The Big Shed Podcast

(Produced by ... aka Stray Dog Recording Company) A tragic turn of events at the worldâs smallest circus. Les Petits Tristes is an excerpt from , Tiny Tales of Woe, a collection of audio shorts. Notes: Words by Jill Summers, music by David Whitcomb. Engineered by David Whitcomb at Stray Dog Recording Co. in Chicago. Also, do yourself a favor and check out their beautiful submission to the Third Coast Festival's project.

Producer Tom Niemisto weaves between an interview with tall-ship captain Samantha Heyman and an astronomer/poet around a bonfire under a broad star-filled sky. The stars are governed by a perfect order and yet, they create a chaos of mystery. We link astronomy to creation myths in constellations. We search for deeper meaning the night sky or, with rigorous mathematics, we search for our physical location through navigation. This is Tom's first non-narrated audio work and, as with many radio stories, he sat on the great verite tape from the bonfire for two years before deciding to weave it with the tall-ship captains' voice. And... check this out... He scored the the music himself and performed it with his cello, seeking to "evoke the undulating horizon off a ship's deck, and the glint of stars trying to tell you something." We'd say he nailed it. The original version of this piece was commissioned by Julie Sabatier for Destination DIY on Oregon Public Broadcasting. It will be broadcast on December 4th on OPB on a show entitled "DIY: Rituals." Photo by Fmmr via Creative Commons.

Ghana sounds like everything you might imagine, and some things you never could. Producer Julie Shapiro recorded these sounds during a trip to Ghana in January, 2008. Julie was one of the very first producers featured on the Big Shed podcast back in 2005, and if you were lucky enough to listen to her piece "The Only Reason You and I Are Here," then you will recognize her distinctive style in this work. When not creating her own work, Julie fills the spare hours as the artistic director of a little thing called the Third Coast Festival in Chicago. If you're planning to be at the Third Coast Festival Conference in October, you'll be seeing Big Shed there as well--come find us!

Producer Kelley Libby produced a radio story about 13 year-old farmer Colby Perron while at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. This is not that story. But if you listen to Colby's story, you will hear a very short scene in which a calf is born. Kelley spent all day, waiting on a cold concrete floor in a barn in Topsham, Maine, just to get the recording she needed for that scene. Later, she realized the tape she got told a separate story about waiting, pain, responsibility, knowledge and the beginning of life. We can't help but mention that this story would also fit into Big Shed's Audio Verite + 1 Competition if we hadn't given her some editorial help. But you should be inspired. If Kelley can record an audio verite story without even trying, surely you can too.

A year ago, Jesse Straight started a small farm in the urban center of Charlottesville, VA. The farm was a one year experiment and in the course of that year, he found himself talking to people in his neighborhood who he hadn't known before. The farm became a way of getting to know his neighbors, and he started collecting the stories of the people he met. With his friend Ross McDermott, Jesse recorded and edited this story about Max, a young boy with a great love of audio speakers. In this is the final installment of Big Shed's "The Jar Chronicles" ... the usurper Jesse Dukes has been feeling guilty and depressed, and our heroes, Shea and Jennifer, finally whine their way out of the jar, and this saga is brought to an exciting conclusion ... or is it.