A monthly podcast about music.
By two people who love music.
Hello, and welcome! We’re Big Al Hammond and Phoebe Fowler, and we’ve been curating a monthly, changing music playlist since July of 2020, and starting in March of 2023, we added a podcast.
April showers bring eleven great songs for May! Some fun collaborations, some new artists, some returning friends. One artist we’ve seen live recently, lots more we wish we could see. Come along and listen with us…
Our April playlist features some older and more established artists, as well as a number of second-time returnees. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of new people that you probably haven’t heard of to spice things up. We’ll also talk about one of our favorite classic albums of the past.
Maybe our favorite themed playlists are when we find what we call “unconventional covers”. Songs you might recognize, but presented in a new (and sometimes almost foreign?) way. We think this batch (our volume three of this format) is out best ever, and at least a few of these are huge improvements on the originals. All eleven are fun and interesting takes on songs you might already know.
Welome to (unplanned) Alumni Month here in ItD,O Land. Al sort of intentionally made all his submissions former playlist faves, but it turns out that all eleven of our songs this month are from artists who have been in our playlist before. It’s a theme… without really intending to be a theme. Plus, we’re attempting to learn how to use some new microphones this month (ahhh, technology!), so hopefully we sound a little better, while remaining true to our uncompromisingly unprofessional standards!
Every eleven months, we go through our previous playlists and pick out the favorites of our favorites. Plot twist: Phoebe can only submit songs that were originally Al’s, and vice versa. So we end up with not only eleven great songs, but eleven songs that both of us feel a deep connection to. In this special bonus episode of our podcast, we’ll talk about these songs, why we love them, and what makes a song good enough to be a “Greatest Hit”.
Where in the podcast universe can you find Vic Chesnutt, Howlin’ Wolf, Lemoncello, and Doeschii, all in the same episode? You’re lookin’ at it! Our first playlist of the new year brings a great variety of artists… seven returning ones, and four great new additions too!
This month’s additions feature six new artists to our playlist, and five acts who are back for their second appearance. (And one new version of a previously heard song). Also, this month we’re changing our format around a little… a little less of the playlist play-by-play, and a little more general talking about various music stuff. We’re still loving making our Spotify playlist every month, but wanted to shake things up a little here on “the pod”. Hope you enjoy!
After bringing you a bunch of returning artists last month, Phoebe brought all new musicians to her submissions for our November playlist. Al contributed some new ones too, as well as new releases from our two most honored artists. We hope you enjoy these eleven songs.
October brings us lots of returning artists to the playlist. Beirut, Harry Nilsson, and the amazing Allison Russell are among the seven returnees we’ve got for you this month. This is might not the most cohesive collection we’ve presented. We don’t care. Here are eleven good songs for you…
Sad to say that Frank, your favorite podcasting primate, is missing from our ceremony yet again. This has resulted in embarrassing monkey impersonations and much recrimination against Phoebe, who again forgot to bring him when we recorded this episode. Somehow in spite of this adversity, we managed to come up with yet another damn good playlist and podcast for you. A few returning artists, a bunch of new and obscure artists (though maybe fewer great videos this month?). It’s what we do for you.
August brings us to the 50th monthly version of the In the Distance, Oblivious Playlist! And with summer in full force here, Phoebe and Al have never been more hot and humid with their music choices. They’ve settled on a few returning artists, a bunch of new artists, a new attitude, some cicadas, and a dose of happy pills!
