Happy (belated) Hannukah!

Our Year 2 experiment continues tonight with Episode 54: Behind the Phone Books, our first experiment with teaming up a writer and composer who have never met or spoken with each other.

The story is by Sue Mell, an independent radio producer and freelance bed stylist(?) from San Francisco. You can check out more of her work at PRX. If you have a moment, I highly recommend "For Love," which she produced with Roman Mars of the Third Coast International Audio Festival. Look for her podcast, Unintended Detours, coming soon!

Dylan Ris is a student of film scoring and composition at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. His music has been heard all over the country at places like the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and HERE in New York City. A few years ago, he helped me write the music for the song "I'm Tired" (click here to listen!) from the play "Lenny and Lou" by Ian Cohen. He also wrote the stunning score for the short film "Yoshi" by AD Weiss which you can watch for free here.

For our next episode, we are asking for stories about Taking One for the Team. Have you, or anyone you've known been in a situation in which you are asked to make a personal sacrifice for the good of the team, but not really been so into the idea your self? Kind of like this woman...

If so, record it or write it down and send it to us at catalogueofships@gmail.com

mk

New Episode this week! Plus: Episodes 7 and 8...

Dear listeners,

I am happy to announce that we will have a new episode live before the end 2006. Independent radio producer Sue Mell from San Francisco has joined forces with Boston based composer Dylan Ris to bring us a Hannukah story.

Yes, I know Hannukah ended Friday night. Sorry about that. You have no idea how hard it is to book a composer around the Holidays.

But on to other matters...

I have noticed a trend in people's downloading habits. As you may recall, last year David and I put together a 20 minute Christmas carol called "A Christmas Catalogue." Because of the length, we broke it into two parts. As it turns out, Part 1 is one of our most downloaded episodes of all time, while Part 2 is one of the least.

The only explanations I can come up with for this are:

a) people hate Part 1 and have no interest in Part 2.

or

b) people like part 1, but assume Part 2 is simply more of the same.

Assuming "a" is untrue (since there's not thing I can do about that, and anyway, this guy loved it), I want everyone to know that Part 2 is actually quite different, includes a better singer, more adult stories, a techno version of the song, and is all around a better piece of listening.

So if you didn't hate Part 1, please take a moment and listen to Part 2 by clicking here.

And think about starting a new family tradition where everyone gathers around the iPod to listen to "A Christmas Catalogue."

Happy Holidays everyone!

mk

Peabody Award Winning Radio Producer Kicks Off Year 2 of Catalogue of Ships!

I know!

We can't believe it either, but multiple Peabody award winner Marjorie Van Halteren has chosen to premier her new piece "Cheesing" on Catalogue of Ships! So starting at midnight tonight if you click this link, you will be able to hear the latest in innovative radio straight out of Morbecque, France.

For more about Marjorie, check out her blog at vanwindmill.googlepages.com

Catalogue of Ships has been deeply flattered by those of you who have contacted us to complain about our month-long absence. Honestly, we didn't think we would really be missed that much. We're back now, but we are going to be cutting back on our productivity a bit. The show will now be produced monthly (give or take a week). A weekly show was getting to be pretty exhausting, honestly. Though it was a whole lot of fun.

We have some great stuff planned for our second year including some incredible work that is being put together by some really tremendous artists out there, some new pieces by David and myself, and a LIVE performance coming up in February (stay tuned for details!).

For our second episode of the year, we are turning our you, our listeners, to help us out. So here's what we need from you. Think of your most vivid holiday memory. It can be happy, sad, silly, emotional, or whatever. If you can, record it at send it to us as an mp3 (at catalogueofships@gmail.com). If you can't, at least write it down and e-mail it to us. We'll be premiering the next episode on Christmas day, so if you want to participate, try to get us material no later than Friday, December 22.

Thanks in advance! And let us know what you think of year 2!

mk