I conceived the idea of doing a podcast about the Seaway Valley last year, when I talked to my friend Derek Mason, known to his fans as “Chef Mayhem”. He is the former owner of the gourmet grilled cheese, burger, potato puff serving food truck that used to be at Archie’s Golf Course in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada.
Derek closed his truck during the pandemic due to uncertainty of the future. After closing, the pair of us began to brainstorm a line of spices, bbq rubs, and would go onto create cooking videos last year, and the year before. To clarify I’m not an owner of the business, that belongs to himself, and his wife Ashley, his parents also help out greatly with everything. I am more or less a marketing, and product ideas man, as well as a videographer, photographer, and musician. My name is James Hardiment, and I’m Cornwall based as well.
I talked with Derek about taking his charismatic, wholesome, family friendly personality, and starting a podcast talking about the local area, restaurants, food that type of a thing. In the end with home life (they have a wonderful daughter to raise) work life, and health issues with the pets, it just wasn’t a feasible thing to do. So I shelved the idea, as I do with many projects over the years, sometimes the timing isn’t just right!
Then a month or so ago, I decided to start to vlog, blog, and take the equipment I had built up from the cooking show we had made together, to start my own weekly podcast, in which I would summarize the blog posts of the week. After that I would interview a guest for the last 10-15 minutes, then post them for free on SoundCloud. So far, as of writing this, there are 4 episodes out, and I’m recording this weeks today. It’s called Bridge to the Seaway with James Hardiment. I named it that, in memory of the old Seaway International Bridge, which was taken down many years ago and replaced with a different crossing. The bridge connected Cornwall to Akwesasne Mohawk territory (Cornwall Island), and then another bridge links to New York State, United States.
I’m probably going to move the podcast over to my YouTube channel soon, and record it as well with video. Still looking into my options as I am using my iPhone SE, GarageBand music studio app to record audio only.
The microphones that I have been using, include a pro quality Shure SM7B, plugged into the phone using special adapter cables. I’ve also used my Rode Wireless Go Interview mic set too, which plugs into my phone. I think that going forward I’m just going to use that. It’s less hassle, at least until I can get a studio space of my own with desks, similar to a mainstream podcast, or radio show. The set up is ultra portable, meaning I can do interviews with guests pretty much anywhere. My first guest Claudine Trottier, of Focus Art Association, I recorded inside the art gallery room, my musician guest, Wade Barras I interviewed inside his car. One tricky one, I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do it, is with phone call interviews. I can’t seem to be able to use my pro mics with the telephone, Facebook video call, or FaceTime. I know Zoom is a potential option, but I’ve read the quality varies depending on your setup. I could always record with two devices, and just have the phone on with headphones I suppose, worst case scenario. If anyone knows any good programs or apps for video podcasting interviews with iOS (Apple) please let me know in the comments below? I’ve downloaded one called Switcher Studio recently, gonna try that and see what it’s like, I still have a free trial left for a few more days!
I talk about all kinds of fun subjects on the podcast, my stories in music, creating it, the videos, the whole process. The cool people I meet along the way. I also love to talk about my journeys and travels across the Province, especially the local area. I really love to see my friends succeed, as I’ve mentioned in a previous blog.
Anyways, creating a podcast isn’t the hard part, it’s keeping it interesting, I love history, music, art, fashion, food, travel, and I think a lot of people do too. One thing I notice too is that a lot of people will usually just talk about the major cities and famous towns. What about the forgotten, or simply lesser known places? I thought it would be cool to shine a light on communities people worldwide may have never even heard of before, and the wonderful bunch of people that reside in them.
Anyways I got to get going, I have to record an episode of the show tonight!
James
