Seventeen months ago, I learned about podcasting. It was brand new, and Adam Curry was telling the world all about it on Leo Laporte’s radio show in Los Angeles. A week later, I put up my first podcast, the MWS Media Radio Show. The show, then and for the next 59 episodes, put the spotlight on DIY, independent music, spoken word, and other creative endeavors.

I think there were less than a dozen other music podcasts when I started.

The sixtieth show, for which this post will serve as the notes, is the last. I have decided to stop producing the DIY Endeavors podcast.

Why?

Many reasons:

• There are many, many music podcasts now, nearly every one in the same niche as the DIY Endeavors Podcast. With the RIAA and others holding such a big hammer over everything, no one risks playing anything but independent music these days. The niche is the norm.
• The podcast, in perfect honesty, was never very popular! It held, on average, about sixty subscribers. Comments from listeners could be counted on two hands over the life of the podcast.
• Since November, my Brave Men Run podcast novel has attracted listeners an order of magnitude beyond anything the DIY Endeavors Podcast enjoyed. I’ve been very, very busy promoting the book in all its forms. I’m an author now, with very little time left over to attend to projects that don’t have the same return on an investment of effort and time.
• I have a tendency to put my own projects, dreams, goals, and aspirations aside in favor of things that benefit others. I suspect that this altruism stems from a fear of failure.
• This year, I’ve said many times since the book came out, is about my own creative endeavors. I’ve quit my day job and taken a 66% pay cut in order to concentrate on making a mark with my art. Everything I do should serve that. The DIY Endeavors Podcast doesn’t.

So. This episode is the last one.

I’m proud of the run — I played music that wasn’t heard anywhere else in the podosphere. I believe I introduced the medium to Jonathan Coulton, Samantha Murphy, Caldwell Shine, and a few others — or at least I was one of the first to play those artists. I fought publicly against Viacom’s KYOU and Nike’s co-opting of Dischord Records. I was proud to turn money my listeners had originally donated to me over to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, and to support Boxing Day Tsunami relief by promoting the Of Hands And Hearts benefit compilation.

I’m pleased I got to meet great artists and bands like Jon, Samantha, and Caldwell, not to mention Utenzil, Paul Donaldson, Adam Norman, Anat Damon, Bruce Siart, Christa Couture, City Beautiful, De Nieuwe Vrolijkheid, Dislocated Thumbs, Emma Wallace, Harvey Keene, John Paul Sharp, Jose Promis, Ljova, Noah Hall, Peril Dance, Dan Wallace and the Pindrops, Rich Kubicz, Roymond, Shudder, Steadman, WUPT, Woodstock Taylor, and many many others. If the other music podcasters in the world aren’t playing their music… well, they just better, that’s all.

This last episode, I went through the thousand songs in the DIY Endeavors library and tried to choose my personal favorites. I ended up with over fifty tracks. Somehow, I narrowed that down to twenty songs. The great majority of this last episode of the DIY Endeavors podcast is those twenty songs, played back to back — a mega-set of music, and my salute to DIY eclecticism.

These are the artists in the show:

Eugene Edwards
Caldwell Shine
Pindrops
The Pasties
City Beautiful
Kiff Gallagher
Emma Wallace
Rich Kubicz
Grand Theft Goodwill
Jose Promis
John Hoskinson
The Evernauts
Geetan / Gilleen Williams
Noah Hall
Samantha Murphy
Mark Mason
Jonathan Coulton
Via Audio
Shudder
Christa Couture

I hope you enjoy it… I’ve enjoyed bringing the DIY Endeavors podcast to you. Now, it’s on to bigger, better, different things.

Thanks, as always, for your support.

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