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Behind The Scenes So Far....

In the studio 2nd July 2006
Hi welcome to behind the scenes of this radio show. We have all been busy already and have started to do the pre-recorded interviews. We have interviewed people from the following countries so far:

- Australia
- United Kingdom
- New Zealand
- Portugal
- United States of America

We still have more interviews to get through. Here are a couple of pics from our first radio session. These pictures are of Kajere (the owner and DJ of FM2000) and Nicole Pule-Leech (President of AussieQueens Australian and New Zealand Queen Fan Club) with our first stage of the show preparation underway.

These pictures and first lot of interviews were taken and completed on 2nd July 2006

Nicole and KJ just about finished with the first round of interviews - was a long day for both of us.

July to Mid August 2006 The Editing Grind
After getting the bulk of the interviews done on my last visit down to the FM2000 Studio, I raced back up to Bendigo and handed the recordings in to Icarus Falls to start editing and cleaning the sound quality up with the raw recordings as best as he could. When I had spare time I would sit in on the editing and we would go through the raw recordings together and decide what was going to stay in for the show and what was going to be off loaded for share and what was going to be locked in the vault as it may cause too much of a stir or was not relevant. I can tell you that Icarus Falls and I spent hours going over the recordings - we got a great cut for each interview. We were supposed to not go over 3 mins but some of the interviews were just too good to cut back to that length. We were happy to let them run a bit over time and drop some songs off the playlist to fit them in. Some of the interviews were 30 mins long - so you can imagine how much work was involved in cutting them down to 3 mins. Some were shorter and some were longer - but on average they were pretty close to 3 mins.

Once I had approved the cuts for the interviews then Icarus Falls got busy taking out all the little um's, err's, long pauses and coughs to try and cut back on time wasted in the conversations. It did not help with the editing that at times both KJ and I when asking a question, chatted into the question and at times we did not actually ask a straight question. Poor Icarus I think he was pulling his hair out at times in the editing room. This was hard on Icaurs Falls as he had to try and cut back our chat to allow as much time possible for the interviewee to get as much air play time as possible. You see the longer he left KJ and I chatting the more we had to cut off from the interviewees answer. Icarus Falls was able to do some fancy editing and get a question cut from our chat and cut it down to a couple of sec's.

Sound level's were also a issue, as some phone lines were just difficult to hear or were bad lines. So Icarus Fall's also worked on sound equalizing the interviews and this can take days and hours to just get them all right. Lino and Hans interview for example were difficult as they were done using Skype and both Lino and Hans had their mic's too close to their face so we got a lot of heavy breathing from them on the raw recording. Icarus Falls did his best to clean it up and for sure they sound great now. With Han's interview he also had his speakers on so we had much of his interview with feedback or a delay echo of KJ's questioning coming through under Han's answer - if you listen carefully to Han's interview for share you can hear this come through at times but it is at a soft level - turn your volume right up and you will hear it come through at times. The feedback that was on the raw copy of the interview was not soft at all it was very loud - so I am unsure how Icarus Falls managed to work his magic and hide this problem from the aired copy and shared copy but he did a great job with these interviews with such difficult sounding problems built into them.

Now it was a matter of getting this all up to scratch so next time I went down to FM2000 studios all the time consuming technical work was done and the interviews were all cleaned up. This would leave KJ to just finalize all the fancy stuff to get it ready for just how he likes to get the spec's for his broadcast's. All the hard work was done for him. Thank you Icarus Falls.

So whilst Icarus Falls was busy with the editing and he did not need me to sit in to work out the content that was to stay, I was busy trying to sort out the play list for the show. Boy this was no easy task. With so much to chose from and all such great stuff I wanted to put heaps of music into the show but could not. After many weeks of trying to decide I went to Icarus Falls and said "I can't work out what to play on the show. It is all so good". So in about 30 mins Icarus Falls went through the collection and pulled out a sub group for me to work with. I went off and then was able to fine tune this subgroup and work out what stayed and what went. I wanted to play heaps more rare stuff and we did have it here, but we decided to just keep it to a few. I think there was a good balance of rare stuff verses not much airplayed common tracks with the big classic Queen tunes everyone knows. But this Bulsara track was now starting to cause me some grief.

I liked the Bulsara Mix that was done by a German Fan in dedication to Freddie when he died. The trouble with the mix was that it is about 5 mins long. So for a radio show this is way too much air time on one track. I could not decide again what to do with this track. I wanted it in as it was so different and I liked it. However, this was a show for the fans so I had to find out what the fans wanted - Bulsara in or out. So off I went to my network of friends in myspace and asked for some feedback from the Queen fans on my list what they thought I should do. I had so many people message me back about the track with "I don't know the track but it sounds great. You should play it" to "I think I remember this track and if it is the one I am thinking of you should play it". So it was settled the Bulsara track was in the line up - but pending on spare time on the show to fit it in.

Once we had finished all this it was time to pay another visit to KJ down in Geelong again and show him what we had done in all that time.

27th August 2007 Time to show KJ the polished goods and to get some more interviews recorded
KJ was sick with a flu most the time we were busy editing. He was not looking as good as last time I was down there. It looked like the flu had knocked him about a bit. I myself had not been doing too well as too many late nights editing etc was starting to tire me out. You can see by our pics from this session that we are both not looking so crash hot health wise.

So KJ and I get the big interviews done this session. Speaking to David Holland and Jamie Moses was such a great experience for me. Hearing David talk about Hiding In Public and the behind the scenes stuff to the band and also Jamie Moses was great. David has a real depth to him and I hope Hiding in Public become massive as they deserve to.

As for me sitting in on the Jamie Moses interview it was just a great experience. All I can say is that the guy is really down to earth and mega interesting. I wish Jamie got more media attention when he was touring with Queen + Paul Rodgers as he had some great stories to tell about the tour. I really enjoyed doing these interviews. So after talking to Jamie and David with all the hard work out of the way, this is what happened to KJ and myself in the studio:

KJ and I letting off a big amount of pressure as all the interviews were now done. The hard work was now over!

After the interviews were completed, the exchange of information and show and tell time came next for KJ and I during this workshop session. It was time to get the big bosses verdict on what we had done and how it was all shaping up. So far so good - some changes here and there, imporvements on working out how the transferring data and getting the project to a finished point asap was also worked out. KJ's job now was to fine tune the edited interviews we had done and get him to cut them down a little more if he could. It was all put on a to do list for him and I was sent with my own to do list and the big job for me now was to get that play list sorted out.

I was still agonizing over what songs stay and what songs were to be cut - I just committed to getting back home and for once and for all organize the order of what I had picked out.

KJ had real work to do - paid work so as soon as we worked out all the nitty gritty stuff for the prep work for the show - it was time for me to leave KJ and get on with it. There was still heaps of work to be done on our part - and these new interviews needed to be edited pretty quickly by Icarus Falls from Aussie Queens and off back down to KJ.

KJ had a couple more interviews to catch on his own. As for these interviews, I just did not have the time to get down to Geelong for as they were getting done when I was working up in Bendigo. So KJ was left to handle the couple of interviews that were left to do without me.

KJ and I had worked out a fast tracked way to shift the information between the two different locations and this turned out to be a great way of moving the entire project between Bendigo and Geelong fast online and saving me physically having to go down to Geelong from Bendigo to get the data to KJ asap as snail mail was too slow (note: it is a 2.5 hours travel distance and 2 working days for snail mail to get to each others locations)

We were pretty well ready now for the live show - so it was just a matter of the final clean ups and then shifting the data off to KJ ready for the live show.

Time to rest before the live show
No such luck. Once all the prep work on Aussie Queens job was done our next task was to put the word out about the show as launch and broadcast D day was approaching. I could have done more for this stage but I was so exhausted it was really hard for me to cover the ground I managed to cover before the live show - so to take it to the full depth of spreading the word I could have taken it to I just had to do the main ports of call and that was about all I could manage. I was not expecting too large a turn out or tune in to the show as I knew I could have covered more ground and got a bigger response for KJ than I was expecting to turn up. I was now starting to take pretty ill and the days leading up to the live show I was pretty sick. I thought I was going to be too sick to attend the live show but I managed to drag myself off the couch and head down to Geelong with Icarus at my side.

The Live Show and broadcast of the Aussie Queens & FM 2000 Freddie Mercury 60th Birthday show
6th September 2006
So where do I start. I guess at the start would be good. Was I nervous? Yes and no. I was not too worried by the time we got down to Geelong as I was not expecting the numbers to be too big and all the prep work was done.

We arrived at KJ's and rocked up with a microphone for us to speak into as KJ had all his mic's in use for the live broadcast. KJ tested our Microphone and checked our sound levels - but alas the mic was no good.

KJ and Icarus Falls going through all the paper work and technical aspects of the show just before we went live

We had to go off with KJ at the last minute and scoured Geelong for a new microphone and a lead jack to plug it into his mixing desk. We hit Dick Smith's and found what we needed but no microphone. We had to take KJ back to the studio he had heaps of work to still do and Icarus Falls and I headed back to the town centre on our own to look for the mic. We picked up a mic for the show and on our way back Icarus Falls and I called in down at the bay to take a moment to calm any nerves that were starting to spring up. First time I was starting to feel slightly nervous.

Down at the Bay (Geelong)	Down at the Bay (Geelong)
Me trying to get rid of the pre show nerves	Icarus Falls totally chilled out

When we arrived back there was not too much longer to go before the live show was going to start. The studio was already buzzing with online activity. Many people were starting to drop in on KJ on chat and the forum posts we had up were starting to get a little bit of activity. The Microphone we picked up failed the sound check levels so we were left to use an older mic of KJ's. This later on became an issue in the show as no one could hear what Icarus Falls and I were saying at the start of the show - well we could be heard but it was like people talking in the background whilst you are on the phone. Not how we were supposed to sound at all. The problem was soon identified to us all in the studio and we ended up having to share the microphone KJ was using. During the show the three of us were huddled around the one microphone. Not to mention KJ told us to shout when we spoke into it so for much of the live broadcast we were shouting down the microphone (blush). As the show rolled on we eventually eased off the shouting as it turned out to be roughly a 4 hour live show. I don't think we were expecting it to go this long as we had worked out all the times etc of pre recording stuff and estimated the live broadcasting to only be at a minimum.

Icarus Falls and KJ at 9mins into the live broadcast

What happened in the first 30 mins of the show amazed us all. The numbers of those tuning in to the show were starting to just multiply all on their own. What must of happened at this point was the people tuning in to the show must of emailed or had others on chat and alerted them to the show. The numbers were going mental.

KJ and Icarus Falls well into the live broadcast

Icarus Falls druing the hype of the broadcast

Not only were the Queen fans starting to tune in but we were getting scanned and detected by other radio stations out there. We had one person representing 3 other different stations contact KJ and asked him permission to beam the show we were broadcasting out through their transmissions. This was something we asked for on our blurbs in various places but no-one responded. Funny they must have tuned in to see what it was going to be like and were on standby and see if it was something they wanted to relay their end. We ended up having a station from Japan, Malta and one in Germany relay the broadcast through their stations that also transmitted landline broadcasts as well as online. FM2000 is an actual station on the radio dial down in Geelong. So we were also getting transmitted through the normal radio down in Geelong also.

Things from this point on were just a blur really. It was as if time was suspended whilst we were broadcasting and then when it was all over it was as if it had all happened in just a few seconds. It was an amazing experience. One I don't think anyone involved will forget. It did get very emotional for all of us doing the broadcast at a few stages of the broadcast but we were able to hold back the tears. As we wished Freddie a Happy 60th together and the show started to wind down with the close music for the show - we all looked at each other amazed at what had just happened.

For myself it was a very intense moment for me in my life.

Thank you
Aussie Queens would like to thank all those involved in doing an interview with us for the show and all the forums and websites that assisted in spreading the word for the show. To all those that tuned in to the live broadcasts we would like to thank you for spending the time tuned in to us. We hope you enjoyed the show and we thank all those that helped to spread the word about the show once you tuned in.

Aussie Queens would like to thank KJ for all his time and effort he put into this show even though he was rather ill and he nearly could not do the broadcast on the day. I think this was a one off thing. I am sure those that tuned in to the live show felt that all come through.

Personal thanks to Icarus Falls for the hours he spent editing all the interviews and assisting me with song selections and cutting back Bulsara. Will FM2000 and Aussie Queens ever team up again? I am sure when and if the time is right it will just happen. We will let you know if we are going to kick something off out there. Never say never...

Icarus Falls and myself during the live broadcast (It was freezing cold)

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