How I Podcast: In conversation with the co-hosts of Radio Juxtapoz
We’re talking with podcasters from all walks of life about their creative process, best practices, and why audio is one of the coolest ways to tell a story.
What does visual art sound like? When your podcast topic relies mostly on seeing, how do you translate street art, or a painting, or an installation, into something listeners can hear? That’s where co-hosts Evan Pricco, editor of Juxtapoz Magazine and Doug Gillen, director of Fifth Wall TV come in. Their show Radio Juxtapoz is redefining the way we consume art and introducing new ways to access it with podcasting.
Founded in 1994, Juxtapoz Magazine was created to define and celebrate underground, contemporary art and connect modern genres like graffiti and illustration to more widely recognized traditions. The magazine aims to democratize the very notion of art, which is why podcasting is such an exciting extension of their mission. Podcasting brings conversations about art to life and can embed art appreciation into people’s daily routines. You don’t have to go to a museum or an auction house to be a part of the art world. By listening to a podcast, you can access new works and discussions on your morning commute or while doing the dishes.
Radio Juxtapoz uses the flexibility of podcasting to pop up in exciting places in the art world, whether it’s on location at Miami Art Week, talking with artist Ron English at DesignerCon, or covering the latest installations. At the same time that they’re redefining the art world, they’re also experimenting with a new format that breaks the traditional studio-interview style. Evan and Doug tend to describe their visual surroundings in real time as they’re recording, which adds an extra layer of authenticity to the listening experience. We talked with the co-hosts about their podcasting process and what they’ve learned along the way.
What motivated you to start podcasting?
Having spent many nights talking contemporary and street art over beers, we felt there was something missing from the culture. The podcast was our chance to open up new avenues of conversation around art that didn’t seem to be happening. As a print magazine that has been published for over 26 years, having something archival was really important to us.
What’s your show’s format?
Episodes are built around an interview with an artist, gallery owner, a filmmaker or anyone connected with the art world. We sprinkle in a healthy dose of topical takes from the hot stories bubbling in the scene. We’ve been lucky that the art world itself is so healthy with creativity, and that we have been able to travel and cover various “happenings” and experiment with the format of the podcast a bit.
What’s your recording setup?
Evan runs Juxtapoz from San Francisco while Doug is based out of London, so often the shows are recorded from separate parts of the world. We both spend a lot of time on the road so the episodes are often recorded anywhere from kitchens in New York apartments, rooftops in Miami, and hotel rooms in Scotland. We definitely think the recording highlight was a phone booth in Tokyo this past summer… it just made sense at the time.
How do you promote your podcast?
We do it multiple ways, through Instagram video content, to full length YouTube videos… but really, we are relying a lot on word of mouth through Spotify and the Anchor app. Juxtapoz Magazine reaches over 2 million users on our social media, so a lot of what we do relies on that audience. Much of our promotion is working with the artist or the organization we are talking to to elevate the reach.
What’s your favorite Anchor feature to use?
Straight up, it’s the easiest platform to upload and use that we can think of. We have recorded straight onto Anchor and we have split things into episodes — it’s amazingly simple and our show goes to all the places we want it to go at the press of a button. And it tracks everything so well [with the Analytics feature].
What’s your favorite thing about your podcast?
I think talking to artists in such an open and frank way is still, really, a new concept. Artists are guarded. Much of their practice is done in a studio alone. The Radio Juxtapoz podcast opens that up a bit. Every episode offers a new insight into what art means to people. For some, it’s a revolutionary response to social unrest, and for others it’s a tool to explore the deepest self — no two guests ever have the same outlook.
What’s your best podcasting advice?
Be consistent. Keep going, don’t stop. As soon as you fall out a rhythm it becomes twice as hard to get back into it. Stay on it, keep the drops consistent and always push it forward.
How do you podcast? Let us know on Twitter and Instagram. If you’re looking for more tips, check out the previous edition of How I Podcast, and if you want to start your own, try making something awesome with Anchor.
