Love & Radio: Going to the Show

Our good friends over at Love and Radio just got some big news! Their show is going to be syndicated from here on out on Alt.NPR.

So get over to their site and congratulate them, ok? This kind of recognition is VERY good for the podcast community. It's great that NPR is paying attention to the quality work that is being produced out there.

Way to go Nick and Adrianne!

WHAT!?! You listen to OTHER podcasts!

iTunes has a neat new feature that lets you see what subscribers of a given podcast are also listening to.

The above begs an interesting question: When you lead a sentence with the word "iTunes," should it be capitalized? ITunes?

Anyway, I do think this is a cool feature, and I was curious to check out some of these other podcasts that you all listen to, and try to find the link to us. So I am going to listen to what you all are listening to (according to iTunes), and share some of my thoughts. First up: Schadenfreude (iTunes link)(Website)

NOTE: This is NOT a review per se. I have NOT done the work to actually listen to a large cross-section of these podcasts and give them a fair judgment. I'm just giving some quick thoughts after listening to a couple of episodes.

That this particular podcast shows up on this list makes some sense since I think we have many friends in common. Schadenfreude for a while had a radio show on Chicago Public Radio, where I have done some work. In fact, their producer, Shiow-Jiau Yung, was a good friend of mine there, and supervised a lot of the work I did.

Schadenfreude is a comedy troupe based in Chicago. They have been around for about nine years, which says a lot in a city that has more comedy troupes than you can shake a rubber chicken at. I never had the opportunity to see them live, but heard they were very funny.

The radio show never totally landed for me, though some of their stuff was a riot. I remember a particular piece they did about girls in a sorority, or something like that. It completely cracked me up. But it seemed as though they were only just figuring out how to move their stage show to the radio when they were cancelled.

So now they are podcasting, which makes sense. I like to think of podcasting as being the "minor leagues" of radio. We can test things here, and maybe some of the big teams will pay attention to us (in case I haven't said it in a while thank you Roman and Gwen!! feel free to use more of our stuff!!) So I figured that their podcast was a continuation of the radio show, and that there was a chance they had learned from their Public Radio experience, and refined the content in hopes of getting picked up by the radio world someday.

Apparently their goals were somewhat different, because it turns out this is a video podcast. It claims to bee "weekly," though the most recent episode is dated May 8th (at press time of this blog, it is May 25th). I'll let that slide, it is tough to do a weekly show for no money, believe me. And I suppose video could be even harder. So their May 8th show is entitled "What's So Funny About Hypothermia." Well, that's a dangerous title because it is very easy to review by saying a simple "no."

The video is of a young guy jumping into lake Michigan, presumably in early May. There are no real jokes here. I suppose we are just supposed enjoy the schadenfreude we must feel by watching it. While I am confident it is unadvisable to jump in lake Michigan in early May because it is very cold, and I have no desire to do it, it's not quite like doing the same in January, which people do. So in terms of watching an "extreme" event take place, this doesn't really rank.

I figured that this was probably just a one time idea for the podcast, and went back to look at some of their other stuff. The second most recent is dated April 24, and is titled "Chili Bone Uh-Huh!." This makes much more sense to me. It's a straightforward video of a live performance. It is basically a little teaser/ad for their live show. The one before that is a cast member telling an amusing anecdote (off-stage). That's cool. You basically get a little sampling of their sense of humor. So if you're not in the Chicago area, and want to get a little taste of Chicago comedy, check this cast out.

They also have a podcast of their radio show. It seems to be recycled shows from when they were on the radio, but it is much better produced than these little video shorts, and I give it a much higher recommendation. However, according to iTunes, this is not the one that our subscribers are also subscribing to.

The Congressional Black Caucus

As many of you know, Catalogue of Ships is not my full time job (even though those of you CLICKING ON OUR ADS are helping tremendously cover some of my expenses in putting this together every week...). I make money by doing various things involving audio. Primarily I work in theatre as a composer and sound designer. Currently, I am at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington D.C. working on the premier of a revised version of Bridget Carpenter's play The Faculty Room.

Woolly has a relatively new theatre, which is beautiful, (though acoustically nightmarish). But one cool thing about being a beautiful space in Washington D.C. is that big important people come to it sometimes. Last night was the designer run of the show. For those of you not in theatre, this is a full run of the play where the four major design areas (set, lights, costumes, and sound) attend to see what the actors and director have been doing so that we can adjust our various designs accordingly to satisfy any new aesthetic or practical considerations before we begin to add the design to the production.

Anyway, while we were in the rehearsal room, right outside the Congressional Black Caucaus was having an event. Forty Three influential members of congress (including maybe even Illinois' own Barak Obama? and they told me the Mayor was there too!) were right outside! I thought it was really cool and exciting, but everyone else was completely blah about the whole thing.

I bike to the theatre, and when I was leaving, I was really worried about walking my bike through this prestigious event, so I plotted a route of the theatre that would be as unobtrusive as possible. I checked with my friend the house manager audience services manager (since I now know you read this, I guess I should get your title correct) to make sure it was ok, and she looked at me like I was crazy. As far as she was concerned, I probably could have been wearing nothing but spandex shorts and held the bike over my head as I walked right by the buffet.

Sure I grew up in the D.C. area, and even went to a prep school with all sorts of political luminary's children, but I still get excited by stuff like this, and I'm shocked and, I guess, impressed, at how cool other people can be about being around these guys. But I guess running into congressmen is probably a pretty typical experience for people who work in a theatre less than a mile from Capital HIll.

I'm moving too

But less than a mile away, so no tax break for me. My summer will be largely spent writing papers for conferences in the fall
(one of which is about CoS BTW). Money permitting I may also go to Greece for a little pre-dis research. I'm really glad to hear from those of you who wrote to let us know how you listen I try my best to keep the smarty pants in the closet (or more accurately wadded up on the floor) while doing the podcasts, but it is really helpful for the academic side of my life when you all let us know what you are thinking. Some of you have already been footnoted.

The REAL David and Michael, Interstate 76, and the intro...

Is this fair to say regarding the controversial Episode 28?

Getting a taste of the "real" David and Michael: good.

That it was done in a podcast: BAD.

Well, that seems to be the general consensus from our feedback. Which is great. I guess that's why I want to do this blog. So I can voice my thoughts and such, but not hamper a podcast with that nonsense. Maybe David will even post here some time (or read it...?)

So, regular listeners will note that a major difference in this episode was that "music, editing, and other production considerations" were provided by me in a bunch of different locations. I know I've done this before. In fact, the astute amongst you will have noticed it usually takes place during holidays. But this time, it's for real. It is possible that there will be one more episode produced in Chicago when I go back next month to tie up some loose ends, but from here on out, I've moved. I'm in the Washington D.C. area for the summer, designing a show at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, and then off to New York for the forseeable future. Not sure what I'll do there exactly, but I'm sure it will be fun. I've lived there before, even in some of those "rough neighborhoods" David mentions in Episode 29, though I never got mugged.

I'll miss Chicago, but am looking forward to new things.

Lastly, I wanted to ask what people thought of the intro. Frankly, it was an idea of my father's from several months ago. He thinks we should brand our show, give it a little more cohesiveness from episode to episode. I agreed, but never had the time to do it. So e-mail us or comment on this posting to let me know what you think. It's a work in progress.

Episode 28 - Listener Feedback

So, one of the concepts at the inception of Catalogue of Ships was that it would be a forum for experimentation for both myself and David. We both had theories we wanted to explore with both narrative and sound. For my own part, I have gotten to try my hand at scoring things ind different styles: documentary, film score, algorhythmic, pseudo-classical, uh.. Christmas carol... and yes, a lot of loop-based composition.

And so, with Episode 28, we wanted to try our hand at a popular current form of audio-art, the traditional podcast.

I guess if you had wanted to listen to this, you would have listened to any of the thousands of podcasts that are already like this like my favorite guilty pleasure. So if you were offended, please excuse us and view it in the greater context of our overall commitment to experimentation.

It was not universally hated, but I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes from our listeners (I'll keep them all anonymous).

"It said YOU DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS and honestly I thought it meant that it was scary or gross or horrible or something - but no, I am probably just one of the people that are goingto write to say that I did not find it shockingly boring. I enjoyed it. It was kind of like having the curtain snatched away from the wizards - and I am amused by your modesty."

"Um ... er.... please don't do another podcast like episode 28 ever again. I can only imagine the amount of work that must go into putting together a podcast but you're only doing yourselves & your listeners a disservice by "winging it." I'd rather you just skip an episode if it means having to listen to another e28 again."

"I wanted to say, while this last episode was definitely boring, I also found it inspiring."..."I didn't mean that it was bad! Not at all! I definitely enjoyed listening to it. I mean, /2001 /is boring as hell, but that doesn't make it any less awesome."

"that was not more boring than Bounce (f.y.i. the costar was Gwyneth Paltrow). Maybe I have a skewed perception considering I was at such a high level of boredom right before listening to it - but it made, well, 40 minutes out of my day."

Keep them coming!!

What's up with the MacBook?

Catalogue of Ships uses a lot of Apple computers. David has an iBook and a brand new iMac. I have a small powerbook. So we are avid followers of the news of all the latest Apple releases. Eagerly, we have awaited the arrival of the Macbook, the replacement for the iBook.

It seems pretty cool, actually. My biggest complaint with the iBook was always that it had no sound input, but this thing does, which is nice. Not something I use a lot, but it is convenient for quick and dirty recordings.

I also like that the superdrive is now standard. I can count the number of DVDs I've burned on one hand, but using DVD media for backup storage is fantastic.

But what I am totally stymied about is the price of the 2 Ghz models. Go ahead. Click that link. I'll wait for you.

You see the comparison of the white and black models? Point for point, they are exactly the same. Well, except for the hard drive space, but to upgrade the white model to 80 gigs is a small $50 upgrade. This means that Apple expects consumers to fork over $150 because they prefer the color black!! I find that hilarious. But I guess they know what they are doing.

I also think it's funny that the black model takes longer to ship. As if there is a huge, unanswerable demand for it.

Half a year!!!

I have to say, there was a part of me that figured this whole "Catalogue of Ships" thing would fizzle out around January. The Christmas show was exhausting to produce, and no one seemed to like it very much. Then we did our clips show, and I really started to worry that we were out of energy and ideas.

But here we are, a full six months into the show, and our listenership has increased by a huge margin, we've been re-broadcast all over the place, I got to pretend I was an expert at the Third Coast Panel, and we are still going strong.

I want send a special thanks to all the folks who seemingly have found us by chance and have helped us out by linking to us on their blogs (you can see a list of some of these people by clicking on our links page), because I'm pretty sure it is this word of mouth that has been helping us so much.

And, of course, thanks to everyone listening. Honestly, we may have given up pretty quickly if it weren't for the fact that people are really listening out there.

We are going to be making some big announcements about changes in the show in two weeks, so stick around and let us know what you think!

-Michael