Back on air

As some of you will know, for a couple of years I had a radio show called 'Electronic Ears', which was broadcast on a (very) local radio station. I don't think I was a natural DJ or a particularly good one but I like to think it had certain homemade charm about. The best things about it for me were that it really encouraged me to listen to new music and also the small group of loyal listeners I had on Twitter. I was always very flattered that they listened in. 

When the radio station went off air, I was - to my surprise - approached by a significantly larger community radio station in Barrow called Cando FM, who asked if I'd do the show for them. Worried that they had me confused with someone else, I cautiously agreed. 

It's taken about 18 months for this to come to fruition and tomorrow is the first broadcast of the new series. Logistically, it's not practical for me to go across to Barrow to record the show each week, so we agreed that I'd record it at home and upload it to them. Coincidentally, I knew that this time 'round I wanted to do podcasts, too, so for the last couple of weeks I've been trying to get to grips with a tool called Audacity which will enable me to satisfy both these requirements.

Like any procrastinator worth their salt, I've dipped in and out of the software on a few occasions over the last fortnight or so but it was only today - with the deadline fast approaching - that I sat down and really explored how to use it (with the occasional bit of assistance from the Minx, who was on hand, thankfully).

I had a couple of hours to myself, this afternoon, while Dan was in Lancaster with a friend and Abi was upstairs playing her ukulele, and I managed to get both of the two 55 minute segments recorded and converted to MP3, before sending them to Cando.

The show is at 7pm on Sunday and I think you should be able to listen to it here, if your tastes run to electronic music and evidently improvised inter-song anecdotes and poorly researched information. Alternatively, you can obtain the podcasts of the two halves of the show from here and here.

Incidentally, my favourite shows were always the ones on which I had friends come in to talk about their favourite songs. Now that I have the kit to do this in a mobile fashion, I should be able to accommodate anyone who's interested in coming the show more easily, so please let me know if you fancy it.