Magic on the mic

Andrew Crowley | acrowley@reporter-times.com
The Reporter Times

MARTINSVILLE — It was late — 1:30 in the morning on May 6 — when Andrew Ramey decided to step outside for a breather.

He and his Porch Time co-hosts Kevin Coryell and Billy Owens had been live-streaming video online for five and a half hours as part of a benefit for the family of Matt Stout. During the course of the broadcast, they’d invited viewers to join them at the studio.

“We looked out about 15 minutes after we said that, and it was just a sea of people,” Ramey said.

Over 70 people took the hosts up on their offer.

“Morgan Street should have been shut down because I looked out and there’s people standing in Morgan Street trying to get in,” Coryell said.

Someone had to stay on camera to keep the live-stream going, so Ramey was surprised to see Owens and then Coryell join him outside.

“Billy walks up, and I’m like, ‘OK, Kevin’s in there,’ and then Kevin walks up. And he’s like, ‘Who’s running Porch Time?’” Ramey said. “And we look in and it didn’t miss a beat. They picked up right from where we left off. And we just kind of looked at each other and were like, ‘This is awesome.’”

It was a highpoint for a show that had only started about two months before.

Origins

Porch Time is the brainchild of Kevin Coryell, creator of The Ville Information Page on Facebook. He would sit on his porch and post about what he saw.

“People thought it was funny. And then one friend would stop by, and then there was two friends, and it was five friends, and then it was 20 friends. So then I took that and was like, ‘We could have fun with this,’” Coryell said.

With Porch Time, Coryell hoped to recreate the experience of sitting on the porch, watching the world go by and chatting with family and friends.

“I feel that the country, the world has gotten away from values like that, when we used to sit on the porch and solve the world problems, not that we did — but that was family time,” Coryell said.

He approached his friend Ramey, a graduate of the Martinsville High School class of 2010 and a man who was tech-savvy.

“I wanted to take the page, The Ville Information Page, and be able to communicate it in real time, so to speak. And that’s how I approached him with it,” Coryell said.

Ramey’s father worked with Coryell’s father, which is how the two met and became friends.

“I didn’t want to just do it to help him because he’s my friend,” Ramey said. “I’ve seen the ripple effect that it could have on a community.”

The third host, Owens, is Coryell’s nephew and has known Ramey a long time. His involvement came about when Ramey and Coryell were trying to set up the boom arms and discovered they wouldn’t fit. It was 1:30 a.m. but Coryell knew that Owens would be up despite the late hour.

“‘We need you to bring a saw,’ and he’s like, ‘For what?’ and we’re like, ‘Dude, just bring a saw and come down here,’” Ramey said.

Owens wanted to know what they were up to, and they told him that it was for Porch Time. They wanted Owens to cut the table so the booms for the microphones would fit.

“We’d been talking about Porch Time, but it was all kind of coming together at that point in time. The first thing I said is, ‘I’m not cutting this table, I mean, this is a nice table,’” Owens said.

Owens told them he wasn’t going to do anything to such a nice table.

“So I’m like, ‘No, not going to happen.’ So what I’m doing is I’m going in to my Bucktown ingenuity here, and ‘You got some scrap wood around?’” Owens said. “So I get a saw and I’m out on the sidewalk at 1:30, cutting wood, and we end up making these little makeshift deals to hold the microphones on, and then we got it up and going that night and just kind of played around.”

The next three nights, they did test runs until three in the morning with other friend, until they finally decided to go live.

“It’s just spiraled out of control since,” Owens said.

People of interest

Since the show’s inception, Porch Time has hosted some important figures from Martinsville and the surrounding areas, including deputy prosecutor Bob Cline, judge Matt Hanson, both candidates for sheriff — Rich Myers and Brent Worth, former mayor Phil Deckard I, Morgan County Substance Abuse Council Executive Director Kristinia Love and Morgan County Drug Task Force Prevention Program Director Kristi Dunigan, Morgan County Relay for Life and members of the Martinsville High School football team.

“‘People of interest’ is what I call it. Everybody’s got a story,” Coryell said.

Traditionally, Porch Time takes place every Sunday at 7 p.m. Some Saturday mornings, Coryell will host a segment called Coffee with Kevin. Linemen from the the MHS football team host a show at 5:30 p.m. on Sundays called Hogs In The Trough, which covers football, food and the experience of being a high school student. There’s also a call in segment called Help Us Help You Get What’s On Your Mind Off Your Chest.

“And so we let them call in, and it’s very unprofessional. But you get characters call in, and we have some serious ones,” Coryell said. “We had one asking about the street paving the other day. And then of course Moe’s On Douglas right now is a huge hit.”

Moe’s On Douglas is a bit that was started by Owens. He noticed an orange building on Douglas Street with the phrase “Mo’s Clubhouse Mission” written on it. During a podcast, Owens said, ‘Hey, I see you have a Moe’s on Douglas’

“But from that point on, everybody was like ‘There’s a Moe’s on Douglas?’ So at first I’m like, ‘Listen to what he’s saying,’” Coryell said.

To the disappointment of some viewers of Porch Time, there is no burrito restaurant on Douglas Street, but it makes for a fun in-joke.

“It doesn’t make sense, but you want it to so bad,” Ramey said.

It’s a joke the trio has taken seriously enough that they’ve tracked down the owner of the building. The owner has remodeled the inside but the outside is nothing to write home about. There’s been some discussion about purchasing the building but talks have stalled as they work toward a selling price.

“Moe’s On Douglas now has a Twitter, it has an Instagram, and it’s got followers. And the funny thing was … there’s a food group out of Fishers that brings in restaurants, they follow Moe’s On Douglas. I think we’re going to have to create a Spam sandwich plate or something,” Coryell said.

“Moe” has called in to the show several times.

“Obviously, it doesn’t exist, but it’s a funny joke that everyone in the community can get in on. And it’s funny and it’s like an inside joke,” Ramey said.

Initially, some viewers were upset with the joke because they thought they were making fun of that side of town.

“Then I had to explain I used to live on Cherry Street when I was a kid,” Coryell said.

Owens lives a block away from the house, which is how he came to notice it in the first place.

Once it was made clear that it was all in good fun and coming from people who had lived in that part of town, the attitude toward the joke changed.

“I’m like, ‘Trust me, we ate the spam, we ate the fried baloney. We grew up there, that’s our neighborhood.’ And then they backed away, ‘Oh, we get it now,’” Coryell said.

The next phase

Porch Time will be covering MHS football games, and last night marked their debut at game coverage. The trio will do color commentary of the football games and do video segments during pregame, halftime and post-game.

Coryell said that their coverage will allow people living out of state to hear MHS football more easily.

Eventually they hope to give the same treatment to basketball, baseball and softball.

It’s not the first time Porch Time has gone mobile, and they took it to the Morgan County Fair.

They are also sponsoring a Sammy Terry show at the Art Sanctuary next month. Proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Morgan County Food Pantry. The goal is to raise $1,500 for the pantry. Owens is taking lead on that, and he’s the one who approached Sammy Terry. Currently, they communicate roughly once a week.

A costume contest is also in the works for October. The plan is to have the kids stop by during a Porch Time stream, state their name and what costume they are wearing and walk out.

“And then we’re going to let the audience vote. We’re going to purchase a big bag of candy for ages 1 to 4 and 5 through 12,” Coryell said. “Hopefully, we can get them all sugared up and sent home.”

Porch Time has already participated in a number of charitable events, the aforementioned Stout benefit, as well as one for the Snooks family. A listener to the show provided a vehicle to another listener in need of a vehicle.

“We helped raise money for a young gal battling suicide attempts and things like that. Wasn’t much money, but it was a program going on at Bradford Woods. We ended up raising $400 for her in one day and paid for her way to take this course. And her mom had texted me and said, ‘It’s unbelievable,’” Coryell said.

The future

The podcast has been life changing for the core trio of Owens, Coryell and Ramey.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, I’m 46. A lot of family here and I’ve met a lot of people in these six months that I probably wouldn’t have ever spoken to,” Owens said.

Ramey said it had changed his relationship with his hometown.

“I’ll be honest with you, I grew up here, I graduated from Martinsville in 2010, I have not felt more a part of this community until I started doing Porch Time,” he said. “And it’s awesome. it feels so good.”

Coryell feels hopeful about what Porch Time will be in the future.

“I think that we have yet to scratch the surface, honestly. We are still in the infancy stage,” Coryell said. “We’ve just learned to crawl. We might be teetering towards walking.”

For more information about Porch Time, visit “The Ville Information Page” on Facebook, or search “Porch Time Martinsville” on YouTube.com.

Kevin Coryell (left) and Billy Owens (right) are two hosts of Porch Time. They had a dunk tank at this year’s Relay for Life at the Morgan County Fairgrounds.
Porch Time is sponsoring a show with Sammy Terry at 6 p.m. on Oct. 14 at The Art Sanctuary, 190 N. Sycamore St., Martinsville. Photo courtesy of Billy Owens.
Kevin Coryell got the idea for Porch Time as a way to connect members of the Maritnsville community. Photo courtesy of Billy Owens.
Andrew Ramey handles the technical side of Porch Time. He graduated from Martinsville High School in 2010 and currently makes a living as a Twitch streamer, playing Fortnite. Photos courtesy of Billy Owens.
Billy Owens is one of the hosts of Porch Time and was responsible for getting Sammy Terry to do a show in Martinsville. Photo courtesy of Billy Owens.
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