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NZ podcasters making their voices heard

Hi.  My name is Yenping, and I am crazy with passion for New Zealand music.

For those of you in the know, there is a whole world of podcasts out there about virtually any topic under the sun.  One way to segment the world of podcasts is to divide it into two groups: podcasters who want to make other people's voices heard, and podcasters who want to make their own voices heard.

This week, we spoke with two very regular guys, who each fall into one of these two groups.

Guy 1: Ki Mansell, creator of nzbeats.com

I tend to be a little sceptical about anyone or anything that claims to be the #1 of whatever it may be, but nzbeats.com lives up to this self-proclaimed name (tell me if you disagree).  I was immediately pulled by the clever, yet unpretentious design of the website upon entering.  As it turns out, about half of the visitors to the site think so too.  Although Ki's first degree is in computer science, he nonchalantly remarks, "It's just another Wordpress theme."

To be specific, everything on this podcast site works, and there's nothing there that you would not need.  The songs even play right til the very end - just like radio.  What a pleasant surprise.  But the clincher is, all the songs actually rock.  And they are all New Zealand music.  No, wait.  I think the real clincher is this - it's all free.

I could not help noticing, when skyping with Ki to discuss music and similar things, that the design of his bedroom was just as unpretentious.  It made me feel comfortable enough to tell him that his podcasts have converted me to New Zealand music.

Guy 2: Tom G (of Brothers G), Like a Mad Dog Running through a Puddle of Gravy

In the age of the Internet, any man and his dog can opt to have their innermost thoughts heard if they had an Internet connection and a strong desire to speak.  This podcast series tries to embody and stretch the potential for this very sense of vociferous freedom afforded by the Internet.

Listening to Episode 10 of this series, I was initially befuddled.  It felt like I was in a very small coffeeshop with tiny tables that are arranged about an arm's length from each other - what is usually described as an "intimate" setting.  It felt like there were two regular guys at the table beside me, sharing an unusually boisterous conversation that is more than within earshot.  The topics of conversation were variously astounding, amusing and incomprehensible.

I understood my befuddlement slightly later.  These guys are really the world's most average guys, expressing their innermost average thoughts in an unbridled fashion.  A celebration of the male voice.  Hence, the "explicit" rating in iTunes, I reasoned to myself.  But Tom has a better way of explaining this. . .

Download the show