The Art of Live Podcasting: Stories, Festivals, and Audience Connection with Bob LeMent
#60

The Art of Live Podcasting: Stories, Festivals, and Audience Connection with Bob LeMent

Where is my sign? I saw the sign and it opened up my mind. Hey,

everybody. We are live at the Poduty Live podcast theater at

Harrison's on Corbet Avenue. I've got Bob LeMent from

Static Radio joining me tonight. Bob, do you know what

time it is? It's half past a month. What time is it?

What time is it?

Poduty and the News.

The only live news podcast about

podcasting from the st.

The only live news podcast about

podcasting from the stage.

Oh, the only live news podcast about podcasts from the stage. It's

Bob Lament. Bob, welcome to the show. Hey, how you doing,

Jeff? I wanted to sing along. You

see that? Let everybody sing along in the back there.

Sing and dance and make romance to the paduti in the news theme song.

I feel like I'm looking the wrong way. All of us. I have to turn.

I can't turn my head. Over there. Okay. It's the original Lionel

Richie. There you go, Bob.

Welcome to the show. We've done a lot of things together. We've played trivia,

We've done some interview shows together. You've been very generous with some of

the events I've done, giving us stories, the background of

podcasting and your podcast, Static Radio.

It's got to be. Is it 26 years strong now? Yeah,

we're currently recording for our 27th year. At the end

of this one, we'll be. We can, you know, rack up another

mile, another year. So, yeah, 20. And that

started as Internet radio because podcasting hadn't started yet. But

we'll just. We'll just keep saying that because nobody remembers now because it's been so

long. They're like, oh, no, of course it's been that long. No, it. Well, it

has. Well, it's like the first three Super Bowls weren't the Super Bowl.

They were like the AFC NFC Championship Game. But now,

retrospectively, they're all Super Bowls and they're all in

Green Bay, weren't they? I can't remember. Well, that's like

if you were podcasting before podcasting, but it became podcasting, it's now

podcasting. Right, Exactly. That's what people know it as. So you just. You just

go with the flow. Right. Well, tell us a little bit about the

show and how can people find it? So you can find us

at Static Radio on most of the socials. Staticradio.com

and we tell stories each week, my co host and I.

Miles title. We tell a story about

something that's happened to us, and hopefully it is

either amusing or Strange.

And so that's typically what we try to do, is

make it either both strange and amusing or just amusing

or strange. And you know it. Just to give

you a real quick hit from this week. So this week, I got

bested by a grandma while I was at the pool, and

Miles took a tumble whenever he was walking his dog

out in the countryside. Now, there's more to it than that, but that's just the

beginning. It's amusing and bruising

in some cases. That's right. Egos as well as knees.

So, yeah, whenever a grandma

bests you at the pool, that's a pretty big ego bruise, you know.

Oh, yeah. Oh, you didn't tell us it was at the pool, but. Well,

congratulations to the grandma. Maybe. I don't know.

You have to listen staticradio.com find out how the story

end. Does Miles stand up or

is he still laying in the field somewhere? Yes. We don't know.

Well, Bob, are you ready to get into our stories?

Yeah, I'm ready. Here we go. Story

number one. I try to blend these stories with some of my guests

experience. These are gonna be a lot of comedy, entertaining,

storytelling, podcasts. And the first one's a roast battle.

I couldn't imagine anything better to start with Bob going right to LA

for a roast comedy battle. It's because the rbl,

the Roast Battle League, took over Los Angeles with a live show built

entirely around head to head comedy battles. No long

sets, no drawn out storytelling, just quick hits, big

reactions, and a format that keeps the audience locked in from start

to finish. It's a structured chaos in the best way.

For live podcasters, this is a reminder that format matters.

When you design your show for interaction, reaction, and momentum,

the audience does not just watch, they participate. And

these are one of those things I love about live podcasting is that

chaos element. Anything could happen. You have no control,

and in this case, you're. You're really bouncing ideas back and

forth off of a co host. It's, you know, I think roast battles are kind

of improv, but in a negative way. Right. Yeah. Well, the

roasting part. Right. So that's the. Yeah. They don't call

them marinating battles or something like that. I don't know

the. You get roasted, so it can be rather

brutal. I did like the fact that that guy was wearing a Cardinals hat because

I'm from St. Louis, so that was very nice. I don't know if you noticed

that or did that in. In any way for me.

Yeah, throw them back. You're gonna Throw them back up there. Yeah. Look at that

key. Cardinals hat. Check it out. There you

go. They don't call them best friend hugging kisses battles. These are. These are

roast battles or back rub battles. I don't know, Whatever.

Whatever you want to get into. I think this is kind of cool. I mean,

it's obviously in Los Angeles. That's the place to be for

some of this kind of stuff, Although it could happen anywhere, to be honest with

you. I mean, these kind of things could be any part of the country.

But in Los Angeles, you certainly have the

talent pool to draw from, as it were. So everybody wants to

get their few minutes on the stage, and so therefore,

they're there to do that. So it's probably pretty good.

I. I have participated in a few Roast battles. I will tell you that I'm

not the best roaster.

I've. I've only been triumphant, I think, once

in a roast battle, and that was because I

cheated. Well, it's better than you were going up

against a fifth grader that would be. Well, yeah,

they keep. There is an age limit on a lot of these

roasts, so the fifth graders, you know, not always the best.

Plus, you know, they'll tell your mom, and then. Then where

will you be? Right? Then you'll say, your mom.

Yeah, your mom. No, your mom. Yeah. And then everybody's in trouble. And so,

yeah, no, I, I.

The person I was roasting was from India,

and so I don't really have a lot of

insight. So I actually did a bunch of research to

come up with some Indian roasts.

And so that's why I say I cheated, because I did a little bit of.

A little bit of extra research where I think a lot of people in Roast

Battles, it's very, you know, kind of

guttural and improvised and so forth, where, you know, you don't do a

lot of background and. And things like that for people.

So that's why I say I cheated a bit. So

you gotta dip into the word bank and this type of

concept, even though it's recorded, it's live in front of an audience, it is

part of a podcast, so it does get distributed and

released. So if you like comedy, if you like podcasts where people get together, if

you like Roast Battles, then this is probably a show you're gonna like a

lot. So, you know, think outside the box. What can you do with your

podcast? Where can you take it? Where can you perform it? And this is a

whole show, a whole genre based off of. Just off your mama

jokes. That's right, yeah. All the. Your mama.

Well, the other thing is it's also got interactivity and a lot.

You can have a live audience aspect of things. So it's kind of a hybrid,

right? So you can have people there, you can have people online, you can have

people chatting in. I could see like, you know, with your setup there,

you could have another screen up there that just shows the chat.

And you can have people online roasting people as

they're roasting each other potentially. And so, you

know, just another concept to. And with.

With all the advancements that we've had lately with,

you know, translation and, and

transcription, I mean, you could really have some

fun with that, I think, in a textual sense

as well, you know. So, I mean, who knows, who

knows what could happen? Especially now with all these emojis and everything they're throwing

on whenever you do your transcripts and do live

transcriptions on, on the screen. I mean, it's.

That alone, to me is hilarious. Yeah, you're. You're

trying to. You're giving your best jokes, your best material, and all you're seeing is

poop emojis popping up, see the birthday cake, poop,

whatever. You know, it's flashing on the screen because, because

the AI, you know, interprets things

that way. And I think it, I don't know, it could be kind of

interesting to see some of that. Honestly, who knows what it'll come

up with. Because a lot sometimes, you know, it doesn't interpret everything

totally correctly. We do a thing on our website

that I started, oh, probably about a year ago now

called My Bad AI Transcript. And so I throw the

audio of the show into an AI transcription

program and I post the AI transcript

as is. So it. People's names are

wrong, what people are saying is wrong.

You know, there's all kinds of bad information in the

transcript. The reason I did it for originally

was because I was incredibly lazy and did not want to read the transcript.

But since then, it's, it's come to be interesting

because people will search the transcript for things

and then they find the wrong information,

which I think is funny. You would not believe how the transcripts

treat Paduty. P O D u t y I

get, I get P U D o o t I D u

T H I I get Call of Duty.

I spend more time in my transcripts correcting the word

pidoutie than I do any. Anything else. Well,

you gotta be lazy like me and just not correct. But I realize you're trying

to brand yourself, so it Makes a difference. Yeah.

My whole life is based on this. I gotta get it right. You gotta get

it right. That's right. But I think that all that.

The Roast Battle thing would be cool. I think somebody can expand

upon this and

make it more interactive than it already

is, which would be interesting to me. Well, could it be any cooler

or any more interactive than Car Dealer

Podcast? This is the Car Dealer Live took one

live event and turned it into multiple podcast episodes, extending

the life of the content well beyond the room. Instead of one

recap, they released a second highlights episode packed with

insights from speakers, panels and industry leaders. And if

you want the full experience, you can buy the replay ticket and watch

everything back on demand. This is the new play. One

event becomes multiple pieces of content, multiple touch points, and

multiple ways to monetize. And we see this a lot with

conferences where people are generating a ton of

material, a ton of videos while they're at the conference,

and then they're repurposing that afterwards. So they're going to these

events that are full of people who are already interested in what they're talking about,

and then they're doing a VIP ticket, they're

doing small, short videos, TikTok videos, Instagram

reels, just to keep that momentum going, just to keep

the buzz alive on the conference. I think it's a great strategy

to go where your audience is and then make some content for the rest of

the year. Yeah, exactly. You basically,

you have this event, you got everybody together, and

you can capitalize on that and stretch it out for, like

I said, a whole year. Can you imagine? If only I would

think of these things, I would just work for a week and then be done

for 51. That's it. You hire one

person and you have 51 videos. You're done?

Yeah, I'm done. Then that's it. Then I can just live my life and

not have to do this every week. I think that's

like the Drew Carey, Price is Right model. They record one day,

maybe two days a month, and they're good for. They have half of their

shows for the month then. Yeah, exactly. Well, television

was doing that a long time ago. Had a really interesting experience.

And this is kind of a weird aside, but I

saw the Grand Ole Opry back in the 90s, the live

show, and it's fascinating to watch how these

shows, like you mentioned, Price is Right or Grenada Opera, any of these kind of

things operate, because there's such, you know, like,

surgical precision shows. And now they're taking that kind of

Production and bringing it into podcasting and so forth. Which

is kind of interesting, right? I love the way that when you can scale

and be efficient and work one day a week, but you did five

days worth of work. That's the dream job.

Efficiency at its best. Now, you know,

to me, one of the problems that we have, Miles

and I, for the show, is we've never recorded ahead

because we've tried it a couple of times. And

sometimes we do it just out of happenstance because

one of us wants to go on a vacation or something. And we're

always disappointed because typically

speaking, because our thing, you know, most of the time we tell stories.

It's very experiential. As soon as you record something, something

else happens that's way better than what you recorded and you've

already done it. And so then you're like, well, wait a minute, I rather. I'd

rather talk about what just happened than the thing I

recorded the day before. And so we've always

kept to doing it each week because of the fact that

everything changes so quickly that it's hard for us to

bank a bunch of shows because they were

always disappointed. That's that butterfly effect.

You send a little ripple through the future where you

pre record one show, but then now you have another story for the next

show. But then there's another story that happens. It could be, you

know, four to five weeks before you get back on track. Right, Exactly. Well, and

that. And then just the world changes. Right? So if

you're. If what you're talking about has anything to do with what's happening in the

world, you have to do it now because next week

it's all gone. Right? So you can't,

you know, say, oh, do you remember a month ago when these

Chilean miners were trapped? Well, anyway, you know, who

remembers that now? Man is never going back to the moon.

I will bet good money on that. And then in three

days, they launch a ship to the moon. Ever since

Neil Armstrong passed away, we don't have the technology.

They buried it with him. They buried. That's right. It's in his pocket,

his breast pocket, inside the coffin.

But I like the idea of what they do, though. It's

interesting. Yeah, it's a great concept going there

for the story that we were talking about. Where is your audience at? Go there,

perform. Get in front of the people that like what you're

doing. It's the easiest crowd you ever perform to. Cars don't change that much. They

just get older. Well, speaking of getting older, we're

a couple days after this event just happened on, on March

29th and this is going to be one. I probably struggle with some pronunciations

on this one, but LA Artistiata Podcast

is taking their mission off the mic and onto the stage with a

live event called Take the Stage. Built to spotlight women of color

in music. This is not just a show, it's a statement. A

fully female led lineup, ticketed event, and clear vision

to grow this into a full music festival for podcasters.

This is the reminder that your show can stand for something bigger.

And when you build your mission, when you build that around your mission, your

audience does not just attend, they support. This was

a great. There was all kinds of female artists, there was podcasts,

there was recordings going on all throughout this event called Take the

Stage. It just happened on March 29th

and this is that example. If this is something that you're passionate about

or you're part of a community, you know, bring people together

who are like minded, who have the same thoughts as you and

find your tribe, find your audience, find the people that you can perform

to and you'll have the most fun in your entire life

just being around, you know, people who love the same things that you're talking about.

Yeah, no, I think that's great. And the

again, this is another example of kind of bringing everybody's going to be

together anyway for a live event. You capture that live event

and then you can bust it out into its component pieces and

put it out there because it may be that, you know, there's songs obviously,

right, not just dialogue

and then everything in between. And so depending on how the show is structured,

you have all kinds of stuff that you can do with it. And

you know, having a higher purpose is not always a bad idea.

I, I don't think that Miles and I have any higher purpose, but

other people do. I think sometimes his higher

purpose is just to make fun of me,

which it works out that way a lot of times. But you know, it's

all good, right? It's all, all good in love.

Miles has a higher power, maybe. And that's the power is, is making

fun of you, maybe. Could be.

Well, we're going to keep it. Moving on to our next story here we've

got red carpet to podcast turning prestige events into

content at the Napa Valley Stream Fest. Live podcasting is

not the side event, it's the main attraction. A live taping

of awards chatter featuring Bill Lawrence and a separate onstage

interview with Krista Miller and Ted McGinley are being

positioned Alongside major awards and festival programming.

These are not casual recordings. These are the headlining moments.

For podcasters, this is the opportunity. When your show

becomes part of the event, you're no longer just creating content.

You're creating an experience that people show up for. And this

really builds on that idea that we were talking two stories ago.

Go where your audience is. If you're in entertainment, there's an

award show, there's a festival showcasing

local talent, local movies. You can be a part of that. You can be a

part of your community talking about the thing that you love. In this case,

it's film and television. Yeah. When's the Paduti Awards?

Paduti Fest. I just. Talking to Maria Daniels today. We might be

doing an award show coming up. So there you go. Or

another get together like we did a couple years ago. So stay tuned.

Bob Lament breaking the news. Well, I'm just like, might as

well. I mean, you got to get the name out there enough

to where the AI won't misspell it anymore.

It's, it's, it's, it's impressions. Impressions. Impressions. Impressions

is what they say. But no, this is another good example of taking an

event and, and making more of it. Right?

So. Because everybody can't go, Right? If everybody could

go, then, you know, that would be a disaster. I mean,

we've seen that over and over again. Woodstock, prime

example, a disaster.

And not even just woodstock in the 90s, woodstock back then, too.

Yeah. The second and third time around, not so good. But the first time,

pretty good. Pretty good. They didn't learn from their first

time. They just kept getting worse, apparently. Yeah, I think that, I

think they always. I think people love the original Woodstock for what

it was to the people, but I think the promoters always felt like, man, we

really got screwed and didn't make enough money on this thing. We didn't make all

of our money back. So they're like, we'll try it again.

If you look at that. So that was kind of a precursor

to some of this because there was a movie made. Right. So Woodstock is a

movie from the original one in the 60s. And then each one of those

sets that were part of the movie had gotten

broken up because people wanted to just see that song or what have you,

and, and it's progressed. And so it's kind of the great, great

grandfather of what we're doing right now and what you're talking about.

Yeah, the memory of it. Did you now you

blown your mind?

You're thinking, why didn't I call my Thing. Wood

duty.

I would have. I know podcasting isn't really regulated, but I

feel like wood duty would get me in front of federal agents

or something. Really? You think so? Okay,

let me think. Pod stock,

would that be better? Pod stock. Paduti is still shorter.

That's only six letters. And. I know, but pod. You got

pod. This is another idea for you, Jeff. Pod stock is where you

bring all these people together and do the. You know,

you do the Woodstocker podcasting. It's called Podstock. If that's not

taken, I'm gonna go by the domain name right now. Is

this live? Hold on. Yeah, so there's one person watching

right now. They're gonna. Don't take it.

Stop saying it. It's the. It's the. The Woodstock of

podcast. Pod stock. Oh, my God, I forgot.

What. What was the story? I love Krista Miller, by the way. I should

just mention that.

Big fan. Number one fan. Yeah. Number one fan. Yeah. Drew Carey

show. Anyway, well, speaking of

stock, I don't know if. Is there stock beer?

This was one we missed back in November. A live panel discussion on west

coast pilsners recorded at brewers retreat.

Now, episode 448 of their podcast. This

is a hyper specific content for a very specific audience. And

that's exactly why this type of content works. It was recorded live,

packaged later, and released when ready. No rush, no pressure,

just value for podcasters. This is the reminder that not every

episode needs to be timely. Some of the best content comes from

capturing real conversations in real rooms and turning them into

evergreen episodes that can live forever. If you like beer. And

a beer doesn't live forever. It does have an expiration date. But your beer

podcast doesn't have an expiration date. It only has a born on

date. There you go. The born on date. Yeah,

yeah. Bringing that back. Question. You know, the.

Everything's getting more and more focused, right? So all of

these shows and everything, you know, if you kind of scroll

through things, you're like, oh, my gosh. There's just. There's a

podcast about making yoga mats. Who. Who is

their audience? I don't know, but apparently the

more focused you are, the better you are to capture that

corner of the market. I suppose the. I've always

wanted to combine my love of going to get

lunch with a podcast so that I could just go have lunch, because that's my

goal. I love to go out and get lunch, and if I could record it

and somehow monetize that to pay for the lunch, then I'm all in

Right. So anybody who wants to do Lunch with

Bob podcast, I'm all for it.

Lunchwithbobpodcast.com

yeah, Pod Lunch. There we go. Lunch stock

or lunch duty. Maybe one of the. Yeah, lunch duty. That's

good. Lunch duty. Better. Yeah, I like that one.

Well, it goes by so fast. Bob, this is our last

story already. What? Come on. Coming to us from Goal Hanger.

They're taking their podcast network and turning it into a three day live

festival at the South Bank Center. Multiple shows,

shared audiences and crossover episodes for a one

night only collaboration between hosts. This is not just a

live show, this is an ecosystem. When you build

a network of podcasts, you're not just growing shows, you're building a

lineup. And when those shows come together in one place, it becomes an event piece

of people plan for travel to and buy

tickets to experience. You want to take our last story home?

Yeah. Well, I love this idea because

I am a big fan of Battle of the Network stars and

what they did was they took television stars and made them do

inane, stupid games. And I think podcasting needs

something like this as well. Maybe we'll call

it Pod Battle.

All these ideas are flowing from me tonight. Jeff, they're all yours

or whoever's listening. How about celebrity stock?

Celebrity stock or celebrity duty? Yeah,

that one may be a little bit too much, but.

No, I think this is great. I mean, they take the network and bring it

together. They. The funny thing that reminds me of a PBS

used to do this, right? So pbs, when they do all their fundraisers, they'd

bring all the stars of PBS on for the fundraising.

And I think that that is a similar thing. But

I, I do think that with the

networks you just, you know, you have synergy, right? So you

bring these people, they're all kind of apart, and then you bring them together

and you can, you know, cross pollinate, as it were,

whenever you do that. Because people like to see those kind of things. Because

chances are across the network, everybody is not

everybody's tastes, right? And so, but maybe some are. And

then this way you get a. You get to see what other things are happening

and then you maybe you pick up a more loyal following

because of it, Right? Yeah. Is it really synergy or

are they just under contract and they have to do it?

I would hope it's synergy. I always thought that

when I was watching that Battle of the Network stars that all those

people really liked each other. If not, they're very

good actors. They all get along even better than Battle of The

network stars was Circus of the Stars. Oh, circus, Exactly. Very

similar concept with the circus thing. Love that.

And it's almost like Dancing with the Stars is in that genre as

well. Right. So I think. I think we need to.

Again, the Pod Duty studios need to come up with

some type of mild athletic

competition between podcasts. Well, when. When

you get off this call tonight. Fox tried this too. They

tried to do where they had celebrities, stunt men

and women, they had them do stunts. So I want you to, when you get

out of here, everybody watching at home and listening, go to YouTube and

Google Dennis Rodman stunt show. And

they did him dirty. Or they had him ride a car off

a cliff while attached to a crane, but they only

lowered it enough so that when he swung back,

he swings back into the cliff and he gets knocked out.

Yeah, it's not. It's one of the best. It's probably why they don't do any

celebrity shows anymore because of what they did to Dennis Rodman.

He was kind of like the coyote from the

Roadrunner Coyote thing. He goes right into the cliff. He swung out,

and then they had the crane on the edge of the cliff. So when he

swung out, he could only come back. It was

not good for Dennis. Apparently, no scientists were involved in this stunt

spectacular to know that it was

produced by Aaron Spelling, of course. Really? No. I don't

know. Okay. I was like, I didn't think he had it in him to

do anything like that. Well, Bob, it's so much fun

getting together with you on a Tuesday night talking about live podcasting stories

one last time. This is the most dangerous part of the show. I turn the

floor over to you to plug, promote, talk about

anything you'd like. Bob, the floor is yours. Well,

everybody, get ready for podwood or pod

stock or wood duty. They're all coming at you after this one.

We're going to. It's going to be a rash of purchases

on the. What's your. What's your favorite

place to purchase website names? Jeff,

you can go to. I. I'm. I've been on GoDaddy since, like,

1997. I'll go. Daddy is going

to cash in tonight because of this show

only, right? So all these things are going to happen. But if you

want to hear me ramble on about something inane and silly,

you can always come by static radio dot com. Static radio on all the

socials and, you know, watch

for me to compete in the upcoming

games at the Pod Duty Theater.

Podcasters of the stars, Bob Lament. Bob do you remember

what time it was? It was half past a month.

What time is it?

What time is it?

Poduty and the News!

Poduty and the News.

The only live news podcast about

podcasting from the stage.

The only live news podcast about podcast

from the stage.