“Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.” ~ Robert Frost

Ye Olde Assorted Nonsense 

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XTC Skylarking “Improper Sound Polarity”
Music, Recording Engineer Joe Mahoney Music, Recording Engineer Joe Mahoney

XTC Skylarking “Improper Sound Polarity”

After a friend mentioned XTC on Facebook the other day, I remembered how much I loved Skylarking and called it up on Spotify, and somehow it was even better than I remembered, and while I was listening to it looked it up online.

And came across the astounding bit of information that when Andy Partridge attempted to remaster the album a few years ago, his new mastering engineer, John Dent, told him that it had been recorded out of phase, and that they needed to reverse the polarity.

WTF?

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Three Fave Books
Books, Publishing, Marketing Joe Mahoney Books, Publishing, Marketing Joe Mahoney

Three Fave Books

Recently I was invited to participate in a terrific project by the folks at Shepherd, led by Ben Fox. The whole project is about leading readers to books. Some pundits think the book is dead or dying. Ben sure doesn’t. He’s almost single-handedly trying to revitalize book discovery. And as an author, I sure appreciate it.

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Adventures in Feedback
CBC Radio, Marketing, Memoir, Books Joe Mahoney CBC Radio, Marketing, Memoir, Books Joe Mahoney

Adventures in Feedback

One of the scary parts of releasing a new book such as Adventures in the Radio Trade into the wild is you don’t know how it’s going to be received. Whether people will understand what it is you’re trying to do, whether they will like how you’ve done it, whether they’ll even care. Crickets is almost worse than no feedback at all.

So it’s gratifying, and a bit of a relief, when positive feedback does start rolling in.

Here’s an email I received yesterday (reprinted here with permission) from veteran freelance writer/broadcaster John Pellatt, who shares a great story of his own about CBC Radio legend Allan McFee.

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Just Peachy
Publishing, Writing, CBC, Marketing Joe Mahoney Publishing, Writing, CBC, Marketing Joe Mahoney

Just Peachy

It has been about a month since I released my memoir about working in radio, Adventures in the Radio Trade, into the wild, the day after I retired from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the day I became a full time writer.

“How’s all that working our for you?” someone asked me the other day.

“Just peachy,” I told them.

“What do you mean by just peachy?” they wanted to know.

“My wife bought a whole bunch of peaches and we had to eat them all up before they went bad,” I explained. “They were some good though.”

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(Almost)Two Weeks In
Joe Mahoney Joe Mahoney

(Almost)Two Weeks In

Almost two weeks in. Into what? Well, so-called retirement, for one thing. And the launch of Adventures in the Radio Trade, for another.

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