Thunderbirds Summary Episode Nears Completion


This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio, please check the other entries.

Okay, I love the law. It’s a great way to earn a living. And I happen to have a lot of it to practice at the moment. But it’s really stinking hard cranking through software agreements when I have all of the principal recording for the Thunderbirds summary episode done and it’s all just sitting there in electronic baskets waiting to get stitched together. This is the most fun part of doing the show.

Tentatively titled Sometimes Alternates Fly, it’s the biggest production piece I’ve done so far. (And who could blame me? It’s the story of a Thunderbirds jet ride, after all!) All original music and sound design, stunt voices (featuring Jim Carlyle, Jim Chesley, Mary Buday, and Cole Tupper), painstakingly extracted audio from the experience both on the ground and in the cockpit, and jet noise of the actual Thunderbird F-16s that I had to talk my way out into the middle of a NOTAM-closed airfield to record without crowd noises creeping in.

I’ve poured every bit of blood, bile, and bullshit I have into writing this thing and planning it out. More than a few stares and funny looks at me there in the corner at Starbucks sitting at the laptop bobbing my head, moving my lips as I read sublingually for timing, stomping my feet, and occasionally pumping a fist in the air as I listen to a quick audition of how some part or other of Scott Cannizzaro’s mix of The Thunderbird Groove works under other audio.

Please plan to listen when you’ll have a good 90 uninterrupted minutes and give it your full attention. If you don’t like this episode, just unsubscribe and accept my apologies. I don’t know how to do anything better than this. I’m not holding anything back. You get the whole ball of wax here.

I’ll be releasing it early through a link in the Friends of Airspeed group on myTransponder.com. If you haven’t gotten your beta invite yet, please e-mail me at steve@airspeedonline and I’ll send you one. I have something like 18 left. And make sure that you get in on the myTransponder experience soon. It’s going to become the prime meeting place for pilots and you need to be there.

Stay tuned! The cold weather brings hot jet exhaust here at Airspeed!

(Check out the most recent version of the “single” of Thunderbird Groove (the September 21 version)! The underlying music will be the theme and background for the episode. This “single” version is for starting as you accelerate down the on-ramp in your car or plugging into the aux input in your aircraft and cranking up as you rotate!)