JCC Where's the Subscribe Button? A Podcast Discussion Thread!

The Dollop is a bi-weekly* American history podcast. Every week, Dave Anthony reads a story to his friend, Gareth Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. It is simply the most hilarious podcast I have heard, and they cover a huge variety of subjects from completely obscure phenomena to well known historical events.

They're recording a live show in 2 weeks that I only just now heard them announce and it's already sold out. Their guests are none other than Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstark (the hosts of MFM, which I was sure I had recommended some time ago), so as you can imagine I am very upset.

Anyway, I'm going to add an episode to this thing just because. I'll put episode 3 because it's early on but you could listen to any of them, really. I recommend also for a recent episode #188 The Dominos Pizza Story.

1) Mystery Show - Belt Buckle
2) Beautiful Anonymous - 4 Kids, 0 Sex
3) Slumber Party With Alie and Georgia - Pants Suit Feminism
4) The Heart - Mariya
5) Escape Pod - If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love
6) The Monday Morning Show with Bill Burr
7) America Won't Shut Up - About Rollerblading to School
8) The Dollop - Competitive Endurance Tickling
9)
10)

 

Oops, cut off my last recommendation, so I re-added. And I've downloaded the Dollop episode. Just the title sounds bizarre and interesting. Can't wait!


Car Talk
Studio: NPR
Category: Automotive

What It Is
Cambridge boys Tom & Ray Magliozzi offer advice on cars, car repair and various other subjects in response to calls from listeners.

Technical Details
A new hour-long episode comes out every week; iTunes always carries the two most recent episodes. For more of their extensive archive (well over 1500 episodes!) visit their website.

The show these days is made up of clips from the decades long archive of the show. The show stopped producing new content in 2012; Tom died not long after, in 2014. The show had quite a run, from 1987 to 2012, so I figure they won’t run out of clips any time soon.

What About It
You’d never expect a guy like to me to have a favorite show that’s listed under the Automotive category in iTunes, but Car Talk is nothing less than an American treasure. For one thing, only the most literally minded person in the world would file this under Automotive; the show is nominally about cars and they spend a lot of time on cars, but in such a hilarious fashion that you can’t help but laugh. And they weigh in on a variety of subjects, from higher math to philosophy to love to family relationships to the ethics of all the tiniest details of modern life. Only on Car Talk would a woman call in to discuss the ethics of paying toll on a local bridge that she uses; and only on Car Talk would the hosts manage to get the toll booth attendant from said bridge on the phone to hash things out with the woman. Only on Car Talk would a woman call in seeking absolution for something she did to her father’s car over twenty years before; and only on Car Talk would the hosts get the father on the phone, sparking a hilariously tense exchange. Only on Car Talk, would an astronaut call in FROM SPACE in order to get advice on fixing the space shuttle (relax; he was joking). Only on Car Talk would a World War II European refugee call in to challenge the guys to verify the existence of a European WOOD-BURNING car from the forties. In one of my all-time favorite clips, the hosts discuss a brilliant e-mail they received breaking down a fascinating philosophical question: Do two people who know nothing about a subject know more or less than one person who knows nothing? The historians tell us that this show was actually historically significant, changing the face of public broadcasting by presenting hosts that were unpretentious, silly, loud and funny at a time when most radio hosts were stiff and staid and serious. I don’t know about that, but it sounds right. Regardless, Car Talk is an hour of pure entertainment every time, filled with laughs and good times. You might actually learn something about cars as well.

4 stars.

Essential If
You’re totally down to imitate that noise your car is making.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You know, loud people just aren’t your thing.

Best Entry Point
It’s kind of hard to recall what clips are in what episodes and I hate to send you to episodes behind a paywall, so I’ll just recommend getting the most recent one.

More Podcast Reviews!

 

The Dollop is really more "Infectious Laughter: the Podcast" than anything else, so I'm not sure if it's actually funny or if I just can't help laughing (por que no los dos).

 

Sometimes those work and sometimes they don't. Cognitive Dissonance is an atheist podcast and I liked the stories they covered and the hosts were actually funny, but they weren't as funny as they thought they were and their near continuous laughter eventually annoyed me so much that I stopped listening. God Awful Movies, on the other hand, I really love and its totally an "infectious laughter" kind of show.

 

I like The Dollop. They cover interesting topics and one of the two hosts is fantastic at improv. I recommend the Dominoes pizza episode and a slightly more recent one, American Pugilist in England.

Also we need to create a somewhat successful podcast. It's worth it for the summer tours alone.

 

anakinfansince1983 you might enjoy episode 177 of The Dollop. It's called Jock and the Boston Marathon Women.

 

Oh, yes, I need to tell you that I ******* love The Dollop. I laughed until I cried on that tickling episode and the Cliven Bundy episode had some real belly laughs too. God, that bit about the Holocaust in the tickling episode and the two differences between them . . . that was one of the most flawlessly executed improv bits ever.



Live In Concert from NPR’s All Songs Considered
Studio: NPR
Category: Music

What It Is
The folks from NPR’s music department capture artists live in concert and release the recordings.

Technical Details
Sometimes the sound quality on this show is pretty bad; other times it’s great. I’m not really sure why that is, but whatever. There used to be a lot of video episodes to this podcast, so you could see the concert as well, but they haven’t released any of those in a few years; still in the archive though. The iTunes archive has 300 episodes and goes back to 2009. Release schedule is unpredictable; the NPR folks might go to some music festival or other and release a handful of episodes over a week or they might go a while without releasing any. This year, for instance, they didn’t release any episodes between April 4th & July 29th, but then just last week, they dropped three new episodes. Episodes range anywhere from forty-five minutes to a couple of hours.

What About It
This is an awesome idea for a show and the fact that it exists is kind of testament to the wealth of the Internet age. I would venture to say that the iTunes archive contains a good 450 hours of live music that you can just download for free. Just right now. You can just go and download 450 hours of live music from great bands of all different genres. Just a couple of decades ago, people were still trading tapes, guys. This is RIDICULOUS.

That said, I wish the sound quality was more consistent. This is looking a gift horse in the mouth, but some of these recordings aren’t any better than the crappy old bootlegs you’d get on a cassette and you’d think these would be better, being officially approved recordings by the musicians, recorded by the folks from one of the most cutting edge radio companies in the country. And, you know, it’s just true: some concerts are better than others. Some of these episodes obviously caught whoever the artist is on an off night. But this show has an indie rock slant to some degree, but you’ll find R&B, electronic, country, soul, jazz, etc. as well in the archive. And big names too. It’s a show that could be better, certainly, but it’s more than worth your time.

3 stars.

Essential If
You can’t go to concerts because of a broken leg, but you need music to distract you from the guy murdering people in the apartment opposite you.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You don’t live for the applause plause.

Best Entry Point
I’ll just toss you my favorite episode; I haven’t heard anywhere near the entire archive, of course, but I’m going to recommend Mavis Staples at the Newport Folk Festival 2014. The gospel/soul legend is celebrating her SEVENTY-FIFTH birthday at this concert, but she screams, howls, bellows and weeps for a solid ninety minutes without a break, wailing her way through old gospel standards, classics of the civil rights era and her back catalogue, all at a frenzied, break-neck pace. It’s one of the most amazing vocal performances I’ve ever heard when you remember this woman is seventy-five. And there’s an endearing bit of stage business where one of her backup singers tries to get her to at least sit down for a song or two. But, no, Mavis is on her feet for the duration. What a show.

 

There's actually a documentary now (not sure of the release date) about the subject matter of this episode.



You can hear a clip from The Dollop in it (and they mention the documentary in the next episode as well, but I'm not sure how much they were involved with it).

 

Yeah, I had heard about the documentary on some other podcast, I forget which one. So, I kind of knew the basic gist of the story, ie. how it got started and basically how it ended. But all the details in the middle were incredible. Definitely a crazy story.

 

I think I heard about in on Snap Judgment, which is from WNYC. If you didn't heart on Snap, probably another WNYC podcast. David Farrier was the NZ journal behind the uncovering.

 

Farrier is friends with the Worst Idea of All Time guys and has been on that podcast a couple of times

 

Oh, interesting, haven't heard those yet. I was just thinking today that podcasting really is this whole little world where it kind of seems like everyone's connected in some way or other. Like Alie & Georgia were on the James Bonding episode I listened to today, so it was fun hearing them opposite Matt Mira, who is from The Nerdist show. He also has a show with Scott Mosier, who we all know from SmodCast, his show with Kevin Smith. Alie & Georgia's Slumber Party had Kulap Vilaysack as their very first guest; she's married, of course, to Scott Aukerman of Comedy Bang Bang/Earwolf. Meanwhile, Georgia has My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff who I first encountered on Doug Loves Movies. Then, there's Matt Gourley on James Bonding, who is on Superego, which also features Paul F. Tompkins, a guy I fell in love with on Comedy Bang Bang. And the James Bonding episode also featured Jordan Morris of Jordan Jesse Go, which he hosts with Jesse Thorn, the guy behind Bullseye with Jesse Thorn . . . and I could go on. It's like this crazy community of really fascinating people. Oh, yeah, also, Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon were on that James Bonding episode for something like five minutes at the very beginning. Of, you know, The Indoor Kids. And Nanjiani is always memorable on Doug Loves Movies where he has an ongoing feud with, guess who, Marc Maron. God, I love it. You get to know these people and it's like two of your best friends finally meeting when people from one of your favorite shows pop up on one of your other favorite shows. Love it. Can't get enough of it.

 

a quick scan of the episode listings and it looks like farrier is only on episode 39 of season one. but they definitely reference him every once in a while

heads up for those of you thinking about listening to worst idea of all time/in progress: they announced on the latest podcast that season one has been bought by the howl premium podcast network (its the pay per listen side of earwolf, i think). as a result, season one will be coming down from their free feed any day now and going behind that paywall. so go ahead and download all of season one right away if you'd like to listen to it and don't care to pay for it

 

For Crying Out Loud
Studio: PodcastOne / Carolla Digital
Category: Kids & Family

What It Is
Lynette Carolla & Stefanie Wilder-Taylor discuss issues related, sometimes tangentially, to parenting.

Technical Details
Episodes run an hour or so and typically come out at a pretty fast pace, every three or four days or so. Show doesn’t seem to have an explicit tag, but I’m not sure why not; fair amount of language – this is a Carolla Digital show after all. The most recent seven episodes (random number) are available on iTunes. For older shows, hit up the official website.

What About It
Well, I’m not really the demographic in that I do not have children. I’m also not a woman. And, finally, I’m not a huge fan of Adam Carolla. His podcast can be okay and if his wife wants to have a podcast, good for her. I will just say, and this is not reflective of the show’s quality necessarily, but I’ll just point out that I’m glad that Adam & Lynette found each other; it’s probably best that the two most nasal voices in the universe live together in order to spare others. Okay, seriously, she’s more nasal than he is and he’s pretty damn nasal. The subject matter of the show is usually without any interest to me, but not particularly awful, except when they get off on their lengthy tangents about the Real Housewives shows. If one of those starts, either ditch the episode right then or just shoot yourself in the head. But it’s not a terrible show; I tolerated it and didn’t ever get annoyed and that seems like it must be pretty good since I’m so incredibly far outside its demographic. You probably already know whether you’ll like this or not.

2 stars.

Essential If
You like Adam’s schtick, but wish he’d talk about annoying kids more.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You were overwhelmed with despair when you realized the host was Adam Carolla’s wife.

Best Entry Point
Probably just try the most recent one. Unless it says something about the Real Housewives in the description. Unless, you know, God have mercy on your soul, you’re into that.

 

Foul Monkeys A Gay Podcast
Studio: Ricky & Roger
Category: Personal Journals

What It Is
A couple of gay guys chat about pop culture and gay issues.

Technical Details
A new episode comes out every three days or so and they tend to run around an hour. The show has been around for a staggering TEN YEARS. The iTunes archive goes back to 2011; for older episodes, try the official website. Earns its Explicit tag if those kind of things matter to you.

What About It
This is another one of those shows that’s just kind of okay. The show isn’t horrible (though, in the tradition of podcast hosts everywhere, these guys aren’t quite as funny as they think they are), but neither is in ever really engaging. The podcast boom resulted in a massive explosion in just this kind of show: a couple of friends are like, “Hey, we have cool conversations; let’s do a show.” The vast majority of them are mediocre and this falls in that category. It’s kind of baffling to me that this show could be on for ten years. I suppose it’s MOR in a way that a lot of people find appealing. That’s really all there is to say. This show is of note in no way really, neither bad nor good.

2 stars.

Essential If
You’re in the market for something you could do worse than.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You’re looking to shake-up your top ten.

Best Entry Point
None, really. I mean, I don’t know. Most recent? I guess.

More Podcast Reviews!

 

I was in the mood for some Escape Pod this week, so I downloaded some older episodes and some of the newer ones and in the mix, I picked up one I've heard a couple of times before, Selkie Stories Are For Losers. It's part of the annual Hugo nominees run of Escape Pod, so it isn't sci-fi really, but it is speculative fiction, I suppose. Regardless, I just love this episode. Every time I listen to it, I love it more. As a writer, I don't know how you even start to right a story like this. And it's elevated by a great, great reading performance by Amanda Ching who nails the required tone right down the line. It's a layered story, a beautiful one. If you're into Escape Pod and missed this or if you liked If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love, my previous Escape Pod recommendation, check this one out.

 

Rogue_Ten did you see the newest LPotL?

 

ABout serial killer killer wives? Yah

 

I was pleased they talked about Rylo Ken's future second wife, Bundyetta

 

ooh, do you have a link?

 

Serial Killers and the Women that Love Them featuring the origin story of your future second wife, ted bundy's mysterious daughter, conceived on death row

 

Thank you. I'm afraid to ask what happens to my current wife.

 

i think we both know

 

the new episode in The Heart's diaries series, "My Everything, My Bear", about two people meeting, falling in love and beginning transition together was an engaging, vulnerable, and faintly surprising listen. im really becoming a very big fan of The Heart

 

I have been listening to some good episodes of WTF lately that I want to recommend. The talks with Alan Alda and Billy Crystal are both worth a listen, as they're both sort of cozy people that one likes to listen to. But yesterday I listened to an interesting one with writer Chuck Klosterman, who with Marc makes some fun ruminations about life, the past and the future.

Also listen to the one with comedian Amber Tozer and her mattress selling racket. Her life is just amusing. She doesn't have to be funny on her own. She can just tell you about her life and it's funny.