Five Questions: Podcasts

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This post originally appeared on my music column ‘The Crossroads’ over at Dad-Blogs.com on May 30, 2009.

podcast This is the first article in a series I’m calling ‘Five Questions’ where I conduct interviews on topics related to music. The first installment is all about podcasts and I hope you enjoy it. If you have any suggestions for a future ‘Five Questions’, please leave a comment or email me.

Growing up I always wanted to be involved in music somehow and started by taking guitar lessons for a very brief period of time before turning my focus to drums in my early teens. Maybe it was because they were loud and obnoxious, but a budding Lars Ulrich I was not. Nevertheless, I enjoyed playing and could keep some semblance of rhythm, so you can imagine my surprise when my five piece, mother of pearl Ludwig kit had magically turned into a lemon yellow guitar for my younger brother when I returned home for my first holiday break while away at college.

It’s true, you really can’t go home again.

Before settling on going to school for a business degree, I tried in vain to figure out what my career options might be in the music industry. Since performing didn’t appear to be in my future, probably due to my lack of any discernible musical skill, I thought that it would be cool to be a DJ. However, despite having a face for radio, I have a voice that would make Kermit the Frog sound like Pavarotti, which would have made finding a job a bit difficult. If only podcasting had been around back then, who knows what I could have been able to do.

One of the objectives I had in starting my personal blog was to get into podcasting at some point in the future, whether it was part of my content creation for the blog or some entirely different project that would hopefully be music related. Despite the fact that I am nowhere near ready to fire up the microphone, I thought it would be instructive to start learning more about the subject and sought out a friend for some advice.

CC Chapman, who is a partner with new media consultancy The Advance Guard, is a jedi master of social media, veteran podcaster and digital dad. CC has several podcasts on topics ranging from music to marketing and new media strategies. The creative bug even runs in the family as he has recently helped his daughter Emily start her very own video blog. He was kind enough to take time out of his very busy schedule to do a quick interview with me to shed some more light on the subject:

We’ve all heard of them, but what exactly are podcasts?

Podcasts are video and audio files that are delivered via RSS to a subscriber. Now, that is even more technical then it needs to be. What I like to tell people is it is very similar to how you program your DVR or Tivo to record a certain show every week. With a podcast I subscribe to a video or audio show I like and every time a new one comes out I get it automatically. The great thing is that they are being produced on a variety of topics from big corporations to dads in their offices. Anyone with a microphone or a video camera can make one. My daughter recently got asked this question and answered it in this way on her site “Emily Explains It”.

Many podcasts feature podsafe music, what does that term mean?

Back when Napster was all the rage there were several laws passed that made it illegal to download music that you didn’t have the rights to. This applies to podcasting because if I put a song on a show that I don’t have all the legal rights to, and then I put that up so people can download it, I’m breaking the law.

The concept of a song being “podsafe” means that as a podcaster you have secured the rights to put that song on a podcast. When talking about an indie artist this usually means written permission from them saying you can play it. When talking about bigger bands it is much harder. The great thing is that there are several places online now where you can get precleared music that has already had all the legal pieces taken care of. It makes it MUCH easier for a podcaster to find music.

You have podcasts on music and marketing, how did you get started?

I got an iPod and started going around the net to see what else I could do with it and I came across the term podcasting. I had done radio in College and had been blogging for years so the concept of an audio blog was nothing new and that is how I saw it at first. I fired up my computer and a crappy microphone that came with it and started talking. Figuring out all the technical stuff was a pain because it was so new and it was no where as easy as it is today.

That was December of 2004 and it is amazing how much this technology and community has grown from there.

There are so many podcasts out there, what are a few of your favorites?

I don’t have nearly as much time as I use to when it comes to listening and watching them. When I had a work commute I use to listen to them all the time. Some all time favorites have to include Pacific Coast Hellway, Geek Brief TV, Ask a Ninja and Six Pixels of Separation. I also love listening to any of the podiobooks that JC Hutchins, Scott Sigler or Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff put out. So many of my favorites are no longer around which is sad, but I’m thinking back to the early days. I also love watching TED Talks which is always inspiring.

If someone wanted to get started doing a podcast, what would be their first step?

Hit record. There is an audio recording software on your computer no matter what it is. If you can’t find it go out and download Audacity which works on both PC & Mac and is free. Just start recording, tinkering and figuring out what you want to talk about. What are you passionate enough about to talk about every week? Figure out what that is and then start doing it.

At first your audio is going to sound bad and you might not figure out all the compression and other things that you’ll need to figure out later, but we all have to start somewhere. And DON’T think that you are going to have hundreds of listeners right away. You’ve got to stick at it and keep making great content to build up a community. It takes time!

CC can be found all over the web and if you want to check out his podcasts you can visit Accident Hash to see his music offering, or if you’re into the marketing and new media scene, try his podcasts Managing the Gray or Media Hacks. He can also be found at his latest online venture, Digital Dads. I hope you all found this information either interesting or useful and thanks again to CC for his time and sharing his knowledge.

Do you have a music question for me? Is there something you’d like me to cover? Leave a comment or drop me an email at pj@realmendriveminivans.com so I can work on it for a future article. Also, if you’re new here, consider joining Dad-Blogs and grab the RSS feed so you can get this and all of the other awesome columns delivered fresh directly to you. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the ride!