Date: September 12, 2009
Title: Slacker Astronomy Interview with George Hrab
Podcaster: Michael Koppelman of Slacker Astronomy
Organization: Slacker Astronomy
Description: Michael from Slacker Astronomy interviews musician George Hrab, creator of the 365 Days of Astronomy theme song, including a live version of the theme song, complete with boisterous audience participation!
Bio: Slacker Astronomy is a light-hearted podcast about the astronomical road-less-traveled hosted by Michael Koppelman and Doug Welch, with frequent contributions by Aaron Price and Travis Searle.
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by Andy Poniros.
Transcript:
Michael Koppelman: Hello, and welcome once again to the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast. I’m Michael from Slacker Astronomy. Today we’re bringing you an interview with George Hrab who wrote the theme song that you just heard for 365 Days of Astronomy.
George Hrab is an interesting guy. He’s a blogger and a podcaster, a performing artist, songwriter obviously, a skeptic and an all around fairly interesting and funny guy. He has a Twitter feed. He’s on Facebook. He has YouTube videos. George Hrab is out there for you if you want to go look him up and experience more of his wonderful art.
This is an interview I did with George in January of 2009 at the AAS meeting. He also did a live version of the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast theme song at an event with a huge crowd of people there. You’ll hear that later in this interview as well.
I believe George went on to do a sort of a video of the theme song as well which you can find on YouTube if you just search for it. George is not is an astronomer. This interview is not about astronomy but it’s about one of the people behind the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast and totally worthy of a listen in my opinion.
The full version of this interview is available over at slackerastronomy.org and now without further ado here’s my interview with George Hrab. [Music]. If I may, how do you say your last name?
George Hrab: Okay, it rhymes with ‘Job’ so it’s Hrob. You can put the ‘h’ in there. Some people do, some people don’t, so it depends.
Michael: It’s not a silent ‘h’ the way you say it.
George: Right, some people say ‘Rab’; some people say ‘Hrab’.
Michael: I guess they should say ‘Hrob’. [Laughter].
George: There you go. Perfect.
Michael: I hear you described as a musician. I hear you described as a skeptic.
George: Right.
Michael: Tell me a little about what you’re doing these days.
George: Primarily a musician, a writer. My day job is playing drums for a funk band out of Philadelphia.
Michael: Really?
George: Yeah. The Philadelphia Funk Authority which is an 8 to 10-piece horn band that does 70s funk stuff. In my spare time I sort of write music and come up with albums.
I do a podcast called Geologic Podcast. It tends to focus on free-thought, skeptical things, science-based things plus really silly things.
I’m a huge fan of Monty Python and a huge fan of Stan Freberg and a huge fan of Carl Sagan. I’m a huge fan of Penn & Teller and Frank Zappa.
I’m sort of this crappier version of like their material sort of filter through me. [Laughter]
Michael: Your podcast isn’t about music?
George: Not primarily. It’s about my life really and just sort of adventures. There are things I talk about, gigs I’ve had, people I’ve met, and conferences I’ve gone to. Video tape sessions that happen and then there are sketches and there are demos and little news reports and bits. It’s a lot of silliness.
Michael: It sounds interesting. Do you do that regularly?
George: Yes, once a week – every Wednesday we do that. We’re almost at two years now.
Michael: Cool, I’ll have to go on my subscription list now.
George: Yeah, geologicpodcast.com.
Michael: And you are a recording artist.
George: Yeah I have five albums that I’ve recorded. I’m working on my 6th one right now.
Michael: What label are you on?
George: My own independent label – Geologic Records.
Michael: You wrote the theme song for the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast, which I love by the way. I think it is really funny.
George: Yes.
Michael: Can you tell me a little bit about the process where you came up with that?
George: Yeah. Pamela Gay got in touch with me and Phil and said, “Would you be interested in doing the theme song for this? We have this idea for a podcast a day.” The only direction they gave me – specific direction – was we don’t want it to sound like Enya. I said I could probably do that. [Laughter] I’m about as far from Enya as you can get.
It was just a question of something that you could hear once a day that wouldn’t get too annoying that would maybe initially funny and then annoying and then be that kind of thing where it’s you have to hear it because it is catchy annoying.
That fine line between annoying and “Oh I like to sing along for 40 seconds.” I just thought of this idea of what we’re talking about is so often scientifically specific and the minutia of billions vs. millions vs. all these parsecs and quasars.
It’s so specific so let me just say this stuff is far. Get as general as I can and say this stuff is far away no matter how you think about it, it’s far and that’s really fun. It’s silly.
Michael: You summed it up beautifully I think because that is sort of when you talk about astronomy that’s sort of the defining characteristic. It is not nearby.
George: That’s the thing and any aspect of it too. Even if someone had said, “What about if we talk about the space shuttle?”
And I said, “Well the space shuttle is still whatever, 130 miles orbiting up in the sky which is far away as sky distance goes.”
Michael: And the energy budget to get up there.
George: Exactly so it is all relative. I just like that idea of this stuff is far.
Michael: Last night at the opening ceremonies you did, I guess, what you’d call an extended version.
George: Right I wrote a verse or two verses for the chorus.
Michael: If you don’t mind, let’s hear that right now.
George: Okay: What you see up there is the chorus to the theme song to the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast. Now it gives the joke away but we’re all family here so that’s okay.
You have the part that’s in yellow. If you’re colorblind it’s the capital stuff, okay? [Laughter] I do the part that’s white and you just – you don’t have to sing it – you just have to shout it. You have to shout you it and it’s perfect, okay?
[George]: This stuff is far;
[Audience]: It’s really far.
[George]: That’s really good. This stuff is far, far, far away. We’re talking far.
[Audience]: That’s really far.
[George]: You can’t get there by car in a day. It’s super duper crazy far not just pulsars quasars and stars I mean it’s far.
[Audience]: Far
[George]: Far
[Audience]: Far
[George]: Far if there’s some doubt listen to us shout
[Audience]: It’s really far
[George]: That is so friggin’ good. I can’t explain, it’s much better than I thought it would be and the whole thing begins with the chorus and then it’ll be illuminated for the chorusy part and we’ll do just what we did and kind of combine us all together into 365 Days of Astronomy. Okay here we go. Wow that was cool.
[George]: Ponder the Universe and a look comes ‘cross your face you try to fathom distances of all the stuff in space. But you can’t bacon of your mind around the fig. Of all the terms required to describe of big is big. So let me get specific and use words scientific. Go whip out your thesaurus for this exacting chorus. This stuff is far
[Audience]: It’s really far
[George]: This stuff is far, far, far away. We’re talkin’ far
[Audience]: Like über far
[George]: You can’t get to there by car in a day. It’s super duper crazy far but not just pulsars quasars and stars I mean it’s far
[Audience]: Far
[George]: Far if there’s some doubt listen to us shout
[All]: THIS STUFF IS FAR.
[George]: I sense all the explosions going off inside your brain. As your mind gets blown by what I just did explain. Sorry if my words will drive you all insane But that’s what happens when precision is your middle name. (My middle name is actually Joseph but you’ll play along with me on that [Laughter] wouldn’t it be cool if your middle name was precision? George Precision Hrab.)
[George]: So with that exacting factor like some sextant or protractor. Using details quite semantic, I’ll show how huge is this gigantic. This stuff is far
[Audience]: Far
[George]: This stuff is far, far, far away. We’re talkin’ far.
[Audience]: Like über far
[George]: You can’t get to there by car in a day. It’s super duper crazy far but not just pulsars quasars and stars I mean it’s far.
[Audience]: Far
[George]: Far if there’s some doubt listen to us shout
[All]: THIS STUFF IS FAR.
[George] One more verse: I hope that I have offered up some technical assistance. And haven’t caused your ticker too much ventricular resistance. But you have got to listen and trust my insistence. That I am very accurately describing the distance. This stuff is far
[Audience]: Far
[George]: This stuff is far far far away. It’s really far.
[Audience]: Like über far
[George]: You can’t get to there by car in a day. It’s super duper crazy far but not just pulsars quasars and stars I mean it’s far.
[Audience]: Far
[George]: Far if there’s some doubt listen to us shout
[All]: THIS STUFF IS FAR.
[George]: This stuff is far.
Michael: It was really great.
George: I was amazed that people sang along as well as they did. They screamed back and forth. It was great. They got into it and it was when you hear that kind of ‘It’s really far’ that intensity of scientific minds screaming for the silly bald guy playing guitar just fills my heart with scoops of chocolate. This is wonderful – really wonderful.
Michael: Is there a recording of the extended version, the side that we just heard?
George: I will do one when I get back home and I have three seconds of free time. I will absolutely do one. I may make a video as well. I just thought of a couple of ideas last night to maybe do a video and do something. We will have the full version available very, very soon.
Michael: George Hrab thanks a lot.
George: Thank you.
This transcript is not an exact match to the audio file. It has been edited for clarity. Transcription and editing by Cindy Leonard.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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