If you haven’t already checked out the excellent Bigmouth Podcast you really should – especially if you're a former Word Magazine reader as it's helmed by the great Andrew Harrison and Matt Hall formerly of that parish and regularly features former Word scribes “kicking the tires of pop culture”. They now also have a WordPress website as well like what we do.
P.S. I note the URL is 'BigMouthMag' – does that mean another online crossover to print is proposed? – or at least some sort of online media thingy? As noted in my previous post Louder Than War and Electronic Sound have translated nicely to thick paper stock and printing press. I’ve noted the odd comment on The Quietus suggesting changes are afoot too – what can that mean?
Interesting times – I’m all for progress but I also feel we’re in a process of rebuilding things we perhaps unwittingly let the internet vaporise in the last 10 years – so now we have record shops reopening, new music magazines starting up, bands without record deals (who really should have record deals) crowdfunding albums – and at present time if you count BigMouth, The Word In Your Ear Podcasts, The Afterword and our own Afterword Podcast that’s four things directly spun off The Word keeping that thing alive.
Bigmouth Podcast – and now website – what next?
Just read the McCartney article – just how far up his hero’s arse can Du Noyer get? “Acting as his external hard-drive” indeed. Never get that kind of drivel on here, do you?
This looks pretty good. A quick look at the WordPress site and i found myself drawn into reading three or four of the articles.
I’ll need to have a go at the podcast.
Is this a commercial venture? How are they making money from this?
Re. “Is this a commercial venture?”, I’d venture not at the moment, just a reasonably low-impact way for a gang of writers to gauge the marketplace and establish an audience, not unlike how the (original) Rocking Vicar email newsletter and nights out eventually became The Word…
For what it’s worth I’d love to see a dead-tree version of The Quietus, especially if they had cover CDs, I’d imagine theirs would be a treat…
It’s broadcast in full on Sunday mornings on Soho Radio, also home of the excellent Pete Paphides radio show, though I can’t imagine a non-commercial online radio station is a massive earner.
Is it my imagination or does he talk really fast? Seems the case on the top of the pops/ avalanches one
I quite like the podcast but cringe at some of Harrison’s errors. McCartney wrote “You Never Give Me Your Money” about Lennon? Really?
Didn’t he? Kind of? It’s roughly assumed that the lyric obliquely refers to the money arguments within the band at the time… Or so I assumed…
I think it was a more general issue regarding the state of Apple and Allen Klein etc (supported by George and Ringo too). If you wanted a direct Macca song about Lennon try Too Many People off Ram.
I’ve listened to all the Podcasts and I’ve warmed to it in time. There was lot of reference to The Word at first, trying a bit too hard to establish where their ideal demographic was to come from which pissed me off although I’m not really sure why.
I think having listened to the Afterword podcasts with people who aren’t journalists, it felt a bit too much like everyone had a book to sell (which doesn’t bother me on the “Word in Your Ear” podcasts as they are so clearly only there for that reason and the detail level is much higher) but the range of topics has been good.
I find Matt Hall grating, however, but that’s purely personal.
Agree about Matt Hall.
Rather confused, thought i’d subscribed to the first podcast which i enjoyed but had nothing since, assuming like The Word that the podcast was rather random and had gone quiet for the summer. Then i check the link and see they’re upto episode 18. Not enjoying the changes to itunes as finding some of my other podcasts have gone the same way. I know, its likely me but never had issues before.
Goes off download some of them manually. Tsk!!!
Yeah, same thing happened to me.
Just downloaded ep.4, 13, 17 (the compilation of best bits so far,) and latest episode 18. See how they go down. Will re-subscribe (even tho I though I already was doing so,) if they’re any good.
Quite likely.
Thanks for the heads up. It is blatantly trying to fill a Word-shaped hole, with everything from the header to the slogan to the podcast being very closely modelled on their old home, but that works for me.
OK, I have now listened to three of the Bigmouth podcasts (the most recent one and two of the earliest). I have also recently listened to plenty of Word podcasts recently, just because iTunes downloaded the whole lot to my PC when they became available in the store again because I subscribe to the new Word in Your Ear podcasts.
I rather think I prefer the Bigmouth ones, and not just because the references are obviously more up to date. Harrison does a very good job of keeping the show going without Heppo’s overly headmasterly tone, and they benefit, dare say it, from the absence of Mark Ellen, who’s ‘look at me’ guffaws and tendency to go full Partridge were always hard to warm to. The format is obviously hugely indebted to the Word podcast, but it’s a bit like a cover version that you prefer to the original recording.
But who will run Afterbigmouth for them? They didn’t think of that, now, did they!!
Yes, the day they start a blog it’s war. WAR I tell you
What if they come in with an enormo bid for Andrew* or Burt before the transfer window closes? Is the site financially sound enough to resist a massive fee?
*Actually – not heard much from Andrew lately. Has he been tapped up?
I’m told they have Fuzzy, Faux Geordie and Disappointing Bob
I downloaded the podcasts and enjoyed working my way through the backlog. Yesterday, you know, on my long drive to watch, you know, Barnsley versus Aston Villa, I listened to, you know, the latest podcast. It featured , you know, guests who, you know, are usually good quality listens, there was Jude Rogers, who, you know, used to work on our much missed magazine, and, you know, Simon Price, you know, and Andrew Harrison. I became increasingly agitated as I listened, you know. It took me, you know, a while to work out why, but eventually, you know, the frequency that all three contributors said, you know, you know, actally irritated me so much that, you know, I gave up on it.