After Hours: The Battering of Britain

Once again we go After Hours to find out why streaming TV customers are finding their ordinary lives turned into TV dramas. There’s drama in the meth lab for Dr Smith, Will and the Robot in this week’s episode of ‘Lost and Spaced’ as an experiment gets out of hand, while The-Man-in-the-Pub wades into the ‘Paul is Dead’ debate and uncovers a bizarre tale of amnesia, stolen identities and market stalls. Psychic FM’s agony uncle looks into a case of ‘Naked Possession’ and we get a preview of WNKR’s new classic comedy. Finally, the ‘Battering of Britain’ is spotlighted in an investigation of a violent new trend sweeping the country: fish battery. Do fresh fish sales need to be restricted as gangs armed with fish bring terror to Britain’s streets?

‘After Hours’ was created using Google AI Studio, ChatGPT with sound effects and theme music by Freesound Community via Pixababy.com. Music: ‘Sunday Bell Shuffle’, ‘Cold Signal Burst’ and ‘Veil of Sleep’ by Cosmiczebra via Suno.com.

Listen Here: After Hours: The Battering of Britain 

Episode six!  I can't deny that this one was a bit of a trial to come up with and was completed in a rush.  For one thing, I went through something of a personal crisis of confidence amid worries over my lack of direction last month.  Even when I got past that, for the life of me, I had absolutely no idea on what the content would be, so scripting started late and recording even later.  Even then, I was still prevaricating over the running order of the segments right up to publication.  I have to say that, overall, I'm less happy about this episode than the previous couple.  I'm just not sure that the mix of items was right. Still, there are a couple of entirely original items in there, rather than just stuff reworked from The Sleaze.  I might actually give 'After Hours' a break for August, as I need time to rethink and re-jig the project, as I've had some ideas for the format of some of the individual segments.  Then again, I might not.  Watch this space.

After Hours: Confessions of a Sex Pest From Outer Space

Back in the world of After Hours, can Dan guess who the real celebrity sinner is in ‘It’s a Sin!’? We get a preview of the new, non-woke, ‘Doctor Who’, while The-Man-in-the-Pub ponders the existence of an entirely unknown (to the public) regeneration of The Doctor. ‘Consumer Eye’, meanwhile, investigates a dodgy ‘On the Day’ hearse hire app, with explosive consequences, while the ‘Downey Bit Spaceman’, who terrorised the female inhabitants of a small village, is exposed, before we go behind the scenes at a tabloid newspaper.

Listen Here: Confessions of a Peeping Tom From Outer Space 

‘After Hours’ was created using Google AI Studio, Chat GPT Reader and FreeTTS.  Sound effects by Freesound Community via Pixababy.  Music: ‘Spin the Wheel’ and ‘Cold House Files’ by Cosmiczebra via Suno.

We're at episode five already.  My battle to keep the running time continues, a battle I seem to be comprehensively losing.  Despite cutting out virtually all the inter-segment breaks, this one still weighs in at thirty four minutes.  It's still my aim to get down to around the thirty minute mark.  I think that next time around, I'll be curtailing somewhat The-Man-in-the-Pub's ramblings, as he is regularly the longest item in any given episode.  Anyway, overall, I'm pretty pleased with this episode overall - there is more completely original material, as opposed to stuff adapted from The Sleaze, than in previous editions.  I have no idea what's going to be in the next one so, until then, enjoy this one.

After Hours: My Life as an Urban Gorilla

 

Another episode of 'After Hours', which can be heard here:

After Hours: My Life as an Urban Gorilla 

Once again, keeping the running time down was a challenge - this one's just over thirty minutes, but not by much.  It did, however, result in one segment, which was scripted, being dropped in favour of a shorter piece.  It will, however, be held over for the next episode.   Editing this episode taught me another lesson in how carefully you have to monitor AI apps when you use them for producing content.  When I did my first listen through of an edit of the complete show - in movie terms it would have been a 'rough cut' - I realised that Google Ai Studio had duplicated one stretch of scrip, (the duplicate being in completely the wrong place) and had skipped part of the script for another segment.  While the former problem was an easy edit, the second required a re-recording of the whole segment's script as, due to my laziness, I couldn't recall which AI voice I had used originally, (I really need to start taking notes of which ones I use for which characters), so I just started from scratch.  Ultimately, though, I'm reasonably happy with this episode - which was largely created during those hot nights last week when it was impossible to sleep due to the heat.

 'After Hours’ was created using Google AI Studio and Chat GPT Reader.  Music and sound effects by Freesound Community and ShadowsandEchoes- all via Pixababy.

Once again, for the benefit of the knee-jerk AI-haters out there, I should emphasise that the AI part of 'After Hours' is simply the AI generated voices that provide the dramatis personae.  The words they speak are entirely scripted by a human being: me.  So think twice before you go off on some rant about 'AI Slop'.

As a final footnote, the show art, as ever, was generated using an AI app using the simplest prompts possible - in this case 'gorilla sitting in armchair, wearing trilby hat and reading newspaper in a cage in a zoo'.  While the resulting imagery was actually pretty good, I find it disturbing that the gorilla appears to be wearing my new hat. (Which, strictly speaking, is a fedora, not a trilby - the latter traditionally having a shorter brim which rolls up at the back).  How did the bloody app know that I'd just bought a brown fedora?  Is it trying to mock me?  If I was Richard Dawkins, I'd take that as proof that it sentient, rather than simply accepting it as an amusing coincidence...

After Hours: The Man Who Fought Hitler's Ghost

The latest episode of 'After Hours', which can be heard here:

After Hours: The Man Who Fought Hitler's Ghost

This is episode three and I'm somewhat happier with this one than the previous edition.  It could still do with a slightly shorter running time, but overall, it is far more streamlined than its predecessor.  Most of the segments were recorded as the scripts were completed, which was a far more satisfying production process than the hurried scrabble of the the previous episode.  I did encounter a couple of glitches, the main one being that Google AI Studio decided that it didn't like something about one of the scripts, but wouldn't specify exactly what, resulting in some trial-and-error rewriting on the fly.  Whatever the problem was. some aspect of my rewrites must have eliminated it.

As ever, some technical credits:  ‘After Hours’ was created using Google AI Studio and GPT Reader.  Music and sound effects by Freesound Community and Simplesound – all via Pixababy.  

Actually, for the benefit of the knee-jerk AI-haters out there, I should emphasise that the AI part of After Hours' is simply the AI generated voices that provide the dramatis personae.  The words they speak are entirely scripted by a human being: me.  So think twice before you go off on some rant about 'AI Slop'.

After Hours: A Day in the Life of a Tribute Messiah

 

 

Another episode of 'After Hours', my new podcast.   I have to admit that it isn't as polished as I'd hoped, not to mention the fact that it should have seen the light of day at least a week ago, unfortunately, however, everything got delayed by events beyond my control culminating in a family bereavement.  I'm not going to go into further detail, but it all blew off course.  So, while most of the scripts for the various segments were already written, a couple had to be hurriedly knocked together in order for me to be able to record and edit the episode over the weekend.  Which meant that none of the scripts was edited as tightly as I would have liked, with one being a last minute replacement for a planned segment which was just too complex to edit in a short time and would have sent the running time way over length.  As it is, the episode runs just over half an hour - my intent was to try and keep these episodes down to under thirty minutes apiece.

 

Still, I'm reasonably happy with this episode.  I have to admit that putting it together proved to be pretty theraputic and helped take my mind off of other matters.   Lessons to take away from creating this episode are that the scripts need to be tighter and shorter and that I need to start the recording and editing process as they are written, not wait until I've got them all completed.  

 

Anyway, you can listen to it here:  After Hours: A Day in the Life of a Tribute Messiah. 

 

As ever, some credits for the technical side: After Hours was created using Google AI Studio, GPT Reader and TextSpeakPro.  Music and sound effects by Freesound Community, Crab Audio, Dragon Studios and Artificially Inspired - all via Pixababy.  

After Hours

Another podcast.  This one, unlike the last couple I plugged here, is composed of entirely new material and is, in effect, the pilot for a series of shows with a similar format, replacing the old, eponymous, podcast I used to do for Onsug.  In common with those other recent podcasts, not to mention the short Nothing is Real series I also recorded for Onsug, I don't, personally feature in After Hours.  The scripts are mine, but they are 'performed' by a dramatis personae of AI created voices.  Most of them are amongst the most sophisticate Text-To-Speech (TTS) systems you can use these days: Google AI Studio and GPT Reader, for instance.  In order to get some British accents in, though, for one segment I've had to use the older, less expressive, voices from Free TTS (which, only a few months ago, seemed incredibly advanced).

As I said, this is a pilot, so it is still a little rough around the edges and includes some features that might not make it into subsequent editions.  Overall, though, I'm reasonably pleased with it.  The Google AI Studio feature which allows the creation of a dialogue between two voices, without the need for all the tedious editing required when you have to stitch together recordings of two separate voices.  It's taken a while to come up with this new format and - as indicated - it is still evolving.  The next episode won't try to simply replicate exactly the format of this structure but will, hopefully, start introducing some new features.  'The Man in the Pub', though, is intended to be a more or less permanent feature - he's also a link with the previous podcast series, having appeared in the last three of those, (although he was never referred to as 'The Man in the Pub' and it was never obvious that he was in one - he did have a name, actually, but it was never mentioned).  

So, some credits for the technical side: After Hours was created using Google AI Studio, GPT Reader, Free TTS and TextSpeakPro.  Music and sound effects by Freesound Community, Luis Humanoide and Universefield - all via Pixababy.  

 

Listen Here: After Hours. 

Cognitive Dissonance

Get those ear goggles back on and tune into another selection of unlikely news stories culled from the archives of The Sleaze.

This time around, the American Mid-West reels as Trump breaks wind in Milwaukee - according to early reports, the casualties could be high.  Back on the West Coast, Trump's tariffs come home to roost as Japan sends its Kaiju to destroy Los Angeles - can giant clones of Trump, Vance and Hegseth see them off?  Action Business News is on the scene.

We also explore toxic masculinity, from insecure influencers to stealth phones that can undress women.

Plus, has Dr Who gone too gay?  Our correspondents discuss the true sexual imagery of the long-running BBC science fiction series, while we also hear a strange reminiscence about a lost Dr Who story the BBC feared could have caused a major schism with the Vatican.

Not to forget Peter Lorre's amazing erectile dysfunction cure.

Listen here:  Cognitive Dissonance. 

So, get those ear goggles on, sit back and let that wholesome sleaze wash over you!

Written and produced by Doc Sleaze.

 

Sleazy Scary Stories

Vincent Price and Peter Lorre crawl out from their catacombs to disinter a trio of sleazy scary stories from the musty archives of ‘The Sleaze’. Join them to listen to three tales from the seamier side of horror: ‘The Ghost Gropers’, ‘Split Sexuality’ and ‘Flushed With Fear’.

Tremble as we uncover a disturbing new paranormal craze gripping Britain’s youth, as they try to raise the spirits of deceased and disgraced celebrity sex offenders. Will they be groped from beyond the grave?

Shudder as our paranormal agony aunt, the Reverend Leonard Fanny, advises a mad medic who seems to be in two minds over his spiritual sexuality. Can the Rev save his soul, let alone his sex life?

Recoil in horror at the story of a toilet that terrorised the occupants of an English hotel. Is there any way that the killer kazi can be tamed before it flushes in the apocalypse?

Put on your ‘ear goggles’ and enjoy this trilogy of sleazy scary stories that will make you shiver with fear and revulsion!

Click here to listen: Sleazy Scary Stories 

Schlock on Stream

I seem to have spent a large part of today putting together another podcast for The Overnightscape Underground, to the exclusion of much else.  As ever, it is based largely upon my posts here for the past month.  I must admit that this one seemed to go together far more smoothly as usual - no devices unilaterally deleting recordings before they can be backed up, for instance.  Anyway, the long and the short of it is that, as is often the case when I edit these things together, particularly when it happens on a Friday, I find myself with neither the inclination nor the inspiration to come up with a new post.  It isn't that things haven't been happening that are post-worthy, or that I haven't watched a whole load of exploitation films this week.  It's just that I don't feel like writing about them right now.  I will mention, though, that I've had various streaming channels playing continuously on the TV as a background for my podcast recording and editing, mainly via an app called Rewarded.TV, which runs several live streams that carry old movies.  Typically, they have three films a day, punctuated by features, shorts or old TV episodes, running on a loop for twenty four hours.  One stream is crime themed (they carry some good, lesser known, film noirs from the forties and fifties), another is science fiction/conspiracy themed and shows a mix of older Italian, American, British and Japanese movies, (I saw Gorgo and Battle in Outer Space today), while the third specialises in horror movies, including many English language versions of continental films.  (They've had a few fifties Hammer movies on this week).

Many are films that don't often turn up on the free streaming channels - yesterday we had The Sentinel and Burnt Offerings back-to-back) - a few are more recent direct-to-video productions, but most are surprisingly good movies to find on this sort of service.  The channels also use very good quality sources for the versions they show rather than the usual fourth or fifth generation video dupes taken from scratchy and jumpy prints. So far - in the couple of weeks I've been watching, at least - there hasn't been much duplication of the films showing, something else unusual for this sort of service, which usually works with a very limited library of titles.  All-in-all, it provides a pretty good, free to air (it is ad-supported) service, which usually turns up at least one film a day that I want to watch, with the rolling format meaning that I can usually catch them at times convenient to me.  I should also mention that Rewarded.TV has a pretty extensive on-demand library of mainly older movies - while some of these are familiar and available elsewhere, I was able to watch Craze (1973) there, which I hadn't seen in an age and have never seen on any other service.  So there you go - not really a proper post but, for those of you with a Roku box, a recommendation of somewhere else you can get to watch classic exploitation movies, (Rewarded.TV may be available on other platforms - I don't know as I only stream via Roku).

Oh, before we go, for anyone interested, the latest podcast can be found here.

Lost and Not Found

Why is it that technology seems to conspire to frustrate us at the most inconvenient time?  I wasted an inordinate amount of time this evening when trying to put together a new podcast for the Overnightscape Underground after my phone, on which I was recording the various segments, decided to lose every one of my audio files, including the three I hadn't yet backed up to my laptop.  No, I didn't inadvertently delete them - one minute they were there, the next they were gone.  Despite having a 'recycling bin' feature, the audio recorder app unhelpfully claimed that it was empty.  I tried using a file recovery app - all it 'found' were the older audio files stored in another directory, rather than the lost ones it was meant to locate.  The current audio files I'd been working on seem to have vanished without a trace. So, after arseing around trying to recover them with no success, I was forced to re-record the three I hadn't managed to back up, wasting yet more time.  It was all very frustrating.  Anyway, the long and the short of it is that the podcast was finally completed and is currently up here.   As ever, it is closely based on posts from this blog, with a few media extras.  

I often joke about it being the 'least listened to podcast on the web'.  In reality, I have no idea how many people listen to my podcasts as they aren't posted on my site.  I suspect, however, that even if only a handful of people listened to each one, they'd actually rate pretty highly on the globally 'most listened to' charts (if such a thing existed).  I'm basing this on some information I gleaned from Facebook regarding The Sleaze's page there - according to them, it is a page with 'high interaction'.  Which was news to me as the number of visits registered for each post is lucky to climb into double figures.  Yet, apparently, in the scheme of things, this rates it highly among the thousands of similar pages.  (This, it seems, was why they made me jump through hoops last year forcing me to increase the security on my account).  Consequently, I figure that despite the fact that there are various high profile, professionally produced, podcasts out there getting huge listening figures, the reality is that there are simply so many podcasts produced globally every day (hundreds of thousands, at least), that statistically, these are only a tiny minority of podcasts and that most of them are barely listened to, depressing the overall average number of listeners per podcast.  Meaning that getting even a handful of listeners will put you up above the average engagement level.  So, I'm quietly confident that every podcast published on the Overnightscape Underground counts as above average in listener engagement terms.

The Sleazecast: Evil Spirit of Christmas

The web's least listened to podcast gets another seasonal airing.  This time around, The Sleazecast embraces the evil spirit of Christmas during this season of ill will.  Suzie Sleaze's English cousin uncovers the perils of the rogue Santas, we meet 'The Man Who Hates Christmas' and investigate the cruel sport of 'Santa Fighting', in which two Father Christmases fight to the death!  We also present a dire warning as to the peril posed by possessed Christmas trees and expose the sham of Santa's Seasonal Shed.  Unique cover versions of some Christmas classics are interspersed along the way!  A miserable Christmas to one and all

As ever,  you can download it here: The Sleazecast: Evil Spirit of Christmas, or listen to it using the Streampad bar at the bottom of the page.

Will The Sleazecast ever return to a regular schedule, or will we have to wait another year for the next one?  Who knows?  Certainly not me!

The Sleazecast: Ghost Radio

Hastily recorded and shoddily edited, it can only be one thing, an all new Halloween edition of 'The Sleazecast',  All the favourites are back: Suzy Sleaze gives us the news on the 'Hijab Halloween','Alarmist News' is back to try and raise Jimmy Savile from the dead and Sherlock Holmes finally gets to part three of 'The Whips of Fear'.  Plus, 'Ghost Radio' interviews the author of 'I Married a Poltergeist' and probes the world of singles seances.  Boris Karloff makes a guest appearance and Britain's fastest milkman gets a Gothic makeover.

("News Theme" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

You can download it here, or listen to it now using the 'Streampad' bar below.

Yeah, I know, it's been a while since I put together a new episode of the web's least listened to podcast and even longer since one was debuted here at Sleaze Diary.  It's a long and dull story as to why it is happening now, but I won't bore you with that.  Just listen and - hopefully- enjoy.  It's not the best I've ever put together, (the speed at which it was conceived, recorded and edited mean that it is somewhat rough around the edges in places), but I'm reasonably happy with it.

Anyway, it will probably be Christmas before I even think about recording another 'Sleazecast', although I'll hopefully be working on some other audio projects before then.

A Sleazecast Christmas Carol

It's been a long, long time, but here it is: an all new edition of 'The Sleazecast', the first in over a year.  It uses a similar format to the last couple I completed and, as befits the time of year, has a Christmas theme.

For something that only runs twenty five minutes, I have to say that it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to record, sequence and edit together.  It didn't help that, having updated my laptop to Windows 10, I found that the new operating system didn't support the older SAPI4 synthetic voices (one of which was the robot voice I previously used for Johnny Sexbot) - in fact, it doesn't seem to want to support anything other than the two voices the narrator software comes with.

So, faced with the choice either of trying to get my faulty old Windows 7 laptop up and running again, so as to access the older voices, or to find some kind of makeshift solution using the current machine, I opted for the latter.  Using Audacity, I was able to manipulate the male narrator voice to make it sound more robotic.  It still doesn't really sound like Johnny Sexbot but, bearing in mind that he exploded at the end of 'Unlucky for Some', my explanation is that this is the new, improved, Johnny Sexbot 2.0.   

I must confess that the Johnny Sexbot sequences are a bit rough and ready - I just didn't have sufficient time to finesse them as I normally would, as I wanted to be sure of getting the programme up onto the Overnightscape Underground before Christmas. Speaking of which, the Overnightscape Underground is currently the new home of 'The Sleazecast', as they very kindly re-ran the older editions there, I felt I should give something back. 

Anyway, you can hear 'A Sleazecast Christmas Carol' here, meanwhile, as I normally do, here's a track listing:

1: Opening Titles

2: Sexbot of Christmas Past (featuring Orson Welles as Scrooge);

3: Ghost Story for Christmas: The Stalls of Crapchester (part one);

4: Alarmist News: Santa's White Supremacist Christmas? (part one);

5: Sexbot on 34th Street

6: Ghost Story for Christmas: The Stalls of Crapchester (part two);

7:  Alarmist News: Santa's White Supremacist Christmas? (part two);

8: Ghost Story for Christmas: The Stalls of Crapchester (part three);

9: Alarmist News: Santa's White Supremacist Christmas? (part three);

10: It's a Wonderful Sexbot (featuring James Stewart);

11: Scrooge: The Morning After (featuring Orson Welles as Scrooge)

12: Closing Titles

So, there you go, the sixteenth Sleazecast (or seventeen, if you include that 'I for Illusion' special, which wasn't really a 'Sleazecast' proper).  Will there be more?  Hopefully, yes.  Provided that I have the inspiration, inclination and time, of course.

The Sleazecast: Something For Nothing

At long last, the much delayed fourteenth Sleazecast!  I won't bore you with the details of why it has taken two months to complete.  I will tell you that I'm quite proud of the finished article.  It follows the same format as the previous one - a series of fabricated audio fragments.  The mix has been varied somewhat, with some new features.  Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman guest star. Oh, the title?  Unlike last time, it does get referenced in the show, in the first segment.  That said, it's still pretty arbitrary and really has no relation to anything that happens in any of the segments.  The same is true of the image I'm using for this Sleazecast - it just happened to be something I had to hand and hadn't used before.



But enough talk - on with the show.  With the demise of Yahoo Media Player, you'll now have to click on the 'Streampad' bar at the bottom of the page - it'll bring up a list of all the available podcasts.  This one should be at the top.  Alternatively, you can simply download it here as am mp3:

The Sleazecast: Something For Nothing

As ever, a brief track listing:

1. Intro

2. Night Caller (Midnight Radio, August 2011) - another unsuspecting listener gets a shock when the Night Caller calls for a chat.  Secrets will be exposed.

3.  Balls of St Mary's (Mutual Network, November 1946) - Father O'Malley's cassocks create quite a stir when he arrives at St Mary's Convent School!

4.  Talking Dirty (May 2013) - the frank-talking podcast about all things sexual meets Melvyn Gink and his Surbiton sex machines.

5. Suzie Sleaze brings us the latest news.

6.  Balls of St Mary's - Father O'Malley courts controversy as he comforts a distraught parent.

7. Sherlock Holmes and The Whips of Fear - episode two of the 78rpm Conan Doyle recording.

8. Talking Dirty - Melvyn demonstrates 'The Intruder' and the 'Jug Milker'.

9.  Balls of St Mary's - some one-on-one tuition with one of the girls puts Father O'Malley in a compromising position.

10. Talking Dirty - Melvyn takes us on a tour of his home made bondage dungeon.

11.  Night Caller - the Night Caller leaves a message for a listener.


Well, that's it for this time.  Hopefully the next Sleazecast won't take so long to produce, (I've already got parts of it recorded).

The Sleazecast: Unlucky For Some

Here it is at last!  The first Sleazecast of 2013, the first in a new series and the first of a new style of Sleazecast.  It's been a long time in the making, but I think the wait has been worthwhile.  This edition of the Sleazecast represents a huge leap forward in terms of both format and content.  All of the segments in 'Unlucky For some' have been manufactured by me: some are entirely original, others are cut-ups and re-editings of old radio programmes with new material added to them.  I'll be the first to admit that some segments work better than others, but this is still a learning experience for me and the lessons I've learned from this one will be incorporated into the next Sleazecast.  Anyway, I've talked enough - on with the show itself, (which runs just under thirty minutes, which, I hope, will be the standard length for series three of The Sleazecast), which you can listen to here:

The Sleazecast: Unlucky For Some 

Alternatively, you can download the mp3 here.

As always, here's a rough track listing:

1.  Intro

2.  The Couple Next Door, December 1960 - 'Johnny Sexbot Calls'.  Classic radio soap opera.

3.  Sherlock Holmes and The Whips of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Episode One.  Rare 1936 78rpm recording of this classic.

4.  Practical Conspiracies, October 2011 - an edition of the popular conspiracy podcast featuring Joe Dobbler discussing his controversial new meta-conspiracy theory.

5.  News Headlines with Suzie Sleaze.

6.  Practical Conspiracies, October 2011 - Joe Dobbler explains how President Kennedy was assassinated to cover up his gay affair with J Edgar Hoover.

7.  The Couple Next Door, December 1960 - Johnny Sexbot settles in with the family.

8.  The Synths - a rare surviving episode of the sitcom from 1971, in which the truth behind the US Space Programme is discussed by the family.

9.  Practical Conspiracies, October 2011 - Joe Dobbler exposes the shocking conspiracy which lies behind conspiracy theories.

10.  The Couple Next Door, December 1960 - Johnny and Aunt Effie suffer a setback in the bedroom.


So, there you have it, another edition of the web's least listened to podcast in the can.  Hopefully, the next one won't be quite so time-consuming to create - look out for it sometime next month (hopefully).

The Sleazecast at Christmas

Well, here we are we with the Christmas edition of The Sleazecast.  It was touch and go whether or not I'd get this one completed on time, so many other things kept diverting my energies.  But, with more than a day to go, I finished it.  In the end I decided to drop one sequence I was working as it was just too complex to complete on time.  It would also have pushed the running time to over an hour.  Maybe next year. 

Anyway, this one features much less of me talking and far more of the re-edited archive material, original segments and the like.  Indeed, we feature several special guest stars, including Orson Welles, Monty Woolley, Lionel Barrymore, the Synthetic Voice Choir, Suzie Sleaze, Fred Allen and Ed Gardner.

But enough talk, on with the show (which runs around 44 minutes), which you can hear here:

The Sleazecast at Christmas

Alternatively, you can download it here in mp3 format. 

Here's a rough track listing:

1. Intro - Santa is dead!

2. Christmas without Santa - is it possible?  The Doc muses on the possibilities.

3. Better to give than receive - the philosophy Christmas gift giving at Duffy's Tavern.

4. Receiving the unwanted gift and what to do with it, advice from Monty Woolley and Fred Allen.

5. Seasonal overindulgence, advice from the 1940s.

6.  The tragedy of the Christmas turkey and perfect festive listening - more rudeness from Monty Woolley.

7.  Orson Welles introduces A Campbell's Soup Christmas Carol.

8. The condensed Christmas Carol - the Doc shows Charles Dickens how he should have done it.

9.  Festive News Headlines with Suzie Sleaze.

10.  Christmas in Tripoli, 1942.

11.  The replacement Santa - Monty Woolley dons the red coat.

12.  The Synthetic Voice Choir gives us their version of 'We Three Kings (Playground Lyrics)'.

13.  Wrap up - the Doc thanks everybody involved, especially himself.

14.  'We Three Kings', an early 1900s cylinder recording plays us out.

There you have it - the second annual Sleazecast Christmas Special.  I tried to make it as different as possible to last year's and, hopefully, it will provide you with some festive easy listening.  I'm pretty proud of it, the whole thing is much better than I expected.  The Sleazecast will be back next year.  Until then, have a good one!   

The Sleazecast: House of Horrors!

At long last!  The final episode of series two of The Sleazecast!  Debuting several months late, this one has been delayed by illness and indecision over the subject matter.  As you can undoubtedly guess from the title and content, this started life as a Hallowe'en edition, but in the end I couldn't even make that deadline.  It has also grown from its original conception to weigh in at sixty eight minutes, making it the longest Sleazecast yet.  Anyway, with the exception of a special Christmas edition, this is the last Sleazecast I intend putting out this year.  I intend taking a break from podcasting whilst I tweak the format again and prepare some more original material for the next series of Sleazecasts.

But without further ado, let's get on with The Sleazecast: House of Horrors, featuring special guests Boris Karloff, Ronald Coleman and Vincent Price.

The Sleazecast: House of Horrors!

or you can download it here as an mp3 file. 

A rough track listing:

1. Intro

2. Tales of The Frightened - Boris Karloff recounts a terrifying tale entitled 'Don't Lose Your Head'.

3.  'Dawn of The Dead Remix' - spooky music from DJ Dr Toast.

4.  Horrific Tales - the Doc recalls his teenage viewings of classic horror movies.

5. 'The Dunwich Horror' Part One of a 1945 adaptation of H P Lovecraft's classic tale of terror.

6. Modern Horror is Rubbish!  Or is it?  Our host looks at contemporary horror flicks.

7.  Horrific Headlines with Suzie Sleaze.

8. 'The Dunwich Horror' Part Two.

9. The Meaning of Horror - The Doc investigates the true nature of the subject.

10. 'The Dunwich Horror' Part Three - the drama concludes.

11. 'Haunted House of Horticulture or, I Walked With a Zucchini'

12.  H P Lovecraft on Film - more musings from our host.

13. 'Haunted House Party' - DJ Dr Toast wraps things up with another spooky remix.


So there you have it - another Sleazecast done and dusted.  Listen and enjoy!

The Sleazecast: High Strangeness

Well, here it is at last - the longest Sleazecast yet, weighing in at sixty seven minutes or so. But do I care? Hell, no! I tried doing a shorter Sleazecast last time and nobody bloody listened to it! So to Hell with you all! Actually, I'm pretty pleased with this one - much less of me just talking and more professional open source material. I'm afraid that my links sound a bit ropey due to my continued hay fever problems - I delayed recording my vocals in the hope that it would clear up, but to no avail. Nonetheless, overall the whole thing panned out pretty well, with some innovative developments. Moreover, for once the theme - all things paranormal - was actually sustained for the whole broadcast.

I have to admit that this is actually my third attempt to get this particular podcast off the ground - I twice abandoned it due to my inability to get a handle on the material or to find a suitable approach. Anyway, as ever, enough talking about the podcast - you can listen to it here:

The Sleazecast: High Strangeness

Alternatively, you can download it here as an mp3 file.

The track listing is as follows:

1. Introduction: the 1970 radio ad for supernatural Mondo Witchcraft '70 gets us in the mood.

2. Come to The Sabbat! A tune from Black Widow kicks off proceedings.

3. Doc Sleaze muses on the image of the witch through the ages.

4. Modern day witch Louise Heubner on the true nature of witchcraft and magic.

5. The Doc ponders the 1944 witchcraft trials and fakery in spiritualism.

6. Fraudulent Spiritualists - an investigation from the pages of the Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, vol 6, courtesy of Libravox.

7. Paranormal News with Suzie Sleaze.

8. The Stockbridge Sasquatch - Doc Sleaze and guests investigate the mystery of the Hampshire Bigfoot sightings.

9. 'Space Belongs to Me, Do You Hear?' HP Lovecraft inspired sounds from The Unnameable.

10. The Flying Saucer Mystery - more musings from Doc Sleaze.

11. Alien Abduction - a medley of abductees' experiences - in their own words.

12. Conclusion.

13. Conjuration! Black Widow play us out.

OK, that's another one done and dusted! I've no idea when the next Sleazecast will be, or what it will be about. Keep watching this space!

The Sleazecast: Looking Backward

After much delay, the tenth Sleazecast is here. As promised, it is shorter than usual. A sort of pocket edition, with much less of me rambling on. This is mainly made up of bits and pieces I'd either recorded or downloaded for previous editions, but for various reasons hadn't used. The delay came in recording the new linking sections, which, for some reason, I just couldn't be arsed to do for several weeks.

But Hell, it's done now and even, despite the disparate origins of its elements, even has a sort of theme running through most of it. Namely, the dangers of always looking to the past rather than the future. But enough of the introductions, you can hear it hear (it runs 25 minutes):

The Sleazecast: Looking Backward

Alternatively, you can download it as an mp3 here.

As ever, here's a brief track listing:

1. Intro - It's That Man Again!

2. Looking Backward - Doc Sleaze ponders the Diamond Jubilee, nostalgia and the dangers of living in the past.

3. Tommy Handley vs Malcolm X - 'That Man' gets racist and meets the wrath of Malcolm X.

4. Movie Musings From the Woods - the Doc muses over the futility of origin stories and the tedium of remakes.

5. News For The Confused..

6. Wrap Up - the Doc draws things to a close

7. Suzie Sleaze Sings the Sex Pistols - our newsreader plays us out with her cover of God Save The Queen.

Well, there's another one done! Unusually, I've already got the next one planned. It should appear some when in August. Until then, enjoy this one.

I For Illusion - A Sleazecast Special

As threatened, here's an extended version of the segment I recently contributed to the Overnightscape Central podcast over on the Overnightscape Underground. It's a bit of a throwback to the 'old days' of the Sleazecast, with just me talking, which is why I haven't included this as part of the main Sleazecast series, which nowadays has a somewhat different format. However, unlike those earlier podcasts, this one does, at least, feature me talking in a variety of locations, so it could also count as a travelogue, I suppose. Anyway, the topic of the day on the Overnightscape Central this was originally recorded for was 'illusion', so I spend the podcast ruminating on the subject of the illusion of film and the suspension of disbelief which is required in order to sustain it.

So, without further ado, here it is, for your listening pleasure (it runs around 39 minutes):

I For Illusion - A Sleazecast Special

Alternatively, you can download it in mp3 format here.

Hopefully, this won't be the only podcast I post this month. I'm planning to put together a sort of mini-Sleazecast, running 15-20 minutes, as a stop-gap until I gather the material I need for the next full-length Sleazecast. Also, it is a way of using up some material I recorded, but didn't use, for an earlier podcast. So, until then, enjoy I For Illusion.