August 11, 2025 | 8:58 AM

WITF Music: Observe the 93rd

Questioning the existence of time and other light conversation.

Joe Ulrich/WITF

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Joe has been interested in audio and music since he was a kid. What started as a fascination with his parents’ vinyl records and cassette tapes turned into a love of both performing and recording. He grew up in Elizabethtown, Pa. and moved to Pittsburgh in 1999 where he majored in Photography at the University of Pittsburgh.

In 2004, he attended the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences in Tempe, AZ. He returned to Pittsburgh to work at a recording studio.

In 2008, Joe arrived at WITF, where his skills have found a good home as an on-air host, audio engineer and producer of WITF Music. In 2016, Joe earned a National Edward R. Murrow award for Best Use of Sound.

Joe Ulrich / WITF

Observe the 93rd performed in the WITF Music studio on April 24, 2025. (l-r) Dylan Zepp, Zach Nyce, Derek Henry, Logan Miller.

Joe Ulrich: Give me a brief overview of the history of the band.

Derek Henry: Dylan and I met in high school in like 10th grade and started jamming in his basement. And then we started dragging other people into the mix.

Joe Ulrich: Tell me about the songs you played today.

Derek Henry: “Where Is Everyone?” is about spaces that you have a lot of history personally with, but you revisit them and they’re empty. This is gonna be on an album called Eternalism 2, which obviously indicates that we released an Eternalism 1. I’m really into liminal spaces and the idea that all points in time are overlapping. So this is specifically about being in spaces that you have a lot of memories and you can feel them around you, like ghosts.

There was some poet that wrote a line about a bad relationship in a city and they said the city feels haunted to them now as if those moments still exist there.

There’s a word anemoia which is like nostalgia for a memory that you didn’t have, or a place that you haven’t even been to, but you see it and it feels like it’s linked to your past. And some people think it’s to do with parallel universes and things like that, where you exist infinitely in all these other realms.

Joe Ulrich: Was there a particular song or artist that really hit you for the first time?

Logan Miller: Aerosmith. I was watching The Simpsons and Aerosmith was a guest on it. And they like started playing “Walk This Way”. And it just smacked me in the face. And ever since then this is what I wanted to do.

Zach Nyce: Weezer’s blue album. It was the first album that I bought with my own money and the first track is “My Name Is Jonas” which I think is such an amazing song.

Dylan Zepp: For me it was Nirvana. “All Apologies.”

Joe Ulrich: What was the first live concert each of you attended?

Logan Miller: Alice Cooper at York Fair.

Zach Nyce: Billy Joel. That was my first show.

Derek Henry: Mine was Paramore. And the funny thing was, Tegan and Sara opened for them and I had no clue who they were. And I remember leaving there and Paramore was great, but I just wanted to buy all of Tegan and Sarah’s albums.

Dylan Zepp: The Casualties. And my mom went to go drop me off and there were people handcuffed to each other outside and she goes, honey? And I went, see ya.

Joe Ulrich: What’s one of your favorite shows that you’ve played?

Derek Henry: We did the Hershey Stadium Show way back in the day with a bunch of big acts. That was like Stone Temple Pilots and Seether and Three Days Grace headlining that. But we really only signed up to be in that competition because this band, Foxy Shazam was playing. And we love that band.