Who the hell blogs on a Saturday?

Yes well I do!

My weekends are often like a work day for me.

Today I am preparing for the Winchester Mayfest.

It has so far involved, printing and burning promo cds of myself and a comp of some of the other acts playing this afternoon, tinkering with guitars cleaning and the like, hunting out minidisk recorder blank minidisks leads etc and printing and cutting card inserts for the cds.

My wet-suit arrived today and the surf at Boscombe looks great, typical.

It is also clean up day in our street. Folk move their cars, trim their street trees and generally tidy up. Then men and street cleaning lorries come and take it all away leaving the neighborhood looking neat and tidy.

In stark contrast, I intend to return from Winchester beery and disheveled!

What is a Podcast?

I sent this as an email to members of my mailing list as I had people asking me what a podcast was.
Apologies if you find it a little patronising.

Ok in a nutshell a podcast is a piece of audio, usually speech perhaps with some music. Like a radio broadcast. This piece of audio has to be posted on the web so that people can hear it. You can download this podcast to your computer so that you can either add it to your MP3 player (iPods etc) or play it later. If you have an application called iTunes then you can use that to download it. You can subscribe to a podcast so that every time a new one appears, you will automatically download it.
You can also just listen to it from its source (stream).
My latest podcast has just gone live. You can stream it OR download it from http://nicktann.podbean.com. It's about 17 minutes long and has me chatting a bitr and playing 2 songs from some fantastic independent artists that I have discovered.

Podcast number 6

After many failed, drunken attempts last night I have finally recorded and edited Podcast number 6 of Is This Thing On. 

People I mentioned were, in no particular order Matt Blake, Matt Stevens, Bete' deJour, Watch With Mothers, Joe Potter, Joe Woodham, 

Pure Acoustica, Red Stripe (Neil Drinkwater), Emmy-Lee, Twitter, Louch Manouche and Charles "Charlie" Olsen

All of whom are fantastic and wonderful. You should click on their name and find out all about them immediately.

As I said I will try to record another by next sunday at the latest.

I'm also planning a blog entitled "Why it's all still Thatcher's Fault" that should be ready by February. A non musical political rant. Bet you can't wait eh?

Podcasting

I have always wanted to do this.

Actually I have always wanted my own radio show.

I love the radio and always have. As a 7 year old I used to tune in my tiny radio (with the single earpiece!) late at night and listen to Radio Caroline, The World Service and a plethora of crazy European foreign language stations. When I got to about 15 I fell in love with Radio 4. I thought it was cool to listen to The Archers, a kind of rebellion in a sea of punk and Bay City Rollers. 

So now to the podcast (I could talk about the 70's for hours LITERALLY ). 

After spying on fellow reverbnationer (yes that is a proper word...now) Matt Stevens, I noticed that he had a podcast available on iTunes. 

I am a big fan of the podcast having been given a "pod" by Mrs Nick some 2 years ago although one doesn't need one to listen to a podcast, oh no.

So on emailing him he directed me to www.podbean.com and I signed up.

I got all profiled up and then went about making my fist podcast. I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I had recorded some of the Chaplins gig and wanted to play some of the songs from that plus a little chat. After much faffing I decided on a format. 

1) Scripted intro......I tried to do it straight "off the mic" but found myself drowning in a sea of "ahh's" and "ums" and hitherto unknown habit of smacking my gums before each sentence. 

2) The tune

3) An unscripted conversational chat with "The Secret Guest".

 "The Secret Guest" has to remain secret as they get enough publicity as it is and don't want anymore so best keep mum eh?

So after a little editing and tweaking here and there, I loaded it up. I'm still waiting for the beautiful monster that is iTunes to show it but it's only a matter of time.

If you've never heard of podcasts and aren't sure what the are, the Wikipedia definition is the best

So if you have ten minutes to spare click on the purple widget (yes I know I just can't help myself!) on the right

Here is my Top Ten Podcast list

1) Adam & Joe. Brilliant and Funny

2) Russell Brand. See above Despite the fact that he refuses to use my fucking jingle!!

3) The Archers. See higher above

4) Jonathan Ross. Much better than tv Ross

5) Roy & HG "This Sporting life" From the Australian ABC Radio station JJJ. An acquired taste,once acquired then relished.

6) Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 normally The News Quiz or The Now Show!

7) Thinking Allowed with Laurie Taylor, possibly the best broadcaster ever EVER!

8) Stephen Fry's Podgrams. You must listen you simply MUST

9) Radiohead "In Rainbows" podcast. You didn't know? Shame. Thank me later.

10) Steve Wright in the afternoon. JUST FOR ASK ELVIS IGNORE THE SYCOPHANTIC INTERVIEWS

Do you podcast?

What do you listen to?

Have I whetted your appetite?

Any other business?