Matt and Alex All day Breakfast goes old school with street team
LiSTNR’s Matt & Alex All Day Breakfast has wound back the clock by creating a street team for their daily podcast.
The street team is called the Bomb Squad and will be made up of winners of a competition where up to 20 winners will each win a set of four Bomb Squad decals for their car.
Podcast Week‘s Trent Thomas caught up with Matt Okine and Alex Dyson to talk about the inspiration for the Bomb Squad.
Dyson said that like most things, the idea came a spark of jealously when walking through the SCA car park.
AD: “I was walking through the car park and spotted the Black Thunders, the Rock Patrol, the different cars that the radio stations have and I thought you know its a brave new media world and why can’t Matt and Alex All Day Breakfast have their own street team as well. We got a bit of artwork together and now 20 legends are going to be rolling around and putting the Matt and Alex podcast on their cars.”
MO: “The main thing is it just hits into the heart of nostalgia as well like everyone has a street team memory. I vividly, vividly remember racing outside of the Blockbuster Video one afternoon to try and catch the B105 Black Thunder. I can see it like it was yesterday.”
Dyson joked that while they normally start with a name and work backwards this time around the name of the concept came together later on.
AD: ” We did have the idea of a street team first and then came up with the name Bomb Squad. We were in a meeting where we were meant to have thought of a name and I thought of it in the moment in the room and went yeah yeah I’ve been thinking about it, um, how about this. But it was such a good name, everyone thought that I’d spent ages coming up with it.”
The pair believe that they are the first Australian podcast to have a street team, and perhaps even the world. But don’t hold them to it.
AD: “The key to that is not doing our research and if we make sure that we don’t look and see if there are any others, we can unequivocally say that is the first time a podcast in the world has ever to our knowledge had their own dedicated street team.
“We spoke to Harley Breen on our show yesterday and after we hit stop on the recording he said, ‘You better watch it, there might be some competition if you think you’re the only ones we might try and get on board as well’. As is always the case when there are leaders there are followers, there are always a few rats that follow the pide pipers around.”
Dyson admits that they are more street team in looks than action, with no freebies being given out by the volunteer promo team.
AD: “They are under strict instructions to not interact with the public. I think it’s the treat them mean keep them keen angle because if people snob you, you say those people are quite cool. I think our car is going to be pretty cool on the road.”
MO: “With our show’s budget we couldn’t afford to get stickers that definitely didn’t peel the paint off of your car. Stick at your own risk.”
When asked what the criteria of a ‘bomb’ was, Okine said that they don’t discriminate when handing out the stickers.
MO: “It really is open to anyone as long as you’ve got two doors. That’s kind of the main thing because two of the stickers stick onto the side doors. If you’re rocking some sort of horse and cart then you probably are off-limits, but other than that you’re good to go. Even cars you wouldn’t think, like undercover police cars. I’m sure there are some undercover cops that listen to Matt and Alex All Day Breakfast. What better way to go undercover than to have Matt and Alex All Day Breakfast Bomb Squad stickers all over your car, people won’t have a clue that you are about to bust them for speeding.”
The winners have already started rolling in, with some interesting vehicles joining Matt and Alex’s Bomb Squad.
MO: “Yesterday we announced one of our first winners, Aberthea, who is currently in the Northern Territory and who had picked up a secondhand ambulance from the 1970s off Russell Island in Brisbane and has covered it mostly in spray paint and is travelling around Australia. He’s left a couple of panels on one side and has told us on our show that he is happy to dedicate to all of the Bomb Squad messaging and branding.
“It also wouldn’t be bad to get someone who’s got an old ice cream van as well. Not only can you rock Matt and Alex on the front, back and sides but just pump it in place of green sleeves and blare it through the neighbourhood.”
AD: “Serving some piping hot bacon and eggs in the All Day Breakfast van.”
Louisa Hope and Podshape release Sydney Siege podcast
The Sydney Siege podcast was released on October 7 with Louisa Hope documenting her first-hand experience of the terror that rocked Australia.
Hope walked into the Lindt Cafe with her mum at 9am on the 15th of December 2014 for a light breakfast and a coffee. She left over 17 hours later on an ambulance stretcher with gunshot wounds to her foot and body after enduring terror at the hands of the gunman.
The Sydney Siege podcast is a comprehensive account from the moment lone gunman Man Haron Monis arrived in Australia in 1996 to that day in the Lindt Cafe. You’ll hear shocking details and relatively unknown information about the gunman and events that led up to the attack.
The seven-part podcast series is produced by Australian independent podcast company Podshape and will be released weekly across all podcast platforms.
The Sydney Siege – Terror in Australia podcast is accompanied by 7 short video exclusives.
[Listen to Sydney Siege podcast here]
How I Work joins ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia
ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia has welcomed the How I Work podcast to its platform. The show explores the working days of some of the world’s most successful innovators, entrepreneurs, writers, musicians and business people.
Hosted by organisational psychologist and founder of behavioural science consultancy Inventium, Dr Amantha Imber, the podcast discusses tactics, rituals and tricks to optimise the work day.
Every episode contains practical tips that can be used to become more productive, motivated, and happier at work.
How I Work has a slate of new episodes themed around wellbeing at work which are released each Thursday and include guests such as Josh Piterman, Christian O’Connell, Liane Moriarty and Radek Sali.
Greg Callaghan investigates gay hate murders in Bondi Badlands podcast
The true story of how the scenic clifftops of iconic Bondi became the epicentre of a series of brutal gay hate murders is the focus of new true-crime podcast Bondi Badlands from Nine’s The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
The five-part series, by Good Weekend deputy editor Greg Callaghan and based on his acclaimed 2007 book of the same name, launched on Friday, October 1 with weekly episodes available on all major podcast platforms.
Bondi Badlands is an investigation into a series of callous murders and mysterious disappearances in Sydney in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
All victims were gay, and the series explores the slaying of four young men – WIN TV weather reporter Ross Warren, barmen John Russell, Thai national Kritchikorn Rattanjurathaporn and Frenchman Gilles Mattaini – who met their grizzly deaths at the bottom of the cliffs between Bondi and Tamarama beaches.
Each episode centres on the murder of the Bondi men, with episode four also examining the 2005 inquest, prison phone taps, and the story of how David McMahon became Page’s star witness after escaping almost certain death. The final episode covers the case of Scott Johnson, whose body was found at the base of cliffs near North Head, Manly, in 1988. A man was arrested by police in May 2020 after a key informant came forward to help break the cold case. A pre-trial hearing is set for early 2021.
Journalist Greg Callaghan pieces together the murders, the senseless and tragic loss of lives, and the effect the murders have had on friends and families, many of whom have never received justice or closure.
Acast releases Sounds Mindful for Mental Health Awareness Month
To mark Mental Health Awareness Month, Acast is bringing some of Australia’s favourite podcasters together for Sounds Mindful, a series of sessions running throughout October.
With an open invitation to the media industry, these sessions have been designed with podcasters from across the Acast Creator Network. Each one breaks up the norms of the working day — whether that’s through rebalancing with exercise, cooking, or hearing stories of incredible resilience.
Liam Daly, group sales lead for Acast Australia and New Zealand, said: “In essence, podcasts are about storytelling, providing a space for anyone and everyone, no matter their background, to share their story – and Acast gives a platform to all those stories. There’s compassion, companionship and comfort to be found from all sorts of situations, and we want to share more of these stories and conversations — especially after what has been a difficult few months for everyone.
“We’d love to see as many people as possible at the four events, so we’ve made it super simple to register on the website. Whether you join pilates with Alexis or sit down with a coffee to hear from the incredibly resilient Stuart Diver, Sounds Mindful gives our clients and colleagues the opportunity to take some time out for themselves, and break up their day with something different, while shining a light on mental health.”
Sounds Mindful: What’s happening
• Wednesday, October 6 at 8.00am: Pilates with Alexis Fernandez, host of Do You F*cking Mind?
• Thursday, October 14 at 10.00am: A conversation and Q&A on resilience with Stuart Diver, sole survivor of the Thredbo landslide and host of The Elements
• Thursday, October 21 at 9.00am: A chat about mental health with Osher Günsberg (Better Than Yesterday) and Alisha Aitken-Radburn (In The House & In The Senate), who together co-host The Reality Bite: Cocktails and Roses
• Thursday, October 28 at 12.00pm: Cookalong hosted by Paul Verhoeven and Tegan Higginbotham from Dish Island. Get in quick as the first 75 people to register for this session will receive a $25 gift card to stock up on their ingredients.
