“Space” is the pilot demo of The Theme Show shoutcast, which initially aired at Winamp on December 2, 1999.
Greetings from the future! The Shoutcast episodes were live broadcasts whose original presentations occurred between December 1999 and January 2000. The show would then have a hiatus before returning in Podcast format, finally settling into its current format: streaming music playlists.
This Demo has been recreated with current streaming music services for your enjoyment at:
The demos were almost all built around three defining segments:
- Theme Show Warm-Up: Every broadcast kicked off with five fast-paced, high-energy tracks, setting the tone. Then, after the fourth song, I would check my Yahoo! Messenger, eagerly awaiting the first correct guess of the theme. The person who answered first won a prize, which, more often than not, was a Pez dispenser.
- Requests: This segment was designed to blend pre-arranged selections with real-time audience engagement.. While a significant portion of the song choices were curated in advance, if someone had an exciting song idea that fit the theme, they could message me, and—provided I had the track in my library, I’d weave it into the setlist.
- Obligatory Polka: Of course, I tried to end every episode with a Polka song. Even if the final song didn’t match the overarching theme, that was entirely fine. I’ve always found Polka entertaining, and as a longtime fan of “Weird Al” Yankovic, I did my best to make sure this unexpected finale stayed intact.
As time passed, the show evolved. Eventually, I decided to simplify the podcast pre-recording process by trimming down these segments. Despite that, elements of the “warm-up” concept continue to live on—often appearing in newer Spotify and YouTube Music playlists, where I still organize songs based on BPM and energy level.
Variations on a theme about space would return in:
Episode 29: Starlight, Star Bright
TBA Theatres Preshow 5: Star Trek
And
Episode 78: An Astronaut at the Space Bar
Setlist
| Color Key | Not Available on Spotify | Not Available on YTMusic | Not Available on Either |
Theme Show Workout
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| Red Dwarf Interlude/Main Theme | Howard Goodall |
| Doctorin’ the Tardis | The Timelords |
| Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Cyphonix Palacios |
| Deep Sexy Space | The Lords of Acid |
| Planet Earth | Hate Dept. |
THEME GUESS WINNER: gonkdroid (through Yahoo IM)
Standard Playlist
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| Looking for Satellites | David Bowie |
| Space Funk (The Caterpillar) | Rumpus (Keoki Remix) |
| Apollo 9 | Adam & The Ants |
| The Planets | The Animaniacs |
| Star Collector | The Monkees |
| Astro Boy | Tatsuo Takai |
| Lost in Space | John Williams |
| The Astronaut | Jose Jimenez (Bill Dana) |
| Space | Butthole Surfers |
| Space | Scarab |
| Stars | Pizzicato Five |
| Spacy Bitch | Lords of Acid |
| Space Oasis | Billie Ray Martin |
| Space Journey | Coldcut |
| Space Age Love Song | Eleven Shadows |
| Sleeping Satellite | Tasmin Archer |
| Satellite (New Moon) | The Wake |
| Picasso vista el Planata de los Simios | Adam & The Ants |
| Kosmos | Paul Weller |
| Equinox | Orbital |
| Eclipse | Talvin Singh |
| The Tail Of The Comet Kohoutek | Burl Ives |
| Black Planet | Automatic Head Detonator |
Obligatory Polka
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| Enhanced Polka Loop | 0Wave Mechanic |