I like to say, and often do, "it's a music podcast featuring songs and bands you might have otherwise missed."
The show was weekly for the 2004, 2005, and 2006 seasons, but starting in Season 4 (2007) I cut back a bit and it was bi-weekly from then until Season 9 starting in 2012 at which point it was less regimented, but still always came out on Mondays.
Daniel is a Brooklyn-based pizza eater with an iPhone, a bike, and enough sunset photos to fill an Instagram feed. He's also the one writing this, so he'll switch to first-person now… Originally I'm from Dallas, TX. I love to travel, but have only ever lived in a handful of cities. My favorite cities are NYC, Stockholm, and Cape Town. I'm a passionate liberal of the "democratic socialist" variety and I'll happily argue with anyone about politics until they see that I am right and they are wrong. I ride my bike everywhere I go, and don't much care for automobiles. I'm a vegetarian, and don't like alcohol, tea, or coffee, so basically I'm saying I'm a pain to meet up with. To make money I am a UX Designer with a background in graphic design and video production. I love Macs, science, comedy, and lots of different kinds of music, but it helps if there's a good melody. Embarrassingly, I play no musical instruments.
Everything you hear on the show is selected by me, Daniel, as TSiMH is entirely a one-man operation. All of the music I play I buy myself, and I have no sponsorship of any kind — translation: I'm not making any money in any way whatsoever from this. In fact, it's quite a money-losing endeavour, but I try not to think about it like that! I recommend everything based on my honest opinion, and try my best to provide links where you can buy whatever I play.
The show is purely a hobby. I started doing it in May of 2004 (several months before the first "podcasts" were distributed). So The Sounds in My Head wasn't always a podcast, as I didn't even know there was such a thing until late 2004. Initially the show was just an "audio file you can download and listen to". I typically described it as being "like a radio show, but without all that radio business." Then, in January of 2005 I got my act together and got the RSS feed going on, at which point it became a "podcast."
Opening Sweeper, Song, I Talk, Song, Sound Clip (of something non-musical I also don't think people should miss be it for political or humor reasons but most often both), Song, I Talk, Song, Sound Clip, Song, etc. Eventually there are closing credits. I try to change the opening sequence for the show once every couple of months, as I like having a fresh opening, but editing one together is often quite time consuming. The music in the opening sequence is the only music I don't credit anywhere, and rarely has anyone inquired as to what any of it is, so I guess that's not problem. Should you ever wonder, you can email and ask. The music which I talk over during the show is always credited during, appropriately, the end credits. The music I talk over is frequently thematic in some way or another even when the show doesn't have a theme.
There is no schedule for "special" episodes, which are ones where I typically have a theme of some kind, and don't concern myself as much with trying to expose people to new bands so much as find songs that I like a lot which fit into said theme. If you have any awesome ideas for a special episode, feel free to tell me about them.
Not recently, but in the past there have been a number of "Special Guest-Hosted" episodes of TSiMH, these have included: Andy (in New Zealand), Ling (host of the awesome podcast Antique Shanghai Pop Music), my cuter-half and design celebrity Kelli Anderson, Lane (from Brooklyn), Neil Hohmann (of Ritmo Latino), Doug (from Australia), and Rob Walker (author and former NY Times Magazine columnist).
I record the audio for the show using an Audio-Technica AT4047 microphone, and edit it together in Adobe Audition CC (for over a decade I used Apple's Final Cut Pro , but switched to Audition in 2015 and it's been life-changing) on a 27" 5k iMac (I'm convinced it's the best computer ever made). TSiMH is distributed as stereo 128k AAC/M4A file, and has been since the first episode. I initially used AAC because it was a lot like MP3 but the quality was better at a lower bitrate/filesize. But on June 27, 2005 I switched from the standard ".m4a" AAC format to the new "enhanced" podcast format, which allowed me to add chapters with album art, and embedded links. I have used this format ever since.
The website was most recently overhauled at the start of Season 9 (2012). The current design features larger album art, @font-face typography and clearer labeling of songs. The site is built using the CMS MODx, which is pretty great, even if a lot of how it actually works is over my head. I've recruited people who understand it better than me and they've set it up in a really cool way where it's very easy for me to use, modify, add shows, etc. I hope you like it as much as I do.
If you're still wondering about something about me, or TSiMH in general, you can contact me by emailing the address which is presented below in what looks like a button, but is merely a graphic. You'll have to type it in yourself. Sorry about that. Spammer-bots and all that.