It’s Coming: Radio to Download! …and Another London Story

Jan 17, 2008 by Justin Wayne

Hello friends! I apologize for the delay on the update. I’ve been spending my time associating with my fellow independent musicians drumming up interest for the podcast. I also spent a bit of that time on photoshop creating the cover art that will be appearing in Itunes and the other RSS feeders. Tell me what you think…

…email me at justin.arndt@gmail.com and let me know what you think AND/OR vote over in sidebar.

The last vote ended up a tie between Curry and Steak and Potatoes being people’s favorite dishes. I’d love all your feedback on the JW Show Cover!

The different artists I’ve come across recently have been surprising. And not in that, jump out and scare you, type of way but in a way that I hadn’t thought of. I was kind of afraid that:

A. There wasn’t going to be enough “good stuff” out there to keep an 80 minute show running every week.

B. The “good” artists were going to laugh in my face at the podcast.

BOTH of these assumptions were grossly false. I believe I’ve got enough music here for the first month – enough good tunes to put together four full 80 minute shows. Not only that, but the artists are rallying behind the project! I figure if we can get a good push-off from here and spread the Show across Myspace and Facebook we’ll be in great shape.

If you or someone you know is an artist or represents a band that may like to be included, let me know at: justin.arndt@gmail.com or just comment on this blog entry.

My goal is to make the Show’s reach big enough so that the independent artists begin to come to me with tunes instead of me going to them. As I’ll continue to search the web for these different artists, when I get started working my time is going to be cut down in a big way, and my time for searching is going to be quite a bit less. If the Show can find those artists on its own, my job will be all the more easier.

What does this mean for you? Put the Show in your Top Friends on Myspace! That would help so much! I’ve been working hard on the design for my Myspace page as well as working on my webpage-webpage. That’s going to take a bit longer, but hopefully I can get at least a rough outline up before the show starts. Find me on myspace at:

http://www.myspace.com/justinwarndt

Ok, so we’ve got to get a good London story in, so I’ll tell you one:

When we picked Jamie’s mom up from the airport, it was late at night. Not only that, but Heathrow is all the way across town which meant a hour-and-a-half train ride for the two of us to get there. Julie did arrive without much trouble and we hopped back on the train for another long ride, this time even later at night – about 11pm.

Jamie was a bit tired as was I, not to mention Juile who had just spent an extended layover in Washington DC and a 8 hour plane ride. On nearly all (it may be ALL) plane rides to Heathrow they serve alcohol and although Julie had not had anything to drink, the men across from us did. And they cracked open a few more when they sat down in front of us. Firmly stepping on Jamie’s foot as they sat down, they weren’t in the best of graces with her, either.

An Aussie and a Polish man, they had both purchased little penguin-shaped hand warmers which currently fascinated them in their drunken state. Jamie got fed up quickly and began answering their political questions (also a subject to avoid when Jamie isn’t in a good mood) with curt answers. I tried to deflect their drunken questions as they decided it would be a good idea to reach across the aisle and put these penguin hand warmers into Julie’s hands. Reluctantly, she took until flipping it back at them right away.

This, for some reason, frustrated the (much) drunker polish man who began asking us why we were being so rude to him. “We’re just trying to make conversation,” he said with a bit of anger in his voice. Without getting too anxious, I told them “it was late, and we’re all very tired.” He then insisted that Jamie tell them that they didn’t want to talk to them, and she did quickly and easily.

I told them once again that we were “tired, and tired of being bothered.” Realizing that the Polish man was most likely trying to pick a fight with me, I quieted down and began staring at the smaller Aussie man. At the next stop, he told his drunk Polish friend that they should switch trains at Acton town (only about 20 minutes into our train ride) and stumbled off the train.

Sighs of relief and exhaustion were released from all of us, and we sat for the rest of the train ride in a tired silence. It was nice.

Well, I should be heading back to the States any day to renew my visa and come back on a work visa. I’m very excited! I’m also excited to get this podcast off the ground. I’m currently working on the imaging and stabs for the broadcast (to make it sound all professional!) and those should be done before the end of the week.

I appreciate all of your love and support, as always. We couldn’t be doing any of this without it.

Keep in touch!

Cheers,

Justin