Cassettes & Chocolate Milk

Don't worry. I haven't abandoned C&CM. Despite the lack of posts, it's been something that's been at the forefront of my mind for months now.. particularly moreso since my prospects of a law career eventuating has become more improbable. Radio isn't something that I could seriously rely on as a career but it's something that I will always want to do, paid or unpaid. I can't imagine a time when I'm not preparing for it, either by doing interviews or research or editing.. or basically killing myself that I'm not good enough as I should be. The fact is that I love it and I miss it.

I suppose student and community radio can provide a sense of comfort in that there are few people perceiving you. It allows you to build confidence in your content, presentation style and ultimately yourself. Luckily this is afforded by the fact that the people who do listen most likely know you on a personal basis. In this way, I am overly grateful that my friends do listen to me and they, in turn, provide me so much support in my moments of doubt. However, because there is this lack of truly critical, professional advice. I obsess about what the hell I can do to improve. Not what I can do "to get on a particular station", but how I can properly refine my style and project the confidence I had on such projects such as Radar and Counterfeit.

This brings me to what happened to spur this ridiculous entry. For about a week, I've been attempting to record the second of my summer podcasts and I found I couldn't do it. This inability to record anything of remotely acceptable quality is somewhat ironic, in light of criticisms such as "you can't even string a sentence together" and "you say um". Although I used to be able to argue until I was blue in the face that I never actually "say um" on the radio (in the same way that I never dot my i's), I have suddenly become crippled. I can't do what I love.

I see this as a long time coming. As much as radio was a self-indulgent and extremely passionate distraction, it has become an excuse to believe the hype and consequently shred my self-confidence. I even see this in the progression of C&CM as well. In the 8th and final semester of the show, I did refrain from making this a personal entity. I don't retell personal stories or anecdotes, neither do I share any profound details on the blog. It could be because all my stories have to do with ex-boyfriends who have run over my heart in their car.. or else it could be because people just want to hear the music. People don't necessarily care about what I have to say.

I am aware that anyone's presentation style need not be perfect. I use to teach kidlets that it's important to be enthusiastic, passionate, open and confident. Slick presentation manner aside, it's most important to be engaging. It's how so many listeners developed a rapport with icons such as Peely.. and as much as I would dream of commanding such a faithful listenership, I just want to be on air again, anywhere.

I apologise for the awkward self-indulgent rant. Hopefully many of you have skimmed over it and rushed for that Morrissey b-side further down the page. For those of you who have been unfortunate as to read it, I hope you take something away from it. With any luck, someone suffering from the same neuroses will read this and recognise how stupid it is to dwell on such things. Then they will promptly get over themselves and consequently achieve great things. That's the idea, avoid my example.

So, since I haven't got a podcast to present, I decided to upload an unedited (this means I “say um”) interview that I've never released before. I recorded this a few days before I left for the UK in mid 2005. This interview is with Peter Freestone, famously known within the Queen community as Phoebe, Freddie Mercury's personal assistant. I never had grand intentions to air the interview as it bore such a great deal of personal significance. It was my opportunity to become better acquainted with the person who started all of this, the musician who I still claim to know everything about. To me, it was so fascinating to have my misconceptions clarified. It was an interview where I did gain a proper, realistic insight about the character and motivation of a person who has inspired me so greatly. But this is all retrospective though. The interview itself sounds like two teen girls gushing about a crush. But that can only be expected, right?

Interview with Peter Freestone (mp3, 17mb) (linkie updated)