Podcast
Minutes
Hosted by Ben McAllister · EN
Daily sounds from composer/guitarist Ben McAllister: a sketch, a demo, a field recording, something I heard that day, a thought and a picture. More at Listenfaster
21episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
July 21, 2026
1w ago00:01:06Tap to summarizeThis is a very fun slidey thing to play with, from January of this year. Another ingredient in my never-ending Slider Rays piece. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 20, 2026
1w ago00:01:23Tap to summarizeThis is a fun little exercise that forces me to start slow and work my way up to speed. I think I'm feeling the metronome above 80 bpm, but I'm not! Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 19, 2026
2w ago00:02:09Tap to summarizeThe worst night of insomnia in a while. I tried to play my way back to bed. I wrote this to my writer's group: The man woke up at 3am, dull heat coursing through his veins but refusing to escape through his porous skin holes. He sat up in bed, spine straightening in time to his heartbeat. This is a new kind of pulse, bigger than he felt three years ago, when he was last adrift like this. That cloudy frame of mind that arises when the beats wake you up in your ears is round and rubbery, with a weird surface tension, like lake water under moonlight. Frogs previously soaking the air go quiet. Strange brain troubles crest the surface as he decided what to do next. His retired doctor and network of net-informed non-professionals have counseled him to fill his quiver with a rainbow of attack lines. Big hammers of anesthetic that paradoxically have the opposite effect, and induce more thinking and energy. He's too tired to make sense of them though, and each one occupies a channel on the TV in his mind, and someone has written a program which switches the channels in random order, dang dang dang dang dang, until the only thing he can do is observe the rhythm. Benadryl and Bananas, like a lost Ween song, can be heard behind the din of the TV, drum track in time with the channel switching. Now he tiptoes past his sleeping wife and attentive dog, down the hall, past the picture of Miles glaring back at the camera. "wherethefuckyougoinmuthafucka, wherethefuckyougoinmuthafucka, wherethefuckyougoinmuthafucka". Silently out into the moonlight, he steps lightly off the stoop into backlit green, and that sternum light starts to pull out of him a little. He feels a little lighter after a few deep breaths, but still clogged. There's an owl nearby. It's sound is some sort of announcement, maybe an invitation, so he climbs a nearby tree to see what he can see. Wide wings flap above him, and he feels the wind. The TV shuts down, pores open up, water rushes in, demons leave, Bulgarian ladies sing a high major second, the frogs kick back in, and he's ready for bed. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 18, 2026
2w ago00:01:16Tap to summarizeAm I keeping the pulse on this guy? I hear, play, let my thumb take over with the pulses, and things drift a little. In the moment it feels tight and hypnotic. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 13, 2026
2w ago00:01:35Tap to summarizeC'mon C'mon in the studio at Eric Eagle's, a marathon day recording... 11 songs I think. No audio of this yet but coming soon. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 12, 2026
3w ago00:01:35Tap to summarizeC'mon C'mon finally playing again for people. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 11, 2026
3w ago00:01:21Tap to summarizeJacqui and Wyatt rockin it at the Bilstad's backyard summer concert. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 09, 2026
3w ago00:01:21Tap to summarizeFinally playing Theme again. I can't believe how much I'd forgotten about this tune - took me a day at least to get it back into my corpus. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 08, 2026
3w ago00:02:16Tap to summarizeSean's tune Dirty Little Secrets - everyone thought this was super-proggy, and the proginess was solely my doing. Guilty. Here's me being a control freak at the top. Link to the post.
Transcribe →
July 07, 2026
3w ago00:01:11Tap to summarizeOffice Song - 1st time in 15 years or so. Such a good one. Link to the post.
Transcribe →