L'intégralité des interviews de Jeff et Ryan

jeudi 14 décembre 2006, 14:49

Découvrez en version originale l'intégralité de l'interview de Ryan et de Jeff.

Le SOIR EN LIGNE: How did the idea of this podcast come to your mind ?

Jeff : It was actually Bill Streeter's idea originally. He's the other administrator on the GaragePunk.com Forums message board and the man behind the Lo-Fi Saint Louis videblog (or vlog) at www.lofistl.com. He was a bit more up on this new podcasting phenomenon when it was starting to get big, and suggested to me that we start a podcast on GaragePunk.com. I thought it was a great idea so we started laying the groundwork and recruiting people on the message board to do shows for us. This was in July of 2005. My idea was to create a sort of "radio station" with multiple programs, hosted by different people, with a different show posted daily. And thus, GaragePunk.com Pirate Radio was born! (We changed the name to simply the GaragePunk Podcast in January of 2006.)

Ryan : Actually, it was Bill Streeters idea. Bill is a forum administrator over at the garagepunk.com message board. Bill and Kopper, who runs garagepunk.com, encouraged the members of that message board to come up with their own podcasts to be part of a podcast network. At that time, I had no idea what a podcast was but thought, I can do that. So I put my first show together and haven't looked back since.

Le SEL: How many people are working for this podcast ?

Jeff : Currently there are 14 people producing shows for us regularly. 8 of those once every two weeks. By the way, no one works "for" the podcast. We're not a company, they're not employees. It's all done voluntarily.

Ryan : I am responsible for all aspects of One Cup Of Coffee & A Cigarette as far as content and the direction of the show. However without the help of the aforementioned Kopper and Bill Streeter, this show would have never gotten off the ground. They pretty much take care of the day to day maintenance and server costs, etc. All I really have to do is turn my finished show in and they make sure it's posted.

Le SEL : How do you explain the success of your podcast ?

Jeff : Networking. MySpace. The GaragePunk Forums message board, which already had a large community, so that helped. That and just promoting it all over the Web. You can't just put up a podcast (or any kind of website, for that matter), and expect people to find you. You have to be proactive and go after people.

Ryan : Dumb luck! I don't really know how to explain it. I like to believe that a good deal of people were fed up with the homogenized sound of commercial radio and sought an alternative. Whatever the reason, I'm thankful for it. A little bit of hard work too.

Le SEL : What are the different steps of the creation of an emission on your podcast ?

Jeff : Basically, each of our show producers (or "DJs," if you will) produce their own shows in their own homes. They record the show however they choose, using music from their own record collections, then rip it to MP3, write up a description, and upload it to our server. I take care of the rest (posting it to the blog on the right day).

Ryan : The first thing I do is start pulling songs together. That is probably the most fun and important step in the creation of the show. I just pull out a bunch of records and CD's and just start going through them and picking things off. The second task is putting the songs together in a "pleasing to my ears" manner. This can be difficult because One Cup Of Coffee & A Cigarette often contains many different varieties of sounds. Rockabilly, garage, soul, greasy R&B, punk, gospel, ect. Anything I choose. Then I just put the finishing touches on it.

Le SEL : Do you have the authorization of the artists that are played in your emissions ?

Jeff : We get permission from as many labels and artists as we can (we have an entire page dedicated to "Podcast Permissions" on the blog), but it would be impossible to get permission from every copyright holder out there. So yes, most are "authorized," but then again I have yet to encounter one band that had a problem with us podcasting their music. But keep in mind that we avoid major label material, which would be a lot more risky. I think most, if not all, of the artists we feature realize the benefits of having their song included on one of our shows. It's free exposure! Just like radio. And most are indeed very proud to hear their music on our shows for that reason. They realize we're not out to take advantage of them, and the shows are produced at such a low bit rate (80 kbps mono), that it would make trying to cut a song out of one of our shows pretty worthless. That would be hard to do, anyway, because our DJs use cross-fades just like radio DJs, making it virtually impossible for someone to extract a complete song from one of our shows.

Ryan : Once again Kopper has put in a lengthy amount of time in securing permissions from bands, artists, and record labels. I think once we got the ball rolling we decided if we were going to do this thing, we were going to do it right.

Le SEL : What are the main difficulties that you are facing/ that you have had to face in the realization of this podcast ?

Jeff : It actually hasn't been very difficult to do. It's pretty simple, as a matter of fact. You just have to be careful when it comes to including copyrighted material, as I mentioned earlier. But so far no podcasters have gotten sued for playing copyrighted material (as far as I know). That said, the risk is still there.

Ryan : Honestly, It's been nothing but a blast for me. I love to turn people on to new music and I think I've accomplished that.

Le SEL : How do you find and choose the songs you play ?

Ryan : I spend a lot of cash on records, CD's, and what not. It's definitely my hobby and I spend a good deal of time searching for great songs to include. I usually pick songs that are melodic and catchy. Anything raw and primitive. Rock & Roll.

Le SEL : What are the next goals of your podcast ?

Jeff : Ideally we would like to figure out a way to make a little bit of money from doing this, either by selling ads or sponsorships or something. Making some money from selling ads would make it possible for us to purchase podcasting licenses through ASCAP and BMI so that the artists could at least get something (as little as it is) from having their music on our shows. But we haven't chosen to pursue that yet. Right now we're enjoying keeping our shows commercial-free and we hope the bands understand. No, we make no money from doing it this way, but then again it's not about money. It's about exposing this great music to more people via a new medium. So I guess our current goals are to just keep doing what we're doing, and maybe adding a couple more new shows soon. We'll see.

Ryan :For the time being, I am just going to keep doing what I have been doing. Playing the best Rock & Roll I can find and adding my own personality to the shows. I've been doing this thing for over a year now and haven't gotten one complaint. The saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Interviews réalisées par Victor Alexandre (St.)

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