This entry from someecards resonated, if only because I've been subscribing for several years (and occasionally listen live) to KCRW and their podcasts. The California station is dedicated to new music, and it has great ears; and, yes, it's true that you'll hear a tune long before it becomes a hit.
But I also know that it can be really irritating to whine about having like a song before, well, everyone else did.
Which is why this entry in the Willy Wonka meme also rings true!
I read Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories over the last week or so; it's a breezy read, perfect for the summer months, and I enjoyed capping each night of my vacation trip with Bachman's anecdotes from 40-plus years in the music business.
I quite like Vinyl Tap, and while I'm not religious about catching it, I like the tunes and Bachman's tone and how they fit into Saturday night. (The show airs on CBC Radio One here in St. John's at 8:30; it comes at 7 in most other time zones.)
I finished the book admiring Bachman. The stories, many of which come from the show, are genial, friendly, and a good many illustrate how Bachman has been impressed by the kindness of others, including his heroes, like guitar legends Les Paul and Chet Atkins. There's no bitterness or backstabbing (just passing references to mud being thrown when Bachman left the Guess Who at the height of their fame), but stories about an ordinary guy from Winnipeg who found himself in extraordinary circumstances. (And who, of course, knocked out one famous guitar riff after another.)
One of the items in the book is the pitch that Bachman put together for Vinyl Tap, which first launched as a summer replacement show in 2005. Program pitches are generally not made lightly, with a great deal of effort made on securing a pivotal meeting with the right pair of ears. Bachman, instead, typed a note that he gave to a technician for The Vinyl Cafe, who was good enough to pass it along the CBC food chain.
Here's the pitch:
Dear CBC Radio,
I'm a big fan of CBC Radio. This past Saturday's show of Finkleman's 45s I noticed that Danny said he was retiring. I would love his time slot, and my proposal is that I play music from my record collection and tell personal stories about the artist, song, etc. Instead of Finkleman's 45s you could call the show Randy's Rockin' Records or Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap, like Spinal Tap
from Randy Bachman
And that was it. Simple, no embellishments, and apart from a near-miss for the title that didn't get used, a clear and direct description of what the show would be, and still is.
I'm hosting Radio Noon again today, while Ramona Dearing enjoys a couple of days off. Tune in if you can!
I heard the most interesting thing earlier today: a documentary called The Smell of Money on BBC Radio 4. It's about cash, in the physical sense: how paper money feels, why coins still matter, and whether they're as doomed in the digital era as you might be led to expect.
I learned plenty, including that British monarchs face in a direction opposite to that of their predecessor. More importantly, early monarchs (i.e., the Romans) figured out quickly that coins were pretty much the only way most of their subjects would ever know their likeness. The coin as PR, in other words.
For more than a year, I've been listening to The Archers, which has been running on BBC radio for, oh, about 60 times as long. I subscribe to the show in a podcast, and although I rarely keep up with it on the near-daily schedule (it comes on six times a week) I keep up by listening to the show in batches. (Three episodes equals one walk to work, with room for a tune or two.) Yes, you can call it a soap opera; and yes, the daily 13-minute instalments of life in a village somewhere in the Midlands is habit-forming.
One of the recent themes is the future of the village pub, The Bull, where owner Jolene is still not over the sudden death of her man. The T-shirt above, which is actually for sale at Archers Addicts, mirrors precisely what characters wore to rally around the pub, with the storyline echoing the very real threats facing small-town pubs.
[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, April 22, 2010. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]
A tourism app for your smartphone is the first step on this week’s hop around the web. The next stops include a tribute to a beloved scientist and friend; a tool that shows how multiple translations can veer far, far away from the original message; and a collection of photographs that imagine what celebrities would look like if they lived in a low-key suburb near Toronto.
Let’s get started.
St. John’s app
Through Destination St. John’s, here’s a way to get more out of the city on your iPhone or BlackBerry. You’ll find restaurant listings, points of interest, where to go for a hike, where to grab a beer … it goes on. If you know someone coming for a visit, this would be a great tip to send along. If your phone is GPS-enabled, the mapping functions will become a whole lot more useful.
Bad Translator
The phrase “lost in translation” is often apt when we move from one just language to another. When you zig and zag between multiple languages, well, hilarity can ensue. Bad Translator takes some wording of your choice, runs it between a mini-Babel of options (at least 10, but you can select more) , and presents you with a finished product that will no doubt be far away from your starting point. To try it out, I typed in Brian Peckford’s oft-used aphorism – “Some day the sun will shine, and have-not will be no more” – and wound up with this: “One day, sunny, most will not."
Celebrities of Barrie, Ont.
This hilarious collection of Photoshopped faces has been making the rounds on Facebook, which means you’ll have to be a member to see it. Let me put it this way: it’s so funny, it’s worth joining Facebook, if you haven’t already signed up. Someone took pictures of John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Gwen Stefani and many others, and morphed their facial features into the bodies of some particularly average people.
Browser market share
If you’re like, well, almost everybody, the browser you’re currently using to surf the Web has changed in the last eight years. This interactive graphic cleanly and clearly shows the shifts in browser choices, from January 2002 up until last summer. Once upon not that long ago, we were in the AOL and Netscape universe; looking at this graphic, you’ll see how much things have changed.
Create Your Own Motivational Poster
One of the most popular memes on the internet for years has been the motivational poster – not the earnest, up-with-people posters that you’ll find on actual office walls, but the ironic or sarcastic or just plain old hilarious sendups you’ll want to share with friends. Here’s a tool that will help you make your own. You need to add your own picture … and something clever to say.
I've worked with some creative and talented people over the years, but no one is quite in the league of Chris Brookes. For decades, Chris has been making radio documentaries that are among the finest in the world.
This last week, CBC Radio here in St. John's rebroadcast a piece Chris made last year called The Annotated Jack, which weaves together the old Jack folktales and the story of Jack Wells, one of Chris's neighbours in the Battery. (That's Jack there in the middle.)
The documentary aired on RTE, the Irish broadcaster, last fall. You can listen to the full piece here. Since then, Jack Wells suffered a great loss, when his iconic twine store was battered during a recent storm surge. This site is raising money to help; click here to find out what you can do.
In the meantime, take some time to visit Chris's Battery Radio site. He's a local treasure ... and a national one, to boot.
[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]
"Without music, life would be a mistake," said the most light-hearted man in history, a.k.a. Friedrich Nietzsche.
Good ol’ Nietzsche, though, had a point. Where would we be if we couldn’t have a little music in our lives? Whether your tastes run from choral performances to ukulele covers of punk tunes, or from classic rock to polka dances, the web is full of things to find and possibly love.]
This week, we have some help in finding some new fodder for the iPod.
We Are Hunted
If you’re into cutting-edge music, or like to know what’s happening before everyone else does, We Are Hunted is a great resource. It’s a chart of 99 songs that are happening right now, but it won’t look like any sales chart. That’s because instead of counting sales or airplay, We Are Hunted gathers data from around the web of what people are talking about (e.g., chatrooms) or looking for (via torrents, etc.). Or, as they put it, they “detect sentiment, expression and advocacy to understand what people like and dislike.”
Bruce Springsteen MP3 Bootleg Index
How devoted are Bruce Springsteen’s fans? Not just the ones who yell “Broooooce” at his concerts … anyone can do that. The fans who maintain this index, which consists of lovingly if not quite legally recorded concerts and such, are hard-core. You’ll find material dating back to the Seventies, when The Boss was just one of the New Dylans, and before people starting describing soulful rockers with something to say as New Springsteens.
Slice The Pie
Have you ever championed an up-and-coming group so much that you’d bet on their success? Welcome to Slice the Pie, which actually lets you put your money where your mouth is. The prospects are generally unknowns, and the stakes are fairly small (the idea is that many hands can work together to help a band make it to the next level), but as games go, this one is far more rooted in reality than many virtual alternatives.
Minnesota Public Radio tunes
I love finding music, and I like a good bargain, which makes free song-of-the-day features an attractive find. I recommend the long-running offers from the U.S. radio stations KEXP and KCRW; here’s another one, hosted by a Minnesota Pubic Radio program called The Current, specializing in the broad label that is alternative rock. Recent entries have included better-known bands like Spoon to up-and-comers, like the UK folk act Mumford & Sons.
Great Canadian Song Quest concert
Last year, CBC Radio 2 painted itself red and white and asked its audience to pick the places in the country deserving to be commemorated in song, and the artists to do the tunes. The local winners were Gros Morne National Park and Hey Rosetta! (above) Here’s a link to a video of the resulting concert. Kick your feet up and enjoy.
Songfight
For almost a decade, Songfight has been a champion of grassroots, handmade, no-frills indie music. And, yes, getting fans to fight about it. The premise is simple: for each weekly voting period, bands or singers upload their own songs, and then the public votes on what they like. You can vote once each week, but you may actually vote for more than just one song. Indeed, you’re asked to vote for all the “good” stuff and ignore the bad. Even better, you can download what you like for free.
Fuller Up: The Dead Musician Directory
It may be in poor taste, but I bet this site attracts plenty of visitors, curious to learn how various musicians met their fate. There’s not a lot of scholarship here (some entries appear to have just been copied and pasted from other sites), but some fascinating, if grim, reading.
John Gushue is a writer in St. John's, and works with CBC News in St. John's. John is on Twitter right here.
[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]
A site that is helping a local cancer fundraiser evolve into a bit of a movement is the starting point for this week’s tour around the web. We’ll also check in some musical celebrations, keep up to date with heritage properties and learn about what makes cats ticks. Or purr, as the case may be.
Shaving season is coming soon (with a major mass-shave at the Avalon Mall on March 6, for instance), so now is the time to register and collect pledges. How much would your friends and colleagues pay to see you lose your locks? Now’s a good time to find out. The site has plenty of information about what it calls “the coolest cancer fund-raiser in Canada.”
Elsewhere this week
Over the last few months, I've acquired a habit of streaming BBC Radio 4 while I'm working away in the living room. I still catch a full diet of local radio, but when I'm in thinking and/or writing mode, BBC 4 suits the bill, with its schedule of news, current affairs, history, comedy and so on. Many of the shows are first-rate (PM, the flagship current affairs show airing at 1:30 St. John's time on weekdays, is a favourite), although I find the tone of some shows hilariously uptight. (Audience questions to a regular gardening show come to mind.)
The Archers is something of an institution in Britain. It started airing in 1950, making it the longest-running soap anyway, and still does six short (13 minutes or so) episodes each week. I didn't know much about the daily soap opera until recently, and while I'm far from hooked, I have to say I know a fair bit now about the families of a fictional, veddy English village called Armbridge. The companion site has information on scores of characters who've appeared on the show over time.
So, here I am, finally getting accustomed to the characters (poor Jazzer, the not-too-bright farmhand, gets his heart broken over a feed of curry, while teenager Pip puts her parents through hell by dating a man much older than herself). The breadth of the characters top anything in Dickens, ranging from genteel (if not pretentious) country farmers with their organic veg to fish-and-chip-loving working class types, and all of them caught up in the gossip of the village.
On Friday, a bit of a milestone in the show: they killed off Phil Archer, the patriarch of the titular clan on the show. It was revealed well, especially for a radio play, with his wife discovering him dead in his chair, a hot cup of tea at his side. All in all, not a bad way to go.
The death should not have been that much of a surprise, though, as the actor who played Phil, Norman Painting, died last fall. It occured to me that while Phil was referred to in recent months, he actually had not been actually heard.
I'm new to all this, of course, but I wasn't surprised to see followers of the show bowled over by the news. Check out this search of Twitter feeds, including fans who learned of the death on the weekly recap today.
I guest-hosted Radio Noon from St. John's this last week; on Friday, we had a fun time on Crosstalk, asking people to reveal how they met their sweethearts. My guests were two-thirds of The Once (above): Geraldine Hollett and, to the right, Phil Churchill. They're in Vancouver this week for the cultural festivities of the Olympics. We heard some terrific stories - not quite out of the movies (where "meet cute" is a term Roger Ebert loves to use to describe set-ups in romantic comedies), but not far off.
You can listen to the show here. (For copyright reasons, we can't podcast the theme song, so there's a long pause after the introduction you may want to skip through.)
A second list has been a long time coming. I finished it, in part, because the subject - words that are over-used, useless and/or unwelcome - is the subject of Radio Noon's Crosstalk on Monday. (I'm guest-hosting for the week.) Hopefully you'll be able to take part. Our guest is George Murray, who edits the always terrific Bookninja.
Here's my new list:
Outside the box: Somehow, I forgot this phrase last time. I won't repeat the mistake. "Outside the box" is, unfortunately, entrenched in the language. I commonly see it advertised in job notices, mentioned in news releases and said in all seriousness by people who should know better. I recall speaking with a senior editorial manager at CBC who insisted that all his hires "think outside the box." My argument, which probably didn't go over well, was that, by making it universal, he had basically just redefined the box.
Impactful: Just because it shows up in an online dictionary doesn't mean it should. I actually prefer this definion, from Urban Dictionary: "A non-existent word coined by corporate advertising, marketing and business drones to make their work sound far more useful, exciting and beneficial to humanity than it really is." There are so many more descriptive, powerful words out there; why not put them to work for you?
Impact, as a verb: Another unfortunate example that proves if enough people say it. it becomes so. But it shouldn't. Let's leave "impact" as a noun (and, even then, use it appropriately).
VIsioning: Here's a word that makes me shudder. "There's going to be a visioning session," someone told me recently with a straight face. I had to speak up for good grammar, and for common sense. It's difficult telling someone, including people I like, that a word is bafflegab and bureaucratic, but if it means plain, clear language is used, then that's the cost of a socially awkward moment.
Blue-sky, as a verb: The words "blue sky" are nice to see in a sentence about the weather. But when I hear something like, "let's blue-sky this and see where it leads," I pray for rain.
Reaching out: This is a question of usage, and is becoming prevalent in bureaucratese. I've noticed purported professionals writing something like "I'm reaching out because," and they use it when the writer means to say something like, "I would like to involve you in this" or "I would like you to act on this" or ... well, something else. Like a lot of jargon, it's not always easy to figure out what's meant. I'm amazed that public relations people (particularly in the UK, where some journalists have complained about the usage) deliberately choose a phrase that makes things fuzzy, not clear.
"Learnings": This one came on my radar a few years ago, when a colleague returned from a meeting and related how an organizer had said at the end, too earnestly, "Now, what are our learnings?" I've heard it many times since, and I've cringed every time.
Passive voice. Want to know a phrase that drives me mad? "It was decided that..." People often use the passive voice when they're not sure what they want to say, or, worse, don't want to be accountable for what has been said. It's sometimes a necessary writing choice, but it's usually much better to go with the active voice. A friend of mine who runs writing courses emphasizes one thing: if you can't or won't use the active voice, your writing will never, ever sing.
A part of my daily routine (weekdays, anyway) lately has been to write away while BBC Radio 4 plays in the background. I didn't notice until yesterday, while adjusting the volume bar on the Beeb's iPlayer, that the volume goes all the way to 11.
Nigel Tufnel would be proud.
The radio in my home office is tuned one station: CBC Radio One (640 in St. John's). Because I do some work from home in the morning (I'm on leave now, but head back in just over a month), I need to be focused on what's happening ... and I'm too lazy to lean over and change it. In other rooms, and especially in the car, my loyalty flies out the window.
All the same, I got a kick out of this newly revealed design that makes life easy for CBC Radio fans: program your stations, and then just flick between Radio One and Radio Two. (If you like Radio 3, you'll need a computer, but this gadget can hook up to an MP3 player.)
CBC Radio 3 has updated its design. It's cleaner, although it's still a bit harder to navigate than it should. (Try clicking on a permalink.)
Here's a guide on how to get the most out of the service, which allows for customization, playlists and other fun stuff.
[Surf's Up, as published in The Telegram on Friday, Dec. 16, 2005, and posted here very late indeed.]
The editors of the New American Oxford Dictionary recently announced their choice for word of the year: podcasting.
Podcasting wasn't actually introduced to the language in 2005, but there's no question it was used a whole lot more in the last 12 months than in the year (or years) before that.
The basic point of podcasting isn't that new, either; audio files have been transferred over the Internet for years now.
What is (relatively) new is the ease with which podcasting now works … and the ease with which you can get interesting material straight to your ears.
Podcasting - a playful amalgam of "broadcasting" and iPod - works best when you can subscribe to a particular series, and then have the subscription do all the hard work from thereon in.
So, instead of having to remember the web address of a cool radio show, for instance, and then remembering when it's updated, and then clicking on a link to trigger a download, and then waiting for a download to run its course, and then getting the sound file (usually an MP3) on a player, a subscription does it all for you.
When you plug in your audio player, iPod or otherwise, your subscriptions are automatically updated for you.
And what a difference it makes to actually have a player.
I've been subscribing to some podcasts for months, but only got around to popping the cash for a player recently.
After several audio-packed weeks, I can say this: it's much easier to listen to podcasts when you're out on foot than when you're sitting at your computer.
I listen to British, American, Canadian, German and local material while walking to the store, doing chores, getting some exercise, even putting out the garbage.
We're still at the early days of all this. In a year, I expect the range and quality of podcasts to be greatly superior to what's there now.
Following are some of the podcasts I've subscribed to. Feel free to drop me a line about what you like to listen to.
Podcast Alley
Actually, this is not a particular podcast, but a place to find them by the truckload. You'll find shows from experienced professionals, and you'll also find the most unusual kinds of audio out there. Poke around, and you'll understand why many people feel podcasting is bringing new energy into what we used to think of as radio.
Republic of Avalon Radio 
Jim Fidler is world-renowned for his music; he's also developing an international following for his regularly updated podcast, which comes to listeners straight from the streets of St. John's (not to mention his kitchen table, too). The tone is loose and friendly, and I think thousands of subscribers have responded to that. If I could recommend anything, it would be to edit the introductions and chatter.
Quirks, Quarks, more
Quirks & Quarks became the first CBC Radio program to move into podcasting; there are currently three options available during a current trial. More CBC programming may be available in the future. If you would like to see more, take the survey available on the link above. Also available is a mostly-music package of alternative and independent tunes from CBC Radio 3, and highlights from the Toronto regional morning show.
National Public Radio
NPR offers a number of podcast options from this directory -- scores of them, actually. You'll find everything from political reporting to book reviews, essays on religion to tech reviews to interviews with musicians, famous and otherwise.
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais is rightly regarded as a genius for creating The Office; he continues to make great comedy, and for a limited time is making a free podcast with cohorts Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington. Be advised: the language gets a bit salty. That said, I laughed out loud on a walk down Water Street, as Pilkington laid out his theories on dinosaurs and pets.
Telycasts
The Telegram's website stepped into the podcasting world last week with an interview with singer Rex Goudie. I naturally signed up for the interview; the audio quality is a bit tough, because it's a phone interview, but I imagine that Goudie fans could care less. I'm looking forward to what else the Tely folks are willing to send out.
Ebert and Roeper
Each weekend, I have my recorder set to catch the weekly TV show featuring Roger Ebert and his sparring partner, Richard Roeper. I have to confess I haven't been bothering much to watch it, though, because I'm finding the audio version of the show - available as a podcast here - suits me about as well. Naturally, I don't get to see the film clips, but I don't think I'm missing much. Besides, catching the show while doing a morning coffee run makes me feel like I'm still in the movie loop.
Le Show 
If you know The Simpsons well, surely you can imagine the voice of Bart and Lisa's principal, Seymour Skinner. The man behind that voice (and numerous others) is actor Harry Shearer, who has been doing a Sunday morning radio show in L.A. called, well, Le Show, for many years. You can subscribe to the feed here (or listen to archived shows online).
John Gushue is a news writer for CBC.ca in St. John's. E-mail: surf at thetelegram.com.
I am a journalist with CBC News in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. I'm taller than I look. This blog has been running quietly since 2004.
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