Welcome to the greatest show in the multiverse! Fasten your seat belts for a rocketship ride to Altair City Spaceport's Rusty Rocket Tavern, where I discuss science fiction, fantasy, and horror books, comics, movies, TV, games, and toys. Powered by alien technology, eldritch abilities, and caffeinated beverages, since a summer night in 2012 fuelled by two double gin and tonics.
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I enjoy New Who (2005--), but grew up watching Old Who (1963--1989). However, I wasn't born when the series began in 1963 and my family didn't even own a television until the early 70s. While repeat broadcasts enabled me to catch up, it seems inevitable I may have missed a few stories during Doctor Who's exceedingly long run. And so, Omega knows what possessed me, in 2014 I decided to rewatch the entire classic series and tape my thoughts on each story.
I've been doing this for so long that the revisit has been renamed several times. The preceding official title was The Mammoth Sessions because mammoths are cool and it sounded metal. The schedule has also succumbed to hiatuses, ennui, and sulks, but despite these setbacks, I have been rewatching vintage Doctor Who in chronological order, like a madman.
In 2023 I added (and finished) ITV's iconic British series Hammer House of Horror (1980) to the revisit roster. There are also additional media I'd also like to incorporate, including a book catalogue which predates the internet. All will eventually form a vast database rivalling the great Matrix of Gallifrey itself!
What order should one enjoy these revisits? I'd personally opt for a cavalier pick'n'mix approach, as is apt for revisits inspired by an old TV drama about an eccentric time traveller, and because linear time is just so passe.
This podcast and my whole online prescence is maintained on a minus shoestring budget. As well as hosting, domain fees, and equipment, the time involved is substantial. So if you like the show, please support it.
Welcome to Emporia Esoterica, the multiversal department store, wherein customers can buy tangible goods in return for their cold, hard cash, i.e., none of that NFT nonsense.
Namaste. Congratulations, you've agreed be a guest, paid only with good karma, after all, I'm not the BBC. Now what?
You will need a good microphone, a fast internet connection, and a quiet space. I can't tell you how many interviews have been cocked up due to poor sound.
Alternatively, you can visit the studio. Admittedly, I understandably put the kibosh on in-person visits between 2020--2023, when COVID-19 annihilated roughly 30 million humans, but fingers-crossed for the future.
Hello guests, yes you. Please publicise your participation via social media, word-of-mouth, and consider semaphore and homing pigeons too, otherwise what is the point? Tree, forest, etc.
Past guests:
422 Saul "Doctor Mars" Garnell, science fiction author.
173 Steven Sterlacchini and Stephen Green, filmmakers, Judge Minty and Search/Destroy: A Strontium Dog Fan Film.
129 Richard Mason, fellow 2000 AD fan and electronics nerd.
105, 106, 107, 110, 112, 117, 119, 122, 127, 131, 134, 160 Tom Walton, musician.
99 Sophie Aldred, Ace actress in Doctor Who, Tree Fu Tom, and singer.
98 Huw Collingbourne, technology journalist for Computer Shopper and PC World, and author.
96 Shayne T Wright, indie science fiction, horror, and techno thriller author.
84 Christopher Fowler, author of Roofworld, Psychoville, etc.
82 Dave Strand, Indie audio interactive fiction games developer.
81 Chris Townsend, actor.
79 Dean Motter, comic book artist and writer of Mister X, etc.
78 Anthonia Ngozi Beddall, TV producer and Alpha, indie filmmaker.
70 Pierre Drolet, Emmy award winning CGI modeller for BSG, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Nemesis.
68 Kitty Horrorshow, indie games developer.
64, 69 Andy Robb, actor and author of the Geekhood novels.
13, 14, 17 Scott Grandison, developer and podcaster.
Meet our capable crew cruising the space lanes of imagination.
The unamed host is an adventurer, rockstar, and a supervillain fine chap with a penchant for G&Ts, C7H10N4O2, and insanely loud music. His exploits usually involve arriving just in time to save the multiverse, or thoroughly bugger it up. Contrary to the wanted posters vile, vicious, and wholly unfounded rumours, he is not the legendarily disreputable storyteller awarded Most Surprisingly Reliable Narrator in Existence. He is certainly not the Minsky-Bennet Arm uni-tentacle enhanced the cyborg space pirate captain known as the Scourge of Altair. Nor, without any shadow of a doubt, is he the spectacularly unstable wizard branded the Bane of the (very obviously fictional) 27th Dimension. "Supervillain" is merely a nickname bestowed upon him by a kindly childhood governess humouring her charge's overactive imagination. Honestly, officer.
Doctor... Who?! Pah! How dare you, sir! Why, the unmitigated gall! I am---er---never you mind who I am! Sherbet lemon? Wizard! Now step into my Vimana.* What's that you say? No! No matter how spacious the opulent interior of my craft may seem, it is of course smaller on the inside, you blithering, blathering, bloviating, buffoon! If one were to be annoyingly liguistically pedantic---maliciously mangling context and deliberately misconstruing "outside" not to mean the exterior dimensions of the object in question, but the contents of the near-as-damn-it infinite universe itself, then anything within must be finite, ergo smaller. Quod erat bloody well demonstrandum.*Vimana/V.I.M.A.N.A. (Vortex Insterstellar Machine And Null Actuator); makes the TARDIS look like a busted shopping trolley.
Assisted ably by Mr Roy Mathur (ha, ha, ha, have you heard this guy creak?), producer and editor.
Here comes Roy, the Earthman, greying, sulky, banjolele in hand, a storyteller, a captain, a wizard, prone to massive ennui and painful nose laughs, to stroll the filthy pavements of many planets in his ratty plimsoles.---The Incomplete Chronicles of Roy.
And Herr Fygor von Gestalt, laboratory assistant, formerly of the University of Ingolstadt. (No Interpol Red Notice has been issued).
Additional thanks to too many to reliably count, who lurk deep within the darkest shadows.
I started this solo podcast in 2012 because there was very little that encompassed the broad range of the UK geek experience and if I didn't have anything to listen to, I'd damn well punk rock/DIY/Why Don't You it myself.
Not only that, but as a shy geek, have you ever felt you couldn't get a word in edgeways in a conversation about the vitally important issue of the exact shade of Captain America's blue tights? Yeah, me too. This is my way of saying exactly what I want about whatever I like... uninterrupted.
Although based in the UK, the show is taped wherever life takes me, including hotels, cars, etc. At one stage it relocated to Mauritius, where I was the technology columnist for a national broadsheet newspaper called the Independent Daily until it closed.
The title of the show has currently reverted to the original (and appalling) Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show. In reverse chronological order, the show has also been called Captain Roy's Rocket Radio Show, Roy's Geek Broadcast, Roy.Pod, Roy's Rocket Radio, neRRRdcast, and, of course, Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show. You may find some podcast syndication sites still using one of these deprecated names.
Why Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show? Other than a ridiculous taste for alliteration, let me explain. "Captain Roy" is partly because I sail, but mainly because of Captain Han Solo. Also, though far less flatteringly, when I first started to sail my parents called me Captain Pugwash. Finally, there's the unfortunate resemblance of the words "Captain Roy" to "Captain Ron", another terrible sailor played by Kurt Russell in the titular 1992 film. "Rocket" is because science fiction is my first geek love. "Radio", because I originally wanted to be a rock radio DJ like the late great Tommy Vance. And "Show", because the show must go on, and as Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) says in Bob Fosse's All that Jazz (1979), "It's showtime, folks!" (And because I kept adding words, until I had a unique show title; a decision I would bitterly regret, having been stuck with it for years).
This is how I make podcasts.
I write on paper, usually with a fountain pen, then type shownotes with Notepad2-mod and spellcheck them in Vim.
I aim a Shure SM58 with the A58WS windscreen and a no name metal pop filter, with a pencil attached to it with an elastic band to break up sibalance according to legend, 45 degrees off-axis at my pointy chinny chin chin at a distance of 6 inches from the capsule.
Signal chain: SM58 mic--TritonAudio FetHead mic booster--Yamaha MG06 mixer--Sony PCM M10 recorder. I monitor and mix on JVC HAS160 cans.
I tape a 48 kHz 24-bit WAV set to peak at -12 dB, import into Audacity, downmix to mono (mono copy saved unedited as raw backup), denoise (Noise reduction = 6, Sensitivity = 6.00, Frequency smoothing = 0), export from Audacity, run through The Levelator 2, re-import into Audacity, Paul L.'s Audactity De-Clicker Plug-in is applied to mitigate my clickity-clackity mouth (differences from default: pass = 1, freq. = 500 Hz to 8000 Hz, bands = 10), a custom EQ curve reduces overly bright spikes (-5 dB from 3000 hz to 15,000 hz), edit, export as both a 48 kHz 24-bit WAV master and an MP3 (Constant Bit Rate Mode, 48 kHz Sample Rate, 128 kbps Bit Rate, Joint Stereo Channel Mode, DRM Free).
I add metadata to the MP3 with Mp3tag and upload it to archive.org. The shownotes and RSS feed are uploaded to roymathur.com with FileZilla. The show is syndicated via Apple Podcasts et al.
You may re-syndicate my feed on a non-commercial basis. Contact me for commercial use because it would be ever so nice to be paid for driving advertising to your site.
Please get in touch if you represent an organization on this plane of reality interested in advertising with us. Until then our currrent sponsors are:
We have been awarded with the following unique honours:
Wherein we deny all responsibility, bury our heads in the sand, stick fingers in our ears, hum loudly, and scream, "We can't hear you, we can't hear you!"
NB Within the remainder of this section, the audio show is henceforth referred to as the PODCAST.
Warning: This PODCAST is classified as seditious by the Supreme Council of Gallifrey, the United Federation of Planets, and many other tin-pot bureaucracies. Possession of this PODCAST is punishable by being, "banished to endless imprisonment in the Phantom Zone", "cast into the Pit of Carkoon, the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc.", destruction by Eminiar VII disintegration chamber, as well as many other ghastly and surprisingly inventive punitive capital sentences that abound throughout... well, everywhere really. (You'd have thought sentient species capable of outgrowing this cruelty by now).
Disclaimer: By listening to this PODCAST, you agree not to hold the PODCAST responsible for any resultant damages including, though not limited to, legal prosecution or litigation in all legal systems, all injuries; mental or physical (e.g. mild anxiety to total loss of mind, bodily damage including cosmetic issues to loss of limb(s), organ(s), or cessation of all life processes, i.e. death), or causation of apocalyptic scale events that may affect the multiverse, or the time stream of past, present, future, and any other dimensions that may or may not exist. Suck on that Shadow Proclamation, Imperial Agents, and Section 31.
It takes time and effort to produce this material, so please respect the copyright of the website, podcast, show notes, and all other content, or consequently there will be consequences of quite some consequence.