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Ever had a hankering to hear
Ozzy Osbourne sing the Bee Gees disco classic "Stayin' Alive?" Or
Paul Anka shred through "Eye of the Tiger?"
Arvada's
Brian Ibbott has, and he wants to make sure the world hears them, too.
Ibbott has been running a growing podcast empire from his home in northwest Arvada home, which he shares with his wife
Tina and their 11-year-old son
Tristan, since September of 2004, when the term "podcast" was still in its infancy.
Ibbott's flagship show, Coverville, is just what it sounds like: 45 minutes of bands covering other musicians' work.
Click here to listen to the latest episode of Coverville.
Some 421 episodes later, Ibbott says he's got his system for creating and recording his shows down.
Between Coverville three times a week and his four other podcasts (This Day in Music History, The Not Lame Podcast, The Wii Show and Lyrics Undercover) he says he has a podcast to work on every day, except Saturday.
A former software engineer with a daily commute to Boulder, Ibbott, a lifetime Colorado resident, gave up his day job once advertisers made it possible to do Coverville for a living.
He also does freelance consulting work as a new media producer.
On a typical recording day, he says his interaction with his thousands of fans is what takes up most of his time.
"Sixty percent of the day is spent just responding to e-mails with requests and suggestions," he said.
| What is a podcast, anyway? |
-Postcasts are audio files that people can download and listen to on their computer or MP3 player.
-
The files are similar to a radio program, but unlike radio, they can be listened to at any time. Many are offered for free.
-
The term "podcast" comes from the Apple music player, the iPod, and the word "broadcast." |
His iTunes interface is full of unfinished future shows, he says, because every time he gets a song suggestion, he has to decide if it can fit into any of his upcoming themes (a future theme in the works is "Gender Swap" where male artists cover songs by females, with all the gender-specific pronouns intact, and vice versa) or different bands covering the same artist, which he has dubbed a "Cover Story."
But the show wasn't always so planned.
"(In 2004) it was mostly a 'Let's put something up on the Internet to see if I like it,' thing. And it turns out I did," he said.
Each show comes together over several hours of listening and organizing, Ibbott said.
Once all the notes are in place, Ibbott, who has never had broadcast experience, hits "record" on his Mac and begins. He only goes back to edit his program if he makes a major mistake (calling
Saturday Night Fever Saturday Night Live was one example), so what you hear three times a week is what actually happened in his home studio that night.
He estimates that each 45-minute show takes around two to three hours to produce and publish.
While being one of the world's most popular podcasters is great, Ibbott said he is still looking to bring his programming to traditional radio. He's talked with Boulder's Radio 1190 and is on the air every day at 3 p.m. in San Francisco on KYOU, an all-podcast AM station, but he says that because of the variety of music that ends up on his shows, the ideal venue would be XM or Sirius satellite radio.
The one thing he's sacrificed for his shows?
"It's rare that I ever get to listen to new music anymore," he says.
Coverville is online at
www.coverville.com, or
click here to subscribe to his podcast in iTunes.