Pod Off

A post of no real purpose other than to mention a few podcasts I've been spinning recently.
I listened to the new Peter Gabriel album last night, which was superb, annoyingly I see there are still tickets available for his London shows. Price seems quite reasonable for PG and orchestra.
Much pondering will ensue.

I've become quite addicted to listening to podcasts on my walk in, sure it cuts down the amount of music I'm listening to, but it makes an interesting change. Here's a quick summary of what I download each week:

National Public Radio
Quite a treasure trove of stuff here.
first up, A Prairie Home Companion. I got addicted to this many years ago when it was played on NZ National Radio, from memory on Sat mornings, and then on the Summer show. Wonderful gentle quirky humour, lovely way to spend 15mins each week. Podcast can be set up from here.

NPR also have a superb collection of music archived, live shows from SXSW, general gigs, interviews, vodcasts. Definitely worth checking out, here's but a couple.
The National
Dark is the Night - live version of the superb compilation album (National, Yeasayer, pretty much a who's who of the US indie scene)
And a more general link to gigs etc.

BBC Radio 4
I tend to dip in and out of the Radio 4 stuff, but two that I have set up for weekly downloads are:
Friday night comedy podcast which seems to cover the news quiz and the now show (steve punt/hugh dennis). About 30 mins per episode.

And the new one from the British Museum, A history of the world in 100 objects. This takes one object per episode (15 mins) and explores it in context of human development. I've only just started listening and I think they've just finished the 100, but I'm upto episode/item 5. Really interesting, and seems to link between objects quite well.

Various others
There's a number of other podcasts I pull down more occasionally, or they just aren't that frequent. Pineapple Thief do a highly amusing 30 minute discussion, although they've only managed four so far. Marillion do one as buildup to albums, and during the writing sessions, even if they are moving more towards vodcasts on youtube.
Frans has just finished his prog rock online show, which was available as a 4 hour podcast (cynics may point out that's a couple of tracks). In some regards this is a good thing, it's cheaper without his show.
Stephen Fry has been a little quiet recently, what with his writing a book and all. But his podcasts are interesting.
I've got a few more, a half-hearted interest in improving my French led to a number of Learn French podcasts. Efficacy to be determined. 
But the most listened to, if expensive, is Nick Bollinger's music review programme, The Sampler. A 30 minute a week programme Nick hosts on Radio NZ looking at 2-3 albums, sometimes with interview. Superb stuff. A lot of music I've been listening to recently (well ok, last 2-3 years) has come from this. And it's a good way to keep up to date with NZ music as Nick features a NZ artist fairly frequently.

Just been to the pub for lunch, so quiet afternoon methinks. Not much planned for the evening, may watch a movie.

Love, B