ROADKILL RADIO: "Psych to the Psychotic and Trash to the Twisted"

What started out in late 2016 as a hit and giggle podcast recorded in a food pantry in the Mexican desert, has fast become a regular weekly show with regular sponsors, affiliations, merchandise, interviews with a bunch of stylin’ musicians and many loyal fans.

Roadkill Radio’s host and creator Benny Two-Shoes began the podcast while at the tail end of a three-year backpacking trek from the bottom of South America and finishing in the peyote fields of the Wirikuta desert in Northern Mexico. There, while on a three-week fast and purge in preparation for a peyote ritual, with little money and a single mattress on a concrete floor in a pantry for accommodation, he pulled his laptop under a blanket to muffle the outside noise, and without headphones, recorded his first words for episode one through the computer’s built-in mic…  

                                                         “Hello, and welcome to Roadkill.”

An inglorious entry into the saturated world of podcasting, and struggle through a stack of garage and punk rock he did. Let’s just say this; any listener to that debut show will be well aware that Benny Two-Shoes hadn’t eaten anything substantial for eleven days prior.

After recording two more shows in the desert, he ended his backpacking venture a ghoulish wreck and headed to the relative civility of nearby San Miguel de Allende. By March 2017, and a further eleven episodes later - still recording with the same shabby equipment but this time at the lofty heights of his landlord’s dining table – he decided to pull the pin on Mexico and go back home to Melbourne, Australia. One month later, Benny Two-Shoes was back in Mexico and armed to the teeth with top notch audio gear.

Good timing, I mean really good timing is often thrown upon us by fluke and nothing more. In Benny Two-Shoes’ case, this couldn’t be closer to the truth. Within thirty days of returning to Mexico, he and his partner in crime Demelza had bought a house – a three storey yellow monstrosity – and had made contact with the writers at the acclaimed music website 50THIRDAND3RD as well as the honcho at Girlsville Records. A veteran freelance writer in his own right, Benny Two-Shoes began writing for 50THIRDAND3RD and before long had them on board with the show, recording professional promos and creating regular segments for both them and Girlsville Records. To this day, they stick fat and have both become a huge part in the show’s growing popularity.

Building a self-sufficient recording studio within the Yellow Monstrosity, Benny Two-Shoes has continued to grow Roadkill Radio’s brand, streamlining the show into a neat 2-hour weekly package that focuses on promoting indy music new and old from as he says, “Psych to the Psychotic and Trash to the Twisted” plus a whole stack of absurdist humour thrown in for good measure.

By the end of 2017, Roadkill Radio had hit the forty-episode mark and thanks to decent equipment is sounding as good as ever. 2018 proves to be a big year for the show with Benny Two-Shoes vowing to conduct weekly artist interviews, to promote more new music while still breaking out the old stuff and of course, to continue the absurd humour and filth talk. Together with 50THIRDAND3RD and Girlsville Records, along with a new affiliation with Dirty Water Records, the show proves to be a killer come January 18th when it premieres its 2018 format.

*Benny Two-Shoes writes for the Legs McNeil/Gillian McCain website Please Kill Me and 50Thirdand3rd, as well as working on his own fiction novels.