281A. The Discograffiti Soldiers of Sound Podcast: RUDY FISCHMANN

Four years ago, a guy named Rudy Fischmann started listening to Discograffiti. He signed up for Patreon. I reached out to him, and we became fast friends. He’s 54—just three months older than me—and he told me during our first conversation that he had brain cancer. He began making this show—in case you’re unfamiliar with it, I’m pretty sure The Discograffiti Soldiers of Sound Podcast is the world’s only podcast within a podcast. And yet here we are, 150 episodes later, and Rudy has created a show that’s lasted far longer than most regular podcasts. And it’s literalized the Discograffiti community, bringing folks together far and wide as friends, collaborators, and…hell, possibly even as lovers, as far as I know.

Throughout this entire time, I had never met Rudy, due to our geographical distance. But when he went into hospice recently, I unhesitantly leaped into my car and drove the six hours from New Jersey to Virginia. I stayed in the bed beside him for several days. We watched tons of music docs, we laughed a whole lot, we ate well, and we took a hell of a lot of pleasure in each others’ company.

We also made this episode.

This will be Rudy’s final Discograffiti Soldiers of Sound episode…Patrick Tape Fleming has been handed the baton, and next week we’ll kick things off under his reign of terror, over on Discograffiti’s Patreon.