“Life moves pretty fast.”
“Life moves pretty fast.”
There’s plenty of instances in life that heed you to take pause and reflect on progress, achievement and change, I never expected eclipsing 300 internet radio broadcasts would be one of those things for me.
Having been part of PulpMX since early 2009, Steve, Pookie, JT and I are the shortlist of those who have been on board through all 300. It’s crazy. I remember the first email I sent Steve which started our relationship from that year and looking back now it seems like the topic of a “live online motocross radio show” was at least a couple years into our correspondence, alas it was merely months. I thought the idea was a little far-fetched. DMXS predated the idea by a long ways but from the first explanation Steve sent me of what he wanted to do, honestly left me thinking in a completely different direction. The idea that Steve’s show could be considered relative to DMXS never occurred to me and now 300 shows and 7.5 years later I feel my radar was pretty on the nose then as now because the two shows continue to be true to themselves and serve completely different purposes in concept and execution.
From birth to 300. Not bad. |
It was an exciting concept but not one I really thought had legs, especially not nearly 8 years and no signs of slowing. Those early days of Greg McQuerry and I troubleshooting private test broadcasts and chatroom tests… tests tests tests, it was the unknown and truly exciting for all of us, mostly Steve I think. Steve is an entertainer and will always allow himself to play a role to serve the humor on the show. We have a saying relating to the show, “it’s all for the good of the show”. There is no butt hurt permissible as long as the “jab jab” adds to the humor.
The Motoworld Racing.com show as it was initially titled was a short-lived name due to the sponsor having an incredibly unrealistic vision of what “return” was expected within 1 month of a fledgling niche show. It still boggles my mind to this day but it was for the best and it’s been smooth sailing with incredible partners who continue to share in our vision for lasting success.
Some of our original “regular callers” have disappeared, “Hazbeen” most notably, although I do wish we’d get another call from “Guiseppe” or “Grendel” again just for old times sake. The 2010 and 2011 Vegas Shows are yet to be topped in my opinion. Perhaps 300 will be the new pinnacle but there’s just something about “Guiseppe” telling DC to “taste my Youthstream” and Swap telling his stories of “ripping his sack open” at Hangtown as well as his adversarial “relationship” with Jody Weisel of MXA. The 2011 Vegas show was of course Nick Wey telling Sinjin “Later Sinjin, suck a d@#!” and Weege telling his incredible wrestling story of nearly getting hospitalized while announcing. Nonstop guttural laughing in these shows and I was actually in studio for the 2011 Vegas show.
There’s of course been a handful of cohosts before Steve realized it just seemed to keep things fresh and smooth with a rotating cast of guest cohosts. Paul was way too button-down to work in the format, Kenny was a wild stallion and rather than find that another mainstay cohost would also have clashing idiosyncrasies it was a unanimous decision among those of us with a vote to keep rotating guest hosts.
The sound quality never struck me as lacking but now when you listen back to shows there is definitive improvement all along the evolution of the show. Steve would always talk about the sound quality and I’d always be like “bro it’s fine” he’d improve it with some new equipment or settings and I had to admit, it helped slightly but over 300 shows, many little tweaks have really added up to pretty dramatic improvements.
We’ve had a few producers over the years and it’s always been peculiar to me how the fans of the show seem to look at the producer as a sort of representative for them and as such they either align themselves as “pro-producer” or standing in opposition to them. Tit’s was the most polarizing of our producers. It seems 50% of fans would kill for Tits and the other 50% were threatening to kill him. That’s better than Gibbs faired though. He was an odd “fit” and it got contentious and generally uncomfortable. Then Marx came in and backflipped his way into the hearts of the fans. I’d actually kill for Travis if that tells you anything.
There have been plenty of memorable moments during various shows throughout it’s history, the ones that stand out without even needing to look through the archives are Marc Pellegrino, Lazergate, the Vegas shows, The Great Western Bank 100th show and any show where Wey, RV, Chad, or Mitch Payton are on.
I am bummed that the Year in Review no longer exists. This was the result of two things happening. “Instacast” the app that made it possible to listen to the show and bookmark at the same time within the app efficiently went out of business and the app was discontinued so I couldn’t reinstall it after an iOS update, the other thing was going from two to four sons. Without an efficient way to bookmark clips, building the Year in Review just became a heart attack to even think about. I loved those shows, they were such a great time capsule of the year racing. I’d love to see them come back.
So here we are at show 300 with the impossible coming to fruition. Chad Reed actually got on a plane (first class of course) and came to a PulpMX Show with DV and Red Dog to give the fans an incredible treat. The PulpMX Show really is the ultimate venue for fans to get a true sense of the real racers they want to see. It’s not possible for a racer to sit on air through a 3 hour show and not relax and almost forget they are on air. The real person definitely comes out and it ingratiates them to the fans like no other appearance can. Clearly sponsors see the value in working with this unique delivery vehicle and as long as you keep tuning in and supporting the sponsors who support us, we’ll be here making it possible for you to Listen. Laugh. Learn.
When the show started, I had a 4 year old and a 1 year old. We now have a 3 year old as well as a 1 year old. All boys and the crazy thing is, as fresh as the PulpMX Show feels for me, it is ubiquitous for my four sons, well, the 3 who are aware of it anyway. As long as they have been around, The PulpMX Show is just like cell phones and iPods to them. It just is and always has been. That’s so crazy to me.
Happy 300 and thanks for making it possible!