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Hi there, you might remember me for the book on the unused story ideas of H.P. Lovecraft and the other book on what it means to be a grown-up. Now I have a podcast which I genuinely think is completely different from any other podcast out there, and I wanted you all to hear it.  Welcome to Night Vale is community radio from a small desert town where things like aliens and ghosts and angels are commonplace parts of daily life. It's weird and funny and sad, and at no point do any comedians discuss their unique takes on the comedy business and life. We have two episodes out so far. The second one, "Glow Cloud", features a song by Satellite High, who many of you probably know and like. So that's cool. Also, all of the music throughout the episodes is by SomethingAwful's own former admin Earwicker. Here's a short excerpt on youtube so you can get a sense of what it's like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBurGwvMkCE Here's a link to free downloads for both episodes. Or if you're more an itunes kind of person, here's that link. If you enjoy it, please leave a review saying so on iTunes. If you hate it, also go ahead and leave a review saying so. Live your life with freedom and integrity. There will be new episodes on the 1st and 15th of every month, so if you like it, you can also subscribe and we'll keep sending you stuff directly from our bizarre and dangerous small town to your earholes. Enjoy!
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Jul 2, 2012 17:20
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Raar_Im_A_Dinosaur posted:I'm excited! I can't wait to check it out, just wish I hadn't forgotten my headphones. I would love to say I was among the first to hear what I think could be a great project. Have you heard of The Truth? Your description really made me think of this, in terms of it being audio fiction. I have not, but it looks cool. I'll check it out.
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Jul 2, 2012 22:12
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We have so far completely finished five episodes, and Cecil has definitely been developing the voice/character. He has a much more consistent sound and personality as the episodes go on.
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Jul 2, 2012 23:43
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hi guys.
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Jul 3, 2012 03:17
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We went from being non-existent on the itunes charts, to being briefly in the top 50 podcasts, so thanks everyone.
maxnmona fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jul 3, 2012 |
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Jul 3, 2012 05:43
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That's really great to hear, you guys. Thanks very much. And FuzzyPickles, don't worry, your concern will be addressed in the next episode.
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Jul 4, 2012 00:49
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Oh, and we're currently hovering just above "The New Yorker Animated Cartoons" on the Comedy Podcast charts, so I'm pretty sure we just hit the pinnacle of success.
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Jul 4, 2012 00:56
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E4C85D38 posted:I finished the pilot, and it's a very enjoyable and entertaining listen. I'm going to listen to the second one on my commute. All of the music was stuff he'd already released. Basically I downloaded all of his albums, then separated the songs into playlists based on "mood". Then when I needed to score a section, I would go to the playlist for the mood I wanted and go through them until I found one that worked for the bit. We haven't really talked about it, but I don't think him composing some new music for the show is out of the question.
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Jul 4, 2012 03:51
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We've been sitting in the iTunes top 100 all week. This is really exciting and way more than I expected. Thanks everyone for making this possible. If you listened to it already, please give us a review on iTunes, or at least a star rating. Thanks!
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Jul 5, 2012 17:39
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You are all just the best, holy poo poo 
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Jul 5, 2012 23:59
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Earwicker posted:I'd be curious to see that grouping. It was not super detailed. Basically "Upbeat", "Melancholy", "Both", and "Ambient". And will do.
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Jul 6, 2012 00:55
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Thanks for listening, both of you. Addressing your suggestions:feraltennisprodigy posted:credits Yeah, we're working on the credits. I'm aware they're not quite there yet. I don't want it to be Cecil, because I want his voice to stay within the reality of Night Vale and not also announce stuff that's outside of that. The first episode I ran out of time and just recorded the credits myself. As you can hear, I am not a professional voice actor. The second episode on, my girlfriend will be recording them. This was at Cecil's suggestion that we use a female voice to contrast with his. We were still kind of rushed though, and so we hope to improve the credits in the future (fair warning, episode 3's credits were recorded at the same time) by having her talk slower and also much closer to the mic. It will hopefully sound much better once that happens. jimma posted:other voices This may happen. For now, it's easier to have Cecil record everything, and it also allows us to have more control over the feel of the world. We have talked about bringing in guest artists to perhaps both write and perform a little section. We know a lot of writers/performers that would be very capable. But we just want to see where this thing goes and what it develops into before we start messing with the format too much.
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Jul 7, 2012 17:49
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Big thanks to Abe for the week's sticky. In that time we averaged 90 unique downloads a day and were featured multiple times on the Comedy Podcast and Arts Podcast main pages on iTunes. So it's been a cool week for us and thanks.
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Jul 9, 2012 20:43
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Dickeye posted:This is a pretty cool podcast and I'm looking forward to getting a new one on Sunday. I've had the finalized episode 3 sitting on my computer for quite awhile. I'm excited to have other people hear it soon.
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Jul 9, 2012 23:39
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Snowy posted:This is great, I hope it lives a long life. The show would be perfect for a WFMU overnight slot, like Night People. Pitch it to station manager Ken! Putting it on the radio might be fun, but it makes things a little more tricky rights wise in terms of the weather segment. It wouldn't be a problem for the episode with my song, and I doubt Satellite High would mind, but later episodes have songs where the artists gave us the rights under very specific circumstances (use for one episode of a podcast that we are not currently making any money from) and using it for anything else would be problematic.
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Jul 10, 2012 18:25
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kelikar posted:Just curious, but do you use binaural beats in the second episode? Whenever I listen to it, my head feels like it's spinning in antigravity, but it doesn't happen with the first episode. I could just be a weirdo though. I had to look up what those were, so I guess the answer is no. I think the only difference between how I did the first and second episodes is that the second one was mixed slightly louder.
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Jul 10, 2012 21:45
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Your AI theory might hit a snag in episode 3, but I guess it depends on how you interpret the events.
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Jul 11, 2012 23:27
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usualhandle posted:so its radio spirit world but lovely. gj, keep it fresh. Based on brief googling, radio spirit world appears to be a half hour pilot from three years ago for a radio series that ended up not being made, with a completely different premise from ours. But the five minutes I listened to were funny, so thanks for pointing me to it.
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Jul 12, 2012 01:47
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Thanks everyone. In other news, episode 3, "Station Management", was released yesterday. It features danger!, acting!, and sound effects!
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Jul 16, 2012 17:01
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Cast Iron Brick posted:I can't get over how smart and well put-together this is. Doesn't hurt that I'm a huge NPR junkie. Thanks!
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Jul 17, 2012 16:29
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BooDoug187 posted:Mental note: Do not be a intern at Night Vale radio... Yeah, that doesn't get much better for them going forward.
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Jul 18, 2012 19:52
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Hey, bumping this to let anyone who lives in NYC know that we are doing a Commonplace Books reading at Webster Hall next Tuesday, July 31, that will feature a LIVE PERFORMANCE OF WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE, with the voice of Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin, and Earwicker providing live musical accompaniment. And it's completely free to go to. So check that poo poo out. Here's the facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/136770596463125 Also look forward to episode 4, "PTA Meeting", in just a few days.
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Jul 26, 2012 16:15
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feraltennisprodigy posted:Just listened to the third episode, great stuff like usual. Looking forward to number four! It will be bits from the first three episodes, plus a few things from future episodes. Sort of a Night Vale sampler. I'm sure we'll record it somehow. FuzzyPickles posted:Was any of the inspiration for this from Alan Wake per chance? I've played and enjoyed Alan Wake, but no, it wasn't involved in creating this. This more comes from a long-standing desire of mine to write a world where every bizarre conspiracy and theory is absolutely true. On the other hand, as you can tell from my username, I played a lot of Max Payne 2 when I was younger, and I'm sure the weird TV shows from it were incorporated into my sensibilities somewhat.
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Jul 27, 2012 16:04
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Sleepwalker posted:Just listened to the pilot, and I don't want to gush, but man I really love the writing so far. From reading the thread, I don't think I will be disappointed, either. The crocodile bit had me laughing for a solid couple of minutes! You really do an excellent job hitting the creepy small town vibe. Thanks so much! New episodes are on the 1st and 15th of each month, so next one is on Wednesday
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Jul 28, 2012 19:09
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Here's a very blurry pic of Cecil performing the live Welcome to Night Vale. There was a videographer team there, but their footage won't be available for at least a month. Meanwhile, there's a new episode available today.
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Aug 1, 2012 17:47
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I found it interesting that people took the ending of last week as a cliffhanger, because I could totally see that, but it's not how I thought of it when I wrote it, which is why we didn't address it this week. So far (up to episode 9), we have essentially written each episode as a discrete unit, and that is probably how we'll continue for the moment. However, we have a big spreadsheet keeping track of continuity for all the different people and places in Night Vale, which means that things that happen affect what will happen next. For instance, developments continue occasionally in the Apache Tracker story. The city under the bowling alley and the glow cloud both come back as story elements. Hiram McDaniels, the dragon fugitive, eventually gets an entire episode about his capture. Stuff like that. Basically: episodic, but my hope is that characters and plots will kind of grow and evolve out of that.
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Aug 1, 2012 18:44
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Dickeye posted:I can't believe that guy. What an rear end in a top hat. I just recently wrote something about John Peters (you know, the farmer), so no worries. Adeptus Mechanicus posted:I like to think my inability to actually hear the weather is part of the joke. I'm not sure what this post means, sorry. Cthulhu-riffic posted:Any chance of making these available on Stitcher? It'd be awesome to hear this sandwiched between my episodes of The Truth and Selected Stories. Awesome job so far! I don't know anything about Stitcher, but I'll pass it on to Jeffrey who handles all the technical aspects and see what he thinks.
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Aug 2, 2012 16:00
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On3moresoul posted:Wow episode 5 is already up? Kudos on keeping on track with your production schedule, glad to see the hooded figures or the black helicopters haven't delayed you! We are very organized with this stuff. I am right now creating the rough edit of episode 8, and scripts exist up to episode 10, so we are way ahead of the game. Also, we created a twitter for Night Vale, so if you want the occasional very short dose of that Night Vale charm, follow us https://www.twitter.com/nightvaleradio
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Aug 15, 2012 15:52
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Thanks, both of you. It's really nice to hear. Also don't know if I mentioned it yet, but episode 9 is our first experiment with bringing in a guest writer (@regisl from twitter) so look forward to that.
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Aug 27, 2012 18:06
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To the multiple requests: I don't actually know of any other podcast like ours. That's one of the reasons why we went with this idea, because it was something that seemed completely different from any other podcast out there. Obviously there's some stuff that we draw from. Prairie Home Companion has been doing the community radio from a made-up town for decades, although I haven't actually heard a single episode. Joe Frank did a lot of surreal radio over atmospheric music in the 80s/90s, but I've only heard a few snippets of those as well. The X-Files and Twin Peaks are huge and obvious influences to any sort of weird Americana. That's the best I can do for you. If anyone else knows about anyone doing this kind of thing, I'd love to hear about it. I'm always looking for new stuff to listen to. New episode tomorrow. It's about the construction of a new drawbridge. Weather is some Dutch rap.
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Aug 31, 2012 17:02
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CommanderKoenig posted:Dark, but the weather is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmVDr93UJQQ Thanks to David Thorpe, who was the first one I saw link that song, and who also has been a big advocate of Dutch rap for awhile.
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Sep 2, 2012 15:19
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Commissar posted:Loving this podcast except for one thing that pisses me off every time I hear it: the woman at the end of the podcast needs to get a better mic. It's incredibly jarring to be hearing the smooth, well produced tones of Cecil and then suddenly get a low quality echo-y minute or so. Otherwise everything in this podcast is awesome, and I hope you keep pumping the episodes out! Yeah, we're aware. It hasn't been a huge priority for us, but it will be fixed, hopefully, by the next episode.
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Sep 4, 2012 15:01
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We are in fact planning on t-shirts. These would be print-on-demand kind of things, so I imagine that stickers, posters, or mugs would be pretty easy to do as well. We just have to find a reliable print on demand place that does quality work. If anyone has any leads on that, please let me know.
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Sep 11, 2012 01:01
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Len posted:Edit: What song is used for the intro of each episode? The Ballad of Fiedler and Mundt from the album Neukrk by Disparition (Earwicker). http://disparition.info/uncategorized/neukrk And indeed.
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Sep 11, 2012 21:21
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Dicere posted:As an ESL teacher, this is great for many reasons. First, it's not NPR or TED. Second, it's a native speaker of English speaking VERY clearly. I don't see a Creative Commons license, so I guess I should ask permission. That should definitely be fine. Email me at joseph dot r dot fink at gmail.com and tell me more about what you plan to do. We have written scripts of every episode, although the occasional word might be different since we don't bother to go back and fix minor mistakes from Cecil. Episode 7 comes out in a few days. "History Week" in which you get a few thousand years worth of Night Vale history, including a glimpse of the future of Night Vale.
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Sep 13, 2012 16:37
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Len posted:Will we be hearing about the bowling alley anytime soon? I want to know how their exploration went. Short answer: yes. Long answer: yyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss
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Sep 13, 2012 22:39
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Dickeye posted:I want to know more about three things/people: 1. Ep. 11 2. Ep. 12 3. Ep. 7
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Sep 14, 2012 15:16
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So, um, this popped up in my google alerts this morning. Really not sure what to think. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WelcomeToNightVale
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Sep 18, 2012 18:13
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Thanks. Next episode is the first one with a guest writer, and look forward to the just written ep. 13 (Dec 15) which is a very, very different format than previous Night Vales and has some exciting big picture story stuff in it. Also a lot of weird, silly stuff like usual. maxnmona fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Oct 2, 2012 |
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Oct 2, 2012 02:19
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Thanks everyone! It's really, really great to hear that people are enjoying it. As for Halloween, no there isn't anything special planned. The problem is that we write the episodes a few months beforehand, and so we kind of keep forgetting what time of year it will be when the episode comes out. We plan to get better about that.
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Oct 5, 2012 14:29
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