FOUNDWAVES

WE FINALLY DID THE THING!

A couple of years ago, my good pal Alie and I decided to take a writing class at Second City in Toronto. We were mostly in it to engage the creative parts of our brains and meet some new funny folks. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Writing has always been my favourite thing, but I’d never really delved much into sketch comedy, which is what the course was all about. Despite constantly having stupid little funny ideas that only really have the legs to be two-minute sketches, those always just lived in my notes app as a sentence or two rather than as a full script. So, it was nice to give those thoughts a lease of life. We met some very funny kindred spirits and our Wednesday night classes became the highlight of my week. With each term, people dropped out and some new people came, but there was a core group of six of us who continued the program together. A couple of the Second City staff remarked that not many people keep going with the course as a group, but we did feel like a team. The classroom was safe and encouraging. Everyone could be trusted to take and receive useful feedback.

As we neared the end of Writing 4, we spoke about our plans to continue. There are six terms in total, consisting of seven weeks each. After 28 weeks, we were starting to flag a little. The completist part of my brain wanted to see out the final two terms, but I also didn’t really have the money to continue. Alie and one of our new writing pals, Mat, also seemed content to call it a day on the condition that the three of us continued to meet up and write. So we split the group in two, with our other three buds continuing with Laugh Class, and us being the dropouts.

Alie, Mat and I stuck to our deal and continued to meet up and write. We didn’t really have a purpose but we did have a lot of sketches already written from the Second City, so toyed around with ways of using them, maybe expanding some of them into longer forms, or even filming them. At one point, I suggested even just recording us doing table reads of them, like we would do in class, then editing that and sticking them online for people to stumble upon in some weird corner of the internet. Alie thankfully shook that out of me, though, and had the idea of us writing parodies of things you might hear on the radio: fake ads, call-in contests, advice shows, sports coverage, radio plays, local news, etc, broken up with the sound of a radio dial. Kind of like SCTV for radio, I guess.

So we got to work. We’d meet weekly and write at the Imperial (RIP), Houndstooth or each other’s houses, then we rented some good mics and an interface and would record for hours in my basement. The sessions were very fun and filled with laughter, but I don’t love performing, and other than when we roped in a couple of sweethearts to join in, it’s just me, Alie and Mat voicing the characters. I much prefer the writing to the recording. I only have two voices! I volunteered to “story edit” our sketches once they were recorded, which was equal parts excruciating and exhilarating. So. Many. Takes. But once you’re done constructing the actual arrangement of the sketch, it feels so so good to listen back and hear it flow seamlessly. We are also indebted to our beautiful friend Jimmy, a fantastic graphic designer and musician, who committed so much time to help us out with audio production and artwork for the show.

The above makes it sound like we managed to pull all of this off over a couple of months, but in reality, it has been the better part of two years. Life has shifted us all in unexpected directions and thrown up obstacles that, at times, made it hard to fit in writing hangs and recording sessions, but we were dedicated to making it work. It was really helpful for me to have my two pals with a common goal in order to keep me accountable, and I think they felt the same. I know that if I was doing this solo, I’d probably bail on the project before it really began. I’m also thankful for these two for helping me get out of the self-sabotage mindset I sometimes have. I often find myself feeling embarrassed to be seen trying to make something. I always assumed this was some hangover from being born and raised in Scotland, but a friend hypothesised recently that he blames growing up at the height of “indie sleaze” for instilling a deep sense of irony in us, so now I find myself thinking about that a lot, too. We didn’t stand a chance! But now I’m trying to embrace earnestness and it is assisted by my comedy partners being sweet and sincere Canadians who are just naturally good at being like “hey, I put love and care into this thing and maybe you’ll want to check it out, and it’s okay if you don’t dig it!”

With all this in mind, please listen to new sketch comedy podcast: FOUNDWAVES.
You can listen here. I’d suggest starting with episode 3 which, in my opinion, is a banger. There’ll be an episode 4 that I also think is going to be great, so why not SUBSCRIBE?
Where? Why, wherever you get your podcasts.

Also, you can follow us on instagram. I’ve really enjoyed coming up with unsettling audio promos that do not capture the vibe of the show at all.
We put love and care into this thing and maybe you’ll want to check it out, and it’s okay if you don’t dig it xo