Episode 17: Write My Story

Podcast

In honor of it being November and many friends (and oodles of strangers) participating in NaNoWriMo I thought it was time we did a more-or-less wordless podcast. With the exception of the opening song and my bits of talking, the majority of this episode is purely instrumental, a perfect backdrop for writing, editing, or doing other things that require more concentration and less someone else’s words in your ears!

In this episode:

Write My Story—Air 5
There’s a Spy in My Martini—David Parker
Rough Sax—Mariners Lament
Lil’ Ray of Bossa—Terri England
Tidalwave—Jeff Bosset
Fire and Ice—John Gilliat
The Apes Party-Ape Surfin After Lunch
More Than Heaven—Ken Kurland
Villahermosa—MrOsDirty
Mysteria—Rick Harris
Rainy Wedding—Dr Sounds
Barakaa—Drumhippy
The Spiritual Subplot (Of A Tragic Action-Packed Romantic Comedy)—Shams
Love’s Journey—Donovan Johnson

And that’s us for another episode. We’ll be back in another couple of weeks with more great music to create to!

Random Acts Radio Rewind: Songs that Go Bump in the Night

Podcast

Friday is Halloween and it’s my absolute favorite holiday, bar none. In honor of that, I want to take you back in time–4 years ago, to be exact–when the first incarnation of Random Acts Radio was still going strong and I put together a truly awesome holiday podcast. If I do say so myself (obviously I do). It’s my old (read as: talkative) format, and I thought about redoing it to get rid of all that but I think it really holds up, so we’re going to leave it as-is. I’m even leaving in the short story by yours truly just before the 1 hour mark.

And since this episode has fallen off the iTunes playlist, you could almost consider this re-cast a public service. Or something like that..

In this episode:

Happy Halloween–Ben Twisted
Costume Party–CAMIL
What Should I Be on Halloween–Eric Strom
PC Halloween–Devo Spice
Married a Magician–Dust Poets
A Rabbit for Halloween–Marc Gunn
Halloween (remix)–The Coffinshakers
Midnight Spookshow–Calabrese
Monsters–Common Ground
Vampire in My Town–Elsinore
Skeletons and Spirits–Allison Crowe
Madam Fright–The Hamsteaks
Zombie Werewolf Alien Vampire Monsters—The Volume Brothers
Vampires–The Wet Darlings
The Witching Hour–Robin Brock
The Howl–Thee Merry Widows
Warm–MixMasterMandy
Halloween Girl–Ghosts on the Radio
Howl at the Moon–Devi
Halloween–Fishing for Comets
Halloween Mistake–Cantrip
Gallows Hill–Josh Woodward
The Bottom of the Grave–Bryan Scary

Hope you have a fabulous Halloween and remember to play safe out there!

Episode 16: Be Extraordinary

Podcast

Okay, so the name of this episode (and the opening song) remind me a bit of Bill & Ted’s ‘Be excellent to one another’ but I suppose there’s nothing really wrong with that, is there?! And in the vein of the would-be Wyld Stallyns today’s musical adventures is full of fun rock with a little bit of this and that mixed in for good measure.

Be Extraordinary—Justin Honaman
Never Drive Faster Than Your Angels Can Fly—Miles Partridge and HipSlack
Bunny Boiler—Pablo Eskimo
Medicine—Brad Hammonds
Incoherent—Josh Woodward
I’m Taking It Back. I’m Taking Them All Back—Chasing Claymores
Heartburn—The Great Underground Empire
Wild Party People—JayJay
High Spirits—DJ Enso and Louis
Hands Up—Bree Rose
The Worst In Me—The Upset Victory
Run Rabbit Run—Supraluxe
Love, Drugs, & Bombs—O Sweet Static
Swimming The Witch—I Am The Icarus
Full Moon on a Friday Night—Dahlia Wakefield

Are you a lyrics listener or do you just concentrate on the overall sound of a song? I’m very into lyrics (even though I’m not a big “poetry” fan, go figure) and love to puzzle out references in songs, the more esoteric the better. And, back before the Internet, sometimes it was a matter of figuring out the words before you could ever get close to deciphering their meanings (lotta play-pause-rewind going on back in the day).

At the very least I hope you at least caught the refrain from our opening song:

I’m gonna be extraordinary
No sacrifice, no victory
Gonna crush mediocrity
I’m gonna be extraordinary

What can you do right now to be extraordinary?

(and I swear I didn’t plan the Bill & Ted’s references; it’s just one of those things that happens and you run with it *air guitar*)

Episode 14: Sweet Tea

Podcast

Today’s episode turned out to fit beautifully with the September challenge over at Gauche Alchemy, so I decided to run with it! While not all of the songs are strictly “country,” they all have some aspect of down home earnestness, a twang to go along with the back-beat, or something else that makes them fit in my head; there’s even a bit of the rolling zydeco rhythms in there in tribute to my beginnings in Louisiana. And an apology for my voice, today, I’m still getting over the cold that prevented me from putting out an episode over Labor Day weekend as planned. Hopefully we’re back on track again with this episode and I’ll find a good time for the “missing” set of songs to fall into place 🙂

Sweet Tea—Kim McLean 
If You Feel Froggy—Freighttrain Jones
That Texas Girl—Late Model Humans
Mercury In Retrograde—Sean Wiggins
Space monkey—Jim Hodgson
Rolling Back To You—Codie Prevost
Hard Way Home—Runaway Dorothy
Need a Little Squeezin—Copper Box
Zydeco Junkie—Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band
Strip Tease—Musical Spa
As Far As My Heart Can See—Norma Jean Martine
Evelyn’s Green—She Swings, She Sways
One Monkey Don’t Stop The Show—Dann Schumann

Of course, this isn’t my only contribution to this month’s Gauche Alchemy challenge. To go along with the music I painted up an old pair of lace ankle boots into appropriate dancing shoes. Check out today’s post over at gauchealchemy.com to see and read more about my project and find out how to enter your own inspired creation for a chance at this month’s prize.

jvanderbeek_paisley_painted_boots

And on a technical note, can I just say how much easier it is to create this podcast now that I’ve started using Adobe Audition?! When I started podcasting I used Garage Band because it came on my my Mac and it was fairly user-friendly. Since Minnie the Mac finally gave up the ghost last year, I was kinda dreading how I was going to put the episodes together and, truth be told, it was part of the reason I kept putting off relaunching the podcast. I know a lot of people use Audacity (the fact that it’s free helps) and I downloaded it to edit some songs for our wedding last year. It’s okay, but it wasn’t as intuitive as I’d hoped; even reading the help and tutorial files didn’t help all that much.

Now, Audition is cheap, but since I subscribe to Adobe’s Creative Cloud service anyway for Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Lightroom and (more recently) Premier Pro, it was nothing extra to download Audition as well. And even though the process of putting together the podcast still involves selecting and rearranging the playlist to the point where I’ve listened to the whole thing about 5 times before it’s all said and done, using Audition means that the actual putting-together of the show takes about as long as listening through it all once more time. Even the transitions that took forever to fiddle with in Garage Band are automatic in Audition, to the point where I maybe have to tweak one each show.

So, you know, if you’ve ever thought of creating your own podcast on whatever subject or in whatever format, I can’t rate Audition highly enough for making the technical aspects super simple.

[/end PSA; no affiliate links just a really happy customer :)]

Episode 13: What I Feel

Podcast

Despite a bit of a technological bobble, here we are back with the next episode of Random Acts Radio 2.0 Music to Create To!

Like our other episodes, this one is full to the brim with wonderful independent music from the artists below, though the mood of this episode is different from the last one. Instead of the driving bass line to keep us powering through, today’s podcast reflects a more somber mood. Perfect for working on memorial projects, serious scenes, or just holding you through until the dark mood passes.

Episode 13: What I Feel

What I Feel—Darius Lux
Downside Of Love—Adrienne Pierce
Holding Out For Spring—Jonnie Murphy
Skeletons and Spirits—Allison Crowe
Nowhere To Run—Dirk
Pillow on the Ground—Arrica Rose
Ghost In Your Mind—Black Lab
Turning Me On—Lea Marie
Private Hurricane—Josh Woodward
One Small Dog—Maria Daines
Stop—Alicia Marie
Lost Signal—I Am The Icarus
End of the Renaissance—Aryn Michelle
Drug Therapy—My Velcroe

While getting the blues is normal for everyone now and again, if life starts to seem unbearable or you feel yourself sinking into a hole you can’t see a way out of, please reach out to someone and get some help. And if you see suicide as the only way out, please call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.