Monday 29 September 2014

Podcast round-up!

I find myself listening to a lot less music these days and a lot more podcasts and audio books for some reason...not really sure why. Here's what I've been listening to lately:

Podcasts about boardgames are featuring heavily at the moment... The best and most excellent by far is THE SECRET CABAL GAMING PODCAST. I enjoy every minute of this super show, and as the show is pretty long - that makes it even better for me!! - This is where to go for the best discussions, views and fun stuff about everything boardgame related.

Next up is THE DICE TOWER podcast - Tom and Eric are excellent presenters, and this weekly podcast is the best place for well informed, up-to-date news about boardgame releases as well as other boardgame related stuff - as this show comes out weekly it is a lot more concise than the Secret Cabal - but good it is indeed!

A few other boardgame related podcasts worth a mention are THE SHUT UP & SIT DOWN show and BLUE PEG PINK PEG - both are good fun, and I especially like the later as they concentrate on talking about boardgames that work well for couples - and it's always good to get new ideas for games that Carolyn and I can play together. THE LITTLE METAL DOG SHOW is pretty good too - but episodes seem to be coming out a lot less regularly at the moment.

Also boardgame related, (but we're talking retro and obscure boardgames here!) is the FLIP THE TABLE podcast - always hilarious!! And GAME NIGHT GUYS in which Brian and Curtis play games and chat about what they've been up to in their everyday lives... all good stuff.

Kind of gaming related is the KEN AND ROBIN TALK ABOUT STUFF podcast. Ken Hite and Robin Laws are both writers and creators of roleplaying games. Their podcast is related to this, but they talk about all kinds of interesting stuff, historical, factual, fantastical....and any other random stuff they are interested in.... I especially like the section of the show called "Ken's time machine" in which they discuss what devious methods Ken would use to change a real life historical episode...and what the possible outcomes would be. I haven't had the inclination to do any roleplaying since I was a teenager - but this show appeals to me on many different levels. Very interesting, and laugh-out-loud funny!

The zombie survival audio drama WE'RE ALIVE has finished now at the end of it's 4th season. (No spoilers here! - but you can download all four series from their website for free!) - What a great show that was... the We're Alive void has now been filled for me with the audio serial WELCOME TO NIGHTVALE. A humorous dark kind of supernatural/sci-fi/Lovecraftian radio drama which defies description (all though I've briefly tried!) and is very good indeed!

A couple of podcasts that I really enjoy, but have both really slowed down in episode production are the M.R.James related show A PODCAST TO THE CURIOUS and the Clark Ashton Smith related show THE DOUBLE SHADOW (which I'm hoping hasn't ground to an actual halt)... but the inspiration behind both of these podcasts, and still my favourite podcast of all time is the ever quality consistent and regular H.P.LOVECRAFT LITERARY PODCAST. Chris and Chad have finished working their way through all of Lovecraft's stories and are now reading their way through all manner of early 20th century spooky tales that were mentioned in Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". This show is superb in every way.