I've mentioned before that I moved further out into the Northern Neck, and now have between a 1h15m and 1h30m commute, depending on the power level of the Gate Traffic Boss at the time. So I've dipped a toe into podcasts, but find myself really listening to the TSL podcast (Bud's pod yesterday was great) and old episodes of Small Town Murder ("You, sir, may fuck off..."). The mention of Dropping Names (and other stuff) podcast made me wonder what else is out there.
Sooo, what are y'all listening to these days?
Aaaand....go!
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
The only podcast I watch/listen to right now is the Tosh Show on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@toshshow
I genuinely think he's an excellent host and interviewer. His best episodes are when his guests are someone he's known for a long, long time, like the one with his wife, her best friend, his french friend, his father in law, etc, but in reality they are all good.
As someone who remembers Tosh.0 I never would have guessed he had this in his skill set. Wow
Anytime Tosh.0 or Comedy Central comes up he absolutely rips into them. There's a lot of justifiable bitterness about how CC pulled the plug on the show after he bankrolled the whole staff of the show during COVID. They had just been renewed and got rug pulled right before they were to start filming. He got a nice buyout check, but the rest of the staff was screwed, which meant that a decent amount of that check went to making them good.
A few of the guys behind the scenes on Tosh.0 are the people behind the camera on the podcast. You hear them reminiscing all the time
Had NO IDEA this was a thing. Will definitely give it a follow. Thanks for sharing.
If you like golf, The Shotgun Start is a fun listen. I also listen to The Fried Egg and No Laying Up podcasts, but SGS is the only one I try to never miss.
I always catch the weekly Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast.
Split Zone Duo is one of my favorites for college football.
Depending on the guest I'll listen to Good Hang with Amy Poehler and Working it Out with Mike Birbiglia.
Freakonomics has a big backlog of interesting episodes. I'll come back to that one when they hit on a topic I want to learn about. It is very well-made.
I'll have to check Shotgun Start out.
I listen to the Golf IQ podcast (Golf Digest), the Sweet Spot (Jon Sherman and Adam Young), Chasing Scratch, and Hack it Out (Lou Stagner of Arccos, Marc Crossfield, and Greg Chalmers - Champions Tour Player).
Golf IQ is and short 10 minute pod that talks about a variety of topics, but mostly instruction and strategy.
The Sweet Spot is a long pod about the mental side of the game, strategy, practice habits and managing expectations. This one also features interviews with various industry persons featuring their products and services but in a reasonably informative way.
Chasing Scratch is a long pod about two guys that are mid single digit caps trying to to get to scratch and is very funny.
Hack It Out is a mix of short and medium length pods. The short pods are around managing expectations discussing Arccos data. The medium ones are about various topics from Major previews to rules questions/debates. It is also quite humorous.
Lonely Island podcast is great. I listen to it on long road trips.
Once We Were Spacemen podcast with Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion, though I mostly enjoy when they talk with other people. The two of them talking to each other is fun in small doses, but it is better when they are diluted a bit with a third person.
Pablo Torre Finds Out is such a good podcast.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Behind the Bastards
Smartless
Old Gods of Appalachia
Chapo Trap House
Respect the Dead
The Reaction Podcast
Came here hoping to see someone mention chapo. Can't believe they've been going for 10 years now.
Oh man, what a question:
College Football/Sports:
Long(er?) Form Reporting & Storytelling (idk what else to call this):
News/Politics:
Other stuff:
That's most of my listening. There's a few other VT pods in my feed, but most of it is redundant to what I read on TKP so I skip a lot of them.
I like the journal but miss when they would do like 45 minute deep dives into businesses versus now they just do quick hits of the daily news.
My favorite politics podcast is triggernometry
Spittin Chiclets - Hockey
Chasing Scratch - Golf (2 regular guys decided to see what it would take for avg Joe to get to scratch...season 9 now and still trying. Hilarious stuff)
CFB: SZD and Two Deep. I dabble in others like Cover 3, but the first two are the main ones.
Soccer: Tifo, Totally Football Show, and Managing Madrid
Non-sports: Chapo, Blowback, Who? Weekly, the Rewatchables, ALAB series
I prefer to primarily read history, but I listen to some other history podcasts here and there.
You're off the cover 3 train?
Blowback is good too
I listen more in season, but they do so many pods a week, which is great for their subscribers, that I find myself marking a bunch played without listening. It can become redundant when you're ingesting a lot of CFB during the season.
Blowback is a favorite of mine. It's given me some great books to read as they cite everything on their website. The bonus episodes often feature great interviews as well.
Blowback is excellent. Favorite season??
Tough call! I have enjoyed them all. I'll go with the most recent season on Angola, as it was the one I had the least understanding/pre-existing knowledge of from my reading.
Diary of a CEO for me...
Jocko, Shawn Ryan, Huberman, No Priors, Latent Space, Darknet Diaries, Within Tolerance. And for some unexplained reason I find Crime Junkie entertaining lol.
I'm a huge energy nerd so if that happens to be someone else's bag I find Catalyst with Shayle Khan and Volts with David Roberts to be fun and consistently interesting. That said, these are extremely niche.
Have you watched Undecided with Matt Ferrel (YouTube channel) or listened to his podcast Still to be Determined? He focuses on renewable energy technology mostly. I will watch his channel when I see a topic that interests me, but I haven't listened to his podcast so I can't vouch for it.
I've seen a number of great YouTube explainers from him, but haven't listened to the pod. I usually watch videos of his on newer technologies where I can't find reliable information many other places, he does a great job.
TwoDeep and Fullcast are my mainstays. I have several other CFB/VT pods I will listen to for one off topics or if I have extra time in the week.
I used to be a religious listener of Welcome to Nightvale, but it's been several years since I listened to one. I would suggest starting from the beginning since it's a long narrative and I can't really speak to the quality of the recent episodes.
My wife listens to Good Hang and SmartLess and I catch them every now and again when she's listening in the basement and they're both great.
WTF with Marc Maron has ended, but it's definitely worth listening to his interviews with people your interested in IMO.
The recent Fullcast episode on the history of Amateurism was fantastic. I know their schtick is everything but football, but their show really shines when they talk football.
I love both parts because I learn something either way and their humor is so in sync with mine.
I listen to every episode of Cover 3. I feel very knowledgeable about everything going on in college football because of it.
New Heights is really popular, I like watching their YouTube videos.
Lonely Island is great
There are TV show podcasts, not just the rewatch ones like The Office or Scrubs (overrated). Chernobyl, The Pitt, and Band Of Brothers all have companion pods.
Sports:
-Shutdown Fullcast
-SZD
-Phantom Island
-Baseball Bar-B-Cast
Pop Culture:
-Big Screen Sports
-For the Watercooler
-Rewatchables (depending on the movie discussed)
-House of R (depending on topic)
-X-Ray Vision (depending on what's being covered)
Others:
-Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
-History That Doesn't Suck
-Good Hang with Amy Poehler
-Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend (depends on the guest)
-Smartless (depends on the guest)
I am shocked Sons of Saturday has yet to be mentioned. They do a lot of great Hokie content.
My other two every week pods are Reason Roundtable (small-l libertarian news commentary) and The Fifth Column (news/media critique, doesn't really code left or right, they shit on everybody and have some really great guest interviews that somehow stay cordial).
Got a season in to My Dad Wrote a Porno, but just didn't stick with it.
Reason has good housing content. I use them for work occasionally.
Sons of Saturday gave me state controlled propaganda vibes.
Billy Ray Mitchell mainly
In reality, that's TSL. SoS is just hosted by delusion fans (I mean that in a positive way).
I don't really listen to podcasts but Mrs Chumps loves a podcast for a drive. We agree on a bunch of the NPR podcasts like This American Life, Wait Wait Dont Tell Me, and A Way With Words. We also like Science Friday
Lately I've been doing some of Matt Harmon's Reception Perception longform youtubes ahead of the nfl draft specifically because I'm in more Dynasty Fantasy football leagues thansl redraft these days
I don't listen to podcasts but I do use libby to download audio books and listed to them. Ive transitioned to books about trauma with the body keeps score and cptsd, but have listed to lots of different stuff
edit, I don't know what I typed out what auto corrected but it was wrong, so I fixed
Yup. audiobooks.
Not really looking for something to last over multiple commutes. I don't listen at all when I'm at home or on the weekends.
I think the wife and mine Audible account probably has at least 150 books.
I think mine is hanging around 175 or so (plus like 25 some non-audible books floating around my hard drive). I joined audible back in like 2003 (and have been on and off as the budget allowed for years) and was very wary when Amazon purchased them. For the most part, they have kept the product decent.
They have strong-armed their talent a lot since the acquisition however. Brandon Sanderson set out on a quest to leverage his publishing power back at them and succeeded somewhat. That was an interesting saga in and of itself.
All that said, the account is still active. I've got two credits right now awaiting my book club's next pick. Audible hopes you have enjoyed this post.
If you've got Spotify Premium, that also has a lot of audio books, including most Brandon Sanderson. There's additional titles you can pay extra for, but those are really expensive from what I've seen.
I do have Spotify premium, but I like that I keep access to my titles even if I cancel my audible subscription. If I stop Spotify, I lose access to all the books.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History - 4 to 5 hours of deep dives into history.
The Rewatchables - Discussion on movies that you've watched over and over.
Tech Sideline - IMO the best Hokie Podcast but would be much better without David Cunningham.
I guess I'll add to this as most on my list aren't on here yet. Here are a few worth sharing.
Techsideline | I especially enjoy their episodes with Teel.
Moonshots | Fantastically fun and positive take on the convergence of technology.
Acquired | Deep analysis of the history of businesses. Listening to their Ferrari episode now.
Lex Friedman | Thoughtful long form discussions with interesting guests. He's been posting less the last year, but usually worth the listen.
Rogan | Pending the guest. I don't do the fight or comic episodes, but check out most of his political, science, conspiracy ones.
For the runners:
Nobody asked us with Des and Kara | These can be fun to get a perspective from past top tier athletes.
Freetrail | Specifically around races I'm interested in during ultra season, such as Western States or UTMB.
Enjoy!
News
The President's Daily Brief
Soccer
Call It What You Want
Unfiltered Soccer
Alexi Lalas State of the Union
Weightlifting
Dave Tate Table Talk
Mark Bell Power Project
Westside Barbell Podcast
TSL - mostly talking with teel. The recent bud foster epsidie was great
Sons of Saturday - mostly in season
Acquired -a+ deep dive into the stories of some of the biggest companies in the world.
Dan carlins hardcore history - new episodes are rare but the backlog is huge. Pacific war focusing on Japan series is probably 30ish hours long?
Mike rowes the way I heard it - highly dependent on who his guest is, good for an occasional listen
.
If books could kill - if the wife is on the road trip
Dateline - also if the wife is one the road trip
Acquired is an underrated.
If you like the absurdity of some movies, how did this get made is really good, especially if Jason Mantzoukas is hosting
i used to listen to thiis one long ago; when it was Jason, Paul Scheer and June Diane Raphael (Paul's wife) were on every episode. It was basically Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in audio form. Absolutely hilarious. Was around the time "The League" was on FX..
I think its still Paul and June for all episodes but i think Jason is busier and is there less, but I haven't listened in a while due to time required. I just know that not all of the have Jason, and June is amazing, but Jason just has a way of putting their comments in so much more absurd manner.
For more movie absurdity I'll add Mom Can't Cook... Two British guys who recap / tear into all the old Disney Channel Original Movies that were churned out in the late 90s and 00s. They didn't get Disney Channel in the UK so they've only seen them as adults and it's hilarious
Big history buff, and spend 2 hr a day walking dogs, so my favorites have been History of Rome and Revolutions. Working my way through History of English, which is a fascinating look at how the language evolved and what civilizational events influenced it.
Specifically for VT Football I enjoy the TSL and Two Deep Podcasts and make appearances once or twice a year on Two Deep.
Mostly I listen to The Rest is History and How to Invent a Country. In season I listen to 32 Thoughts from Eliot Friedman for hockey and Buster Onley's Baseball Tonight for baseball.
ive listen to the podcasts when you make an appearance because 1) i want to support you and 2) i am typically unterested in what you have to say but I really find podcast hard to care about for football because I want x's and O's which without images are hard to do. So what do you, or others hear like about them, cause I just find the format to be the wrong one for me.
I think TSL is very professional. Chris has good insight, and Andy is a professional writer who understands how to maintain his journalistic ethics (something some other talking heads forget to do.) They balance what the coaches say with what their eyes see pretty well. David C. is a good young professional too, although I don't think he has the same level of understanding of the game as the other two.
With Two Deep, I appreciate the passion without the hyperbole. We are fans. This is supposed to be fun. They have fun while having an eye for the game. In an era where hot takes have replaced good analysis, both are refreshing balances.
A few that I haven't seen listed here that I enjoy are:
- Backpacker Radio: Hiking/Backpacking podcast with good interviews put on by the Trek.com
- Inside The Musician's Brain: Put on by Chris Pandolfi from the Infamous Stringdusters. Good interviews within the bluegrass and jamband scene
- Norah Jones is Playing Along: Great interviews with all types of musicians, hosted by Norah Jones. A lot of times she will play some songs with whoever she is interviewing and reimagine a few things. The interview with Julian Lage is great.
- World's Greatest Con: Put on by Brian Brushwood from the Modern Rogue. Interesting history podcast that started with the story of Operation Mincemeat during WWII, but has evolved with stories behind people who have cheated on gameshows, how Disney was able to take over Orlando, etc.
-If Books Could Kill
-Behind the Bastards
-Hardcore History
-Laying Down the Lore
-No Such Thing As a Fish
-Tech Sideline Podcast
- Fall of Civilizations podcast is a fascinating listen about various ancient civilizations and what led to their downfall. EDIT: but it is done by one monotone British man with no other voices. So it's also helpful for falling asleep.
- I listen to a bunch of the Shutdown Fullcast/SplitZone Duo extended universe podcasts as listed by many above.
- I'm a homebrewer so I also listen to Master Brewer's Podcast and Craft Beer & Brewing podcasts. Lots of really great technical detail with pro brewers detailing what they do and a lot of differing approaches and perspectives. I've shied away from Brulosophy - a lot of their content seems focused on how to simplify your brewday. The "short and shoddy" series makes my skin crawl. I'm too much of a perfectionist for that.
I love Fall of Civilizations. I save it for long road trips while I have some time to think about things. They actually keep me awake during long stretches. BTW, while you may it sounds like the monotone is a bad thing, I think the reading is very well done. Plus, he brings in various voice actors and tries to recreate what ancient languages/songs/texts may have sounded like.
I admittedly haven't listened in a little too long so I had forgotten about the voice actors! Thank you for giving a more accurate review. He does a great job with them and they are incredibly interesting and well researched. I just can't listen if I'm feeling a bit tired.
I'll be shocked if anyone else on here actually listens to these and we will immediately become friends if you do....
These are all hobby/business related:
-Colubrid and Colubroid Radio
-Colubrid Corruption
-The Herpetoculture Network
-Kush's Korner (not what you think)
-Snake Talk with Dr. Jenkins
-The Expert and the Idiot
I am going to have to broaden my horizons and check out some of the history pods listed in this thread.
Kush?
Hah! Like I said, not what you think. Kush is the host's last name. It's actually a herpetoculture podcast not horticulture.
Naw, I'm sick of him already. I got Kush-lash.
🎶 Kush-lash...Kush-lash...Kush-lash-Kush-lash-Kush-laaaaash! 🎵
I honestly have no idea what this is. Lol!
He actually had Dr. Warren Booth on last week to discuss boa constrictors. Dr. Booth is an evolutionary geneticist and Associate Professor of Urban Entomology in the Entomology Dept. at VT. He also keeps and breeds snakes.
It's a scene from the movie Jerry Maguire. In it, Kush (can't remember his first name) is a QB projected to be the #1 pick in the NFL Draft, and Jerry is his agent. They're in their suite the night before the draft, waiting for festivities on the morrow.
KingJames put up a pic of Kush from the movie, so I took it from there, as I am wont to do from time to time. ;^)
I don't think I've seen that movie in 30-years. No wonder I didn't recognize it. Hah!
Im sorry I used an obscure reference
Don't you dare apologize!
I'm about 7 episodes in to Small Town Murder since reading this, Tables. Great suggestion, James and Jimmie are great
I don't know if you skip the end parts (I usually do), but you need to listen to them at least once. Jimmie reads off the names of all the "executive producers", which are really just donors via Patreon and other sources, and it's hilarious. He's really bad with names, and he gets so frustrated, it's great fun to listen to.
I'm currently about 160-170 episodes in (30-40 from around last August when I was recommended the series, and 130 in from the beginning). They're perfect for a 1h15m to 1h30m commute, I finish an episode each workday, essentially, weaving in the occasional TSL podcast. That's why I'm looking to branch out, because I think listening to this all the time is probably not the healthiest thing.
That said, if you're starting from the beginning, let me know when you get to Rulo, Nebraska. *shudders*
I'll pay attention and let you know when I get to it. I just finished the episode in FLA where the British couple got attacked at the rest stop (*early* early in the series)
The episode before that hit me in the feels, the one where the husband was propositioning his wife to step out of the marriage (trying to avoid too many spoilers for folks)
To your point, I know I shouldn't binge these but I'll be dammed if James doesn't get me rolling with his dark humor
* VT Football: Two Deep
* Dwarkesh Patel -
- Has some incredibly smart people on his show and the conversations, even when I dont understand half of them, are really enjoyable. When he interviews historians may be my favorite
* Fifth Column
- Current Events podcast. Good balanced perspective on things
* Flagrant with Andrew Schulz
- I think this pod can be hilarious. Theyve had some good guests and the banter is genuinely hilarious
* Shawn Ryan
- This is a new one for me. I generally have one pod that is on the edge of conspiracy theory but has enough grounding to be taken seriously and this is the pod I'm on now to scratch that itch.
One I listen to from time to time is The Connect with Johnny Mitchell, it's basically all about the drug scene, I'm kind of obsessed with the cartel history.
Anyway he had on a guest named Luis Navia who was a logistics chief for the Medellín Cartel. Fast forward to him getting out of jail he started a glass shower and railing company in South Florida
This cat was my glass railing subcontractor for a couple of high end retail shops I did down there in the mid 2000s and 20 years later I find out the guys story. Only in South Florida.