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Irregular Podcast! #15 2007-12-15: Irregular Podcast! #15 - "The Eclectic Podcast Orchestra" (8:35, 1.96 MB) Transcript WARNING: Bleeding from the ears may cause slippery shoulders. [Tune: Where the Streets Have No Name, by U2] I wanna run, I want to hide I wanna tear down the walls That hold me inside. I wanna dig out My brain with a spoon Where the songs have no tune I wanna hear, singing with some grace. I see these vain hopes Disappear without a trace. I wanna take shelter From the poison croon Where the songs have no tune Where the songs have no tune Where the songs have no tune Warren: It all started when David, Andrew, David, Andrew, and Richard got together after school back in Liverpool and started messing around with vocal harmonies. Michael: A friend of ours, Vladimir, heard what we were doing and suggested we record a track for a podcast he was working on. David: Our first attempts were pretty amateurish, but the strange thing was the audience loved them. Oliver: To this day we're still not sure why. [Tune: All My Loving, by The Beatles] Close your eyes and just listen, Your eyes will start to glisten; You hope that the tune will be true. But when you least expect it, Your ears will reject it, 'Cos we sing all our podcasts to you. Andrew: We really did the hard yards in the beginning. We played smoky nightclubs for a few shillings a gig. Warren: Then Ingrid suggested we go to Hamburg, where the German club scene was really happening. Michael: We needed a name for our band. Someone, I forget who, came up with the Eclectic Podcast Orchestra. David: We decided to use that until we thought of something better. But we never did. [Tune: Livin' Thing, by ELO] Singin' away with no thought of a tune It's a podcast Notes... Rollin' and ridin' and slippin' and slidin' It's podcast And yoo-oo-oo-ou, and your vain desire, To be in tu-uu-uu-une... higher and higher, baby It's a singin' thing, It's a terrible thing to hear It's a podcast thing What a terrible thing to hear. Oliver: We had our first major breakthrough when we found Oscar, who became our musical director. Oscar: What?! Andrew: He really refined our sound for us. Looking back, it's hard to see how we got as far as we did without his unique audio talents. [Tune: Stayin' Alive, by the Bee Gees] Well, you can tell by the way we sing our song, We are podcast men: no we ain't wrong. Music loud and lyrics bad. It's all been designed to drive you mad. And now it's all right - it's O.K. - You're just our guinea pig today. We must try to understand The podcast songs' effect on man. Don't show no defiance, 'cause we're doin' it for science, You're stayin alive, stayin' alive. Feel your ears are breakin' and all your body shakin' but you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Bwah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Bwah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' aliiiiive. Warren: We got into a bit of trouble on our first tour of America. Michael: Norbert made a comment about us being "bigger than Jesus" and the media blew it all out of proportion. Norbert: All I meant was that we'd been eating a lot of junk food lately and were putting on weight. Jesus was a pretty scrawny guy, you know. Oliver: But it didn't stop us scoring our first US number one. [Tune: Hound Dog, by Elvis Presley] You ain't nothin' but a podcast singin' outta time. You ain't nothin' but a podcast singin' outta time. Well, you ain't never held a tune and you ain't no friend of mine. Andrew: Success meant money. We didn't know what to do with it. We started getting into heavy drugs. Warren: Often we'd perform completely stoned. We had no idea what we were doing. Thankfully, it made no difference. Michael: And then at a concert in Toronto there was the infamous "Free Bird" incident. David: We wanted to go one better than Alice Cooper, so we got some cassowaries backstage, intending to bite the heads off. Oliver: Some lout in the crowd yelled out "Free Bird!" and security opened the cages before we were ready. Andrew: The birds got into the crowd and, well... there were several disembowellings. [Tune: I Was Made For Lovin' You Baby, by Kiss] Tonight We wanna give it all to you In the podcast There's so much we wanna do And tonight we wanna sing it in your ears Cause hey, we were made for you And you, you were made to hear We were made for singin' this podcast You were made for hearin' it And we can't sing enough of this podcast Can you get enough of it? Warren: Our rivalry with the other biggest band in the world - Spit - reached phenomenal levels. Michael: They started scheduling concerts at the same time as us in the same cities. David: Then there was the challenge about who could sing the highest. Oliver: The pressure got to be too much. We decided it was time to break up over our creative differences. Andrew: But before we did, we had one last live performance. In the highest place we could think of. On the roof of the Tower of London. [Tune: Get Back, by The Beatles] Jojo was a man who thought he would audition Singing for a new podcast. Jojo sang in tune, he gave a great rendition And we knew we were outclassed. Get back, get back. Get back to where you once belonged Get back, get back. Get back to where you once belonged. Get back Jojo. Go home Warren: It's just a shame nobody could hear us up there. Michael: Our fans went nuts. They couldn't handle the thought of a world without the Eclectic Podcast Orchestra. David: Within two weeks of breaking up, we were back together for our reunion world tour. Oliver: We reinvented our sound. Synth-pop was all the rage, but Oscar insisted we maintain our professional integrity. Andrew: Then EMI offered us a $16 million contract, for one podcast. Warren: So we totally sold out. [Tune: Wannabe, by The Spice Girls] I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want, So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha. If you wanna hear my podcast, you've gotta use RSS, Make it last forever - looping it never ends, If you wanna hear my podcast, ear-plugs are handy, Making it so easy, to maintain your sanity. Michael: From there things just went crazy. We were touring constantly and appearing on three TV shows a day. David: We got a call from Weird Al Yankovic, who wanted to parody one of our songs for his latest album. Oliver: We were all in favour, but Weird Al discovered he couldn't convert our songs into anything that sounded funny. Andrew: We sang at the opening of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. [Tune: Livin' La Vida Loca, by Ricky Martin] We're into kooky podcasts A-ny old song we find I feel a premonition This song's gonna bend you mind We'll make you rip your hair out And go screaming out insane We'll make you hear our crazy songs Which we know will cause you pain Like a bullet to your brain Turn it inside out We're singin' another podcast We'll drive you raving mad Singin' another podcast This song goes way too long There is just no way you can last We will wreck your ears Singin' another podcast Michael: I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we've passed the audition Oscar: What?! Cast Warren - David MM. Michael - David Mc. David - Andrew S. Oliver - Steven I. Andrew - David K. Oscar - David Mc. Norbert - Andrew S. The Eclectic Podcast Orchestra: David MM, David Mc, David K, Andrew S, Steven I. Programme Notes I wanted to get a new podcast out the door before the end of the year, so we put together something that would be an easy edit. This is pretty much exactly as recorded, with only a few pauses and audio pops edited out. All the songs were done in a single take. I think we only did a second take on one line of dialogue where the speaker stumbled over a word.