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- Bobby's Snacks Vol. 21: I Hear the Whirly Birds Go By
Bobby's Snacks Vol. 21: I Hear the Whirly Birds Go By
Bob Raymonda
June 09, 2024
Happy #AudioDramaSunday Friends!
You know, there was a hot minute there where I considered not publishing this week... but I genuinely love hyping up all of my contemporaries too much to take a real break. For context, I’m just getting home from a lightning fast trip up to Boston to see, you guessed it, 90% of my friends from the Greater Boston team (as well as a few other fiction podcast besties aka Tau Zaman, Josh Rubino, and Dallas Hawthorne)! Friday night, we got together with a huge group and caught up over drinks, Saturday we wandered The Arnold Arboretum and I bought vintage Star Wars figures from Comicazi. Today, Jeff Van Dreason and I spent a few hours at The Bridge Sound & Stage working on production for a new ThirdSight Media project that I’m really excited to tell you more about later this year.
While the primary reason we were in town was for this project, getting to spend time with my contemporaries is always such a joy. Especially when we take the time to talk about things that aren’t work related. I simultaneously wish we’d had a hundred more days to spend with them, sharing meals and memories and laughter, but also so so glad to be home and sleeping in our own bed with our two cats tonight.
Traveling with Sam is one of my favorite parts about summer, basking in the warm weather, while exploring a new city, but I get homesick pretty easily, so I can’t help but feel a little relieved when a trip is finally over. Besides! The Tribeca Film Festival starts this week and I know I’ll be seeing one or two (dozen) folks in the next few days, so it’s a good thing we made it back when we did!
Let’s hop to it, then:
We have to talk about how good the sound design is in this show. Never mind the incredible characters, or the compelling story that keeps bringing them together across other archetypal settings from amongst the apocalyptic wasteland. No, the action sound design in particular is what makes this show as special as it is. The series has only continued to get better and better since I first heard it last year, so I was thrilled to showcase it on the Forgive Me! feed today. I sincerely hope that you’ll consider giving this one a shot. It’s special.
The best villains are the ones who, from a certain point of view, you can empathize with their motivations. Sure, their approaches may be horrifying, or self serving, or greedy, but there’s some core part of their humanity that, once revealed, makes things click. This week’s episode, which saw Moc Weepe and Saskia in an emotionally fraught conversation, unlocked the entire secret of their characters. What it was about the two of them that made their friendship so strong, despite their wildly differing approaches to being a person in this sick, sad little world. Astounding stuff.
There are people in the trees out in the woods near Jamie’s dads house. In fact, the trees are people. Or, well, they look like them, as their forms begin to morph and show personalities all their own. Can you believe we’re living in a world where the team behind a show as incredible as Unwell, A Midwestern Gothic Mystery returns with a brand new show that’s already on its second season in three months time. Absolute All Star behavior, and I’m thrilled that it’s happening. Jamie and Malik are two of the warmest, kindest characters I’ve ever met in this medium, and every time I spend time with them, I feel like I’m getting a hug from an old friend.
Ed. Note: I hope you’ll forgive the link above. If it makes you feel any better, it’s stuck in my head now, too.
Abby’s still going through it this week, even if she is sounding a bit more like herself. She’s ready to confront Harry after all this time, even after choosing to avoid their last potential meeting. Maybe it’s because she’s ready to admit certain things to herself about their history with one another. Maybe it’s because she’s just tired. Either way, I hope that we get a chance to see what her voice sounds like when they’re together before this first season ends. Not because I think it’d make her happy, necessarily, but I think it’d help a lot about where here head has been at for all this time come into stark view.
While Nat Cassidy is getting some absolutely insane material from Mac Rogers and Jordana Williams to play off of, and Sean Williams continues to hold it down as Graham/Joshua, can we take another minute to praise our queen, Lauren Shippen, here? The immediate, intense chemistry that forms between Noa, Jade, and Talia requires some next level performance chops, and she nails every single beat. Not to mention the hilarious way that Jamie points out to all three of them what is going to happen long before it ever does. It seems to me like potential future holiday dinners with the Shapiro family are only going to get wilder from here on out, if things keep going down this path. And I am here for every single second of it.
And just as quickly as it began, another season of Yhane Washington Smith’s brilliant historical fiction show has come to an end. I was more than happy to record a small cameo as the prosecutor in the Trial of Stephanie St. Clair, and even happier to hear Jeff Van Dreason pop up as the defense attorney in the final episode. This series finally shows us what happened after the end of season 3 that sent Stephanie off to France, away from her problems in the first place. Now I can’t wait to see what she’ll do when she finally goes back to confront them head on.
In the same week, we finally see the premiere of the final two episodes of Yhane Smith Washington’s other landmark historical fiction series. And, as is apparent from the title, we’re back in the courtroom for some more kangaroo shenanigans. It was incredibly impactful to witness Sally Chisholm show direct support for a black woman unjustly accused of a murder she did not commit, while in the middle of her historic presidential campaign. The importance of this story being told by a team as stellar as this one cannot be understated. PLUS, The soundtrack is fantastic! I listened to these two while driving into the city for band practice and couldn’t stop myself from dancing the whole way there.
I’m finally caught up to this show’s public feed! As a supporter on Fable & Folly+, I do have early access to the next two episodes, but as I’ve said before, it’s sometimes harder to keep up with the runtime on these ones. Welcome to the Horizon is another gem in this team’s habit of fantastic miniseries exploring side characters in greater depth. And the work that Cat Blackard gets to do here as Verge is truly sublime. Not to mention the horrifying sight of all the dogs in town disappearing, only to show back up on the outskirts of town as one giant, mega dog. Fantastic stuff!
When I found out about the group of creatives behind this brand new Audible Original, I knew that I was on board from minute one. Not only did it star Elliot Fletcher who I thought was brilliant in the tragically cancelled Y: The Last Man adaptation, but also Stephen Root who has legitimately been one of my favorite character actors since I was a kid watching Office Space with my dad (let alone his more recent god-tier work on Barry), and Lauren Shippen (DOES SHE SLEEP?) directing. It’s a fun, supernatural/political thriller that I’m about halfway through after my drive home today. I can’t wait to spend some time this week tearing through the rest!
BONUS SNACK
There was a point in time in the late twenty-teens where I thought we might never get another Man Man record. After longtime bandleader, Honus Honus aka Ryan Kattner, abandoned his native Philly for LA, I thought they’d hang up their hats for good. Which is exactly why I was thrilled when he finally formed a new iteration of the band for the fantastic Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between in 2020 after years of touring as a solo act. That album, plagued by its own poor release timing, has lived loud in my heart ever since it premiered, which is why I was so stoked to hear that they’d return with another new album this year.
While the US tour in support of the album was unfortunately postponed, I’ve still been waiting in anxious anticipation for this release. There has never been a band as charismatic, unpredictable, and demanding of my attention as Man Man. And while some of the more spastic, abrasive edges that the group was once famous for have been worn down by the inevitable passage of time, and the introduction of parenthood in Kattner’s life, there is still the same depth of thought and character that has always made this band tick. It’s an ambitious, record, even if it is a bit more polished, a bit more focused than they once were. And I for one, am all the way here for it. And cannot wait for the tour to be rescheduled so I can be back in the crowd, dancing to his manic theatrics and screaming Whalebones at the top of my lungs.