Rescue dives

by by SHANE SINNOTT

From here on in, I’m going to attempt to have a little more thematic cohesion to these things. To paraphrase a popular radio program, there will be a theme, and stories about that theme—except instead of stories, you’ll get like one bigger-than-average paragraph. I want to talk about podcasts this week. Here’s the thing: “podcast” is a misleading term. The “cast” implies that it’s something impermanent, like a TV or radio broadcast that you can only listen to once, and live. What it is, though, is just a way to make iTunes or whatever automatically download something for you on a regular basis, which then exists forever on your PC. Dig? What follows, then, are my bold and unambiguous recommendations.

The Everybody Cares Podcast is for the babies among us, who need to regularly listen to stuff like Beirut, Cat Power and M. Ward while sucking our thumbs (everybodycares.blogspot.com/2007/01/everybody-cares-podcast-episode-5.html).

The Mad Decent Worldwide Radio show by Diplo, purveyor of instrumental hip hop à la DJ Shadow, is an educational and eclectic mix. It’s been described as a sort of “NPR for the street,” and episodes vary from “Explaining the Roots of Baltimore Club” to “Pitbull Sound: One of the Premier Funk Carioca DJ Crews in Rio” (rss.mac.com/diplo1978/iWeb/mad%20decent%20radio%20
worldwide/mad%20decent%20radio/rss.xml).

The Concert is a classical music podcast that’s updated bi-weekly, run by the Isabella Stewert Gardner Museum. Consisting of beautiful live recordings done in the Museum, recent programs feature work by Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach and the other usual suspects (www.gardnermuseum.org/music/podcast/theconcert.asp).

The CBC Radio 3 Podcast is a weekly showcase of independent and emerging Canadian artists hosted by Grant Lawrence of the Smugglers. He can be a complete douche a lot of the time, but it’s hard to hate him when he displays his childlike enthusiasm for acts like Wolf Parade, Jon-Rae and the River or Junior Boys (radio3.cbc.ca).

As you were! ssinnott@gmail.com