[Archive/Podcast]: #BehindScreenandSpeaker2024 - A Primer/Explainer For A Whole Bunch-a C O N T E N T. [27.12.24]
EDITOR’S NOTE - MARCH 4th, 2025.
Note: So, this one requires a bit of explanation, given it’s not March 2025 and originally, the Behind Screen and Speaker series content that was slated for release on New Year’s Eve last year was interrupted by… well, me finding out at 6pm on the same evening that our entire website had unexpectedly died (RIP).
I’ve made the executive decision going forward to merge both 2024’s Behind Screen and Speaker omnibus series (as a more retrospective reviews series across our main topical domains - music, arts, mental health, hobbies, gaming etc) with a prospective-based look at 2025.
Thus, you’ll not only read some contextual language around Xmas 2024 in the following article due to that being the time of posting, but also a lot of mentions to some content that has yet to be completed by myself.
Turns out, exhuming and manually reposting four years’ worth of content from the back-end of one dead website to a completely new host provider…. takes a while.
I’m glad to state that we are finally verging on the cusp of having completed full blog necromancy, and Behind Screen and Speaker is a huge series that I absolutely intend to continue very soon!
Peace, Love and Stable Website Hosts - Brady.
Merry Christmas Redux + Some Resources:
First and foremost, I'd like to reiterate our best wishes around hoping y'all had a Merry (and decidedly less nerdy) FICSMAS Christmas!
Secondly, refer to this nice infographic below if you've felt a little left-out from the social-media FOMO this year. Christmas comes with a lot of hardship for many out there who may be socially isolated, escaping problematic situations or dealing with grief, loss, illness or the like.
Credit: the fantastic and infallible Self-Love Rainbow.
You can check out Dominee's excellent peer-led, pragmatic and positive resources via her website, Facebook page or Instagram profile. Mad props, mad respect. Keep up the great work, Dominee!
I'm right there with you, personally. I was very thankful for having a completely uneventful Christmas this year in my current state, that's for sure.
Below that, there's a few Aus-specific numbers you can contact. I'm not going to exhaustively note national or international resources for the scope of this post, but suffice to say, you are NOT alone in it if the Xmas period has been flat, triggering or otherwise. My props to you for making it through and I wish for some rest and recovery for you, and the legion of those toughing it out working nights, away, and otherwise through the break. Thank you. I mean that.
Okay. Dr. Phil moment over (minus the problematic ties to for-profit youth residential centres. Nope, not even touching that one today).
Load those shells into the bombers, belt-feed that machine-gun and crank up ZIE FLAMMENWERFER, 'cause I'm about to go frankly nuts on the blog and podcast in the coming few days! #sorrynotsorry
ist das Leben nicht ein solches mysterium, eh?
BEHIND SCREEN AND SPEAKER - 2024. AKA, GET ON WITH IT, BRADY
Yeah sure, it sounds like I'm trying to big-note myself in some documentarian-styled title. I get that, but I promise you, if anything? It's just a way of communicating what a disparate tie-in mess the annual wrap-up is.
Get it?
Screen? 'cause like.... phone screen, laptop screen, tabletop DM screen?
Speaker? 'Cause like, a person speaking, amplifier, PC speakers, etc.
Yeah, not funny and not clever, but that's fine.
So the intent behind #BSaS is thus - a lot of podcasts, magazines and whatnot have wrap-up style posts, right?
Well, typically those are more focused within a certain niche. Take, for instance, this lad's great accent and his wrap-up of the best space gaming titles of 2024. Just some of many, many great retrospectives in many entertainment circles hitting the 'Tube in December.
Love your work, LT!
Well, I wanted to do that review/critique/whatever-flavoured thing of a similar nature, sure.
But I also want to go in a bit of a ??different?? direction with things, too.
By the whole tagline of 'Hobbies. Riffs. Mental Health', I don't exactly want to make all these retrospectives about myself or anything, but I really want to speak both broadly and more specifically to how engaging in XYZ content has been helpful, therapeutic, inspiring or even challenging for myself, our team and the community writ-large.
Still feeling like this is a bit too vacuous and amorphous a mess of an idea? Well shucks, buddy *points behind screen and speaker to IDK, the past few years of content*.
That also said - fair.
So here's a plan of how this is going to shake down.
BREAK IT UP. BAKE HIM AWAY, TOYS.
Rather than make one leviathan/monolith of a post that is legible only to Maynard Keenan, God, GPT chatbots scraping my public ramblings for training data and VERY bored holidayers, #BSaS as a post will act as part blog-post, part index.
I'll be breaking the thing up into numerous 'Riffs', such as this one. (For those new here - reference; by Riff we essentially mean either briefer articles or non-specific topical content that doesn't make it to a dedicated podcast episode).
And those Riffs will be sorted under the following headers:
Music
Tabletop/Board Games/Wargaming etc
Tech/Apps
Video Games (Vidya!)
Media - TV, Shows, Youtubers/Content-Creators
Within each these may vary across categories, same with the final product. But we’ll see. L
Let's use 'Music' as an example.
#BehindScreenAndSpeaker2024 - MUSIC:
Noting most of these will be broken into either single or multiple 'Riffs' as subjects:
Reviews:
Was going to do just a static list of our reviews, but we have a header for that on the main website now . Nah, instead, here I'll be getting feedback from the team and penning my own words on how we found the process of reviewing, from a writer's perspective.
Gear Reviews - New fretless. Got to talk about that thing. Plus experiences with some other gear, including reviewing my own podcaster setup, etc. Also want to discuss DAW's, plug-ins and some really cool musical apps. Sorry GAS-heads, more analog-facing reviews next year.
I started making solo music again this year. I'm too gun-shy to release my ambient/dark ambient stuff just yet.
A couple of us on the team are regularly practicing musicians, between us on the journey as members of the rhythm section in drums and bass respectively. Ergo, there'll be at least 1-2 Riffs on practice and process re: musicianship.
There's already a post for this category which has just gone up! You can check out my personal written and ad-hoc-recorded reflections on musicianship and my challenges, successes and inspirations with bass guitar right here.
Oh and for those wondering how all this is coming out of the wash just after Boxing Day? Yeah, not kidding when I say this thing has been a WIP all year.
(It's also been 'In Progress' all year because, y'know, brain and life stuff).
Expect a whole slew of individual 'Riffs' with the Behind Screen and Speaker moniker; you're welcome to check these out as they're drip-fed onto the blog.
The final 'episode' will be an audio podcast episode which I'll add into said blog post.
This is less me doing the whole 'Big Things Coming!' local-musician social media trope, and more just recognising that he, we cover a very disparate spread on this blog, and as such you, the readers/listeners might also appreciate having something a bit more centralised via which to engage with the stuff that's relevant.
Ho-kay. 'nuff from me. I have a mountain of content to get up onto the website!
Hope your holidays are travelling well (or work, for those having to slog through).
As Always,
Peace, Love and Grindcore xoxo - Brady.
p.s. - Some Mental Health Resources for Silly Season:
