Welcome to The Flip Side Podcast #0001
The Flip Side is the section within my main substack infotainment channel (The Song’s the Thing!) where I post interviews and commentary about anything and everything that I find interesting (usually totally unrelated to music in any way, and typically free). The Whistle Test is the section where I post about anything and everything regarding songwriting, songwriters, songs, music, recording, performing, gear, guitars, and more. There are also several other sections, for example, Free Speech Absolutism and Reel-to-Real.
This is my very first interview (#0001), it’s with my good friend, Jasper Østergaard Larsen (recorded 18 April 2021).
I’m so grateful to Jasper for letting me experiment on him! He’s one of my favourite people, talented, interesting, and inspiring. Born in Denmark (in the interview he mentions where his parents conceived him), raised in Snafu, Liberia, he describes himself as an ‘alchemist, therapist (working with handicapped people), a dad and soon-to-be grandpa’.
And here’s the video version on YouTube.
Essentially this interview is a recording of one of probably hundreds of conversations Jasper and I have had, that just free-flow from topic to topic. In this interview the main thing that I was interested to hear Jasper speak about was food, and in particular his take on veganism. During the interview, Jasper mentions this post online, and references, but unfortunately misnames, a book from 1973 by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, which is actually called ‘The Secret Life of Plants’.
Anyway, when I say ‘experiment on him’ I mean this in two ways.
Firstly I’ve been wanting and planning to start doing these interviews for at least three or four years. It’s only now that all the conditions have come together for me to be able to make this dream a reality. I’ve been so inspired by certain podcasters in North America, and have found their infotainment content to be so interesting. The main ingredient that hooks me every time is an unedited long-form, unscripted conversation. And that’s what I have experimented with here. Jasper and I just talk. We agreed upon a couple of topics a few days before, and we both made maybe a page full of notes each, and that was it.
Having done this one experimental interview with Jasper I’m now hooked! I have a list of people I would like to talk with, so watch this space. More will definitely follow.
I think that this conversation with Jasper is both interesting and challenging. I really hope that you will take a chance, have a look, and take a listen. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Secondly, Jasper let me experiment with how to actually technically do this interview, how to set up and use all of the kit. You can see it’s all very Heath Robinson! Precariously propped up and held together with gaffer and velcro. I’ve used old iPhones and an ancient GoPro as cameras. There’s no real lighting to speak of. I experimented with OBS gaming software to record the live video feeds. Luckily (as you’ll see) I also recorded an audio safety copy directly onto the hard drive of an old MacBook.
In the end, it has become crystal clear to me that unfortunately, I cannot make professional quality interviews with only the kit I currently have. I have to do an expensive upgrade. I am mentioning this in order to reach out for your support to be able to achieve this upgrade ASAP.
To give a little bit more detail about this, you will see at least three or four major edits in the interview, and you’ll hear me meander a bit whilst I’m talking… this is due to the fact that during the interview the software and the operating system kept falling over because they simply could not handle all of the multiple simultaneous tasks I was asking them do. This meant that I had to reboot a laptop, or relaunch software several times during the interview, and sometimes I was doing this whilst talking… because I had no technician helping me… so in places the interview slightly stalls.
At the end of recording the interview, I found that the live edit version I’d recorded direct into OBS (switching from camera to camera live during the interview) was unusable. Instead, I ended up with a folder full of audio (from my safety copy) and video clips, which eventually took me more than two full days to salvage and edit into some usable content. Long-term, that’s simply not viable, to spend so much time on post-production editing, and for the output to be so low quality visually. My goal for these interviews is for them to be professional looking, high-quality, live-take, unedited recordings, where all of the camera shot switching is done live, during the interview. So more or less at the end, the interview just needs top and tailing and it’s ready to publish.
This is totally doable. The kit to do this exists and is not stupidly expensive. More or less, simply put, to achieve this I will need a new M1 Max MacBook Pro, some kind of pro-multi-camera video capture interface/system, an up-to-date iPhone, and at least one pro digital SLR camera.
All-in-all, Jasper and I talked for about two hours, however, we could have continued for much longer. In the end, I had to abruptly cut the conversation short, as I could see my laptop’s core temperature reaching the Chernobyl meltdown area. Also due to all of the technical issues during the recording, I was somewhat distracted, so I forgot to touch on several related sub-topics that I had intended to discuss. But, what to do? I’ve decided to publish this experimental interview with Jasper as is, warts and all, to highlight everything I’ve mentioned here, and to keep a record of how this project develops.
Despite the low technical quality I’m proud of this first attempt. I hope you’ll take a look. Enjoy!
The Flip Side Podcast #0001b!
And here’s a catchup I did with Jasper when he came to visit (recorded 22 February 2022). More or less this is just Jasper and I having a chat (and it really is just us chatting and catching up a bit), but we did it on camera to test my new podcast recording setup. It seemed fitting that Jasper should be the first person to be recorded there and to do the first test, as he’d helped and encouraged me so much to pursue this venture. Also, I think it’s a good conversation, I’m glad I recorded it. Below there is an audio-only version and a YouTube video version.
N.B. At the beginning of the video version, it says on screen that this is 'The Flip Side Podcast #0004', but it's not, that's an error, it's not being published as a stand-alone podcast, it's just being published here on my substack as an additional catchup.
TFS#0001 - Jasper Østergaard Larsen interview