Rolling Sevens

My music podcasts, Podrunner and Groovelectric, turn seven in a week. No way I would have believed I’d keep doing them this long, much less that they would have remained so popular.

groovelectric_150Groovelectric remains my favorite simply because, being a straight-up music mix series, it represents what I do, and love, and attempt, as an electronic music DJ. Since it debuted in February 2006, it’s usually been in iTunes’ Top 100 music podcasts.

bluerobot_300Podrunner has been hugely popular. The workout-music series has been a top iTunes podcast for seven years in a row, and a pacemaker literally and figuratively. There was nothing like it out there when it debuted, and I am enormously proud of its popularity and positive influence.

univoxI had to change the theme music for Podrunner, so I took the opportunity to dig out my old MIDI keyboard and brush up on my music production software before getting to work on new theme music. I’m pretty sure it’s the first thing I’ve composed in a decade.

Even with guitar-rig sampler kits, I couldn’t get a lead guitar sound I wanted for the opening notes. So I dug out my Univox imitation Les Paul guitar and played it myself. It’s the first time I’ve recorded guitar in at least 20 years. I had an absolute blast doing it.

The new Podrunner theme is below if you want to give it a listen or download it.

[UPDATE] I tweaked the track a bit, making it shorter & chunkier, and I EQ’d & mastered it to make it sound better overall. That’s now the file below.

[audio:http://www.djsteveboy.com/podrunner_theme.mp3]
Download

Novel Collaboration

ken_steve01
Ken & Steve are shown the gate

I’ve set aside Avalon Burning for a while to work on a novel with my friend Ken Mitchroney.

I’ve known Ken for nearly 30 years (ulp!), and we’ve worked on a ton of projects together — from comic books, to screenplays, to Toy Story 2 and much more — but this is the first time we’ve set out on a novel together.

I don’t want to give too many details, though I will say that I now know more about the care and feeding of B-17 bombers than I ever imagined I would.

The novel’s called Fata Morgana, and so far it is going pretty quickly. I am having an absolute blast.