The Big Shed Podcast

(Produced by Jill Summers and David Whitcomb ... aka Stray Dog Recording Company)

A tragic turn of events at the worldâs smallest circus. Les Petits Tristes is an excerpt from Transfixed: Through the Fresnel Lens, Tiny Tales of Woe, a collection of audio shorts. Notes: Words by Jill Summers, music by David Whitcomb. Engineered by David Whitcomb at Stray Dog Recording Co. in Chicago. Also, do yourself a favor and check out "Talk to Me About Love," their beautiful submission to the Third Coast Festival's 99 Ways to Tell a Story project.

(Produced by John Biewen + Jennifer Deer) Merry Christmas from Big Shed!! Producer John Biewen (seen here in his own japanese manga) dropped by with some great recordings of bedtime with his kids. Thanks for sharing it, John. We wish we were eight, again. This is a real treat, and for once we're seasonally timely! We hope you enjoy it.

In addition to all of his own documentary work, John also directs the audio program at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies. We're big fans of the program and are glad to add this to their special place in the shed.

In case you're insatiable and want more Big Shed fun, we have two bonus downloads for you:- Jingle Bells (the skype remix)- And last year's hit video Mitchell the Christmas Moose.

We'll be back next week with something to help you ring in the New Year. Until then, Happy holidays! (from jen and shea)

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(Produced by Owen Agnew) (Photo: Allison Lucas) Happy Thanksgiving at Big Shed!! This holiday we're thankful for everyone who's been so supportive of Big Shed. We're feeling the love. Thanks so much for listening and for sharing your amazing work. Woohoo!!!!! (much luv, jen and shea)

But instead of Turkey, we're offering you a big serving of pigeons. WTF?! That's right pigeon haters, this week they've come home to roost at Big Shed.

Owen Agnew (audio) and Allison Lucas (photo) just started work on a new project about pigeons keepers in Brooklyn, New Yorkâa group of folks they've found to be surprisingly large and diverse. Owen and Allison were kind enough to send us sights and sounds from their first day of recording. The voice in the piece and face in the photo is Michael Scott, whose father had pigeons before him. And this particular recording was made at one of his coops in Canarsie, on top of his grandmotherâs house.

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(Produced by Zak Rosen) Here's the next episode in our series live from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, where we're bringing you a little good, clean audio fun with Zak Rosen. We rarely have a chance to talk in person with our producers before the show ... so sometimes we get a little carried away. Fortunately, Zak was up for the excursion. Once you get past the tomfoolery (did I just type "tomfoolery"?) You'll be treated to a beautiful sonic spanish soundscape. Here's what Zak has to say about his piece:

"These are some of the sounds I heard while I was living in Alicante, Spain during the Spring of 2005. I brought with me a mini-disc player, binaural mics, and a ridiculously rudimentary grasp of the language. This is my first collage, and one of my first pieces altogether. The Quiet American is owed a debt of gratitude for creating a wonderfully inspirational and informative website that helped me a lot in the beginning."

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Ps. Now can hear "Shed Your Audio Inhbitions," the Big Shed Listening Session at the Third Coast Website. along with recordings of all the other amazing sessions.

(Photo by John Barth of PRX ... thanks for being a shutterbug) (Produced by Jennifer Deer) Last week, Jennifer and I joined 350-ish other audiophiles in Chicago (well, Evanston, IL) for the sixth annual Third Coast International Audio Festival. The conference alone was so inspiring that we're both back home with a wonderful mix of enthusiasm and exhaustion. This year was extra special for us because Big Shed kicked off the conference by hosting a listening room on the opening night. It was a great chance to show though sound what this podcast has evolved into the last two years. Everyone had wonderful questions and comments about the pieces. And conversations about the podcast continued on throughout the conference. We were and remain flattered and elated about the reception.

You can download the full presentation here. It's about 90 minutes long and plenty of fun. We thought it might be a little long for the regular podcast, but if you're interested, please download and enjoy it.

That being said, a personal note from Shea: Oh my god. Jennifer, I can't believe you're running this tape! My mother will be horrified. My friends will be ... not so surprised. My ego will be deflated. I'm glad we have the documentary courage to use this. Just kidding. all I really want to say is thanks for the Alka Seltzer ;-).

Ps. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone at the Third Coast International Audio Festival!

(Thanks to Adrienne Mathiowetz of Love and Radio, Dennis Conrow of New Letters on the Air, Paul Sturtz of the True/False Film Festival and Noah Miller of the outLoud Radio Project for being semi-recognizable in the above photo.)

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(Produced by David Sommerstein) A few weeks ago, Shea was visiting beautiful SUNY Potsdam in upstate NY to make a presentation about audio documentaries to students at the school, an audio pep rally recruiting students for a cool project he's working on with prof. audrey sprenger (you'll hear more about that in the coming months ... enjoying the mystery?). David Sommerstein, a supercool reporter with North Country Public Radio, came out for the presentation, too (that's David in the photo above). After the presentation--flattering us to no end (truly, we're still blushing)--David interviewed Shea about Big Shed and ran this really nice piece.

The North Country Public Radio website summed up the presentation this way: "Sound is really cool and everyone should grab a microphone and recorder and try their hand at making radio. After the lecture, he and David Sommerstein ducked into a stairwell to escape the rain and chat about why he prefers radio to other media."

Thanks for the story, David, and for letting us re-cast it here.

Ps. Woohoo!!!! -- We're going to the Third Coast Audio Festival! October 25-28 in Chicago . Big Shed will be presenting a listening session Wednesday night. Hope to see some of you there.

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(Produced by Layne Garrett) About this week's piece, Layne says: "this piece is made entirely of samples from a winter camping trip in Feb.06 to Smarts Mountain in New Hampshire, plus guitar recorded the next day in the inter-zone b/w woods and all the rest. It was debuted at the DC listening lounge and appears on my recent cd 'the lost spaces ... reconstructed' on the dc-based sockets label.

textual accompaniment goes something like this: human again. sense of self as distinct from world happily crumbles as the earth offers itself to you, opens as it is always open, and you offer yrself open yrself lose yrself sink into crunching earth breathing sky fading light warming friends creeping cold enveloping silence."

Check out Layne's MySpace page. (He's one of our friends. You could be too!)

Ps. Woohoo!!!! -- We're going to the Third Coast Audio Festival! October 25-28 in Chicago . Big Shed will be presenting a listening session Wednesday night. Hope to see some of you there.

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(Produced by Shea Shackelford)

"There's nothing I can say to you that will prepare you for this." - Matt Largey

Thanks to Matt and TK for dropping by the Big Shed. Hope the stars at night are big and bright down there.

• Personal Note: This is also a belated birthday shout out to Shea's father, Ben Shackelford (who's pictured here with a youger, clean-cut Shea). Shea questions whether he will tell him about it, because of the scattalogical content leading up to our birthday wish at the end of the piece. But he asks, "it's the thought that counts, right?!"

• Historical Note: Matt Largey and Shea originally produced this piece for Radio Pie, an ocassional audio collective (of which Shea must confess membership) in June of 2005. We're going to make a bold claim here, the kind one can only make when inflating the significance of internet-related history. Thanks to the marketing prowress of Big Shed's Jennifer Deer and the ballsy vision of Jim Gates and the rest of the folks at APM's Weekend America, we think that this was the first instance of audio being produced for a podcast being picked up as a public radio segment. Woohoo!!

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(Produced by David Engen) Get your dancin' shoes on. This piece from Minnesota producer Dave Engen is a treat for your audio feet. We first met Dave a year ago at a Duke Center for Documentary Studies summer audio institute. He returned to Duke again this summer to produce this fine piece. Weâre proud to run it. A little bit of trivia, Dave was partners with Big Shed alum Laura Kwerel at their first audio institute â two peas in your iPod. Hereâs what Dave had to say about this piece:

âThe Bandwagon old-time TV music show is one of the countryâs longest-running local programs. It first aired in late 1960. As a fairly new resident of Southern Minnesota, I found myself oddly captivated by the polka dancers Iâd occasionally see on our local CBS affiliate. To the untrained eye the program seemed, well, really goofy. People danced, polka bands played, and the hosts talked about upcoming events like Tuba Mania and the Bavarian Blast. The more I watched, the more I noticed the hosts talking about the audienceâalways wishing them well on birthdays and anniversaries. Everybody on the show seemed to be having a great time. Old folks with great calves were there dancing, high school kids would show up every so often (maybe as a dare, butâ), and mentally disabled people were dancing and welcomed by all. I got to wondering if locally produced TV is about as important as locally produced food. I had to check it outâand this is what I found.â

Note: Photo by Kimberly Musser

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(Produced by Nic Beery)

L o o k d e e p l y I n t o o u r e a r s . . . (it's okay, we used q-tips)Oddly, this turned out to be a nice follow-up to our last podcast, "Hello." Nic sent us this eerie "found sound" that came with a 1970's Revox reel to reel recorder that his neighbor was throwing away after a yard sale back in 2002. Unfortunately, he doesn't know the spooky guy on the tape, nor does he know Sandy. But hopefully she's either kicked her habit ... or at least ditched this scary friend."I have always been attracted to found sounds, the kinds of things you find in thrift shops with the LPs. When I heard this, I knew I had to share it with others that have this interest. It's kind of voyeuristic in a way."

Nic's a video producer who's been rediscovering the joys of audio. You can hear more of Nic's recent foray's into audio at these fanfreakingtastic sites:

• "Circus Clowns" (week 70) @ Tape Findings
• "Stupidity Realized" (#18) @ 99 Ways to Tell a Story(from Third Coast Audio Festival)

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