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January 12, 2005

Podcast Review: The Daily Download

This entry posted in: 3 stars , I do not subscribe , Podcast Review

Daily Download
Format: man talking
Content: music, talk, daily toilette
Rating: 3 stars
What I'm going to do: listen to Bandtrax
Typical Length: 5 - 10 minutes

I don't know Chris Rockwell (aside from having reviewed his other podcast, Bandtrax), so I can't rightly say that I agree with his wife, Lorrie, when she says "This is the stupidest thing you've ever done," at the close of every Daily Download, but I can say this: this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

The more credit to Chris, I think he might agree. In fact, I think that's the point. It seems that Chris has an overactive sense of irony, and it amuses him to produce the stupidest content that he can think of with what might be the most ground-shaking media technology since wireless radio. He's doing a pretty good job.

Chris's studio is his bathroom, and with a small stretch of the imagination I think you can determine what the primary content of his podcast is. Chris always discusses what he's had for dinner the last day or so and we "get" to hear the results of that, as well. To Chris's credit, there's other content in addition. Most Saturdays are new music Saturdays, when Chris play some new music for his listeners, and on Sundays there's usually a sermon. In addition, Chris accepts "experiments" from his audience - although they might be more accurately described as challenges (things like "How do women with really long fingernails use the toilet" or "Try some of this [reference to painful excretion] hot sauce"). By far the best show that I heard was the Thu, 30 Dec 2004 edition with Chris's wife Lorrie. The woman must have the patience of Job, although she gives Chris some pretty good jabs; I know my wife would laugh me out of the house if she knew I read on my laptop in the john, let alone if I was recording on it. Hint to you Lorrie; I have found that when experiencing difficulty in the toilet after eating hotsauce the results are often in direct proporation to the quantity of hot sauce consumed, not the heat of the hot sauce itself.

All in all, Chris does a pretty good job with the content he's limited himself to and has a pretty amusing podcast. If you can get past the given content (or think that it's funny in its own right) you might find something you like here. For myself, however, while I get the point behind what Chris is trying to do, I'd be much more interested in seeing Chris (or someone else) podcast from a variety of silly / stupid / difficult situations rather than the same one all the time - I think that would point out the ease with which anyone can do a podcast more clearly than The Daily Download does.

Audio is decent, with good levels and balance between vocal and musical bits. He only occasionally plays a full track of music on the show (once a week or so), but doesn't give us the track length (rant). File- and track-naming is okay, though I'd like to see the date in the track title. Chris encodes at 64 kbps, which is a good bit-rate for this podcast, and surprizingly, his laptop's internal mic does a pretty good job, and he's got a mini-disk recorder for remote set-ups that also gets pretty good quality.

Subscribe to mp3s.

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Posted by cori at January 12, 2005 06:00 AM