Don’t miss the music (podcasts) at the Philadelphia Podcast Festival

The annual Philadelphia Podcast Festival returns to town this July. The two-week series of free and ticketed events will feature live tapings of podcasts at venues throughout the city. This year’s lineup includes a record 60+ podcasts, covering just about any topic you could hope for, from movies to food to murder mysteries. There’s also no shortage of music-related shows that sound right up our alley. Here are four music podcasts not to miss at the festival.

Tales of the Road Warriors — Sunday, July 21 (Tattooed Mom 3:30 p.m., FREE)

Hal Aaron Cohen’s Tales of the Road Warriors podcast takes a look at the lives of musicians and other industry folk by inviting them to tell their own stories of life on the road. A musician himself, Cohen writes that he decided to start the podcast because “There are many stories out there, far more interesting than my own and they need to be told, dammit!”

Pop, the Question – Sunday, July 21 (Tattooed Mom, 6:30 p.m., FREE)

Pop culture enthusiast and Drexel University faculty member Dr. Melinda Lewis hosts Pop, the Question, an initiative of the Marketing & Media team at the university’s Pennoni Honors College. Topics run the gamut of pop culture from music, to diversity in film, to the history of t-shirts. At last year’s Podfest, Lewis and guests discussed the idea of “guilty pleasure” music.

Serious Rap Sh*t — Saturday, July 27 (Tattooed Mom, 12:30 p.m., FREE)

Hosts John Morrison and Josh Leidy, also lifelong friends, meet weekly to talk music and more. Each conversation uses hip hop culture as a starting point before branching off into other subjects, like the news, race and politics. Topics of recent episodes range from health and wellness, to the 76ers, to the “insufferable malaise of modern existence.”

Pod Dylan – Sunday, July 28 (Tattooed Mom 7 p.m., FREE)

Host Rob Kelly is slowly but surely working his way through Bob Dylan’s catalogue. To date, he’s recorded nearly 100 episodes of the Pod Dylan podcast, and is joined by friends, musicians, and Bob Dylan enthusiasts (“Bobcats”) to take a deep dive into a different song each episode — most recently, he tackled 1964 track “Ballad in Plain D.”

The Philadelphia Podcast Festival runs July 17-28 at various locations across the city. Find more information at phillypodfest.com.