Posted by: sbroun on October 26, 2006 04:59 PM | Comments (1)

So this morning I wrote a lovely little something about last night - because the first night of Third Coast is a beautiful thing. The energy. The love. But alas...what I wrote didn't post. I ended it by thanking the folks from Big Shed - for sharing gems from their podcast. Here's Jesse (another conference attendee and fellow Salt alum) to tell you more.

I would like to say this about Big Shed's listening session; Well, I have a lot to say about the event, but I keep forgetting or running out of time, and so I’m going to hold it to a couple of essential scenes. The setting, Shea and Jennifer talk about Big Shed, the podcast project that they do, as far as I know, for free, in order to probe possibility.

Scene 1: A hot dark room, the sound of music made from a washing machine, people sprawled out all over the floor, their eyes closed, just listening. It was more intimate than a conference room and seemed to invoke what I imagine all of our radio heroes were up to in 1984 or so.

Scene 2: Shea introduces the bartender and who tells us the bar is closing in 13 minutes. Shea reiterates that we have 13 more minutes of free booze. Then, they try to mic the sound of a beer opening, it doesn’t work, Shea imitates the sound, and everybody laughs. This is like the Big Shed Podcast, but live, with real people.

Scene 3: We talk a little about how Big Shed likes to let tape run on for a bit—that the Big Shed version is usually a little longer (or a whole lot longer) than the public radio version of the same story. Why? I think Jennifer said that Big Shed “errs on the side of too long” and I think Shea chipped in: “It’s just podcasting”. Some people intuitively agreed with this approach. Others didn’t seem to.

Why do we care? I always have a hard time with that question. In my case, I wasn’t all that interested in Podcasting a year ago. Like Jennifer, I don’t have strong feelings about whether it’s a good or bad thing. However, as they said, it is obviously happening. And it may very well mean something.

If we’re paying attention, we realize that every medium has different forms and structures that work for a particular audience. I think most of us appreciate that forms that public radio people have figured out over the last thirty years or more. With podcasting, an interesting question arises: Is Podcasting the same thing as Radio? By that, I mean, do the same forms that work to make brilliantly listenable public radio work in an “audio documentary podcast.” Mostly, I think what Shea and Jennifer are up to is asking this question. They don’t have answers yet, but they have their suspicions. One principal seems to be a willingness to substitute passion for polish, if you have to make that choice (or even if you don’t).

Is Podcasting different than radio? What I come away with is: “Yes.” Podcasting is different. It doesn’t just go by once. You can listen to very specialized content. You can skip the boring parts. Different.

What does this mean for all of us? I don’t know, but it’s an exciting question to try to answer.

More from Third Coast Festival 2006 :
« Zwerding on Radio | Kari Hesthamar and Radio Norway »

Posted by: Jennifer Deer on November 1, 2006 04:16 PM