[A new series of updates on the new Ongoing History of New Music podcast. We’ve been listening to your suggestions and incorporating them into this grand experiment. Keep the feedback coming! – AC]

The weekend of February 4-5, 2017, featured the 776th episode of The Ongoing History of New Music, the radio documentary that began in February 1993. Since podcasting really started becoming a theme in the middle 00’s, people have been asking “Why don’t you podcast the show?” The answer was always the same: We can’t. There are too many issues and costs involved when it comes to including the music in the show.

“Well, then,” came the response, “what if you were to podcast the show without the music? Okay, so that wouldn’t work with all episodes and topics, but at least we’d still get all the stories. Better than nothing, right?”

When I floated the idea to other people, virtually everyone agreed that it would be a good idea to at least try this approach. So we are.

I’ll spare you the details of the preparation and execution required on the back end, but suffice it to say that we’ve cracked this in a way that will allow us to scale the release of OH podcasts indefinitely. We’re going to experiment with a variety of podcast ideas, some that will be obvious and others that will be invisible. We’ll make mistakes and we’re hoping that you will let us know what they are. And if you enjoy what you hear, please tell your friends. The more input we get, the better we can make this project.

The first-ever official Ongoing History of New Music podcast is part one of the three-parter called “The Rise and Fall and Rise of blink-182.” Links and playlists will be posted on the show summary pages on my website (here’s an example) and will come in the days after the original radio broadcast. If enough people subscribe to the podcasts, we’ll throw more resources at the project to convert as many archive shows to podcasts as makes sense.

UPDATE 1: More than 1,200 people signed up over the first weekend and we’re somewhere around 2,000 right now. weekend. Thank you!

UPDATE 2: The second podcast–part two of the blink-182 series–is now up. And based on your suggestions, we’ve added a little music to make the transitions cleaner.

UPDATE 3: Listener Eric has volunteered to make Spotify playlists featuring all the music in each episode. The playlists will appear in the blog posts for individual shows.

UPDATE 4: Yes, we’ll expand the offerings–if the demand is there. With almost 800 episode in the can, this could take a while…

UPDATE 5: Downloads have surpassed 4,000. Can we get to 5,000 by the end of the weekend?

UPDATE 6: Yes. The third podcast–part three of the blink-182 series–put us over the top! Thank you!

UPDATE 7: We’re well over 8,000 downloads. The three-part series on Billy Talent (the shows with interviews with all four members of the band) is really performing well!

UPDATE 8: 10,000 and counting!

Subscribe to the new Ongoing History of New Music podcast at iTunes. If you have an Android phone, here’s how to subscribe.