BSquared
Oct 14th, 2006, 12:14 AM
The Statistics
What’s it Called? It’s a Frog’s Life
What is the show’s website? It's A Frog's Life (http://www.itsafrogslife.net/podcast)
When was the first episode produced? July 2006
How long is the average episode? Around an hour
How often is an episode released? Once every 2 weeks
The Review
Graham Holland hosts the It’s a Frog’s Life acoustic music podcast from Liverpool in England. Each episode features half a dozen acoustic tracks from a range of UK-based artists interspersed with a smattering of chat and information about the artists from Graham. There are also references to upcoming gigs featuring the artists for those lucky enough to live in the UK.
Before I proceed I should admit to a bias: I’m a sucker for the often angst-ridden, always intriguing lyrics and clean, simple instrumentals that fit under the label of acoustic music. However, as anyone who’s ever been to an open-mike night will attest to, not everyone with a guitar or a keyboard can produce great acoustic music. Fortunately for fans of the genre It’s a Frog’s Life features a great range of awesome artists that I, living at the bottom of Australia in an age when singer-songwriters are largely ignored by commercial radio, would never hear if it weren’t for the podcast.
This show follows in the fabulous tradition of The Tartan Podcast (http://www.tartanpodcast.co.uk/)in that Graham is not only passively seeking music for his show but is actively engaging with artists so that they become willing participants in providing music for him to play. At the time of writing this review there have been about 7 hours of It’s A Frog’s Life released and I have already added half a dozen songs or CDs to my list of ‘must buy’ music. That’s a far greater ratio than I’ve ever experienced from mainstream radio.
The show’s blog contains show notes with full details of how to find the work of the featured artists and everything else mentioned on the show although I do find the layout a little cluttered. Being able to browse featured artists by name rather than by having to know which episode they appeared on would be an asset. I suspect there is more listener activity taking place at the MySpace site for the show but I’d rather gnaw off my own arm than deal with MySpace so didn’t check that out.
Graham’s only been producing his show for a few weeks so there are some newbie technical glitches and a little host awkwardness but the show generally demonstrates good audio and production qualities. I would however implore Graham to ditch the continual frog ribbets that act as background noise whenever he is talking (it’s cute for 30 seconds and after that annoying) and I beg to differ with Graham’s opinion that the sound quality of the audio doesn’t matter. The background hissing on the song from Dhrupic (episode #6) is off-putting and does detract from the listening pleasure.
If you like Mark Hunter’s Mellow Monday Show (http://mellowmonday.thepodcastnetwork.com/) or CC Chapman’s U-Turn Cafe (http://u-turncafewp.podshow.com/) I think you’ll like this show too. If you only think you know what acoustic music is, check out an episode of It’s A Frog’s Life and be pleasantly surprised by the quality of new music being produced in the 00’s.
This show was originally published at podcast fanatic It's A Frog's Life Review (http://podcastfanatic.com/its_a_frogs_life.html)
What’s it Called? It’s a Frog’s Life
What is the show’s website? It's A Frog's Life (http://www.itsafrogslife.net/podcast)
When was the first episode produced? July 2006
How long is the average episode? Around an hour
How often is an episode released? Once every 2 weeks
The Review
Graham Holland hosts the It’s a Frog’s Life acoustic music podcast from Liverpool in England. Each episode features half a dozen acoustic tracks from a range of UK-based artists interspersed with a smattering of chat and information about the artists from Graham. There are also references to upcoming gigs featuring the artists for those lucky enough to live in the UK.
Before I proceed I should admit to a bias: I’m a sucker for the often angst-ridden, always intriguing lyrics and clean, simple instrumentals that fit under the label of acoustic music. However, as anyone who’s ever been to an open-mike night will attest to, not everyone with a guitar or a keyboard can produce great acoustic music. Fortunately for fans of the genre It’s a Frog’s Life features a great range of awesome artists that I, living at the bottom of Australia in an age when singer-songwriters are largely ignored by commercial radio, would never hear if it weren’t for the podcast.
This show follows in the fabulous tradition of The Tartan Podcast (http://www.tartanpodcast.co.uk/)in that Graham is not only passively seeking music for his show but is actively engaging with artists so that they become willing participants in providing music for him to play. At the time of writing this review there have been about 7 hours of It’s A Frog’s Life released and I have already added half a dozen songs or CDs to my list of ‘must buy’ music. That’s a far greater ratio than I’ve ever experienced from mainstream radio.
The show’s blog contains show notes with full details of how to find the work of the featured artists and everything else mentioned on the show although I do find the layout a little cluttered. Being able to browse featured artists by name rather than by having to know which episode they appeared on would be an asset. I suspect there is more listener activity taking place at the MySpace site for the show but I’d rather gnaw off my own arm than deal with MySpace so didn’t check that out.
Graham’s only been producing his show for a few weeks so there are some newbie technical glitches and a little host awkwardness but the show generally demonstrates good audio and production qualities. I would however implore Graham to ditch the continual frog ribbets that act as background noise whenever he is talking (it’s cute for 30 seconds and after that annoying) and I beg to differ with Graham’s opinion that the sound quality of the audio doesn’t matter. The background hissing on the song from Dhrupic (episode #6) is off-putting and does detract from the listening pleasure.
If you like Mark Hunter’s Mellow Monday Show (http://mellowmonday.thepodcastnetwork.com/) or CC Chapman’s U-Turn Cafe (http://u-turncafewp.podshow.com/) I think you’ll like this show too. If you only think you know what acoustic music is, check out an episode of It’s A Frog’s Life and be pleasantly surprised by the quality of new music being produced in the 00’s.
This show was originally published at podcast fanatic It's A Frog's Life Review (http://podcastfanatic.com/its_a_frogs_life.html)