Pocket Symphony

Yes, yes, I know that “Pocket Symphony” is an album by the French duo Air.

While I do like the band (and the record), I got this domain years before the album came out.

When I first decided to do The MousePod, “mousepod.com” was unavailable. I did snag “mousepod.net”, but I wanted a dot com address.

Something inside me said that I would, at some point, create a bunch of different shows - not just Disney-related. Where the name “mousepod” is both Disney- and Apple-centric, I wanted a more generic name that would suggest something neat, concise and compact.

I was thinking about the praise that Leonard Bernstein gave Brian Wilson after he heard “Good Vibrations” and “Surf’s Up” - praise which, some say, helped push poor Brian over the edge - and Brian’s description of the former as a “pocket symphony”, and one domain check later a website was born.

(If you aren’t familiar with those songs, which were intended for the classic “lost” Beach Boys’ album SMiLE, you need to pick up Smiley Smile and Surf’s Up by the Beach Boys, and Brian’s SMiLE, which saw him finally completing the album.)

By the way, Pete (Sonic Boom) from the brilliant Spacemen 3 released a record called “Pocket Symphony” under the name E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research) on the excellent label Sympathy For The Record Industry.

I’m still planning on using this site as a launching pad for several different projects. This is only the second.

I guess this is as good a time/place as any to start this new blog.

If you’re a fan of my old podcast The MousePod, welcome, this is going to be a little different (but hopefully as entertaining).

Several years ago, I wanted to get involved with something dynamic on the web. I had spent my entire adult life in the music industry, but was on a “hiatus” of sorts and felt disconnected from the entertainment biz.

Two brand-new internet-based tech advances at that time were blogging and podcasting (well, actually, the big advance was RSS, which made both feasible) - so I decided to start a blog/podcast.

Those who know me are aware that I’m a pop culture geek, with a tendency toward the obsessive. I knew that I wanted to attract an audience to my “show”, so I needed to pick one of my favorite topics and focus on it. Heather, my beautiful wife, suggested “Disney”, so I started The MousePod. It was the first Disney podcast (official or unofficial) and was a lot of fun to do. Unfortunately for me, life kept getting in the way (Disney wasn’t my only obsession, remember), so I had the tendency to go for long stretches between shows. Luckily, there were plenty of talented and enthusiastic Disney fans who wanted to podcast, so the gap was more than filled pretty quickly.

So whatever happened to The MousePod?

Well, it’s gone. Probably for good.

Last summer, Heather & I decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Both of us found new jobs. Mine is back in the music biz (more about that later). Heather wound up with a Director position at… Disney. It’s an awesome job, and it allows her to really push her talents and skills to new heights. However, we both decided that for me to do a unofficial Disney podcast would be too much of a potential conflict, so my show and blog was lovingly mothballed.

But I really miss sharing my discoveries on the internet. Hence, this brand-new blog (and more). Unlike The MousePod, it’s not going to be focused on anything specific. I probably won’t do anything in the way of promotion, so if this turns out to be an exercise for an audience of one, that’ll be fine. But if you stumble across Pocket Symphony and you enjoy it, please drop me an email. And if you want to share it with a friend or two, I’d be delighted.

Yr Pal,
Jesse