Podcasts I'm Listening To

I am in Concord, California-- east of Oakland-- for focus groups this morning. I scheduled the first session for 8am on the dot this morning to accommodate the first participant. So I got up really early, hiked over to the Glen Park BART station in darkness, and rode out to make the first session at 8am. But she was a no-show.

So before I dive into my work email, I thought document some of great, exciting and interesting podcasts I have been enjoying of late. I've been fine-tuning this list-- adding new stuff, removing other stuff. So here they are.

What podcasts do you like that I'm not featuring here? What are some of the best music podcasts?


Music:
* All Songs Considered. I'm a little embarrassed to be getting music suggestions from NPR (because I can think of no better symbol of entrenched middle-age citizens), but this show is pretty good. It posts a couple of times a week, and the format varies. I have made several good album purchases in recent weeks based on the stuff Bob Boilen has featured here. The Lily Allen interview as charmingly hilarious. I highly recommend this one.

* Morning Becomes Eclectic. Live performances from some great bands. KCRW in Santa Monica got the concept of podcasts early, and has run with it. This show makes me think of my old roomate Stewie.


News:
* PBS Newshour - Shields and Brooks. This segment from the Friday Newshour is some of the most interesting, polite political debate in Washington. I'm glad I can download it to my ipod once a week.


Culture:
* The Treatment. I liked Elvis Mitchell when he wrote movie reviews for the Times, but this show makes me idolize him. He makes the most interesting observations in his interviews with film makers. This is the type of interesting conversations by smart people that you rarely find in media these days.

* Studio 360. Kurt Anderson's slickly-produced, always-entertaining radio show from WNYC.


Video:
* ABC News World News Webcast. This video webcast again shows that ABC News gets the web, here with a breezy, custom-produced show for the web audience. Charles Gibson has a sense of humor-- who knew?

* Graham Norton. I have always found this guy funny. This is a segment from some downtime in the middle of his current BBC Show-- something like a station break. For me, the funniest part of these clips is the podcast intro, where Norton introduces the clip with a dismissive comment like "Hello, cyber wizards."