Signal Cannon
5 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 6 years ago - ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsSignal Cannon delves into the history of a particular sound, song, or form of audio that helped shape pop culture.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Episode 5 | Elephant 6 Recording Company
August 17, 2017 19:21 - 13 minutes - 9.29 MBIt began as a group of friends making experimental 4-track cassette recordings in rural Louisiana but became the country-wide lightning rod for lo-fi underground talent in the 90’s. Bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, orbited a nucleus of childhood friends that would go to produce some of the most notable indie records of the decade. Hear how kids in a sleepy college town created their own music scene and formed a collective identity rooted in avant-garde home recording. It's the Elephant 6 Rec...
Episode 04 | Weird Al's UHF
August 10, 2017 12:47 - 13 minutes - 8.68 MBA budding comedian looking to make the leap to film. A studio on the ropes. This movie needed to be a hit. This week, Signal Cannon looks back at a cult classic film from one of the world’s most prolific musicians and comedians. Hear how the bizarre movie they made during one of the busiest blockbuster summers ever likely bankrupted its studio and nearly ended the career of its star before it had even begun. It's UHF from Weird Al Yankovic!
Episode 03 | The Forgotten Verses Of The Star-Spangled Banner
August 03, 2017 16:22 - 18 minutes - 12.2 MBSeptember, 1814. British naval forces begin moving toward Fort McHenry in Baltimore after setting fire to Washington. A lawyer and soldier by the name of Francis Scott Key is dispatched by President James Madison on a peaceful mission to facilitate a prisoner exchange. Aboard the British vessel HMS Tonnant, Key successfully arranges for the prisoner's release, but is held captive in the harbor while the British fleet pounds Fort McHenry with cannon fire overnight. In the morni...
Episode 02|The History Of Video Game Music
July 27, 2017 16:46 - 13 minutes - 8.57 MBThe history of video game music offers a look into the history of computers themselves. In the early days computing power was very limited and playing graphics and sound together was an expensive engineering and programming challenge. The Apple II in the late 70's could cost you over 10 grand in today’s dollars. Today we play games with sophisticated audio created by talented musicians and sound designers. How’d we get from dingy arcades to a 100 billion-dollar global entertainment industry?...
Episode 01 | The Golden Record
July 20, 2017 03:03 - 13 minutes - 15.8 MBIn 1977 NASA sent the Voyager spacecraft to take pictures of the outer Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. But it also carried a very special piece of cargo: a phonograph record containing the sights and sounds of Earth in the hopes that an alien civilization might one day find it and learn about humanity. Speeding away at 38,600 mph, The Golden Record is the most distant man-made object in the galaxy. It's a mixtape...in interstellar space.