Captain Radio Visits Dead Line Anthology

July 27, 2011 By 1 Comment
Captain Radio Audio Reviews


Graphic - FunGraphix.com
Theme music - Shane Lamb

Title: Dead Line Anthology / Shorts (series)
Producer: Jack Ward
Production Company: Electric Vicuña
Type: Dram
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Length: Anthology episodes – about 25 minutes; Shorts – 5-15 minutes
Rating: AD-PG* (psychological horror, mortal danger/fear)
Availability: Free – Electric Vicuña

Greetings, Audionauts! Captain Radio here with a visit to Electric Vicuña’s Dead Line Anthology, from Electric Vicuña, made possible by RØDE Microphones.

Dead Line Anthology Logo

[SOUND BYTE]

And so the mysterious disembodied Dead Line telephonic voice ushers listeners into another dark journey through mystery, horror, and, usually … murder.

As might an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, each macabre tale begins mundanely enough, perhaps like a pair of generationally-alienated businessmen getting away on a hunting weekend, as in Clay Pidgeon Shooting …

[SOUND BYTE]

Soon, though, things begin to seem out of place as dialog exchanges or character actions build up viscerally uncomfortable apprehension:

[SOUND BYTE]

Then, suddenly, the dark journey twists violently off into stark and irrepressible horror as, here, a stunned husband listens to his doomed mistress plead desperately for help over voice mail:

[SOUND BYTE]

From 2003-2005, pioneer audio drama podcaster Jack Ward aired The Shadowlands old-time radio series from a public radio station in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Having authored and produced over a dozen originals among these shows, Ward joined forces in 2005 with Shannon Hilchie to host the Sonic Society, which focused on original audio drama from independent producers. Initially, associated Sonic Society producers included Jerry Robbins of Colonial Radio Theatre, Jonithan Russell of DreamRealm Enterprises, and Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre.

In 2009, Ward formed Electric Vicuña to branch into audio cinema, voice acting, audio books, and audio anthologies. Regarding the latter, his colleagues encouraged Ward to develop a horror/mystery anthology that would more immediately fulfill evolving audio drama listener taste than would science fiction or fantasy equivalents.

He responded with the Dead Line Anthology that opens and closes on the slightly menacing telephone narrator signaling a warning or challenging the listener to explore the subtle edgy inner significance, or occasionally the message, revealed by the chilling story.

Dead Line Shorts Logo

Later, Ward added the Dead Line Shorts as vignettes of evil that cut to the chase of their story, tossing listeners immediately into “the dark moment”, often requiring them quickly to suss out from the contracted plot and dialog what precisely is happening.

 

[Dead Line theme music]

Despite having already turned in over a half decade of continuous original creative production, Ward’s Dead Line tales, long or abbreviated, come across as refreshingly original with plenty of spine tingle, more plot twists than a Celtic pretzel, and plenty of unexpected moments when you may suddenly and instinctively wish to cover your ears, as horror movie viewers might shield their eyes, from the fearful scenes unfolding within your imagination.

Listen to the Dead Line Anthology and Dead Line Shorts at Electric Vicuña.Com.

 

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Remember – passionate, unique audio transforms our world …You start with RØDE™

Visit RodeMic.com

 

CaptainRadio.com Reviews originate on the Radio Drama Revival podcast. Subscribe to free weekly downloads of more top-notch, independently-produced modern audio drama from around the world at RadioDramaRevival.com.

 

Until next time, Audionauts, this is Captain Radio™, signing off!

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Captain Radio™ Visits Electric Vicuña’s Dead Line Anthology and Dead Line Shorts

 

* Rating based on the Audio Drama Directory Ratings System.

Filed Under: Captain Radio Reviews, Drama, Electric Vicuna, Horror, Jack Ward, Mystery, Radio Drama

Captain Radio Reviews: Knighttime

July 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Captain Radio Audio Reviews

Graphic - FunGraphix.com | Theme music - Shane Lamb

Title: The Secret of Donotalado (from the Knightime series)
Producer: “William”
Production Company: The Hazardous Players
Type: Comedy
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 15-20 minutes each episode
Rating: AD-G*
Availability: Free to Listen – The Hazardous Players

Greetings, Audionauts! Captain Radio here with a review of KnightTime’s The Secret of Donotalado, from The Hazardous Players, made possible by RØDE Microphones.

Knighttime Series - The Secret of Donotalado

Too seldom do we see natural entertainers emerge from party antics as bonafide stars. When it happens, they tend to be delightful absurdists. Witness Steve Martin’s party shtick, The Great Flydini and Victor Borge’s classical grand piano party gymnastics both placing often among Top 100 Comic Routines.

Educated artist, turned realist carpenter, “William” in like manner delights in excavating his childhood of listening QUI-ET-LY (so his parents wouldn’t hear) to late night radio dramas and finding ways to foist that experience on his son and easily recruited accomplice, Sam.

Sam’s 10th birthday party proved a turning point for “William”, who loved to create “seriously complex” treasure hunts. A series of concealed outdoor audio players, when found, gave young partiers “Where next?” clues embodied in the pre-recorded voices of ancient knights. When family and friends heard the clues afterward, “William” found himself surrounded by instant fans, urging him to unleash these marvelous characters into broader realms.

Once “William” also realized that he shared “a hidden aptitude for odd voices and a secret desire to act” with Comic CON buds “Lewis” and “Justin”, the trio launched, in his words, a quest “to pool our talents, to overcome our insecurities, and to construct a fantasy world both epic and absurd,” major emphasis, of course, on the last.

[SOUND BYTE]

Aimed at “children” young and old, the KnightTime series of audio dramatic chapter books takes Audionauts to medieval Udenland and the farcical exploits of buffoonish but able agéd survivor, Sir Cottington, his more genteel “Sancho Panza” straight man, Sir Bratwurst, and their long-suffering genius curmudgeon guardian dragon, Nigel, who, though perhaps the most “grounded” character in the KnightTime universe, has his moments:

[SOUND BYTE]

In The Secret of Donotalado, scheming young King Theodor, seeks to rid his court for at least a year of the bungling, naturally interfering duo of Cottington and Bratwurst:

[SOUND BYTE]

That’s about it on plot, folks. As it goes in Life, often it’s not the destination but the journey that counts. Recalling situation antics characteristic of creatives Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Monty Python, the knights’ subsequent harrowing, comical picayune adventures through weird, enchanted landscapes, replete with magical plants and creatures, fills up the score card pleasingly.

[SOUND BYTE]

While online, be sure to enjoy “William’s” warm and very amusing artwork as well as entries in the clever Professor Flannagin Henchwood’s Guide that catalogs and further details magical flora and fauna encountered in KnightTime.

Listen to the KnightTime audio dramatic chapter book, The Secret of Donotalado, at HazardousPlayers.com.

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Remember – passionate, unique audio transforms our world … You start with RØDE™

Visit RodeMic.com

Captain Radio.com Reviews originate on the Radio Drama Revival podcast. Subscribe to free weekly downloads of more top-notch, independently-produced modern audio drama from around the world at RadioDramaRevival.com.


Until next time, Audionauts, this is Captain Radio™, signing off!

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Captain Radio™ Reviews The Secret of Donotalado from the Hazardous Players

 

* Rating based on the Audio Drama Directory Ratings System.

 

Filed Under: Captain Radio Reviews, comedy, Fantasy, Radio Drama, The Hazardous Players

Captain Radio Reviews: The Cosmic Express

June 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Captain Radio Audio Reviews

Graphic - FunGraphix.com | Theme music - Shane Lamb

Title: The Cosmic Express
Producer: Joseph C. McGuire
Production Company: Radio Theater Project
Type: Drama
Genre: Sci-Fi, Speculative
Length: 16 minutes
Rating: AD-G*
Availability: Free to Listen – Radio Theater Project

Greetings, Audionauts – Captain Radio here, brought to you by RØDE Microphones, with a review of The Cosmic Express from Joseph C. McGuire and Radio Theater Project.

Be ever so careful what you wish for!

[SOUND BYTE]

In the far future, when, for most, work is more past-time than drudge, Eric Stokes-Harding (voice by Carl Waluconis) relieves his techno-lifestyle boredom by authoring adventure stories in former exotic Earth locales now erased by urbanization. He does so the hard way, speaking to an antiquated, voice-activated typewriter-replicant. Though less inclined to stray from her own modern voicewriter, Nadia (voiced by Laura Hale) shares her husband’s wistful longing to interact with more natural apparata:

[SOUND BYTE]

Their commiserating heightens until they genuinely long to abandon their sterile modernity for somewhere far more primal and sensually extreme – somewhere, perhaps, like …:

[SOUND BYTE]Original 1930 Illustration from Amazing Stories, "The Cosmic Express"
Providentially, an experimental new long-distance travel mode exists, The Cosmic Express, a means so quaint and so familiar to a modern listener that perhaps it was restored from off a dusty shelf in an old 23rd century relic shoppe. 

Or perhaps the reverse: Three-and-a-half decades after sci-fi author Jack Williamson penned this short story, perhaps a Los Angeles beat cop, and a wannabee Hollywood screenwriter, named Roddenberry conceived something akin to the Cosmic Express as he prepared to make a little television history.

Regardless, the Stokes-Hardings eventually bribe Cosmic Express operator Charlie (voiced by Matt Clausen) with a metal flask of rare, very aged ambrosia. Faster than you can say, “Beam us up, Scotty”, the pair finds themselves stalking the showery alluvial jungles of Venus. All too soon, though, unexpected reverse nostalgia sets in just as neighbors come to call:

[SOUND BYTE]

It helps the couple’s cause little, meanwhile, that Charlie has met his liquor-holding Waterloo in the rare, very aged ambrosia.

The Cosmic Express is the first episode in producer Joseph C. McGuire’s public radio series project, Future Past, which debuts in September, 2011. Produced at Skagit Valley College radio station, KSVR, Future Past will dramatize stories written during the pre-World War II Golden Age of Science Fiction.

While this premier effort might seem, and sound, unpretentious compared to current flashier independent audio production benchmarks, it does authentically recall the audio austerity broadcast during the prime years of network AM radio drama.

Listen to Joseph C. McGuire’s Cosmic Express at the Captain Radio™ Audio Drama Showcase, or hear it and other Radio Theater Project productions at Radio-Stories.Blogspot.Com.

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Remember – passionate, unique audio transforms our world … You start with RØDE™

Visit RodeMic.com

Until next time, Audionauts, this is Captain Radio™, signing off!

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Captain Radio™ Reviews Joseph C. McGuire’s Cosmic Express from Radio Theater Project

 

* Rating based on the Audio Drama Directory Ratings System.

 

 

Filed Under: American, Captain Radio Reviews, Drama, Joseph C. McGuire, KSVR, Radio Drama, Radio Theater Project, Science Fiction Tagged With: , , , , ,

Captain Radio Reviews: Every Now and Then

June 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

Captain Radio Audio Reviews

Graphic - FunGraphix.com | Theme music - Shane Lamb

Title: Every Now and Then
Producer: Voices in the Wind
Type: Drama
Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Romance
Rating: AD-G*
Availability: Free – Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre

L. Ron Hubbard's The Headhunters Audio Book Cover
Greetings, Audionauts – Captain Radio here, sponsored by RØDE Microphones, with a review of Every Now and Then from David Farquhar and Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre.

While shopping for a friend’s wedding gift, young marrieds Frank and Diane (respectively voiced by Hollywood television and audio veteran Gregg Rainwater and by Noelle Dupuis) seem close to drawing serious lines in the sand when unruffled antique store owner, Mr. Sagan (voiced by Norm McLeod) sensibly intervenes to smooth things over:

[SOUND BYTE]

Deciding to give the shop a chance, Frank becomes intrigued with an old gramophone. Mr Sagan demonstrates its use before escorting Diane elsewhere to browse. Frank sits in an old nearby chair to remove a pebble from his shoe and suddenly experiences the first of several shocking and disorienting reciprocal transitions.

Listen to producer David Farquhar begin to show off a bit of sound engineering skill as he transports us instantly from a creeky, squeaky antique shop to the middle of a bustling street totally somewhere else:

[SOUND BYTE]

Perhaps the persistent shocks keep Frank a little slow on the uptake, not realizing as we do that the chair and the gramophone together control his continuous time sliding between now and 1903. There he exists as Johnny, a young family man leaving on a fateful sea voyage with Diane’s oblivious Edwardian era lookalike, Mabel, and their hauntingly lovely and enchanting young daughter, Virginia (voiced by Alexandra Poole).

Gradually, and understandably, Frank’s hold on reality loosens. Which reality is reality? Yet, his heart finds manifold reasons to cherish his loved ones regardless when they exist, especially spell-binding, innocent Virginia.

The tranquil trip is suddenly marred by a raging storm. Frightened, Virginia asks her father to tell one of the strange tales that he shares with her alone about how things will be when she is an “old lady”:

[SOUND BYTE]

On deck moments later, tragically separated from Mabel and facing the storm’s full fury, the pair desperately clings to each other as Farquhar’s thunderous audio background and award-winning script writer George Zarr’s emotional story simultaneously peak:

[SOUND BYTE]

Even if Every Now and Then might seem a bit nostalgic for jaded modern tastes, listeners will enjoy the mystery, growing suspense, and redemption of heartbreak in the end.

The play itself has a somber footnote. When Farquhar originally conceived an artifact-centered story, he at first collaborated on a script with Erin Connelly, a public radio audio drama rising star and gifted artist in many other ways. Following the shock of Erin’s sudden tragic death in a car accident before completing the script, the project drifted.

[SOUND BYTE]

Eventually, Radio Works’ Sue Zizza recommended that Farquhar bring George Zarr’s experience and craft aboard both to finish the script and to direct the final production. Zarr completed the script at his New York home before flying to Chatham, Ontario. There the play was performed and recorded in about three days utilizing Rainwater and a clearly talented and empathetic cast of local actors.

Zarr went on to script nearly a half dozen more audio dramas for Design Sound Productions as it gradually morphed into today’s Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre.

Listen to David Farquhar’s Every Now and Then at the Captain Radio™ Audio Drama Showcase, or hear it and other Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre productions at VoicesInTheWind.ca


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Remember – passionate, unique audio transforms our world … You start with RØDE™

Visit RodeMic.com

Until next time, Audionauts, this is Captain Radio™, signing off!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Captain Radio™ Reviews David Farquhar’s Every Now and Then from Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre

 

* Rating based on the Audio Drama Directory Ratings System.

 

 

Filed Under: Captain Radio Reviews, David Farquhar, Mystery, Romance, Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre Tagged With: , , , , ,

Captain Radio Reviews: The Headhunters

June 8, 2011 By 9 Comments

Captain Radio Audio Reviews

Graphic - FunGraphix.com | Theme music - Shane Lamb

Title: The Headhunters
Producer: Galaxy Press/Galaxy Audio
Type: Drama
Genre: Action Adventure
Rating: AD-PG13* (extended scenes of violent jungle fighting)
Availability: Paid – Galaxy Audio – Stories from the Golden Age

 

L. Ron Hubbard's The Headhunters Audio Book CoverGreetings, Audionauts – Captain Radio™ here, sponsored by RØDE™ Microphones, with a review of …

[SOUND BYTE]

Pulp fiction exploded onto newsstands and bookstores to experience a Golden Age in the 1930’s and 40’s. During its hay-day perhaps 30 million readers each month consumed thousands of mystery, science fiction, western, and action-adventure stories featured in upwards of 900 magazines. Even today most of us recognize writers’ names from this epoch, including Rice-Burroughs, Bradbury, Heinlein, Lovecraft, and Gardner.

Perhaps the most prolific pulp fiction writer, if not also the most enduringly popular, would be L. Ron Hubbard. Like Hemingway and Melville before him, Hubbard lived his life embedded in the realms from which his fast-paced imaginative tales sprung onto the pages of “pulp rags” like Thrilling Adventures, Argosy, and even Romantic Range.

In 1936, The Headhunters, a novella typical of Hubbard’s action-adventure style, appeared in Five Novels Monthly. In it, square-jawed protagonist, Tom Christian, and pert heroine, Diane Forsythe, follow her academically tunnel-visioned father into obvious eponymous danger. Seriously complicating their lives is, Punjo Charlie who is so intent on dispossessing Christian of alleged vast “buried treasure” that a full armed conflict erupts in the jungle:

[SOUND BYTE]

Galaxy’s multicast audio books build a “movie of the mind” through sound, striving to give listeners dramatic action and scenes of conflict thoroughly spiced with Hubbard’s page-turning detailed narrative. For example, here Christian silently but contemptuously sizes up Professor Forsythe’s entourage of jungle greenhorns:

[SOUND BYTE]

The Headhunters cast includes theatrical standout, Thomas Silcott, and Marvel™animation’s Hulk (Fred Tatasciore) as well as Brooke Bloom, R.F. Daley, Jim Meskimen, Josh R. Thompson, and Max Williams. In this audio excerpt from a documentary video clip, Meskimen speaks as Senior Director, joining actors Thompson and Christine Huntington to recap the prodigious scope and ambition of Stories from the Golden Age:

[SOUND BYTE]

You can find Galaxy Audio’s dramatic send up of The Headhunters as well as 152 other prime L. Ron Hubbard audio adventures at GoldenAgeStories.com .

While you’re there, check out some lively and interesting “special features” videos that document the ambitious production of these dramatic audiobooks.

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Remember – passionate, unique audio transforms our world … You start with RØDE™

Visit RodeMic.com

Until next time, Audionauts, this is Captain Radio™, signing off!

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Captain Radio™ Reviews L. Ron Hubbard’s The Headhunters from Galaxy Audio

 

* Rating based on the Audio Drama Directory Ratings System.

 

 

Filed Under: Adventure, Audiobook, Captain Radio Reviews, Drama, Golden Age Stories, Jim Meskimen, L Ron Hubbard Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Captain Radio Reviews: The Swamp

June 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Captain Radio Audio Reviews

Graphic - FunGraphix.com | Theme music - Shane Lamb

Title: The Swamp
Producer: Tanja Milojevic and LightningBolt Theater of the Mind
Type: Drama
Genre: Horror Mystery

Rating: AD-PG*
Availability: Free – LightningBolt Theater of the Mind

 

Greetings, Audionauts – Captain Radio here with a review of Tanja Milojevic’s The Swamp from LightningBolt Theater of the Mind.

Lightningbolt Theater of the Mind LogoIf you ever experienced ghastly fear trying to escape a nightmare presence but unable to awaken, then you know Rachel’s terror.

[SOUND BYTE]

This hungry, menacing demon dream swamp metaphorically overflows into her conscious existence. First, Rachel (voiced by Milojevic) abruptly loses her best friend, Alice (voiced by Amanda Fur) when their college expels Alice for surreptitiously cheating off Rachel’s exam. Then, after Rachel pleads vainly with her mother (voiced by Deborah Adams) to forego a simple driving errand in an icy blizzard, Rachel receives the worst of all calls:

[SOUND BYTE]

Finally, adding to Rachel’s growing horror, the relentless swamp dream demon returns, this time with unholy help as Rachel’s mother, apparently casting blame for the accident, joins him in terrorizing her.

[SOUND BYTE]

The only seeming positive in Rachel’s waking life is the sudden appearance of dark, handsome, and very mysterious fellow student, Blake, who quickly, and quite literally, entrances her:

[SOUND BYTE]

Eventually, we gain the eerie sense of having missed a key scene along the way. By the time both we, and Rachel, learn what’s missing, it’s hideously late in the game … maybe too late.

Milojevic’s unhurried but increasingly suspenseful pace of revelation here renders The Swamp’s sudden finale all the more shocking, while the denouement “chaser” is served up suitably well chilled.

Milojevic emigrated with her family from Serbia to America at age 6. Since 2008, by day, she pursues an undergraduate degree in English Writing with a minor in Communications from Boston’s Simmons College. After-hours, she pursues her calling as an independent audio drama producer at which she steadily has improved.

For example, The Swamp, actually enlarged and scripted from a high school English Lit writing exercise, comes smartly decorated with background and bridging music so discriminately selected that I wished to hear the scoring again apart from the play.

Appearing instinctively to leverage her visual-impairment, Milojevic also aptly employs her keenly attuned hearing to evoke college environs and voices as binaural backdrop to her drama. You’ll need headphones or good stereo speaker separation to catch this particular nuance, but listen closely to this clip from The Swamp in which a professor’s voice seems at first to wander about randomly until we realize that he’s passing out student exam sheets:

[SOUND BYTE]

Having already completed over ten independent audio productions, Milojevic has also begun to create Spirit Blade Underground Alliance series episodes of Out of the Night in collaboration with Spirit Blade producer, Paeter Frandsen.

Ms. Milojevic, who aspires to graduate work at UMass and, thereafter, to teach Braille, seems also to be well underway with a moonlight career as a talented independent audio producer and voice actor.

Hear Tanja Milojevic’s The Swamp on the Audio Drama Showcase at CaptainRadio.com, and listen to all her productions at LightningBoltTheaterOfTheMind.Mypodcast.com.

 

Until next time, Audionauts, this is Captain Radio™, signing off!

 

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Captain Radio Reviews Tanja Milojevic’s The Swamp from Lightningbolt Theater of the Mind

 

* Rating based on the Audio Drama Directory Ratings System.


 

Filed Under: American, Captain Radio Reviews, Drama, Horror, Lightningbolt Theater of the Mind, Mystery, Paeter Frandsen, Radio Drama, Spirit Blade, Tanja Milojevic
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