How it works: Bad at Sports, the Chicago crew, and the new blog
I e-met Richard Holland through violent flame wars on (defunct) Othergroup. And that's where he mentioned Bad at Sports, a newly invented media form called a podcast. It was August, 2006.
By show 12, I was helping out with publicity and "stuff" as it came up, and I've been on the sidelines ever since. It has grown to become one of the nation's largest art websites that is independent of an institution. It has a larger archive of artists than PS1, and if you judge by the metric of "unique visitor" traffic, it has double the readership of the New Art Examiner at its peak.
At the very beginning, Holland, MacKenzie and their beer comprised the show. Then Amanda Browder soon joined and they were the on-air trio, passing two microphones between four people (that's what those pauses are, they're passing the mic).
But how and why has Bas survived for four years? This paragraph ended up on the cutting room floor of our proposal for the journalism summit, but this is my view of our business model:
When funds dry up during economic downturns, many organizations are forced to disband. Bad at Sports has remained unchanged through this recession due to its minimal operations model. Over 200 episodes have been released without ever requiring a studio space - all audio is captured in the field. Inexpensive recording devices can be shared between correspondents, and free editing software programs can be found online. The hosting provider is low-cost, and distribution via the Internet and iTunes is free. The entire group voluntarily contributes their effort and content because they love the work, and the reward for their efforts has led to impressive opportunities for many of its members.
Brian Andrews
Also in 2007, Amanda Browder moved to New York, but reports with a crew she's formed out east. But even with Browder's departure, the female presence increased. There were always women in BaS, I've put in some segments, like DJ Spooky, and Tom Blackman the day after he sold Art Chicago to the Mart. And Terri Griffith did one of my favorite interviews (with Gregg Bordowitz and David Getsy) "about queer art, queer theory and what it means to be queer".
In October 2006, BaS did a huge live month-long series, with a 20-foot map of names interconnected with thread. Guests were interviewed in front of a live audience, among them Kerry James Marshall , Rhona Hoffman and Francesco Bonami.
And that's when Meg Onli came on board. I'll come back to her because she's a big shot now. She has Iceland in her sights and is running the blog, but back then she was an intern and had to do the life-force-draining task that someone is always stuck with... the name drops. Ugh, the name drops- what a pain in the ass. Sign up for the email and you'll know what the name drops are. Now Lauren Vallone is stuck with the name drops, but she's a real champ, and she's also relieved me of handling the weekly email.
But back in 2007, the staff that was on hand didn't have one detail-oriented person in the mix, everyone was screwing up the spelling of people's names, or the word San Francisco was spelled wrong on a promotional sticker. Although the show is a free download and no one gets paid, it doesn't stop the audience from complaining loudly about typos (and everything else). So along came Audrey Michelle Mast, who was editing Flavorpill in Chicago. Although she's doing a stint in St. Louis, she is still idiot-proofing us to this day.
Anyway, from Raymond Pettibone, Jeff Wall, Chris Walla, Derek Guthrie, fights on the comments section, and Mark Staff Brandl from Switzerland, it's been a hell of a run. And Meg Onli has made the blog and Twitter feed into a formidable presence, breathing new life into the show. Lauren Vallone reviews apartment galleries, and Claudine Ise, with a doctorate worth of art knowledge, has become the resident art-writing star. Stephanie Burke of the Gallery Crawl is doing roundups, and it's all kicking ass. And there are a bunch more people on the staff list, many I don't know - my apologies to all those I didn't mention.
