George Drake Jr. Doo doo doo Everything Sounds. *unintelligible noises*

Craig Shank That was a lot of sounds.

George Drake Jr That was my intro to the intro.

Craig Shank Alright. Done. Cut.

*Introduction Collage* This is Everything Sounds.

George Drake Jr. Okay.

Craig Shank *clears throat*

George Drake Jr. …and marker.

*clap*

Craig Shank I’m Craig Shank.

George Drake Jr. And I’m George Drake Jr.

Craig Shank And this is Everything Sounds.

George Drake Jr. Everything Sounds. This is a bit of an introductory podcast where we’re gauging the waters, seeing if we’re just gonna dive head first or ease ourselves in.

Craig Shank And we’re going to to something a little bit unusual. It might be the first time that you’ve ever heard our voices or heard about who we are, but we’re going to ask you to stop listening for just a second.

George Drake Jr. Hit pause. Not now, but in a second.

Craig Shank The reason why we want you to do this…It’s an excercise. It’s got something to do with the show. Now whether you’re listening in the car, at the gym, or maybe just somewhere around the house, just turn off the show and listen to all of the sounds around you. Even if you think the room is silent…

George Drake Jr. It’s not! It’s not actually silent.

Craig Shank You might hear something you didn’t expect.

George Drake Jr. There’s something there.

Craig Shank Give it a try.

George Drake Jr. We’ll sit here and wait.

Craig Shank Now.

Craig Shank If you’re actually still here, hopefully you heard the kind of thing that we’re going to try to highlight on this show.

George Drake Jr. Which is essentially silence.

Craig Shank …but not.

George Drake Jr. …but not silence. But it’s silence to you. Maybe you don’t hear it. The name “Everything Sounds” is actually shortened from a quote. At the BBC, in one of their radio drama studios, they used to have a balcony where people could go and view the recordings being done. So, the players were down on the floor, the audience was up in the balcony. And the players would look up and they’d see the audience and on the panel in front of the audience was a quotethat only they could see. And it said, “Everything sounds. Even silence.” And so, that’s what we’re trying to achieve. We’re trying to show that everything does, in fact, sound and we will try to find sound in everything that maybe you don’t even know exists.

*Transitional Glitch Effect*

George Drake Jr. So you cut up the segments…we’ll just add some glitchy sh..*glitch effect* and we’ll have some little…huh huh huh banter or whatever and we’ll go into another segment. It’ll be great…….And we’ll have like the robot voice going like, “Uh.. Whatever. I dunno.”

Robot Voice “Uh.. Whatever. I dunno.”

*Laughter*

Craig Shank I’m not sure this idea is as good as you think it is.

George Drake Jr. I’m pretty sure it’s brilliant.

Craig Shank Alright.

*Transitional Glitch Effect*

George Drake Jr. Craig…*clap* Marker! *laughter* Craig, I think the thing we need to answer is why sound is so important to us.

Craig Shank I think the reason why sound is so important to both of us actually starts with music. I think that’s a good entryway for most people. And for me it kind of begins with playing the drums. I got a drum set when I was in middle school. And learning how to play, I started listening to my favorite drummers and what they were doing in each song. And that also led me to listen to what the other musicians were doing in the songs. How the bass player and the drummer interacted, guitar and bass, vocals….all of it. And over time you begin to get an appreciation for how all of these distinct individual parts come together to create the whole.

George Drake Jr. Well there’s gotta be one that stands out.

Craig Shank I think for me that would probably be “So What” from Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” album. It starts out by going, “Buh duh bah duh buh duh buh.”

*Bass line from “So What”

Craig Shank …and then it goes “BAA DUH”

*Piano from “So What”*

George Drake Jr. *laughter*

Craig Shank …and then, “Buh duh bah duh bah duh buh.”

*Bass line from “So What”

Craig Shank …and then another, “BAA DUH”

*Horns and Piano from “So What”

George Drake Jr. So, what specifically about that, though?

Craig Shank What I like about that is that the intro of the song…you can hear the bass line kind of walking, then the horns jump in…

*Horns from “So What”

Craig Shank And then you hear Miles on his solo with the other instruments joining in, backing him up. So, it’s that idea of being able to hear a few distinct elements and then it turns into a larger whole.

George Drake Jr. For me, sound was always something that defined parts of my life. When I was younger I made a lot of trips to and from Chicago O’Hare international Airport and that’s where one of the sound effects really takes place.

Craig Shank In the airport?

*Airport Lobby Sound Effects*

George Drake Jr. No, no. Not in the airport.

Craig Shank Like on the plane?

*Plane Sound Effects*

George Drake Jr. It’s not on the plane.

Craig Shank Alright…

George Drake Jr. It’s when you’re driving up to the airport and when you first enter the O’Hare premises, it does a little bit of a jog. It goes right. It goes back left. And before it goes back left, there are four rumble strips evenly spaced out telling you, “Slow down; The terminals are coming up. Slow down; You’re going to have to take a left turn.” And there’s just something that I always remember because whenever we’d get on the highway I’d always ask my dad, “Dad are we on the highway yet?” And he would say, “Yes we are,” and I’d fall asleep. And then once we get to those and the first rumble happened I’d wake up and I’d know we were there. And it’s one sound I really like because it starts off short because you’re going a bit fast. So it goes, “Brrrdff.” Then it gets slower because you’re slowing down. It goes, “Brrrrrddff….Bbrrrrrrrdddfff.” And then finally you get to the last one. It’s just, “Bbrrrrrrrrddddffffff,” and it’s just really one of those sounds that defined my childhood.

*Transitional Glitch Effect*

George Drake Jr. *unintelligible sounds*

Craig Shank When did he turn into a sea monster?

George Drake Jr. He turned into a sea lion, actually. Um….

*Laughter*

Craig Shank I think the blooper reel would be better than any show we could actually do.

*Transitional Glitch Effect*

George Drake Jr. Marker number two.

*clap*

George Drake Jr. I guess we kind of have to condense what “Everything Sounds” is into something else. So what is it?

Craig Shank It’s about sounds that make up every part of our life. I think everything from art, science, environment, music…

George Drake Jr. Education.

Craig Shank Education, culture…It’s all going to find a way into this show and hopefully expose people to new ways of thinking about sound and new ways of enjoying it in their everyday lives.

George Drake Jr. And not every show is gonna be us just talking about childhood favorite sounds, how it impacted our lives, and this and that. This is just the first episode to get the ball rolling. The next, whatever we have in store in the future is going to be much more in depth about certain topics. That’s a promise. You can hold us to that promise.

Craig Shank It’s not going to be a show about two particular people and their experience with sound. It’s going to be our opportunity to allow you to have your own journey with sound in the way that we have in the past.

George Drake Jr. I think that about sums it up. That’s good.

Craig Shank Alright.

George Drake Jr. Mark it again.

*clap*