David says:
It’s day 11 of our Podcast Advent and regular listeners will have been expecting this one for over a week now. Today, it’s the turn of Fresh Talk Podcast – a podcast about everything.
Our friends from Ventura, CA have been running this podcast for over 5 years now and have covered such a wide variety of topics including
Favourite Horror Movies, Beer of the Week, Music and Underrated Bands (basically my genre of music) as well as general life events. Chris and Dan are the current hosts, though in the past they were joined by Kai and sound engineer John in addition to many special guests including Jaret freakin’ Reddick! The guys are also part of the band Army of Freshmen and have been for 20 years which results in a rich variety of stories from life on the road as the underdog band, continuing on their journey through hard work and perseverance.
Each week (usually) Chris & Dan get together to talk about music, movies, tv, beer, touring, and everything in between
What’s great about this podcast is how close these guys all are – it means the conversation is totally natural and they’re not afraid to disagree with each other and respect each other’s opinions regardless. Also, the stories they have from the road are often hilarious, especially given the way they are delivered. They also have much more serious topics to discuss, such as The Thomas Fire episode, where they talk about their experiences during the the massive wildfire that affected Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. That episode definitely ranks as one of my highlights, and there’s been a lot to choose from.
Steve and I had a fight over who would get to write about these guys. I won. My thumb-war game is strong. However, Steve has committed a lot more time listening to Fresh Talk than I’ve been able to, so being the kind person I am, I allowed him a section of this page:
Steve Says:
If you have been reading this month (or listening to any Fair City Podcast Episode) you will have heard me talking about Fresh Talk taking over my 2018. I started at Episode 137 following the tour in February supporting Bowling For Soup and after the Get Happy recap finished with Episode 137 decided to go back to the start. Having spent the following 8 months going through all 149 episodes there are a few stories and episodes that are just a little ahead of the others.
On top of these episodes is a nugget of gold – the first three minutes of Episode 60 (talking about Midget Spinning) – and the funniest moment I instantly recall where I had tears running down my eyes whilst listening (Episode 41 featuring a story about Chris J running a Cornhole stall)
Episode 37 – Adventures in (internet) Broadcasting – an amazing story about Chris commentating on a boxing match live streamed, Dan helping on technical support and everything falling to bits..
Episode 69 – The Jinx – about the HBO documentary, never have I heard a review that makes me want to watch something so bad.
Episode 82 – Remembering Hot Rod – a heartfelt episode recalling stories of Chris J and the superstar that is Hot Rod Rowdy Piper
Episode 109 – What the Trump? – the emergency broadcast episode following Trumps election.
Episode 132 – The Thomas Fire – The story of the wild fires that engulfed and destroyed a huge part of Ventura where they live.
Episode 133 – Trucker J-Manny – a hilarious story of when Chris J was driving a Lorry for the band Royal Blood and everything that went wrong.
Turned into half the page, cheers Steve
The guys have been really supportive in our start-up of FCPN, from helping us with tips and advice to allowing us the use of “We’ll Always Have Forever” for our intro, outro and bumper background.
Make sure you check out Fresh Talk, it’s one of the hidden gems of the indie podcast world. Tell them we sent you, hopefully they don’t respond with “who??”