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The Audio Kitchen Is Open For Business

Howdy. Welcome to my blog, or at least one of them. More about that in a minute.

The Audio Kitchen is actually an audio blog, featuring found and amateur recordings, and discussions of where they come from and what they contain. The focus will be on audio artifacts found in resale shops and piles of junk that have been created (and misplaced) by ordinary folks, often for ordinary reasons. But similar amateur recordings will be presented here as well, despite the fact that they were never really “lost.”

As far as my inspiration for undertaking this blog and my interests in doing so, you can read more about that here. But suffice to say that this blog will present many types of amateur recordings people create on their own time for any number of reasons, and audio of the recordings themselves which you can easily stream or download as MP3’s to your computer or portable player. If you have any questions about how to use this site (and hear the audio) please check here.

However, my intention is not just to offer selections from my own audio collections (and my opinions and descriptions of the contents), but to provide a forum where other collectors of found sound can post their finds as well. I’m working on providing on-site functionality so folks can easily upload their audio and blog about it here, but it’s not quite ready at this writing. But that doesn’t mean you can’t share your recordings here right away. It’s just not as simple as it should be very soon. Read about how and why you might want to contribute (and blog) your recordings here.

Okay, that’s the news. Things may be a bit shaky around here for few weeks as I work out the bugs and get used to operating the equipment (if you know what I mean). If something doesn’t work, you see an awful typo or find some other odd problem, please send me an email. And I always appreciate any feedback offered to make this site better.

You may notice (and I should admit) that this site has a very similar sister blog, The Radio Kitchen. While I do wonder if it’s a bit counter-intuitive to start two blogs at the same time, I bravely (or unwittingly went ahead and) decided to create two different web venues dedicated to a couple of my personal fascinations. In my judgement, the subject matter of each is little too divergent to occupy the same forum. However, they both elucidate (at least) two sides of my fascination with fringe media and lo-fi audio. But I like to focus, and as a blogger I prefer to write about what interests me and not about myself. I suspect that some may find something of interest in both blogs, but I imagine that each one will find its own separate audience.

Maybe it doesn’t look like much, but the debut of these two blogs is the result of a long and somewhat trying ordeal of planning, listening, learning, typing and configuring. And it’s not over yet. But the time has come to quit fooling around and make it real. And speaking of that, let me close this inaugural post by thanking two new friends I made along the way to getting these projects off the ground. I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Amy and Cam, who offered me a helping hand when I really needed it and made all the difference in making both of these blogs a reality. And a special thank you to Amy, for making them look so nice.

Oh, I almost forgot. This site comes with its own web radio station: "Chunky Homestyle Radio," a non-stop stream of found sound and homestyle noise. It’s a work in progress which may at times be as annoying as it is entertaining. If you’ve got the stomach for it, click the Campell Can radio in the sidebar whenever you’re in the mood.

I do hope you have fun visiting The Audio Kitchen.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Found Sound, Site News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “The Audio Kitchen Is Open For Business”

  1. _aa_ Says:
    November 25th, 2007 at 2:07 am

    Thank google you’re back! I was a tremendous fan of the WFMU show and have forced my friends to listen to it against their will on many occasions. I stumbled on your new blogs via this MetaFilter post.

    One can only listen to the AK archives on WFMU so many times before they lose their pizazz. Thanks for keeping the ball rolling and I look forward to posting the rap I wrote and performed in the 5th grade to celebrate the D.A.R.E. program.

    Sincerely,
    _aa_

  2. Loopy C Says:
    December 19th, 2007 at 1:31 am

    Oh man I missed your program!!! I just found out about your blog and will spend the next hours/days/??? exploring…but just had to immediately give a shout, “Welcome back Professor!’ Look forward to the posts here and on your other new blog and checking out that ’soup can’.

    May even have to send you something this time around (I have a ‘great and secret archive’ myself, just don’t know if enough people have died to make it ’safe’ to unleash yet ;-)

    121707 (an early Christmas for this ‘found fan’)

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