The Big Shed Podcast

After a particularly colorful Thanksgiving feast, or was it a a drunken night at the bar (?), Independent Producer Amanda Thieroff and her friend Sean Berman challenged each other to embark on the ROYGBIV diet. This diet isn't about losing weight or being nutritious - it's about spending a week eating only one color of food per day, according to the colors of the rainbow.

Stacy Bond's youngest sister died in a nighttime car accident while driving from Mozambique to South Africa. Robbers took her shoes, but left her purse. A year after her death, Stacy met her mother and other sister in New York to attend a seance conducted by Medium George Anderson.

(Produced by Laura Herberg) Director's Choice!  won Director's Choice in , our first-ever audio competition. Laura's story is about her friend Rachel Parsons, an aspiring actress who landed the lead role in a low-budget, independent film. The only drawback was that it required a sex scene in which she would have to be topless, something she wasn't sure she wanted to do.  The role was too good to turn down, even though she worried it might jeapardize her relationship with her boyfriend. The story is told almost completely as verite.  Rachel has been working on a narrated version of this story off and on for years.  She thought the Verite + 1 competition would allow her to experiment with a new approach; maybe shaking loose the producer's block and indecision she's been wrestling with.  We think it worked.

Producer Sara Curtis brings us the story of Benuel Esch - an amish man from Lancaster, PA who has lost his family, his home, and his mind. Benuel started questioning his lifestyle 20 years ago. Now he's returned to Amish living with a new community in Unity, Maine. There, Benuel is trying to make sense of where he's been and where he's going.

The winner of Big Shed's first ever Audio Verite +1 Competition is David Weinberg. The piece is called One for the Commandant, a short story set in downtown Seattle, featuring Edgar, Catfish and Hans, who David hung out with on his breaks from a restaurant job. David recorded the goings on one evening and crafted this story, which is apparently made entirely from audio verite.

Producer Kelley Libby produced a radio story about 13 year-old farmer Colby Perron while at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. This is not that story. But if you listen to Colby's story, you will hear a very short scene in which a calf is born. Kelley spent all day, waiting on a cold concrete floor in a barn in Topsham, Maine, just to get the recording she needed for that scene. Later, she realized the tape she got told a separate story about waiting, pain, responsibility, knowledge and the beginning of life.

We can't help but mention that this story would also fit into Big Shed's Audio Verite + 1 Competition if we hadn't given her some editorial help. But you should be inspired. If Kelley can record an audio verite story without even trying, surely you can too.

Producer Tom Niemisto weaves between an interview with  tall-ship captain Samantha Heyman and an astronomer/poet around a bonfire under a broad star-filled sky. The stars are governed by a perfect order and yet, they create a chaos of mystery. We link  astronomy to creation myths in constellations.  We search for deeper meaning the night sky or, with rigorous mathematics, we search for our physical location through navigation.  This is Tom's first non-narrated audio work and, as with many radio stories, he sat on the great verite tape from the bonfire for two years before deciding to weave it with the tall-ship captains' voice. And... check this out... He scored the the music himself and performed it with his cello, seeking to "evoke the undulating horizon off a ship's deck, and the glint of stars trying to tell you something."  We'd say he nailed it.  The original version of this piece was commissioned by Julie Sabatier for Destination DIY on Oregon Public Broadcasting.  It will be broadcast on December 4th  on OPB on a show entitled "DIY: Rituals." Photo by Fmmr via Creative Commons.

Signs like "Take it Down A Notch," "My Political Views Cannot Be Summed Up On A Pithy Sign," and, of course, "God Hates Figs." Sam Greenspan, Big Shed's Correspondent in Washington, DC, attended The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear and files this report.

"The Soundscapes of Faith" is an award-winning series of audio postcards produced by Laura Kwerel for the program Interfaith Voices. Each of the short pieces explores world religions through sound. They’re based on the idea that every faith tradition has a unique sonic signature. The series distills something essential about faith, something that could not be expressed through a simple interview. “How do you feel when you hear this sound?” was the question asked--the final result is a series of pieces that captures the joy, and emotion, of religion. Laura Kwerel is a past contributor to The Big Shed Podcast, and we are tickled to have her back. This podcast features Laura in conversation with Big Shed curator Shea Shackelford, winding their way through many of the sounds and voices Laura used to create "The Soundscapes of Faith" series.

Ghana sounds like everything you might imagine, and some things you never could.

Producer Julie Shapiro recorded these sounds during a trip to Ghana in January, 2008. Julie was one of the very first producers featured on the Big Shed podcast back in 2005, and if you were lucky enough to listen to her piece "The Only Reason You and I Are Here," then you will recognize her distinctive style in this work. When not creating her own work, Julie fills the spare hours as the artistic director of a little thing called the Third Coast Festival in Chicago. If you're planning to be at the Third Coast Festival Conference in October, you'll be seeing Big Shed there as well--come find us!