Blue Jam played out on Radio 4 Extra

[Spiral King]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04tvp70

Episode 3 is on iPlayer. Was doing CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES today, so I couldn't listen as it went out, but I hope people are listening as I really want them to repeat Series 3 as well.

A pity Arthur Smith felt he needed to do a cheery commentary over the last ten seconds of outro heartbeat, but it's still more outro then we have on the 1998 rips, I think. Now to F5 on olliebean's MEGA folder until my fingers fall off.

[olliebean]

Episode 3 in both formats now uploaded.

[Nutter]

Great work olliebean. Would be nice if all the updated/edited versions from series 1 were also in the same folder for convenience.

[olliebean]

I think I may only have the iPlayer versions of those, but I'll have a look.

[Spiral King]

Blue Jam - Series 2, Episode 3 in FLAC [olliebean's M4A > WAV > Edited in Audacity > WAV > FLAC]

The editing was slightly more intensive this week, because of Mr. Smith trying to be chummy chummy. Had to whack a slight fade out on the end to mask his nonsense. Still, top and tailed and more complete than the 1998 recording. Forgot the entire intro was left off the original CaB mp3! So, yes, get at that upgrade.

Great work olliebean. Would be nice if all the updated/edited versions from series 1 were also in the same folder for convenience.

Give me 24 hours and I'll have all the edited FLACs for Series 1 uploaded to my MEGA account, and into a special folder.

[Spiral King]

I think I may only have the iPlayer versions of those, but I'll have a look.

I have all the unedited mp2s of Series 1, if they're needed.

[Nutter]

Fantastic work spiral king! I'm not too familiar with the mega site so I hope you'll give me some sort of link when they're all together in a neat package.

Great job.

[Spiral King]

Fantastic work spiral king! I'm not too familiar with the mega site so I hope you'll give me some sort of link when they're all together in a neat package.

Great job.

Will do. I'll do seperate links and a folder to bookmark for later.

[olliebean]

I do indeed only have the aac versions of series 1, but they're in the MEGA folder now anyway.

[Spiral King]

Sorry for the wait, guys. On top of it being Christmas and hectic around the house, I'm also actually redoing the FLACs of Episode 1 and Episode 5 of Series 1. Episode 1 was sourced from the Freeview mp2 by Phil_A, and I want to redo it with the iPlayer rip as it'll probably be of higher quality.

Episode 5 is being redone because of a missing few seconds of outro. It's on the old mp3s, but is talked over by Arthur Smith (this man will be the death of me) on these repeats. So, I thought I'd reinstate that.

I have a few hours to myself now, so I'll upload the edited FLACs and unedited mp2 repeats before the end of the day.

[Nutter]

Excellent news spiral, I'll be looking forward to the final results. Just make sure to send us a nice link to your folder when you're all done.

I think I can speak for all of us when I say that this is really appreciated.

[Spiral King]

Blue Jam - Series 1 (FLAC)

As promised, here we are. A nice little folder for all the new Series 1 repeats broadcast earlier this year. Episode 1, as I say, is now sourced from the iPlayer AAC file, and Episode 5 has three seconds re-instated at the end (the announcer at JFK's birthday celebration saying: "Ladies and gentlemen, the pres[ident of the United States of America]").

And here's the original unedited mp2 files for anyone interested in those. Between me and Olliebean, I believe we have every possible file relating to these repeats available.

Thanks for the kudos, Nutter. I'm glad people like it. Blue Jam is probably my most favourite comedy programme of all time, and deserves to be preserved in the best possible quality and presentation for future generations to enjoy.

[Nutter]

Downloading now. I'm very excited to hear these. Any chance doing a flac edit of the 15 minutes from episode 6? I don't want to be too disrespectful but I may as well be truthful in saying that I'm not a fan of the CAB intros.

I'll just assume you'll be returning to your folder when you have enough time to add the edited series 2 as well.

Thanks again spiral.

[Spiral King]

Downloading now. I'm very excited to hear these. Any chance doing a flac edit of the 15 minutes from episode 6? I don't want to be too disrespectful but I may as well be truthful in saying that I'm not a fan of the CAB intros.

Thanks again spiral.

I was debating about doing a full Series 1 Episode 6 edit at one point, using a menagerie of sources, but no one displayed much interested and audio editing is harder than it looks. If you're genuinely interested, I may give it a go in 2015, at some point.

As for Series 2, here's what we have so far: Blue Jam - Series 2 (FLAC)

Keep that folder bookmarked, as I'll be updating it weekly.

[Nutter]

Ah brilliant! You've possibly made my Christmas by doing all this excellent work.

I think it wouldn't hurt to add episode 6 spiral, It's just nice to have them all together isn't it. You've done an excellent job so far and I think you need a well deserved rest.

I'll definitely be bookmarking these folders for future updates. 

[TJ]

I have it on reasonably good authority that the remainder of 1.6 was very *very* slightly different to 2.1, with a couple of different stings and songs that were re-edited with the rest of the episode. I honestly have no idea of the whereabouts of a copy though.

[Spiral King]

I have it on reasonably good authority that the remainder of 1.6 was very *very* slightly different to 2.1, with a couple of different stings and songs that were re-edited with the rest of the episode. I honestly have no idea of the whereabouts of a copy though.

A full copy of 1.6 would be the utter holy grail of Blue Jam rarities, so I doubt it'll show. From the "hints" that I have got from the Exclusives competition CD, it's likely that Bishopslips would be followed by Eel's "Susan's House", but yeah, who knows what else was edited in after that to lead into the monologue.

[Spiral King]

Happy Boxing Day, guys. Episode 4 is about to be broadcast on 4 Extra! This is probably objectively the best written episode of Blue Jam. I think I like some Series 1 episodes better, but this one has consistently great material throughout. It just hits and hits and hits. Best monologue, The Gush... great music too.

[Thomas]

I like this from the intro -

'And when oo platform stand, and then see train, and think "here comes my switch off all off off switch off jump now down dangle."'

[Spiral King]

I like this from the intro -

Agreed. Even the intro is an obscenely strong one. I looked at the CaB guide for this, and I really envy someone tuning in on a whim and this being their first Blue Jam experience. I think this is the episode I always show people if I want to introduce them to the series. Varying degrees of success, but that's Blue Jam.

Everyone quite rightly raves about this music transition. It is rather appropriate.

[Spiral King]

andpissingandpissingandpissing

Juvenile, but great. Really like this "Unnecessary Operations" sketch. Mark Heap really sells the main character. Very sinister. Especially when he talks to one of his victims and shows them the photos of her foot in his mouth.

Edit: The sausage in the eye bit has always made me very uncomfortable, just for David Cann's reactions. That and the fact that I'm not very medical savvy, so I have no idea whether Mark Heap has fucked up the patients eye for good, even if Cann's character didn't sever the optic nerve.

tl;dr: i love blue jam

[Thomas]

Rothko woofed. I love the monologues. They are my main thing.

[Spiral King]

Here we go. Rothko.

Something I noticed about this monologue is how Morris plays the character of Rothko. Especially comparing it to the My Wrongs short film that was adapted from this piece. Morris'  dickheaded behaviour in the original monologue seems effortless, and every line he says is pretty incredible. I always felt My Wrongs sounded like Morris trying to do it differently, and it coming across as a bit unconvincing.

"Leg it, you fat fuck!" is especially amusing.

[Spiral King]

"Have some tea!", said the dog. "I know that. I KNOW THAT!", I said.

Amazing. I'd read a whole book of these if Morris and Katz wrote it.

[Spiral King]

Edit: Quote is not edit.

While I have this useless extra post though, something that I only noticed after the 20th time listening to this monologue is that when the baby is thrown into the air, we have NO IDEA what happens to it. This, with the baby "being not much use" to Him, suggests it hit the floor.

"I felt sick as diesel."

[Thomas]

I've never realised that before, Spiral. It's a good point. Another good music transition here, with Madonna.

[Spiral King]

I've never realised that before, Spiral. It's a good point. Another good music transition here, with Madonna.

When it hit me, I raved to the person I was listening to it with. She smiled and indulged me.

Yeah, it's really great, isn't it? I especially love the extended intro with the guitars. Morris is so good at DJing.

[Spiral King]

I love how Morris goes STRAIGHT from Rothko into Porn. Lesser comedians would space stuff like this out and put something a lot weaker after Rothko, but Morris keeps piling on the quality.

Porn also works so much better on the radio. Morris really did get far too bogged down on prosthetics for the Jam version.

[Danger Man]

Stereolab?

[Spiral King]

Stereolab?

Oh yes. The Flower Called Nowhere.