SOUNDS PECULIAR
BRIAN J ROBB PRESENTS THE FORTEAN TIMES PODCAST COLUMN
As a medium, podcasts have been enjoying something of a boom over the past few years. The democratisation of quality media production through high-specification computer equipment has allowed a plethora of previously marginalised voices their own access to what were once quaintly called ‘the airwaves’.
In the past, broadcasting (reaching a wide audience from a single source) was heavily regulated and controlled, mainly through frequency scarcity: only those authorised or licensed to have access to the airwaves were allowed to broadcast. In UK terms that, initially, meant the BBC, with commercial stations coming along in the 1960s.
In terms of radio, there have been amateurs since the invention of the medium, reaching a crescendo with the offshore ‘pirate’ pop stations of the 1960s that ultimately led to the BBC launching Radio 1. For the longest time, Radio 4 (or NPR in the US) has been the default home of quality ‘spoken word’ content, whether that was drama, current affairs, or documentary radio.
Now, anyone with a microphone and an iPad, laptop, or computer and the right software can produce a decent podcast and launch their work onto a waiting world. Not all of them are good, while many are far better than you might expect, sometimes surpassing the productions of ‘legitimate’ broadcasters like the BBC or NPR. When it comes to fortean topics, there are a host of podcasts out there, ranging from the polished and compelling to the amateurish and downright weird. SOUNDS PECULIAR is your insider guide to the best of the current podcasts dealing with fortean topics: all you have to do is sit back and listen...
Podcast: The Last Podcast on the Left www.lastpodcastontheleft. com Hosts: Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski Episode Count: 350+ Format: Dark comedy, discussion Established: 2011 Frequency: Weekly, every Friday Topics: Everything fortean and more… A warning: The Last Podcast
on the Left is not for everyone (given the title is based on a notorious Wes Craven gore movie, that’s maybe to be expected). The website promises that the show “covers all the horrors our world has to offer, both imagined and real. From demons and slashers to cults and serial killers, The Last
Podcast is guaranteed to satisfy your blood lust.”
Presented by a raucous trio of American comedians, The Last
Podcast is a loud, scabrous show full of not-safe-for-work
(or many homes) language, character impressions, and off-the-wall roleplaying. The ringmaster is Ben Kissel, whose job seems to be to drag the other two presenters back on topic when things threaten to get out of hand. Marcus Parks is the horror fan, obsessed by cryptids and crime, while Henry Zebrowski is the show’s almost uncontrollable id: conspiracy theorist, part-time Satanist and occasional actor (he’s in Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street).
The boys’ website says it best: “Last Podcast on the
Left barrels headlong into all things horror as hosts Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski cover dark subjects spanning Jeffrey Dahmer, werewolves, Jonestown, iconic hauntings, the history of war crimes, and more. Whether it’s cults, killers, or cryptid encounters, Last Podcast on the
Left laughs into the abyss that is the dark side of humanity.”
On the website, shows are conveniently collected under subject headings for ease of access. With over 350 individual main episodes and all sorts of ‘side stories’, it can be difficult to find what you might be in the mood for. Subject headers include: Aliens, Horrors of Reality, Conspiracy, Cults and Religions, Monsters and Cryptids, Satanism and the Occult, Ghosts, Serial Killers, and several more – essentially, all of forteana can be found here.
Your initial impression, especially if you listen to some early episodes, might be of a show swamped by absurdist humour that threatens to spiral out of control. However, as time went on the Last Podcast trio gained experience, and beneath the surface there is a lot of depth to their excavations of the most bizarre subjects.
For the first 50 or so episodes they hit all the obvious topics – UFOs, aliens, the pyramids, Satanism, religion, ghosts, the occult, MK Ultra, and serial killers. These episodes then gave way to multi-part deep dives into subjects that could not be covered in the usual 40-minute or so runtime. The earliest multi-part subjects include the BTK Killer, Satanic Ritual Abuse, and Unsolved Serial Murders. A three-parter delves into the life and crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer (episodes 122-124), while Charles Manson also gets a trio of instalments (episodes 147149). Later multi-instalment epic shows include Ed Gein (episodes 172-174), Henry Lee Lucas (episodes 182-185, four segments), and HH Holmes (episodes 200-202), among others.
In between these serial shows, there’s plenty of room for one-offs on such topics as the mysterious intergalactic object ‘Oumuamua (an 8 Nov 2018 ‘Side Stories’ instalment), the Flat Earth theory (episode 334), the Jersey Devil (episode 314), the ‘lost continent’ of Lemuria (episode 297), and the Travis Walton ‘fire in the sky’ UFO abduction case (episode 284).
As time went on, subjects seemed to demand an even more in-depth treatment, resulting in a five-episode binge on Jack the Ripper (episodes 254-258) and a superbly detailed five-episode examination of the Jonestown massacre (episodes 300-304). What these shows prove (with each instalment coming in at around an hour) is that behind the goofery and dirty humour,
The Last Podcast does take the research and exploration of its chosen subjects seriously. There’s no reason these things shouldn’t be hugely entertaining, but the show will only work for you so long as ‘adult humour’ is also your thing. Strengths: The long, multipart explorations of fortean subjects can be rewarding, while the off-the-wall humour is entertaining
Weaknesses: In some episodes the fun and japes can overwhelm the material (especially early on), and Kissel can find it difficult to rein in his co-presenters.
Recommended Episodes: #208: David Bowie and the Occult; #216/217: Roswell; #233: The Secret Space Programme; #254-#258: Jack the Ripper (five episodes); #310-#313: Rasputin; #261#264: L Ron Hubbard and Scientology.
Verdict: It may be an acquired taste for some, but The Last Podcast on the Left proves that forteans can have a scabrous sense of humour too…