This series is all about showcasing Libsyn podcasters. Its sole purpose is to introduce these awesome podcasts to the world as well as share their podcasting insight to empower the community!
Q & A with Eric from Talking Rubbish with Eric and Stacey
When did you start podcasting?
We started podcasting about mid Feb. of 2013, although the show was completely different than what it is now.
Why did you start podcasting?
It all started way back in the long long ago, I attended a high school that had a 500 watt radio station in Chicago where my best friend Jim and myself had a weekly music/talk show for all four years.
After graduation we continued doing what was referred to as Alumni shows for another year…then life smacked us in the face and we both discovered we n
eeded to get full time jobs like people, which killed the show due to scheduling.
A couple years later I enrolled in broadcasting school, got a job in radio, then another…then another…then Janet Jackson ruined radio. The freedom to have a personality was gone.
The FCC dropped the hammer, and I left radio for good.
Ten years later, the high school brought back “Alumni Shows”. I hooked back up with Jim and we had a mini reunion …that is until the school…well lets just say, theres a reason I won’t mention their name. Those in charge are quick to make foolish decisions.
I then looked into podcasting to continue doing what Jim and myself just brought back from the dead. The Jim and Eric Radio Network. Again, life got in the way. I live in Milwaukee, Jim still in Chicago with kids, it just wasn’t going to work.
But the studio was built, and Stacey was interested in playing radio…so we gave it a shot!
Talking Rubbish (a term Stacey always loved to use, which she picked up from British comedy) was born!
What’s your show about?
Even though we are a couple, and live together, it took a while to “click” with the mics hot. After it did though, we realized this was a super fun way to blow off some steam and just be idiots.
We love talking about TV, movies, what the US calls soccer (Go Manchester City!) storm chasing (yes, we also chase tornadoes for fun) and odd news stories.
Stacey is now getting more involved with the production side of the show, like what music to use when we feature “stuff you should download”, a quick clip of a song we well…think you should go pay for on itunes or Amazon and download.
Also with permission, we will feature a full song from an unsigned band we make friends with on Twitter.
(Feel free to email those MP3s and band info to [email protected] by the way.)
We are by no means a big show, but the downloads are increasing every month…and we have some really cool, involved listeners. Maybe one day we’ll hit “advertising” numbers…but it doesn’t matter.
This is just fun. 100 or 10,000 listeners, makes no difference to us.
The fans and friends we’ve made doing this and through joining the Podgods Network is well worth the time every week.
What’s your podcasting set-up? Hardware, software, CMS, etc.
Here’s a quick list of equipment that we got from Amazon and Musicians Friend.com.
- A Behringer Xenyx x1204 USB board.
- 3 Behringer XM8500 mics on neewer studio style stands with shock mounts.
- A desktop HP that we record to Audacity on.
- A old laptop, whos only job is to run Skype. Its run to the mixer so the sound can be adjusted without messing with the other sound settings.
- A couple tables, a few desk chairs from Staples.
It’s odd, but people don’t think about that when they want to start podcasting. You need a place to set up and to park your butt for an hour.
Thats about $100 – $200 you may need to budget in addition to the electronics.
We also have an iRig Mic Cast, that works really well with my iPhone 5s that we will use for Storm Chasing casts.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
And the one thing I wish I knew before, and this isn’t “blowing smoke”, but we started with Podomatic…for no reason other than I didn’t have a clue about hosting and I literally just found them in a google search.
It was a huge mistake. The storage was terrible, the cost was crazy, and we basically had to start over 6 months in when we made the switch. I really wish we went Libsyn from day one.
You know you wanna subscribe just because of those storm-chasin’ casts, so don’t second guess yourself and hook up with Eric and Stacey.
You can also touch base with the awesome Eric and Stacey via twitter and Facebook
Have you been wanting to get your brand of greatness out into the world, we’d love to help you do it.
