Under The Crossbones - A Pirate Podcast

[Thagarr]

I was looking up pirate news last night when I ran across something I haven't seen for a while, a pirate podcast! Back in August, a standup comedian and musician Phil Johnson started a new podcast entitled Under The Crossbones – A Pirate Podcast. Why would a comedian start a pirate podcast? Good question, so I figured I would dig a bit deeper and see just what this guy was up to. I was curious to know if he was taking the subject seriously, or just poking around for some quick publicity and few pirate joke laughs.

I started poking around his podcast web page over at www.underthecrossbones.com, and read his about section. Turns out he has been into pirates since he was a kid, Peter Pan, Disney, even reading books on pirate history. Well, that was a good start, so I kept reading. This isn't his first try at a podcast, back in 2014 Phill and a couple of his palls did a podcast that coincided with the 9 episode run of NBC's Crossbones. I think most of us remember just how badly that turned out. Anyway, back to the Under The Crossbones podcast, episode 1, Introduction :

So far, he has done a total of 13 episodes so far, some of witch include some names a few of you may be familiar with. In episode 11 in particular, Phil interviews BilgeMunky, who used to some podcasts and run his own internet radio station which played some great pirate music! At one point, his radio broadcasts were linked here at PA, and BilgeMunky even dabbled in a bit of modding from time to time. Sadly, he hasn't been around here for a while, but you can still find him on his blog over at www.bilgemunky.com!

There are many other guests that Phil has interviewed, and plenty more on the way. You can find out more about Phil over at his web page at Phil Johnson and Roadside Attraction - Comedy, Music, Kinda Dorky - Home, or www.roadsideattraction.com. You can catch up on the rest of his podcast over at www.underthecrossbones.com, or you can get them on iTunes, Android or an RSS Feed!

If your curious about Phil, you can find out more about his comedy on his Youtube channel HERE!

 

[Phil Johnson]

Hey Thagarr... Thanks so much for the nice words. Yep, I wanted to do something that wasn't just another comedy podcast and I noticed that nobody was interviewing all the interesting people in the pirate community. And so another 8 hours of time in front of my laptop per week was born.

I do have a ton of really interesting interviews coming up including treasure hunters, musicians, and a cast member from Black Sails.

And fortunately your link helped me discover your site here which I'll be delving into deeper. Thanks again!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ahoy there, @Phil Johnson; welcome aboard, matey!

At one point, his radio broadcasts were linked here at PA, and BilgeMunky even dabbled in a bit of modding from time to time.

There is still a "Bmunk" character model in our dear PotC modpack.
Nice colourful skeleton, that. I think @CatalinaThePirate did it in honour of him.

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy @Phil Johnson, welcome aboard mate! I just happened to see introduction to the podcasts that you uploaded to Youtube, and I am certainly glad that I did! I think it is an absolutely brilliant idea! There are certainly a lot of great characters in the pirate community, and their story's deserve to be told. I do what I can here looking up and posting pirate and game news, but there is so much more that I simply do not have the free time to cover.

I haven't had a chance to listen to all your podcasts yet, but I did listen to the one with Bilgemunky, and that was an awesome interview mate! It was good to hear from him again, it brought back some great memories! I am pretty sure that your podcast links will soon end up all over our Twitter feed. You did mention the Black Sails interview in your Bilgemunky podcast, I am definitely looking forward to that one, as well as the rest! There are a lot of Black Sails fans around these forums, myself included.

There is quite a lot of information packed throughout these forums mate, and if you haven't found them already, you can get a pretty good idea of who we are and where we come from reading through the Forum Rules post and also my Decade of Modding and Mayhem post. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help promote you mate.

@Pieter Boelen, oh yeah, I had forgotten about that skeleton, thanks! Yeah, Catalina was always doing cool little things like that, I really miss that feisty wench!

 

[Phil Johnson]

I appreciate that a lot, man. I'll be doing some reading! The Black Sails interview will be out in January. They won't let me run it until the new season begins. But it's a fun one.

 

[Thagarr]

Your podcast with Chris Macort is awesome mate! I don't care what those people in NC say, the Whydah is one of a kind. They have really never found any definitive proof that the ship they have in NC is indeed the QAR. We have been trying to find a good set of blueprints for the Whydah, and the QAR, for a long time, we would love to have realistic 3D models for them in New Horizons and Hearts of Oak.

 

[Phil Johnson]

Thanks! I was excited to talk to him. I'm sure they'd like to have blueprints of those ships too.

I'm working on getting some other folks from the treasure hunting realm on the show too. Scheduling is tricky with those guys.

 

[Thagarr]

They actually do have I believe, or at least of ships that are very similar. They used them to construct the models at the respective museums. In fact, a few weeks ago a professor and a group engineering students built a 3D model of the Queen Anne's Revenge based on a similar French frigate. For building a 3D model, you really need blueprints, which makes early period ships before 1700 quite tough to build, as shipbuilders didn't use prints early on. They did it all by experience and shipbuilding skills.

The Whydah

Queen Anne's Revenge

I read somewhere a couple of years ago that they got the prints to either the Whydah or a sister ship from the archives National Maritime Museum, I have searched their online archive, as well as many others, and haven't been able to find anything yet. I also have tried contacting both the Whydah and QAR Museums to try and purchase a copy of the prints they used for their respective models. I never did hear anything back from either one. I have also tried contacting many other game companies and other organizations throughout the past few years, but most don't take us seriously and think we are just software pirates.

 

[Phil Johnson]

See, I have so much to learn! Those models are great. Did you try contacting the engineering professor to see where he got them?

 

[Thagarr]

See, I have so much to learn!

We all do mate, I am sure that you could teach me a lot about music or comedy. As you can probably tell by my nickname, I used to be focused on a much earlier period of history, but Vikings didn't have cannon!

Those models are great. Did you try contacting the engineering professor to see where he got them?

The special thing about the Whydah, and what made her such an excellent pirate is that she was a galley. If the wind didn't cooperate, she could use oars to chase down her pray! Though she sank so soon after Black Sam captured her, I don't think they got to use her in that way. If you look closely at the model, you can see the oar ports just above the water line. That is one reason I would love to have this model in game!

I thought about contacting him, but I guess my earlier failures kind of killed my enthusiasm. I will try contacting the museums again when I get the chance, now that we have some better video and a more playable demo to show off, perhaps they will take us a bit more seriously.

 

[Phil Johnson]

Oh yeah... Gotta have cannon.

If there's one thing I've learned doing this show (and being in entertainment in general) persistence pays off.