Well not a radio station, But I got invited to be a guest on a Podcast.
“Pop, Pop, Music, Pop” Part 2 (Because this is where the music is.)
The whole thing started by looking for things to do in Korea that I haven’t done already. In the search my girlfriend made contact to a radio club and asked if they wanted a foreign guest for their show.
The Producer of the show said they would think about it as they plan out their future schedule. Well a few weeks later they called us with an idea.
The Show is called “Pop, Pop, Music, Pop” where they play, well you can guess it, Pop Music. So the idea was to have me come on the show and talk about radio and music trends in the United States. But we ran into one problem, and a pretty big one, I still can’t speak Korean, and they didn’t speak English either.
That’s where my wonderful girlfriend comes into play. What was to be a project for me, turned into a project for the both of us. She was employed as the translator/interpretor for the show.
The Process
First was a series of questions and conversation made in a group chat through KakaoTalk. On my end there was a lot of the use of Google Translate or just asking my girlfriend “What does this mean?” or “What are they saying now?”
Next came the first meeting. We met at a coffee shop nearby where I was staying. Our appointment was a 8:10pm which seemed odd to me but that was the agreed time. And great way to make a good first impression I was late… I had gone to a gathering that morning thinking everything would be finished by a reasonable hour and have at least 2 hours to make it to my appointment. Well I misjudged Korean traffic on a Friday evening in a popular tourist area. So I was 15 to 20 minutes late. The meeting was casual, three people came out to meet me The Host, Producer & Editor 양혜윤 (Yang, HyeYun), and the Sound Engineer 정욱교 (Jung, Wook-Kyo) and a third member which I’m still unsure the reason he was there.
In talking we discussed basic topics, like how do artist get discovered in America, what role do Podcast hold in the US, and what are my favorite Pop songs. They asked me to create a basic playlist of 4 songs with the fourth being what they will close the show with.
Coming into the project I thought it was going to be fun but there is a lot of work involved in researching the topic to get ready to be recorded. It so interesting the feeling that comes over you when you know people are actually going to listen to what you are going to say. I had my notebook ready, made a lot of cues for myself so I wouldn’t misquote any information, but the notes are only good if you use them.
On recording day I made sure to arrive early. I thought we would be going to a university campus recording studio but I found out that the government has provided a facility that is free to the public which has all the equipment to record and edit almost any medium. We were in the radio recording room. With some final note exchange we were off to the recording room to begin. In the excitement of it all I didn’t even take my notebook out of my backpack.
So Internet don’t kill me on something I might have misquoted. It was not intentional.
With that the most important thing I was able to take out of it was being able to work on a project with my girlfriend to find out how we cooperate with each other. Overall it was a wonderful experience.
Thank you again Hye-Yun & Wook-Kyo for invited me to be a part of your podcast.
