I'm as big a fan of Monty + The Machine (aka "Not a Podcast") on Saturday morning as most of you seem to be. A raucous, slacker-anarchic show even with only two voices. Fun, different, some good Emerging Demo Sports Takes.
It's still kind of finding its way, though; still poking a sharp stick into the side of The Ticket. Is it a good strategy? I dunno. I shake my head sometimes, but I don't punch out.
Yesterday, for example.
The Machine was on fire, returning to his roots as a guy who talks a lot. The guy has a very unique radio timbre, and it's an interesting sound to have coming through the buds, but the guy gives some signs of being positively Sturmian as the syllables pour out of him, irrespective of what else is happening on the show at the time. I thought that he and Justin had really worked out a nice balance in the last couple of months, but Justin's 1-1:30 news was a jumble of both of them talking at once. (Hey, Machine, don't get upset -- love the show, love what you got. OK? This is just what one guy is hearing. Maybe I'll hear from Confessors who ain't hearing the same thing. And I'm estimating a P1 readership for this site on the order of 0.05% and a Cumulus readership south of that.)
And then there was the Eli Jordan Ticker. It was cruising along at its usual dramatic pace, when all of a sudden there was a bunch of talking going on over his report. I thought it was Machine, but I could be mistaken about that. Could have been both him and Justin. I tried to tell if whoever was talking over the Ticker was doing it accidentally because of a mis-hit board button, or just crashing the Ticker for the hell of it, but since the whole thing was incomprehensible, it was hard to tell. I will say this, Eli didn't miss a beat, so it wasn't clear to me that he could hear the host-noise going on over his report.
But I think he did, and I think he did not believe it was a technical meltdown, because:
After it was all over, Machine and Justin tried to get Eli to get on-mic to . . . well, it wasn't clear what they wanted to talk to him about, although they said once or twice they wanted to "ask him a question." But Mr. Jordan was having none of it, a 100% layout, Eli has left the building, leaving M+M to vamp embarrassingly for a bit before moving on.
And M+M didn't blame the technology.
I dunno, guys, dunno what you get out of jabbing the Musers, don't know what you get out of jabbing Eli, don't even know what you get out of pretty harshly jabbing the Siroises as you also did yesterday (and do a lot). I know, I know, it's a M+M bit to be the snotty newcomers. Maybe that's what Cat is looking for, maybe you've got a deal with Mike and Cash.
But it's starting to take on just a bit of a hostile cast, pretty aggressive for a show that may feel established to its hosts but does not to most everyone else (all right, maybe just to me). I really want to be hearing M+M on the air for the foreseeable future, so I'm hopeful that they will give some thought to the whereabouts of that fine line between bit and bloviation.
ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com
@Plainsman1310
Anyone else catch the weird exchange between Sean & Jake on the Shake Joint yesterday? They had a segment on Dak Prescott and there was disagreement and back and forth on how good Dak Prescott is and how good he could be. Sean thought Dak could eventually be a starter in the league and Jake thought that was ridiculous. It got a little tense/weird during their back-and-forth. After break, Jake comes on and says he doesn't know how much longer they can do a show. Sean chimes in and says "it would help if you could get here before 8". Jake said it would be perfect if the show was 9-9:30. Maybe Jake is just tired and wanted more sleep, but it kind of felt like they were getting sick of each other. I could be reading too much into it.
ReplyDeleteThe girl in the ticket ads is still my kryptonite.
Well, you got me curious so I went and listened. I think you're projecting a lot into the exchange regarding Prescott. Both Sean and Jake some some really dumb stuff in there (Jake said he would never be the starter, Sean said he projected out to be Aaron Rodgers 2.0), but I don't think it was as heated or uncomfortable as you implplied.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the whole post-break exchange you described actually happened before the Prescott discussion and was fairly lighthearted as far as I could tell.
I was probably reading too much into it, just seemed a bit weird. If that post break exchange happened before that Prescott talk, then that kind of changes the tone, too. For some reason I thought that was just after the Prescott segment.
ReplyDeleteAny discussion with Sean Bass will sound heated if they don't agree with him. God forbid.
ReplyDeleteAll the stories I saw about the dead student at Texas A&M identified the fraternity. I wonder why Corby neglected to mention it.
ReplyDeleteListened to BaD talking about "The Star"! I'm I the only one that thinks that's a stupid name?! Cheesy and Stupid!! Just another bad decision from Jerrah! Could "Valley Ranch" not have been transferred? Man, that was a cool name! Everyone globally thought "cowboys" when you heard that name. The Star?!! Hell, that could be anything! Bad decision coach! Bad decision!
ReplyDeleteEvery time I hear the current Fight Night promo with Mike in D saying he "Moves the needle" I have to question if he is just an expert level troll or if he actually believes that. Does he actually think that people listen to the post game or Norm's show hoping Mike in D will call in? I find that hard to fathom, either the thinking that it happens or that it does happen.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea who wins the fight, but my hunch is that if Mike loses by KO he will humble up and say it was all just a bit. Worst case scenario is Mike losing by crowd vote - he will troll on insisting that the fix was in.
ReplyDeleteGenius move or broadcasting error?
ReplyDeleteThis morning, two of the ubiquitous Grainger ads, the ones that focus on safety. The tag line for all the Grainger ads is: "Grainger: For the ones who get it done."
But this morning, the ad cut off right after "For the ones," chopping off "who get it done," and another ad starts playing immediately. The first one, I thought -- oops, just a slip of Jer's wrist. But then it happened again, and I thought:
Maybe this is genius. The listner isn't paying attention to the ad, then suddenly he hears something, or don't hear something he's expecting to hear, and his attention is brought back to the ad, and thus to Grainger (and maybe even to safety). You've leveraged your ad, drawing attention to the sponsor, at zero cost to anyone.
Or it could have been a second slip of Jer's wrist.
I tend to like Monty because, while understated, he is the more reasoned and relatable of the two. Machine (and TC really) is more "twitter smart". Very narrative based, not too much depth.
ReplyDeleteA little off topic, but did Gordo end up backing off the pursuit of Skittles? I hope enough people told Gordo to be nice to Skittles that he thought better of it.
ReplyDeleteCorby's life is so kick ass. Thanks Greggo.
ReplyDeleteI was going to try to head off the Corby comments, but missed it.
ReplyDeleteI liked Corby's Pearl Jam/Wrigley Field stories and the tape he brought back. Also the call with Linda Santo.
The guy does have a kickass life, and wouldn't we all like to have it? Here's a thing: All of the Ticket hosts have kickass lives. Corby is of a generation and inclination to get out of the house and go places and do things and see bands and go skiing. I guess some listeners hear some cooler-than-thou in these stories, and if you do I won't argue with you. I don't; and I don't think the segments dedicated to his adventures -- which, my view, are fewer and farther between than some of the Corbysux folks think -- give off a vibe of late-yuppie aristocracy.
Anyway, kept me listening. Thought it was good.
As a contemporary of Corby's (age, demo), I think Pearl Jam sucks. It's white man's overbite lite rock for frat boys. So, excuse me If I found his weekend getaway segment uninteresting.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're right, all the hosts seem to have kick ass lives. And I don't mind hearing about their exploits on the whole. With Corby, it's the way he describes these exploits that I find so obnoxious. It's the way he name drops in a name dropping sort of way. It's the jet setting vibe to the thing. He's a frat rat douche knocker, plain and simple. I don't care if he's 46, married with two kids, and by all appearances responsible person. He's still a frat rat. And he's a tough listen when it comes to his good times.
BTW, is Mike still a full time Hardliner? He seems to only participate from 3:45-3:52. After that, he might as well be learning to fly...or somesuch.
@ Pman. Danny is also of that age (I'm not much younger than those two also) but don't think he feels the need to talk about his adventures like Corby does. Even if Danny made host money, he's better than that. I'm sure it's how he was raised. And I'm sure that's why Corby's like he is too, growing up in his privileged, gated community. It just sweats out of him. I can take him on the radio about 35% of the time, and lately I've just been skipping THL altogether.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I suffer through a Corby bit is if I get caught off guard on the top 10. I'll will, ever now and then, stick around for Mike's mind, and on rare occasion, check in for Corby's quick hits. The last time I tuned in for THL, Corby was all excited about [now help me here] something about an actor, or maybe a singer, that was involved in...either designing a baseball bat... or was buying a baseball bat company...something like that, can't really remember. But Corby was all worked up about it. I then...eh...reached over and changed the station.
ReplyDelete...oh, btw, loved BaD's bit on Ray Stone. That was awesome! That was some funny times. Bad decision coach...bad decision!
ReplyDelete@846
ReplyDeleteComment of the year. Spot. Fucking. On.
Dang, a lot of corky cridjiasyzm going around as of late. Have some respect for the guy, guys. He puts in the work to get the job done day in and day out, and Zero luck or favors played in to his current lot in life. corky works smart too. He gives Cumulus their money's worth before he leaves early to catch a charter, to go find the wallet or phone he loses once a sports season, or kicks the feed over to the Starrrs at 6pm all hockey season. It takes a special kind of uniqueness to talk about coyotes and helicopters in your neighborhood every week while your colleagues are writing books, making records or working with charities in their spare time. Jeez, if it wasn't for him, what kind of success do you think THL would have? Heck, you might even say corky IS The Ticket.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that I do prefer Kick Ass Life Corby to Preachy Corby as he lectures all of South Dallas in his white, privileged tone or Borderline Racist Corby as he mocks anything Hispanic.
ReplyDeleteMachine vs. the Lithuanian Twins is a total bit. Mike and Machine spend a couple of hours each week doing the Dragon Brag podcast. #realfriends
ReplyDeleteNot a podcast is ok, but still a tier 5 show. The chemistry between Monty and Machine are off, maybe because the show is still pretty new. In addition, they try and make waves by poking at other drive-time Ticket hosts, and they come off looking extremely bad. I think Machine would be ok doing the NBA show with Jake, but that's it. Monty will be a Ticker guy forever.
ReplyDelete