Sunday, April 02, 2006

Today I have mostly been listening to..

Eat right, Get Out of Breath with Chris, formally from England, then Montana...and soon to be England again. Without wishing to patronise Chris, he's a very brave bloke and I love his idea of logging his weight loss project from "a tub of lard to a greek adonis".

Actually, here's the thing: podcasting is sometimes about entertainment, but that's not the be all and end all. I use this comparison so much, it's done to death, but if you're into knitting - there's a whole community for you. Here, with Chris, it's something that really draws me in, you follow a real bloke's journey on a real path with real struggles without any of the glitz and nonsense you usually see on the so called reality programmes. I enjoy the rawness of things like that. I aim to stick with Chris and I do seriously wish him well.

Maybe it's a subjective thing, but i like the idea of invesigation, journalism. Entertainment is great, but it doesn't necessarily draw me in as much as something that makes me think - that's why I like John Buckley's Dissident Vox so much. If you're reading this John, do more O.B stuff - your talking to the protesters outside Downing Street has to be a highlight, I remember sitting on a sunlounger just south of Barcelona totally drawn into the whole thing.

Next I listened to Paul Hopkins, an old mate of mine of 15 or 16 years. Knowing I have a real passion for choral music (nope, I've no idea where it comes from) he pointed me to his Lichfield Cathedral podcast under his VIpodcasting (visually iimpaired) site. I remember once,a few years ago now, stumbling into a college chapel in Oxford and hearing a choir practice with a quartet. I sat mesmerised and tearful for ages, I was so moved. This is a brilliant piece of O.B. - listen from about 16 minutes in, the quality of the recording is absolutely exceptional, as is the music. Paul's discussion with a Cherokee indian chief in Alabama from a recording he made some years ago is also a good one to listen to.

I've reviewed a couple of alternative podcasts that you may want to try out in the Podcast user Magazine, the third edition should be up soon after you read this post.

1 comment:

Chris said...

Thanks for the mention, Paul. The response to the first podcast has been truly amazing. One thing that I've discovered is that it's so much easier to do a podcast that's 'raw', with just a single music loop adding a tiny bit of musical interest (to break up the monotony of my voice). It doesn't take four hours to produce a 20 minute podcast, so it's more fun to do, and easier to stay regular.

And with the whole world watching my progress, it'll be almost impossible to fail.