These days I get all my news from the internet. I follow nearly a hundred blogs on various topics that fascinate. Instead of watching television I watch YouTube videos of video podcasts. And I never listen to the radio. I listen to podcasts. Nearly all the media I consume don’t come down from on high from multi-billion dollars corporations but folks just like you and me.
solipsistic NATION is part of the new media movement and I thought we’d spend this week’s show exploring how people like yourself are participating and changing the way media works, which in turn changes the way we see ourselves, our community and our world.
Half my life I’ve been a DJ at college and community radio stations, pirate and internet radio stations, and, for nearly four years I’ve been a podcaster.
I’ve always been evangelical about being a DJ. I constantly encourage people to be a DJ and I’m always amazed how many people turn down the opportunity to get on the mic and be heard. In fact, I’m amazed everyone isn’t a DJ.
Especially now when it’s so easy. All you need is a computer, a microphone and a place to host your files and, boom!, you’re a podcaster. Granted, there’s some skill involved and spending some extra cash on some decent hardware and software doesn’t hurt but the most important thing is the content. People will forgive most anything if you’ve got something worth hearing.
When I started podcasting I hosted a show called Small World where I’d talk to people from all walks of life from all over the planet. I’ve interviewed everyone from sandwich makers to filmmakers. I started off recording all my interview into a crappy cassette recorder and then transfer it to the computer. Later on I got savvy and ran a microphone directly into my computer and did my interviews on Skype. I made mistakes, sure. The audio sounded pretty bad, too. But as I went a long I learned and improved and had people from all over the world listening to my little show that I recorded in my apartment. I didn’t need to spend countless dollars on a radio station to be heard.
When I launched solipsistic NATION as a podcast I knew it was going to be much more than a show where I would spin music. And I knew I wasn’t going to stick to just one genre of electronic music. There are enough shows that do just that and while they may be good, after you heard two or three shows you’ve pretty much heard all their shows. If that kind of show bores me then I know it’s going to bore you.
But I also wanted to take what I had learned from the Small World and talk to people who were part of the electronic music community, whether they were drum and bass heads or glitch addicts. I wanted to talk to the people who made the music, the people who put out the music and the people who love the music.
I’ve always tried to keep the interviews on solipsistic NATION brief because despite what I just said, the show really is about the music. And it’s a tricky balancing act, trying to keep things interesting with the music but not detracting from the music. I don’t always succeed but looking back on the last 100 shows I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish.
On today’s show I’m going to pretty much just going to play excerpts of interviews from previous shows. from people who are part of the electronic music community. Hey, it’s the 100th show. Indulge me.
- Killfish “Scape From Pilar (Excerpt)”
- Richard Metzger “Disinfo.Con, Opening Remarks”
- Interview with Pete Cooper, host of bleepshow (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 95: Bleep! - Interview with Snowy, host of Electronicast (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 74: Electronicast - Interview with Mikel OD, host of Most People Are DJs (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 59: Synthpop - Interview with Anji Bee, host of the Chillcast (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 76: Lovespirals - Mr Flash “Disco Dynamite”
- Interview with Travis Nobles, host of hiddenplace music (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 79: HiddenPlace Music, Part 1 - Interview with Pietro Da Sacco, managing editor of Igloo Magazine (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 90: Left of Dissonance - Niteffect “Lights Off (Excerpt)”
- Interview with Vivian Host, editor of XLR8R Magazine (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 51: Accelerate - OP11 “Naissance (Excerpt)”
- Interview with Stephen Page, station manager of KYOURadio (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 87: Glitterdämmerung - Robberriff “Lifebreath (Excerpt)”
- Interview with Brian, founder of the Oscillation Electronic Music Festival (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 58: Oscillation - Interview with J. Anthony Allen, Director of Programming of the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 78: Spark - Omid “Beat From My Mouth (Excerpt)”
- Interview with Simon Carless of Monotonik (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 66: NetLabels - Interview with Nicolas Chevreux of Ad Noiseam (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 81: Ad Noiseam - Interview with Evan Marc of Native State Records (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 77: Native State Records - Interview with Sunny of Ultimae Records (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 61: Ultimae Records - Detalles “Cilantro (Excerpt)”
- Interview with Cheb i Sabbah (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 56: Cheb i Sabbah - Interview with Martin Rev and Alan Vega of Suicide (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 87: Glitterdämmerung - Interview with Amon Tobin (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 82: Amon Tobin - Sebastian “Greel (Excerpt)”
- Interview with Robert Rich (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 50: Robert Rich, Live - Interview with Hol Baumann (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 67: Hol Baumann, Live - Interview with Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 88: Meat Beat Manifesto, Live - DJ Internet & Kid Kool A.K.A. Pella “Hit (Excerpt)”
- Interviews from the Dubstep documentary (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 83: Dubsonic - Interview with MC Frontalot (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No.4: Nerdcore - Interview with Johan Kotlinski (Excerpt)
solipsistic NATION No. 8: Chiptunes - Suhov “Moonhill”