Beatroute - Cups N Cakes: Beloved Podcast Expands Boundaries
Prairie pals crank up existing podcast with a website launch & more!
Photo by Heather MacCallum
Author: Meaghan Baxter
CALGARY – Every second Sunday for the past three years, Jeff MacCallum and Carey Newton have faithfully been churning out episodes of their Cups N Cakes podcast, exposing listeners new and old to the best in Edmonton’s music scene and beyond.
The show’s ethos of music and tomfoolery has been steadfastly followed from the get-go, with MacCallum and Newton taking listeners through an hour-and-a-half of music, interviews and entertaining banter.
“It kind of changed maybe two years in. I wanted to start taking it a little bit more seriously,” MacCallum recalls. “I thought Edmonton might have been lacking in music media attention for some of the great stuff that we have going on here, so it definitely shifted a little more to being focused on Edmonton.”
Cups N Cakes is now expanding its scope with the launch of a new website (cupsncakespod.com) and a second podcast called Inside the Artist’s Studio, hosted by Marvin Greensburogh. Both Inside the Artist’s Studio and the original podcast listeners know and love will be available on the new website, with added bonuses like Pick of the Week and an online store. As of June 1, not one but three episodes of Inside the Artist’s Studio will be available on the website, including a never-before-heard interview with local pop-rock favourite Doug Hoyer.
“[On Cups N Cakes] I typically try to make it an hour of music and then half an hour of talk time, so an interview is usually around 10 to 12 minutes—Carey and I need to have some chat in there too. The interviews on Inside the Artist’s Studio, so far, are about half an hour long,” MacCallum explains of the new format, adding the episodes will also be available for download on iTunes.
“Every episode will be a whole interview, and then at the end I get permission from every band to play the single off their new album.”
What started as a way for two friends to keep in touch despite busy lives has grown through trial and error: neither one of the hosts has formal training. That said, slowly but surely they are building a strident following. They’ve never missed a show. Even as it expands, Cups N Cakes remains dedicated to those interested in discovering new music and giving artists within the local scene some much-needed airtime. Another new component is set to launch later this year with the debut of C&C TV, a television series aired via YouTube that will feature a variety of music videos in each episode.
“I think it’s been good to take it slow,” MacCallum says.
He concludes, “But it’s time to kick it up a notch.”
View the original article: http://beatroute.ca/2017/06/07/cups-n-cakes-beloved-podcast-expands-boundaries/