Eavesdrop on some of the conversation as four high-school friends travel to see The Police perform at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

Mark, Jay, Franc and Tom recall memories of The Police, being in bands, Loverboy on Good Rockin’ Tonight (with Terry David Mulligan), brushes with celebrity and going to concerts including Sting, Rolling Stones, The Who, Billy Idol and KISS. A post concert analysis takes place on the drive home.

This show qualifies as iTunes explicit.

 

 Roadtrip to see The Police [30:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I waited twenty-five years to see The Police and it was worth every minute of the wait (though, it would have been amazing to see them perform during their original run). I have the photos, memories and the $40 t-shirt (I know, I know) to prove I was there — the July 25th show at Montreal’s Bell Centre.

It’s amazing that three people can create such incredible music. The degree of complexity, simplicity, depth of sound and open spaces is astounding. It’s no wonder The Police have cemented their place in music history and that people are flocking to their shows in amazing numbers and at record rates — makes you think that Sting, Stewart and Andy should seriously consider long term plans including another studio album and a supporting tour.

I was relieved to figure out that the critics of the tour have it all wrong. They have complained about reworked and experimental versions of the hits. Anyone who has seen The Police live, or has watched or listened to any of their live recordings between ‘78 and ‘84 will know very well that the band has always explored, experimented and reworked songs in their live act. In fact, Regatta De Blanc (the song) evolved out of the extension of live version of Can’t Stand Losing You. I will concede that Don’t Stand So Close To Me was a bit dull with the leveled vocal range, and that the smoothed-out singing in Truth Hits Everybody and Next To You took away from their edginess.

Stewart performed in a shirt that read “Leroy Coolbreeze”, the nickname of his brother, Ian, who was the booking agent for The Police (among others). Sadly, Ian lost his fight with skin cancer in May 2006. If those shirts were available for sale at the concert, I would have bought one.

I did the road trip to Montreal for the concert with three high school friends. During the drive to Montreal we recorded some of our thoughts about The Police and concerts. On the way home, we did an impromptu review of the concert. I’ll release some of that audio as a podcast on this site in the next few days.

Would I see The Police, again? Without a doubt.

Click here to see my photos from the concert.
Click here to see photos in the Flickr Police Reunion Tour 2007 group.

One day before PAB2007 was to kick off, Jeff Parks fell ill. Bob and I decided that I would take the vacancy and pull together a replacement presentation. In my session, I challenged the community to engage their audience with atmosphere and ambience in their audio recordings and productions; to take risks and think beyond quiet studios, converted clothes cupboards and stale boardrooms.  Take your listeners with you — wherever you go — when you record your programs.

You can hear my session at the Canadian Podcast Buffet. A transcript of the session will accompany the podcast in the next week or so.

Those of you that have attended or follow the Podcasters Across Borders conference know that James Whittingham is just as much a part of the event as everyone who attends, and he manages that from his home in Regina while everyone else is talking, listening, drinking and hugging in Kingston. The cost of travel from Regina to Kingston is more than James can afford right now.

Dave and Isabelle of Broca’s Area have started a collection to “Bring Da King” to PAB2008. Their goal is to raise $1000 through Paypal donations at bringdaking.blogspot.com.

Update 2007-01-21: Scarborough Dude (DicksnJanes) is also behind this great initiative.

For some reason, the date for the Ottawa Podcasting Meetup Group’s July 2007 gathering has been changed from July 19, 2007 (today) to December 1, 2009 (very far in the future).

I can’t say if I will be at the December 2009 meetup, but I will definitely be there tonight.

Details are:

Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 7:00pm
Clock Tower Brew Pub (575 Bank Street)

Please RSVP at this link.

Many podcasters look for ways to measure success. The most common, and possibly most validating, is monitoring statistics such as subscription downloads, web downloads and plays through an online player. For each download we can track the country of origin, date, day of week, time, and frequency of downloads. These numbers can be used to create pretty graphs — many of which are generated automatically — and software tools allow us to chart trends.

Despite all of this amazing technology, we are still unable to measure how much of each episode was listened to and whether or not the listener was actually engaged in the program when they listened. Measuring this level of engagement sounds like having the ability to generate a podcast consumption box score. Oddly, it’s the level of engagement that makes the most difference.

It’s easy to become addicted to the numbers and overlook the personality and purpose of the podcast, and the community which it serves. I know that Andrea and I have spent various periods of our “podcasting careers” refreshing the stats pages of our sites on a very short cycle. That was until recently when an upgrade of the Podpress player caused a problem that could only be overcome (bypassed, if you like) by disabling the stats collection function.

Try taking a step back from following your stats this week. Use the extra time to read a book, relax, or (if you’re like me) work on additional creative projects (podcast or other). If you make it to the end of the week, see if you can make it to the end of July and then to the end of the summer. Since stats historically decline over the summer, it’s probably best for your ego to ignore them now, anyway. If you still need your stats at the end of the summer, find a compromise between obsessing and ignoring.

In March 2006, I took a day off of work to spent time with the residents of Harvest House, a recovery program based in Ottawa. It was an incredibly educational and emotional day.

I am currently producing a thirty-minute documentary based on my experiences that day. The program will be available at Electric Sky later this summer.

Music for the documentary and the promo by Dawn Tyler Watson (used with permission).

 

 Promo: Recovery Program Documentary [2:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I went to the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest last night to see the Steve Miller Band. What a great show! Steve and his band played all of the songs that his fans love. Actually, pretty much anything he’s written is fun to listen to.

I was a bit concerned when the show opened with what I will call and exploratory version of Fly Like An Eagle, a version complete with some interesting chord changes (it made me think of all of the fuss about The Police reworking some of their songs for their reunion tour). It was a version of the song that I wasn’t expecting, though it did fly. And the show continued to build in energy and intensity as the night progressed.

Gordie Johnson (formerly of Big Sugar), whose band Grady put on a great show earlier in the evening, joined the Steve Miller Band for I Just Got Back From Texas and Crossroads. My personal favourites of the set were The Stake and Wild Mountain Honey.

One thing I found odd was the scrolling text messages people were sending from their phones so that they could see them scroll on the large screens. I found it distracting if not rude that people would be more concerned with entertaining the audience rather than be entertained by the band. Having said that, I had a good laugh when the following message scrolled across:

Hey Eric! I’m breaking up with you. I’m a lesbian.

Here’s hoping the festival drops the text messaging.

This marks my 500th podcast episode / audio production since I began podcasting in April 2005.

I could have done a clip show, or something more substantial. I didn’t. Instead I stole a couple of passes of Canada’s Precision Aerobatic Team, the Snowbirds, that I audio recorded during this year’s Canada Day celebrations and assumed them to be for me in this short show to recognize 500 episode’s worth of audio production.

Now back to my regularly crazy day.

 

 Snowbirds salute 500 podcast productions [2:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you live in Ottawa, you’re extremely lucky and you may not even realize it.

I’ll tell you why.

There is a great theatre company called A Company of Fools and their summer torchlight theatre series is underway. From now through August 6 the Fools are performing their version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in parks around the city.

Their version? Yes. A Company of Fools is famous for exaggerating characteristics, incorporating contemporary humour and pop culture into their performances, and using a minimal number of actors, each of whom play multiple parts in the play.

My family and I “discovered” the Fools two years ago when they toured the city with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We loved it so much, we went four times. This evening we braved threatening weather see Twelfth Night in Central Park for what I expect to be the first of many visits to see the play. It was fast paced, high energy and extremely entertaining — and the rain never came. Our daughters (aged 5 and 7) were completely engaged and showed their appreciation with full-on belly laughs and enthusiastic applause right on cue. Noticeably absent was the Fools’ trademark use of puppets for some of the characters. You can’t have everything, I suppose.

So, how much can you expect to pay for an evening of great entertainment? These are “pass the hat” affairs. At the end of each performance the audience is encouraged to drop money in a hat with a suggested donation of $10 per person — a bargain if there ever was one.

If you live in Ottawa, don’t miss the Fools’ version of Twelfth Night!