David M. Green: Purveyor of fine humour

Category: radio

  • Newsflash: I’m moving to Melbourne!

    Hello!

    Well yes, as you can guess from the title of this blog, I have indeed reached that point that every young Adelaidean reaches when they realise they must leave. After much speculation I can now officially announce that I’ll be moving to Melbourne in mid-February to study a 1-year post graduate diploma in journalism at RMIT University. Hopefully this will give me some legitimate media skills that will make it harder for me to be replaced with a computer (ala my stint as a panel-operator at SAFM).

    But why go to Melbourne to do journalism? Can’t you do that in Adelaide? Good point and well made. Sure, I could do journalism at Uni SA’s fabulous Magill campus. But what would be the point? The radio elective practical is reading the news on Radio Adelaide. Whoop-dee-doo. I’ve already done 4 shows on Radio Adelaide, each with 13-week seasons, plus 27 weeks of  student radio. I want a new scene. I want a new audience. Melbourne’s where it’s at. And I do hope to make the most of my time there and do some more comedy, radio and possibly some TV. They have RMITV after all, where Rove and Hamish & Andy cut their teeth. I couldn’t recommend eating glass. Not even for a freak show segment…

    So the plan is to get over there, find a place to live, possibly some student-type accommodation, study journalism, find a new casual job, make new friends, continue writing comedy and recording sketches and voice-overs and basically live the dream. Piece of cake, right? It’s going to be a big life change, but it’s something I have to do. I’ve really enjoyed the last 2 years since I finished my behavioural science degree at Flinders University. I did some community radio, worked for SAFM, stopped working for SAFM, went back to community radio, dated a wonderful girl named Jemima, wrote a novel that no publisher is interested in, applied unsuccessfully for about 40 different radio jobs, somehow tricked Triple M into letting me and some friends make a once-off comedy show, waited by the phone as promise after promise failed to materialise and miraculously got probably the best casual job possible at the Palace Nova cinema. But I can’t keep doing this forever. I can’t keep mooching off my parents. I’m 22. I need to get a proper job. And there’s only one thing I want to do, and it ain’t working at a cinema full time. It’s radio. It’s comedy. It’s goofing off in front of a camera. Sure, journalism isn’t the definitive answer, but it’s a step in the right direction. I’d rather read the news at a country radio station or be a newspaper reporter than serve customers at the candy bar 40 hours a week. Something’s gotta give! And if it means getting a job as a journalist in order to support myself and pursuing comedy-related ventures on the side, then that’s the way it has to be. As Mr Mister said: Welcome to the Real World.

    So appreciate photos like the one above, because there will be less images of David M. Green with Stobie Poles orderly alined in the background. In 2010, I’m living in Melbourne.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Live in Melbourne? Be my friend! Reasonable prices.

  • He’ll have to give me my own Recording Studio…

    Hello!

    Frustrated by the lack of support I’ve received from the majority of Adelaide radio stations (community, commercial AND government), I loosened my extremely tight belt and forked out $254 for a decent microphone: The Zoom H2 Portable Audio Recorder.

    Since I began my love affair with radio and audio-based comedy circa 2006, I’ve never actually had my own microphone. I’ve always relied on the facilities of which ever radio station on which I was currently broadcasting, or at times resorting to sneaking into a station on which I was NOT broadcasting (Some of our recent Triple M show was recorded at Radio Adelaide! Funnily enough I think neither radio station wanted us on their property). But now… screw them! I’ll make my OWN DAMN RECORDINGS!

    Verdict: I LOVE this microphone! As these photographs clearly demonstrate:

    The Zoom H2 is incredibly versatile. I takes 2 AA batteries and it’s portable so I can record anywhere. It’s actually got 4 small microphones inside it, so it can record stereo in 2 different directions, allowing for surround sound recordings. I can hook it up to my PC using a USB cable and record directly into Adobe Audition, which is great because I’ve had a lot of trouble in the past with Vista and microphones. And I’ve finally solved the problem of recording straight off the sound card. Ever since I upgraded to Vista in 2007 I haven’t been able to record what’s playing through the speakers into Adobe Audition. Why would I need to do that, you ask? Sound effects for sketches. You can’t always download an audio file. Sometimes you can only stream it, or it’s in a weird format, or you want the audio from a video. With Windows XP I could just change a setting in Audition and press record and get an instant recording. With Vista they changed the “Windows Mixer” or something and it just didn’t work. But now I can use the Zoom H2 almost like a mini broadcast panel, and record onto the SD card from the computer speakers, and then copy the recording back onto my PC. And this is great that this has happened now, right at the start of my first summer in 4 years where I’m NOT doing a radio show!

    I have to admit, there’s no creative motivation like having 60 minutes of air time to fill every week. But even when I’m not doing a show I still get ideas for sketches and segments. I’m at my happiest writing, recording, editing and listening back to radio sketches. In that order, obviously… I mean, I’m hardly going to listen back to it before I’ve recorded it. So even though I’m not doing a show on radio this summer, I still plan to make some new sketches. I’ll still call them radio sketches, because that’s what they are. “Off-Air Radio Sketches,” if you will. So to kick off David M. Green’s “direct-to-Internet” summer of podcasting, please enjoy this sketch, which I did mainly simply to test out my new microphone…

    Sim City 2000 A Cappella

    Overlooking the appalling singing, I think the audio quality is excellent. It sounds like it was recorded at a radio station like all my other sketches. And apparently it’s not just me who thinks the same. I went to a music industry charity luncheon yesterday for the SALSA Debonairs, hosted by Radio’s David Day. To my total surprise, resting on the podium in front of him was a Zoom H2 recorder. The exact same model I’d just purchased. Not only that, another radio/production veteran, Greg Clarke, had one too! They’ve both had them for years, and I had no idea! I mean, I’ve already decided I like my Zoom H2 based purely on performance, but knowing that these two legends of the industry also use one confirms my suspicion that this was $254 well spent.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Unemployed radio comedian

  • God-like Status Achieved at TraxxRADIO

    Yo blog-fans!

    To my utter surprise (and partial disgust) Brisbane-based Internet radio station TraxxRADIO actually wants to re-broadcast the somewhat funny (at times) AM-style talk-back parody show we did back in summer… On The Yacht.

    As soon as Program Director Ruby Tuesday declared his interest, I immediately triple checked we were talking about the same show. In fact we were. It’s not that I think On The Yacht wasn’t funny. Quite the opposite. At its best it’s hilarious. But I think we did such a good parody at times that you could be listening for several minutes before you worked out it’s not a real talk show, and even then you still can’t be sure. For TraxxRADIO’s unwavering dedication (not to be confused with their desperation for programming), I sent them an autographed David M. Green head shot, which they promptly framed and hung on the studio wall. My judgemental expression and sensible hair-cut forever gazing down at and distracting whoever’s on air. Obviously I use the term “head shot” in the G-rated sense. Although the sensible hair-cut extends to all areas of David M. Green.

    So once again join Radio’s Adam, Norman Vine, Dr Kevin Goodall and Tim Wray (in the news room) as they potter on about all things irrelevant Wednesdays and Fridays 7am and 7pm AEST (GMT+10) online at TraxxRADIO.

    On The Yacht: Not commercial. Professional.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Oh ho ho ho yessssss…

  • THE Big Show on Triple M: Reflection

    Greetings,

    Well last night I made my commercial and national radio debut with THE Big Show on the fabulous Triple M network. Due to delays, it went to air almost simultaneously in Adelaide and Sydney around 10:45EST (10:15CST). Melbourne didn’t start until after midnight. Not sure about Brisbane. Anyone hear it in Brisbane? If you missed it, the podcast is now up on the Triple M websites, the Semi-Pro Radio website, and the mp3 is right here.

    So that’s it. We did the show and now it’s over. Special thanks to Triple M, to whoever came up with this Semi-Pro Radio idea, to Alan Miller Fast Voice-overs (the agency we represented), to Miles and Sam “on the pots and pans” and their fabulous recording and editing work and to Tim Lordan, APD at Triple M Adelaide for tolerating us. Overall we’re all pretty happy with the show. For a once-off pre-recorded show recorded and produced with the limited time and resources available to us, it’s pretty good. Good. Not great, in my opinion. Although what do you expect? It was only by the end of the recording session we were getting into it. I hadn’t done radio with Matty B in over 2 years and we’re used to sitting in chairs around a panel, not standing “Nova-style” in a 4 metre squared voice-over booth. Funnily enough, we initially wrote in the show’s description “with David M. Green and Matty B in the hot seat, or seats, depending on budget restraints…” Ironically there were no seats.

    I think it’ll be obvious to anyone listening with a basic understanding of radio that some of the talk breaks were quite edited. 2 whole talk breaks weren’t recorded simply because we ran out of studio time. Another sketch we recorded wasn’t edited because we ran out of production time, and other things that were recorded, edited and ready to go were then cut due to their content and further time concerns. I can now personally appreciate why Tony Martin demanded 7 production hours for every 1 hour of “Get This.” For a comedy show, you need a lot of time, even if just to listen back and redo little things (which we didn’t really have a chance to do, although hindsight is 20/20 and with a pre-recorded show there’s always the temptation to go back and “fix” EVERYTHING. In a way it’s easier to do it live…).

    Most disappointing for me personally was the loss of an entire minute from the Smiddy soundboard prank call. I feel like a bit of a jerk now, as on the show I introduced it as “the greatest prank call in the history of the world,” a wild and totally unjustified claim I know. The original was 4 and a half minutes and that version was legitimately too long and dragged a little, so I cut it down to 3 minutes. The 3-minute version is very funny. Certainly a lot funnier than the 2-minute version that went to air. But thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can hear the 3-minute Smiddy soundboard prank call right here. Hazaa!

    I guess a big problem for THE Big Show was the fact that we simply had too many ideas. We really packed the maximum amount we thought we could get away with into each 3-minute talk break (evidently more than the maximum as it turned out). If we were doing 5 shows a week we’d probably spread the ideas we had over a whole month. We didn’t leave ourselves any time to potter along with some laid-back banter. We didn’t want to take the risk and waste a talk break. We only have 1 show, only the BEST. The end result is a very fast-paced show (probably too fast, even for Alan Miller’s Fast Voice-overs!). I felt we needed a little more time to introduce and explain and just chat. We could have spent another whole talk break doing impressions of those clips from The Lawnmower Man. I love the quotes “His mind is like a clean hungry sponge!” and “You gonna do some, uh night-mowing?” They’re hilarious! We should have made a bigger deal about those, instead of brushing over them so quickly. Not to mention the incredible coincidence that Pierce Brosnan’s character in that film is named “Larry” and we mashed it together with clips from Channel 7’s “Larry The Lawnmower.” Can you believe that? I couldn’t believe it when I noticed that, AFTER I’d already started writing the sketch.

    But all in all a truly incredible, amazing, RARE priviledge. We made a comedy show for Triple M! And there’s plenty more where that came from. We’ll be back on-air somewhere in some form eventually. No doubt about that.

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Mind like a clean hungry sponge.

  • THE Big Show: It’s Freaking Hilarious!

    Hey!

    I went into Triple M Adelaide yesterday to sit in with Sam (our extremely dedicated producer) while he put the finishing touches on all our sketches and segments for THE Big Show. Poor Sam. He’d just got back from his European holiday the day before (no doubt to escape the huge workload thrust upon him by the Triple M production department) and he had been at Triple M catching up on the backlog of work since 5am! I got there at noon and I was supposed to spend an hour with him going over the show. I ended up staying for 3 and a half hours. Laughter was abundant.

    I gotta say, it sounds fantastic! Kudos to Sam and Miles in production and Tim Lordan, the assistant programme director for their time and advice and excellent work in bringing our ideas to life. Until now, we were all thinking “well, we’ll give it our best shot and hopefully it’ll be good” but now that I’ve heard how it all sounds it’s “Oh my God! It worked! It’s great! This is amazing!” But hey, I don’t want to over-sell it… You can decide for yourself. Tune in this Sunday August 30th 2009 at 10pm on Triple M in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide or online. It’s Semi-Pro Radio. This week it’s  THE Big Show with David M. Green, Matty B, Tim Wray, Nick Godfrey & Adam Navarro and I can honestly say it’s some of our finest and funniest work to date. And we had a damn good time doing it!

    Kind regards,
    David M. Green
    Look out for the Larry the Lawnmower sketch…