MDSWP

Here’s some good news to get your mind away from the rubbish weather and stupidly long commuting times today.

On the 13th February, Brummie of the Year 2009, and Sax-god Snax-god Brian Travers will be coming in to the Rhubarb Radio studio to discuss UB40’s new album ‘Labour Of Love IV, the ongoing discussion about the future of Digbeth as a live music hub and also the astonishingly poor nominations for the Brits 2010.

We’re all pretty excited that Brian has taken the time to come in and talk to us, and we’re now inviting you, the listening public, to send in your questions for him.

Simply leave a comment below or email phil@midsweep.com and we’ll ask Brian the best ones on the 13th. In the meantime, keep it locked to The Midsweep as we confirm more guests over the coming weeks.

Edit: The comments have now been locked to allow us to collate the best questions ahead of Saturday. Remember to tune in from 10am at http://rhubarbradio.com to hear the whole interview and Brian answer your questions.

The band are back together! Join us as Tammy returns from over a month off the airwaves. There’s music news, strange news (which Phil didn’t make up) the winner of last week’s crunch New Music FA Cup tie between Esteban and Ellie Goulding and CSI:Birmingham?

Vote now for the winner of this weeks tie by tweeting @midsweep or sending an email to phil [at] midsweep.com. There will be a prize at the end of it all

• The Heavy – No Time
• House of Pain – Jump Around
• David Bowie – Life On Mars?
• White Town – Your Woman
• Monaco – What Do You Want From Me?
• Weezer – My Name Is Jonas
• Groove Armada – Crazy For You
• Kasabian – Where Did All The Love Go?
• Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up
• Iggy Pop – The Passenger
• Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way?
• The xx – Crystalized
• The Amateurs – Homesick
• The Offspring – Want You Bad
• Kasabian – Much Too Young
• Oasis – Up in the sky

We’re back with another belter of a show for you, including a now infamous rant from @SteveTea about the shocking Brit nominations.

• The Knack – My Sharona
• Status Quo – Pictures of Matchstick Men
• The Supernaturals – Smile
• The Shamen – Ebeneezer Goode
• The Kinks – A Well Respected Man
• Marmaduke Duke – Rubber Lover
• The Killers – Mr Brightside
• The Smiths – This Charming Man
• The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
• The Stranglers – Peaches
• Supergrass – Alright
• FA Cup face off
• Esteban – She Goes Out
• Ellie Goulding – Starry Eyed
• Brits
• David Bowie – Moon Age Day Dreamer
• Deep Purple – Smoke on The Water
• Various Artists – Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:00:00 — 118.8MB)

Back again with another two hours of great music for your delectation. Classics mixed in with new stuff, some strange news and the latest music goss, this is how you kick off a Saturday.

• Foo Fighters – Everlong
• New Order – Blue Monday
• Republika – Ready To Go
• Iggy and The Stooges – No Fun
• Kasabian – L.S.F
• Primal Scream – Rocks
• Squeeze – Up the Junction
• The Cure – Close to Me
• Aretha – Respect
• The Small Faces – Itchykoo Park
• Ash – Burn Baby Burn
• Stereophonics – Innocent
• Phoenix – 1901
• Delphic – Clarion Call
• Passion Pit – Sleepy Head
• Talking Heads – Same As It Ever Was
• James – Sit Down
• Jimi Hendrix – Foxey Lady
• Blur – Country House
• The Jam – A Town Called Malice

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:59:59 — 83.2MB)

We’re back after our unplanned break last week, with more cracking music for you to start your day. The first 30 minutes had just me hosting, which actually wasn’t that bad! You can Listen Again by clicking Play below, or heading to our page on RhubarbRadio to listen to previous shows.

Join us next week for the last Live show of 2009, hopefully with some musical guests. After that we’re entering the world of pre-records until the second week in January. You can also get in touch with the show by leaving a comment below, or sending email to team at midsweep dot com.

You can now submit your tracks for play on The Midsweep directly in to our Soundcloud Dropbox by clicking here.

As you may have heard a couple of weeks ago, we’re also looking for people to record sweepers/jingles for us, so you plop them in there too, if you wish. It’s all very exciting round here at the moment, as we’ve just confirmed not one, but two live bands to play for us on the 21st November. All shall be revealed tomorrow, live from 10am on RhubarbRadio.com

This week I’ll be embarking on a sort of new venture. Henry’s Children have asked me to start getting involved with their online promotion and a bit of sound engineering for their regular gigs at the Adam and Eve in Digbeth. As someone who’s currently unemployed, this could be a good little outlet for my days spent at home jobseeking and generally having trouble finding something to do.

I’ve started by getting their first EP, Woodbine Street, submitted to iTunes and Spotify, so you’ll soon be able to sample it all for yourself. You can also go straight to the band and grab a CD for £5 + P&P at their website.

In what could perhaps be called a coincidence, I’ve also been asked by the lovely Suzie from The Benwahs to help out with the regular night at Gosta Green starting on the 29th October. It’s all for free at the moment, but hopefully someone, somewhere might see my talents and throw a stack of money at me. If not, I’m sure I’ll make loads of friends with bands that can then appear on The Midsweep!

In just a little over 24 hours, it’ll time for the Midseep. For the next three weeks, we’ve got bands booked in to come and play live for us and we’re looking for some support.

If you’re around the Custard Factory from 10am tomorrow, pop down and meet the band, the team and rock out to some delicious music. We’re trying to create a party atmosphere every Saturday, and would love to see some of the people who listen every week.

Obviously if 50 people turn up (we can hope, right?) we may not be able to get all of you in to the studio, but if you’re in to live music and fancy a bit of a jaunt in to Brum on a Saturday, why not come down?

On tomorrow’s show are Outspoken. Local pop/punkers who recently supported New Found Glory after the band heard them and personally invited them down. Sound good? Leave a comment or send an email to phil [at] midsweep [dot] com so we have an idea of numbers.

If you can’t get down, you can always listen live at RhubarbRadio.com or, in fact whenever you want to.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:58 — 21.3MB)

• Euphoria Audio – Flow
• Cold Dead Cow – Aurora
• The Foxes – Lover Killer
• Pippa Rogers – Open Hearted
• Ishkobar – Open Up
• 3 Monkeys and a Man – Ecstacy

I love live music and there are so many great venues in Birmingham that are currently under threat of closure due to a few complaints from local residences about noise pollution.

The guys over at Project X have produced a documentary to highlight some of the issues which will hopefully find the right eyes;

embedded by Embedded Video

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Thanks to long suffering landlord of Digbeth’s wonderful Spotted Dog (best pub in Brum?), Kent Davies at the Rainbow, Keith Marsden at the Prince of Wales and just one of the many Digbeth residents who moved to the area in order to appreciate (not complain about) the vibrant atmosphere, Adam Crossley.

Superb editing and graphics on this film by Anthony Davies.

So there you go. If you have a blog, please post about this video or head over to the Project X site, or even leave some comments here. I’ll make sure they get back to the rest of the team

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:00 — 32.1MB)

And we’re back with another show for you, the music is the good stuff this week. My babbling is just a bit of an added bonus. Comments as always, are welcome, easiest way is to leave one below. Enjoy!

• Jarmean – Mind the Gap
• Slashed Seat Affair – Forget You
• The Pragues – Friday Night
• {satellite-state} – One Small Step
• Rob Eyley – Into The Blue
• The Story So Far – Friends Like These

Feeding BritCaster.com

So in the interests of keeping the show semi-regular, I’m going to record a show today.

I’ve had a lot of interest since I decided to get back on the wagon, so to speak, but am still trying to be as active as I can in regaining the audience that we’ve lost of the years.

I’ll be recording some time today, so if you have any last minute audio/comments, send them through.

Voicemail: 07010476292 in the UK/Europe or 206-888-4773 in the US

Over the past few days I’ve been playing around with a few bits of AV that I think have made me realise that PCDC isn’t the way forward for me. It’s time to wheel out the old dinosaur that is bitjobs for the masses! and bring it back for good.

It might just be a coincidence, but it’s exactly four years tomorrow since I first started podcasting with a mammoth 90 minute show (!).  Thankfully as the shows increased in numbers, the length went down to a more manageable 30-45 minutes per show.

I’m not expecting to return to the glory days of loads of show related emails, but it will be good to use the followers I have on Twitter to get the shows heard and shared with others. BFM Daily was one of the most popular incarnations of the show; 15 minutes of independent music, minimal chatter and released everyday. It took a hell of a lot to get a show out everyday, but it was damn fun and they were some of the best shows I’ve produced.

So, here we go. It’s going to be slow to start with, but I will be devoting as much time as I can in between work and spending time with the kids and, with a bit of luck we’ll get back to the good old days of regular shows, a large-ish audience and a lot of quality music.

I’ve been podcasting since 2005, whatever people say. It started as an experiment and moved on to semi-big things when I joined up with PodShow and started to promote PodFest in 2006 and, although I enjoyed it, there was always something missing especially considering how much time I was putting in to editing, publishing and promoting the shows.

Since starting to blog again, I’ve found times where things would have been easier to put in to words. Nothing mammoth like some of my old shows, but just a five or ten minute piece with a track or two for people to digest on their way to work.

I’m going to aim for at least one show per year, that way I won’t be setting my sights too high and won’t be disappointing any listeners I might garner along the way. There was a time when I could commit to pumping out one show per day, but I’m not going to even try that this time.

To remind any of you who haven’t listened to my previous work, I’ve included one of the Birmingham showcases I did back in 2006 for bitjobs. Hit play on the bottom of the post, or alternatively download for future play on your computer/portable MP3 player.

I already have a couple of tracks lined up for episode 1 of PCDC and I’ll try and record a show later today. I’ve just got to see if I still have “it”.

Comments, as always, appreciated.

Technorati Tags: podcast, music, technology, launch, birmingham, showcase

Over two years ago I was involved with Podcast User Magazine. It was an idea that a group of us had to deliver a magazine through PDF format automatically to our subscribers, via RSS. We assembled a group of well known podcasters (and some not so well known) from around the UK and set about creating content that would engage our readers.

As one of the founding members of the mag, I was asked to submit an article centered around my area of “expertise” at the time; independent artists.

Since then I’ve lost touch with a lot of the guys I used to help promote and play on my shows, but I wanted to share the article with you all anyway. Podcast User Magazine is currently on a short hiatus (well, 8 months) but they’re looking to make a return in the near future.

I’m take another look at the indepedent music scene in the near future, but for now have a read of this and let me know what you think.

Picture the scene. Early 2005 in a small, quiet house in central England. A 19-year-old guy who previously attempted to learn to play the drums, and failed, sits at his computer listening to a Podcast for the very first time, amazed that he is able to listen to some guy in the US talk with another guy and play music – their own music. The concept immediately has him thinking of the many “radio shows” he had recorded with a friend while at school. Only this time, there actually might be a chance for people to hear what he had been trying to say.

That was my very first experience of podcasting, listening to Steve Lacey sit down and have a chat with a friend from his band; Spank. They talked about everyday things, podcasting, music and their band’s impending CD-release party. I was immediately bitten by the podcasting bug and wanted to know more. How did it all work? What did I need to do to get my own one out there? These answers were quite hard to come by, but after about a week I managed to hastily cobble together a very quiet podcast entitled “El’s Thoughts”.

After the first show was complete and uploaded, I decided to do some research into the independent music scene. I obviously wasn’t the only person doing a podcast concentrating on music that wasn’t in the mainstream, but as I started to find and email bands via UKBands.net, I discovered that a lot of the UK scene had absolutely no idea what podcasting was. A good portion of the emails I sent out to bands were left unanswered, either because they had no idea what I was talking about or because they just weren’t used to people emailing them with a request to play their music.

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