Roderick on the Line
Merlin Mann’s weekly conversations with John Roderick of The Long Winters.
A new episode most weeks, typically around an hour and fifteen minutes or so
It’s just a conversation between John and Merlin about anything, but John’s led a pretty amazing life from growing up in Alaska, to being an alcoholic, to walking across Europe, to being in a band, to an unsuccessful run for Seattle city council. But sometimes they just talk about their favorite Netflix Hitler documentaries. You can jump in anywhere, though I say why not start at the beginning? Here’s a not quite up to date but still useful collection of some of Merlin’s favorites.
Song Exploder
A new episode every couple weeks, usually less than fifteen minutes
Summary from the site:
Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode is produced and edited by host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway in Los Angeles. Using the isolated, individual tracks from a recording, Hrishikesh asks artists to delve into the specific decisions that went into creating their work. Hrishikesh edits the interviews, removing his side of the conversation and condensing the story to be tightly focused on how the artists brought their songs to life. Past guests include Björk, U2, Iggy Pop, and Carly Rae Jepsen, among many others. In 2016 the Sydney Opera House hosted Song Exploder as an artist-in-residence. The show has been featured at the Sundance Film Festival and SXSW.
I just discovered Song Exploder recently and I’m working my way through the back episodes, there were half a dozen songs I knew that I jumped to right away, but songs I’d never heard of in genres I don’t care about still make for fascinating episodes.
The Flophouse Podcast
http://www.flophousepodcast.com/
New episodes every two weeks, usually around an hour and fifteen minutes.
Three guys watch a “bad” movie before the show, and then the show is them discussing it. Summarizing, analyzing, weighing in with a verdict, but mostly interrupting each other.
I started from the beginning and I’m still about a year behind, but it’s usually a riot. There are some running gags, so I recommend starting from the beginning too if you can handle some of the terrible production early on, back when they were recording from their laptop’s built in mic.
Two of the guys on the show were writers for the Daily Show (Elliot Kalan was actually the head writer, and is now the head writer for the new MST3K), so these are funny people. Funny, super-annoying, interrupting each other all the time, making up terrible songs, people.
Remaster
New episodes weekly, usually about 45 minutes to an hour.
A gaming podcast I enjoy for giving a perspective outside my own. The hosts are all from Europe, Federico is in Italy, Myke’s in England, Shahid is…somewhere? I forget, maybe England too, and he was most recently working for Sony Europe as the Senior Business Development Manager—basically he was the guy trying to get indie games on the PlayStation.
These guys have very different taste in games from me, but that’s why I like the show. It keeps my perspective on the industry ever-so-slightly broader.
