Digital Gonzo

This is the first live radio broadcast that I both hosted and controlled the desk. it was pretty nerve-wracking, but thanks to some fine guests and a vast amount of Tweets from you guys it ended up as a rather entertaining hour.

The show is all about coming-of-age movies, it includes a short review of Super 8 and features the following guests: Ian Milles, Ed Harthorp, Georgia Stephenson, Naomi Stocks and Tori Stockdale. My next appearance can be listened to live at sirenonline.co.uk this coming Tuesday at 3pm.

After the highly successful Legends of Zelda Episode #164 of Digital Cowboys (re-released on the Digital Gonzo feed Nov 13th 2011) I decided to build a follow-up show about the most recent installment in the series; Skyward Sword.

You will hear from six guests on the highs and lows of one of the last significant games on Nintendo's most popular console to date.

* Daniel Floyd of Extra Credits
* Leah Haydu of GamerDork
* James Batchelor of GameBurst
* Gary Blower of GameBurst and Big Red Potion
* Joshua Garrity of Cane and Rinse
* Darren Gargette of Cane and Rinse

All of whom have produced work for Gonzo Planet in the past. Their interviews are set against a backdrop of music both from Skyward Sword and the Zelda 25th Anniversary symphony. There are sections on what made them happy about the game, what made them unhappy and what they would like to see in future Zelda games. There is also a spoiler section at the end covering plot points from the Temple of Time onwards. It's safe to listen to all but the last 20 minutes or so of the show, even if you've not yet played Skyward Sword, but save the ending for when you've finished or if you don't mind spoilers.

A huge thank you to everyone involved. It's great to be back.

An extra special thank you to Leah Haydu who is the owner of that tattoo and thus effectively provided the artwork for this episode.

Welcome back for more of the live radio broadcasts I'm currently taking part in on Siren 107.3 FM

This was quite a short and relatively serious installment of 'No Adults Allowed' as my host George Patchett and I were attempting to cover the recent protest action from Wikipedia. I got the time to review the Danny Boyle film '127 Hours' and we heard from some of you guys on the subject of piracy.

Listen until the end to hear what I'm talking about next week when I get to run the show and how you can be part of it.

To mark the 150th episode of Digital Cowboys, Tony and I figured we'd give a little back to the community who has brought us so much, pass on some of our experience and help future podcasters to follow in our footsteps.

So we brought in Rob Borges of Gamers With Jobs and Steve Ridley (Then of Sanctuary 4 Gamers, now of The Monkey Chunk show.) two seasoned and respected podcasters to give us a dose of perspective.

Part two will be up very soon.

This is a recording of a full-length live broadcast that happened this week (Tuesday the 10th January 2012) at Lincoln University's community radio station: Siren 107.3 FM. The show is called No Adults Allowed and goes out to an audience of teenagers in the Lincoln area. The host; George Patchett has been generously giving me more and more airtime on his show, so do be as kind and accommodating a community to him as possible, should he turn up on these very forums.

This is all part of the step-by-step journey I am taking into a career in radio.

Today, George and I discuss revision tips, bizarre car-based mishaps, Kung Fu Panda 2, the decline of the CD market and our views on 3D VS. 2D cinema. Hopefully I shall have more shows for you guys to listen to soon.

Since this is broadcast live, you guys can tune in via the internet, so keep www.sirenonline.co.uk in your bookmarks and keep an eye on my Twitter feed, because several listeners such as Neil Taylor, Josh Garrity, Ben Ford and Greedo75 were able to listen in. This production is brought to you unedited aside from trimming out the music with all the missteps and spontaneity that brings.

This is the second part of the phenomenal 50 Greatest Video Game Characters shows as voted for by the Digital Cowboys Community. This episode covers chart positions 25 through to number 1. A huge thank you to everyone who got involved.

Josh Garrity from Cane and Rinse
Sinan Kubba from Big Red Potion
David Turner from Joypod
James Perkins & Darren Gargette from IDKFA
Roy Fortitude from the DC Community Cast
Mike Barton from Gameovercast
Carolyn Sonnek from Tech Snark
Dan Ilson from The Internet
Tara Byte from The Most Popular Girls on the Internet
Neil Taylor from GameBurst and KDS 2.0
James Batchelor from GameBurst
Gary Blower from GameBurst, Big Red Potion and Ninja Fat Pigeons
 
You also hear from Finlay Mann, Joe Fawley, Rob Finney, Scott Eunson, Duncan O'Sullivan, Tina Sustaric and Lizz Atkins.

As a bonus, the artwork for this show is specially restored from an original piece that was lost last year.

This was one of the biggest Digital Cowboys projects ever put to MP3. A vast collection of interviews, sound-bytes and music celebrating The 50 Greatest Video Game Characters as voted for by the DC community.

It's in two parts and will be released over two days. The first part covers the places 50-26 and the second part is 25-1. The intention was to make it like those documentaries you get on Channel 4 about the top 100 singles, cartoons, TV shows etc... and I think we more than succeeded in that capacity. A huge thank-you to everyone who got involved in this. Without you guys it just would have been Tony and I waffling for hours on end.

Here is one of the proudest moments for Tony and I throughout our many years of podcasting. We had the enormous privelege to interview Dominik Diamond, host of the most significant video game-related show of our formative years; GamesMaster.

Dominik now lives in Nova Scotia, Canada and he filled us in, not only on what went on behind the scenes, but what's happened to him since with a candid, often brutal honesty that was really rather astonishing.

If you've never seen the show then scour YouTube. If you remember it fondly like us, then enjoy this trip back to a more innocent time when C-list celebrities played daft games amid a cheeky onslaught of nob-gags.

Once again from the bottom of our hearts; Thank you Dominik.

And I would be remiss not to mention that his book on his passionate following of the Celtic football club; 'Confessions from the Jungle' can be found on Amazon right now.

The DC Community Cast is back!  Now that everyone has found their feet on the new website, we thought it was high time we release a new episode.  We're looking back at our fond memories of our gaming past, and try to re-kindle those warm fuzzy feelings we have for those games.  My co-host for this outing is Jerome McIntosh, and joining us from the community are Simon 'General Aquila' Taylor, and Derrik 'delb2k' Ritchie.

In order to celebrate our triumphant return, I may have forgotten to pay attention to how long we were recording for.  As a result, we got some really good conversations going and I was reluctant to hack a load out of it.  So, our first podcast back is a long one, but I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed recording it.

This is an extensive Gonzo review of two versions of the same classic tale by Charles Dickens:

1. A Christmas Carol [Disney, 2009]

2. The Muppets Christmas Carol [Disney, 1993]

Myself, Neil Taylor of GameBurst and KDS 2.0 and Matt Ramsey of DorkTunes take you back to the winter-swept streets of London in 1843 as we take a close look at the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge and his transformation from mean-spirited miser to warm-hearted philanthropist literally overnight.

And all it took was a life-changing series of ghostly visitations upon one very long Christmas Eve.

Fantastic music from composers Miles Goodman, Paul Williams and Alan Silvestri punctuate this review, along with some choice snippets of dialogue and of course those singing Muppets.

Digital Gonzo is going off the air for a few weeks as I am moving house and waiting for the phone lines to be set back up. Next week the Digital Cowboys Community Cast will be making a welcome comeback with its fourth instalment.

May every one of you have a Merry Christmas. I’ll be back in the new year.