Thursday, December 22, 2016

The H-Bomb Show - Episode 12: Christmas Bomb


I asked why people love Hanson...this was the response.

Merry Xmas/Happy New Year!

Santa Has Risen.

-TBG

Friday, November 25, 2016

The H-Bomb Show - Episode 11: A Real Live One


Longest episode to date. This one wound up being a lot more fun than I originally expected.


The King Has Risen

-TBG

Sunday, October 30, 2016

The H-Bomb Show - Episode 10: I Remember Halloween


I swear I didn't just make this episode discussing a throwaway topic so I'd have an excuse to make a "haunted" epsiode.


The King Has Risen

-TBG

Friday, October 14, 2016

The H-Bomb Show - Bomb Shelter: Get Involved!


Need your help for our end of year show.

I wanted to do something different for a holiday episode that will double as the end of our first 6 months as a show. So from now until early December, I'll be taking email submissions that tell us why you love Hanson.

That request is open to your interpretation. It can be brief, it can be long-winded, it can be sappy, it can be a bizarre story of how Hanson impacted your life. It can mean whatever you want it to mean.

I finally managed to get Holly Snider to agree to do a show, so I'll have her with me and we'll be reading your submissions. On top of that, I'm going to be gathering as many past guests as I can to come on and talk to us about why THEY love Hanson.

Email submissions to:
hbombshow@hanson.zone

Again, no requirements for this, other than your name and where you live.

Deadline: 12/4/16. If you miss the deadline by a few days it's no big deal, but we'll be recording the episode within a week or two of that point. Also, if you don't do this, Hanson will think no one likes them and it will ruin their Christmas.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Saturday, August 20, 2016

The H-Bomb Show FAQ

-Last updated 8/19/17-

How can I subscribe?

Main podcast page / RSS feed:
http://hbombshow.podbean.com/

iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-h-bomb-show/id1120395761

Stitcher:
http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-hbomb-show


Where are you located on the internet?

Official Site - you're looking at it.

Official Facebook

Official Twitter


Why are you doing this show?

At this point, this fanbase has 20 years of history. Besides stuff specifically related to the band and the band's music, the fans themselves have a ton of stories to tell from the years of interacting with the fan community. It was time to have an outlet for some of that.

I went to broadcasting school about 15 years ago, and after a radio career fizzled out after a few years, I figured I should try to use my admittedly meager skills in SOME fashion.


Is there a schedule?


Not really. Ideally I want to one show a month or more, and at the time I've written this I've held to that. I'm a one-man operation, so if something happens to throw a wrench into stuff, I'm on my own. Cross yer fingers.


Are you the only host?

Right now. I put out the idea to a couple of people prior to episode 1 to see if they wanted to co-host but got turned down. I'm fine with the current format of host segment / featured segment / host segment, but that doesn't mean I won't change it in the future if I get other people more regularly involved, and it makes sense.


Where did the name come from?

I had a list of terrible names that I almost went with ("PPPodcast," "A Minute With You," "Listen When You Come Home," "Love SomePody to Know," etc), but went with H-Bomb. I just stole my friend Heather's nickname (that I gave her, so I was stealing from myself). It gave me an easy name and avoided stupid pun/gimmicky names that would wind up getting less funny every time you heard it.


Does Hanson know about your show?

Hell if I know.


Is Hanson going to be on your show?

Well, I have one idea that would be really funny (to me, anyway), but the real answer is that's probably about as likely as me joining the band. For a two year tour. On a distant planet.

Isaac has his own thing going, by the way. You can go listen to that on hanson.net.


Is the show popular?

The numbers so far are certainly higher than I expected, so that's good. You're only going to reach so many people when your podcast is aimed at a niche audience, but I'll take it.


Where do you get the topics for shows?

I thought up a ton before I started doing the podcast and kept a list. As I get new ones, I add them to the list. I've usually got 2-3 months worth of shows that I could be ready to record at any moment, once the opportunity presents itself.


What recording hardware / software do you use?
Mic - Blue Yeti Pro, w/ RODE PSA1 boom arm and Radius II shock mount
Laptop - Asus ROG GL552VW. Windows 10.
Remote interview segment software - Skype
Recording software - Audacity, Adobe Audition CC 2015, Acid Pro 7.0
Editing software - Adobe Audition CC 2015, Acid Pro 7.0

Acid isn't getting any newer so I'll eventually probably have to find some newer multitracking software.


What are your favorite podcasts / any influences?

The Giant Bombcast is the epitome of a great podcast to me. It's been going for around 8 years now. On paper it's video game related, but the topics usually wind up all over the place and only have games as an anchor point. Long running show with distinct personalities with spot-on humor that never feels like it's "trying too hard." The episodes of my show where we culled lists of the best songs on each album were at least partially borrowed from Giant Bomb's Game of the Year podcast series that they put together each December.

They've had a ton of personnel shift over the last few years, including the original host's death and a spinoff podcast starting with members of a satellite office, but it has always remained entertaining. I'll never be that good, but this is the show that got me listening to podcasts in the first place, so blame them if you hate my show!

Art of Wrestling - Although I sort of dropped off from listening to it, I admit I flat out stole the host/feature/host format and scripted opening line / scripted closing line presentation from Colt Cabana's show.

The Adventure Zone - 3 brothers and their dad play Dungeons and Dragons. Funniest show out there. Another thing where I'll never live up to the creativity or humor, but it at least shows me where the quality bar is set.

Joe vs. The World
Justin Shapirshow

I put these two together since it's (usually) the same two guys - one hosts one show, other hosts the other. Pro wrestling based. This is actually probably the biggest influence on me because the shows all focus on the same general topic, but approach it from a bunch of different angles. Some shows are about what's going on right now, some are total nostalgia trips. Same thing I'm trying to do on my show. It's really just two friends talking about stuff, but they just so happen to be really entertaining, in addition to funny as hell. When you laugh at something or a random reference is made while listening you know only you and a few other people as dedicated as you will get it - that's the kind of feel I'd like to give off.


Why don't you use Hanson music on the beginning/end of the show?
I don't have permission, and I didn't ask permission. We all know Hanson, I may as well try to throw something either unfamiliar or classic on there. I try to keep a variety going. I do use little 2 second clips of Hanson stuff as transitional music within the show, and I feel weird about even doing THAT.


What's the song at the beginning?
2016 episodes: Devin Townsend - Z²
2017 episodes: The Devin Townsend Band - Notes From Africa
Episode 12 (Xmas Special 2016): Run DMC - Christmas In Hollis
Episode 13: (2017 Season Premiere): Devin Townsend - Z² & Devin Townsend - From Sleep Awake
Episode 24: (Book Club): Jean-Joseph Mouret - Rondeau (Theme From Masterpiece Theatre)
Episode 27: (Xmas Special 2017): Unknown Hinson - Black & Blue Christmas / Thurl Ravenscroft - You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch / / Type O Negative - Red Water (Christmas Mourning) / Eazy E - Merry Muthaphuckkin' Xmas / Billy Squier - Christmas Is the Time to Say 'I Love You' / Burl Ives - Holly Jolly Christmas / Freshkateers - Christmas Freestyle

Bomb Shelter episodes intro:
Interstitial music from Fighting Vipers (Sega Saturn)

---------

What are the songs at the end? (continually updated)
Episode 1, 13, & 28: Petri Alanko - Welcome To The Future
Episode 2: Devin Townsend Project - Fallout
Episode 3: Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet - Customized
Episode 4: Radiohead - Pyramid Song
Episode 5: Scapegoat Wax - Aisle 10 (Hello Allison)
Episode 6: Michale Graves - Wormwood
Episode 7: Mark Crozer - Broken Out In Love
Episode 8: Misfits - Hybrid Moments
Episode 9: Amorphis - Summer's End
Episode 10: Samhain - Halloween II
Episode 11: Ghost - Square Hammer
Episode 12: Cartoon Planet (Space Ghost & The Council of Doom): We Wish You A Happy Birthday
Episode 14: Alice In Chains - Over Now
Episode 15: Diamond Head - In The Heat Of The Night
Episode 16: Bill Conti - Going The Distance
Episode 17: Ramones - Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World
Episode 18: The Frames - Mighty Sword
Episode 19: Carpenter Brut - Maniac (live)
Episode 20: Carpenter Brut - Hang'Em All
Episode 21: Carpenter Brut - Turbo Killer
Episode 22: Carpenter Brut - Roller Mobster
Episode 23: Type O Negative - September Sun
Episode 24: Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata
Episode 25: Shuki Levy & Haim Saban - He Man (Main Theme - no vocal)
Episode 26: Ghost - I'm a Marionette (ABBA cover)
Episode 27: Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)
Episode 29: Devin Townsend Project - Transdermal Celebration [with an appearance by the original Ween version of the song as well]
Episode 30: Casualties of Cool - Cold Feet (demo)
Episode 31: Devin Townsend Project - Universal Flame

Bomb Shelter Episodes transitions:
Interstitial music from Double Dragon (NES)
Interstitial music from Thunder Force III (Genesis)

Bomb Shelter Episodes outro:
Interstitial music from Contra (NES)

---------

Other music:
Episode 12 Transitional Music: Prince - Another Lonely Christmas / Riff Raff & Kid Sister - Kris Krangle / Weird Al Yankovic - Christmas At Ground Zero / Type O Negative - Red Water (Christmas Mourning)
Episode 27 Music bed: Vince Guaraldi Trip - A Charlie Brown Christmas

Thursday, June 16, 2016

The H-Bomb Show - Episode 02: Veterans Day (05/17/16)


Talking with some of the most well-traveled Hanson fans on our planet!
Guests: Nicole Sipple, Audrey LaBrecque, Jen Johnson



Hope you dig.

The King Has Risen.

-TBG

Monday, June 13, 2016

Get clairvoyant for me.

Working on something for my podcast that should be interesting. From now through the end of June, I'm gathering predictions for what Hanson is going to do between now and the end of 2017. They can be serious or goofy, but make the majority of them more on the serious side.

Predictions can be text or an audio recording (keep it at around 2 minutes or less) and I'll read / play a bunch of them on the show.

Here's the thing - I'm not recording the episode until the beginning of December 2017. So we're taking all the predictions I get this month and locking them away for 18 months, then opening it up and seeing who actually got some stuff right...and who was hilariously off-base.

Examples of the kind of stuff we're after:
"2017 World Tour will go to [insert countries here]"
"7th full studio album will be scheduled for 2018"

Don't be afraid to get more ambitious than that, I'm just using those as fairly pedestrian examples.
You can submit the predictions to hbombshow@hanson.zone . Need them by June 30th. Make sure to put your name / city in there, unless you want to remain anonymous, but that's hardly a fun way to do this.

Podcast site is https://hbombshow.podbean.com

The King Has Risen.

-TBG

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Through Play-ing Around

If you want a physical version of the "Play" EP, it's going to cost you.

During Hanson Day weekend, the band announced that the second half of the Loud EP, entitled Play, would be coming out late this year. Since the Loud disc wound up being one of the best mini-albums they've ever done, I was glad to hear that we wouldn't really be waiting that much longer to get the remainder of the project.

A sort of offhanded comment was made as they were winding up talk about the release of Play, where it was mentioned there would be a special vinyl edition that would come alongside Loud for the complete "LP" experience. This got my interest for a couple of reasons, as 1) I do still buy records on rare/special occasions, and 2) I was trying to estimate what they'd charge for it. Your average limited edition "Record Store Day" album often hovers around 30 to 40 dollars, so I figured they'd probably put a premium on this and charge around 60 dollars for it. That wasn't too bad, and I'd probably go for it since I thought Loud was great. The Play EP was put up for sale shortly after, along with the vinyl option for the Loud + Play combo. But by the time everyone returned from Hanson Day, something had changed. Play was now only listed as a "digital download," and the L+P vinyl was priced at $150.

What?

Apparently the vinyl comes with some signed photo prints - mystery ones, at that. I'm not sure what photo prints have to do with buying music, but that's the package they offer. At least when they did their mega-priced album packages in the past, they offered different tiers for those not wanting to completely break the bank. That's not the case this time. You pay $150 (plus shipping), or you don't get an actual copy of the album.

----

I know everyone is united in asking that the band release a CD version of Play. It's nice to see everyone agreeing on something for once. But in 2016, posting on Twitter or a message board doesn't really do anything. It's a minor blip on the radar, and nothing more.

So, I'm reasonably positive I'll be standing alone here, but I'll make the only kind of statement that will actually matter:

I'm not buying Play. In any form.

This is about the most disheartening way this could have turned out, as having a complete line of Hanson discs right alongside the VERY few other bands I buy everything for is something of significant value to me. Now that line will be broken. They've already had people respond to this on the site, declaring there are no plans for a CD version of the EP.

This isn't like the Icon book or the Take The Walk EP where the music downloads you get are just kind of a bonus to what you're really buying. This is just the music, that's it. And for the vast majority of fans, it will only exist as some compressed mp3 file that'll be sitting on your desktop or phone, until it's not.

For a band that bases itself on its' roots and seems to have a pretty deep respect for tradition, this feels like a slap in the face. As far as me in this fandom, those discs ARE my roots. For the first few albums I got, the "fandom" wasn't there. It was just me. I didn't have a bunch of friends to go to shows with or people who randomly say hi to me because they saw me on a Hanson video once.

For no reason, that legacy has now been gutted at the age of 19.

A pretty fucking sad state of affairs today.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

The H-Bomb Show - Bomb Shelter 06/01/2016

A mini-episode about how you can get involved in an upcoming show!


I'm beginning the recording for episode 2 this weekend - hope to have it up in the next 2 weeks or so. See you then.


The King Has Risen.

-TBG

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Facebook Page For The H-Bomb Show

Facebook page:
The H-Bomb Show

Currently in the lab editing Episode 1 together. Should launch on Friday, or earlier if I can make it happen.

The King Has Risen.

-TBG

Sunday, May 8, 2016

The H-Bomb Podcast Launch Date

Friday, 5/27/16 will be episode 1 of The H-Bomb Podcast. It'll be posted here, along with the TBG Facebook and Twitter pages.

Here are some really bad rejected names that I came up with prior to dialing it back for something less corny:

Listen When You Come Home
Podcast in the Mailbox
A Minute With You
Love Somepody To Know
Talking Bout Somethin'
Voices in the Chorus
Hansonline(dot)cast
All This Podcast
PPPodcast

Also briefly considered a song title like "Speechless" or "Fired Up" but that didn't seem too creative.
See you in Tulsa, if you're going.

The King Has Risen.

-TBG

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Everyone say it together: "Are You Listening?"

Earlier this year I dialed back the text content on the blog because I've been working on putting something together for a few months now, and on this, the six year anniversary of when people on the internet noticed me standing in a crowd at a show, it's a good time to announce it. This has been a long time coming.

We're doing a podcast.

We, as in, me and you. Probably not all of you since that would sound like crap with a few hundred people talking all at once. But I fully intend to have a variety of people included as it goes along. Yes, it's Hanson-centric. No, it's not going to have to be 100% about what we like and don't like about Hanson's music all the time, since we'd run out of material after a few shows.

I've been busy getting equipment together and talking to a few people about some ideas for it. My goal here isn't to just have something that's recorded on a cell phone and posted online. I want this to sound as good as possible, when possible.

I've got plenty of ideas that will be revealed later on. For now I'll say that I hope to record the first episode while we're actually in Tulsa for H-Day in a few weeks, most likely discussing what's happening that weekend and any news that pops up during the State of the Band assembly. But I plan on going in a bunch of different directions from there.

This is long overdue, there are enough of us in the fanbase with a common interest to make this worth our while. Should be fun stuff.

More info to come soon. Name, schedule, how you can get involved, and plenty more. Have more plans for this blog as well.


The King Has Risen.

-TBG

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The 5 Strangest Things That Have Happened To Me Because of Hanson

This one doesn't really need an intro. There has been some really weird stuff that has happened to me over the last ~15 years. Such as...

Tall Bald Guy - Obviously.

I still don't get how that caught on. Sarah is a wizard and Morgen & Taylor are miracle workers to get that thing not only off the ground but keeping it going for more than three days. The fact that (despite being a shell of itself) that it's still a thing at all and I'm referred to as that as much as anything else is bizarre, but I'll take it.

XBL message - Randomly signing in to my Xbox account and having a message from Muff mocking my gamerscore was something else. I'm blaming either Zac for giving him my gamertag, or myself for putting my gamertag in one of those old Q&A videos I did. In fairness I think it was a pretty meager score at the time.

I got recognized on a dating site - A friend (...at the time...) wanted to put her profile up on a dating site but was hesitant to do so. I kept trying to encourage her to just do it and ignore anything that looked suspicious or creepy. Eventually she agreed to...but only if I would put up a profile as well. I agreed and put together a pretty bare-bones listing with next to no info and a single photo. Within 48 hours I received a message - "AREN'T YOU CAPTAIN AMERICA FROM HANSON.NET???"

Deleted my profile immediately and never went back to the site again. Sat in facepalm position for probably 5 minutes afterword.

Underneath Acoustic Live: The Aftermath - Unexpectedly winding up in the front row for the Underneath Acoustic Live show was one thing, but the follow-up, where segments of it were broadcast on both premium cable channels and VH1 led to some incredibly awkward IMs and calls from a few people I hadn't heard from since high school half a decade prior; Keep in mind the last time most of these people saw me I was probably either throwing some guy around on a wrestling mat or furiously singing onstage with green and black facepaint. "Hey! I saw some Hanson thing on VH1 and there was a guy who looked EXACTLY like you in the front row." Ummm...

Halloween costume - Early era TBG fan Ginger Dzerk won the Hanson Halloween Costume Contest (despite whoever was "officially" announced as the winner) with her fan-stuck-behind-TBG costume. I wasn't in attendance for the Halloween show itself, but during the event my phone and Twitter started blowing up with people either saying something like "it was good to see you there," or "I HOPE YOU SAW THAT ON THE LIVESTREAM." Of all the things that have happened as a result of the Tall Bald Guy incident, this may actually be my favorite moment, strange or otherwise.


------

Blog is taking a bit of a backseat right now as I'm trying to prepare something pretty cool for launch around H-Day this year (so sometime after May 22nd). I don't want to say anything else about it now in fear of jinxing it / something coming up that causes it not to happen, but once I feel like it's locked in I'll put more info up.

The King Has Risen.

-TBG