creation by Ruth Miller called Unglamorous. The Guardian article highlights one of the bands created at Unglamorous called Velvet Crisis. Unglamorous is based in the U.K., and the mission is to get everyone to play instruments in groups. We love the noble cause, and it’s the last phrase that makes it different in groups.

If you had ever picked up an instrument later in life or played when you were a teen, then had to grow up, get a job, raise a family, blah, blah, blah - then wake up 20+ years later and want to play again, there is good news and bad news. The good news is music technology has advanced over the years, and it is easier to get back into the groove of playing an instrument, see Youtube. Bad news, you get back to playing; what will you do with that? Play in your bedroom, basement, or patio for an audience of dogs and cats? If you are excited and interested in playing music for the first time or picking it back up, you want to play with and for people.

You don’t have to prepare to play at Wembly; any campfire with three or more people is still people. If you are going to play in front of people, you are more likely to take it seriously and get your groove on. According to the Unglamorous website, Ruth created a 66 Days to your Debut challenge. For women ages 20 to 70+, Unglamorous provided the instruments, lessons, other people, and a place to play. It sounds a lot like 100 published posts in 100 days to us!

Velvet Crisis is a heartwarming yet powerful story of 4 women who took the opportunity and are now a working garage punk band in Leicester. We can’t wait for your U.S. Tour, ladies!

A job is a contract between you and the bills you have to pay. The message below, Elizabeth Gilbert presents in one of her talks on Youtube. We have seen variations of this same talk, and we think it’s the best description of what you are doing with your life.

Gilbert is an award-winning and best-selling author who wrote Eat Pray Love. It gives a talk on why you have to have a job. Also, why you don’t have to love your job, calling all youth - Gilber helps us understand what we all do for a living and why.

[Music Notes]

Sacramento-based alt-rock band Cake is the only punk band in our playlist with a trumpet. We have several Brit punk bands with a sax, most notably, The Psychedelic Furs and INXS, but outside a brief stint with Ska or Swing, no trumpets in punk. Reading the review on Pitchfork for Cake’s 1996 album Fashion Nugget, we don’t think the band cares what we think of categories or trumpets.

We do remember the band and the 90s band fondly. Less power chord screaming and more eclectic rhythms and lecture-at-you lyrics than most of the music at the time. Something to cleanse the pallet in between our screaming angst of all things punk, grunge, and other loud noises.

The review also mentions McCrea talking with Terry Gross from NPR’s Fresh Air, explaining that some of his lyrics were about a pop culture waste cycle and how many leather jackets are no longer in style.

Our favorite part of Pitchfork’s review is this line from frontman John McCrea, which sums up Cake for us:

[More New Stuff]

Words | Music | Art | Unknown

“And how much did you pay for your rock’n’roll T-shirt
That proves you were there, that you heard of them first?”

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us!

With A Shout Team