Rock Star Journalist

Thanks to gum surgery earlier this week, its attendant expenditures, and the fact that the records I ordered have yet to show up, the planned-out setlist I’d made for the new podcast pretty much had to be set aside. It hurts to talk, as well as to listen to me laterally lisp my way through most words, so hopping on the mic wasn’t an option this week.

That being said, I’ve signed up to Soundcloud and put together a pretty boss tracklisting from some new records, as well as unreleased shiz and so on. Soundcloud’s rapidly becoming as close to crate-digging as one can find online, so expect this show to be nicely curated. It flows well, too. Get rocked this weekend.

So, I took last week off because … well, tomorrow marks the start of the spring semester, and my job is about to become far more busy than it’s been in about a month and a half. Thus, I decided a week where all I had to do was concentrate on work and feeding the family would be more expeditious in terms of my mental health. That being said, I realized I had an evening free last night.

With the wife gone, and one of the kids back to school, and it only being me and the youngest home, you’d think I would’ve done something relaxing or just lain on the couch, vegging out six way from Sunday. Nope — recorded the first podcast in nearly three months. I’m a total nutter. Enjoy the fact that I’m unable to do anything with my free time other than produce content.

Podcast #97, “Where’ve You Been?”
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Apologies for the fact the website’s essentially gone to hell this past week. I tried to get things set up before I left for CMJ, and really managed to get that accomplished — not to the extent that I was wanting, but close enough.

Unfortunately, when I got back, I came back to a backlog of stuff at work, a family that hadn’t seen me in a week, and a general sense of exhaustion and irritation at being back in the swing of things. However, being as how this is the thing that brings me such joy (and justifies writing off record purchases on my taxes), I had to get a new podcast done.

It’s got some spooky treats hidden within, hence the name.

Podcast #96, “Hollow Weiner”
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Here’s the deal: I had a playlist planned out. Two, as a matter of fact. Then I realized the time and effort it would take to get this done. So, what I did was record a non-stop mix until I ran out of time, edited out all the silences, then did the same thing with a different set of records.

You get side a and side b of two very different compilation records, and I had a very fun hour of playing records in my basement. It’s a pretty great deal for everyone involved. I suggest drinking a beer to get the proper effect, as well as rocking out and dancing like you’re surrounded by concrete.

Podcast #95, “Flip the Record”
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Even though I spent all day at work sitting at a computer editing video, I just had to come home and sit behind a mic to record this podcast. I can’t believe how much I missed doing the show until I spent three hours playing old-school hip-hop the other morning. That’s when I realized what a joy it is to record this podcast and play this music for folks.

Sappy, I know. Anyhow, a slew of recent acquisitions and new music for you, with even more to come on the next podcast. I worry that every other week may not be enough, but that’s sadly all the time I can spare anymore. If I try and cram in more fun stuff in my off time, I’ll go mad.

Podcast #94, “Do the Firebomb”
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So, I got a new job about a month ago. As you may or may not have noticed, that pretty much coincides with Rock Star Journalist going completely silent. This podcast was designed as a last-minute, emergency release, in the event of me being too busy to record something. It’s a faux broadcast, full of old commercials, strange announcements, and oddball tunes from an assortment of comps and records.

It’s a testament to how busy my new job has me that I’ve had it sitting on my hard drive for nearly three weeks, and it’s still not made it online until today. The playlist and original WAV file are dated 2012-08-20, meaning I’d planned for it to go live two weeks back. Oops.

It’s a fun thing. Enjoy. I promise to return to our regularly-scheduled stuff on the twentieth. I need to learn to plan ahead.

Podcast #93, “Fake It While You Make It”
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So many new things. It’s astounding. In between the last podcast and this one, something like seven records have shown up in the mail, unannounced. There’ve also been a couple others that folks contacted me via e-mail (which I heartily suggest all acts and labels do), making this a pretty healthy podcast in terms of newness. There’s a big ol’ dollop of pop-punk, as well, thanks to some dollar-bin wins.

The best time in the world to buy records is move-out time in a college town. People graduate, and then realize they have no desire to move several hundred records or CDs cross-country, so they unload them at thrift stores, Half Price Books, and record shops all over town. After they’re all priced and put out, I make out like a goddamn bandit — which benefits you, the listener.

Podcast #92, “Back to Basics”
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As I mentioned on Twitter a while back, my plan for the podcast is to drop it to every other week, but increase the number of tracks per show. Essentially, it’s a little difficult to produce a quality program once a week with 15 songs, but every other week with 20 tracks means a really tight, excellent program.

Or so I hope. We’ll see. The current episode is chock-full of awesomeness, and really runs the gamut of punk rock, but it remains to be seen as to what that’ll mean in the long run. Surprisingly, the length really doesn’t increase all that much. I guess adding five songs doesn’t make much difference when they average less than two minutes apiece.

Podcast #91, “Longer”
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Recorded the podcast while things were exploding and making noise outside, after a lengthy day of sleeping in my basement. Holidays are a hard time, when your house has people in it during the day. Strange things, that — I’m used to there not being anyone home during the day, so when the wife and kids are here all day, it’s confusing as hell to the cats and myself. Thus, the dpocast was recorded while they went to go play at a friend’s lake house. I got to stay home, since I have work in the morning.

Music? Right, music. Dance punk, punk punk, pop punk, garage punk, and so on. Is it worth a month’s wait? Probably not.

Podcast #90, “Is This On?”
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It’s finally started to dawn on me that, given the lack of turntable, injuries to myself, and general busy-ness of my schedule, it might be best to go to every two weeks for the podcast. If nothing else, it would allow for a little more quality control, and not force me into playing stuff for the sake of having a show for you.

I’m not saying this week’s show is in any way bad — in fact, far from it — but certainly, shows in the past have suffered in terms of quality in order to bring you something, rather than nothing. It’s that sense of obligation versus our desire to present a quality program that has us thinking the first and the fifteenth might be the best way to do it. If there were more than three of you listening, this might be a bigger deal…

Podcast #89, “Tip(sy) of the Hat”
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