Well today is shaping up to be a truly magnificent day. S-Town, the new true crime podcast from the creators of Serial and This American Life is here and everything is great again.
So... what is S-Town?
It's a seven episode podcast from the creators of Serial and This American Life. It's hosted by Brian Reed and got its start when a man called John from a small town in Alabama came to Brian for his help in solving a murder.
John wanted Brian to investigate the son of a wealthy family who had supposedly been bragging about committing a fatal crime, and getting away with it. But, when someone else ends up dead as well, Brian uncovers, "a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and the unearthing of the mysteries of one man's life..." So, that sounds good doesn't it?
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According to Alabama.com who have been privy to a preview of the show, John is an "eccentric, well-educated man who loathes his small town, but has never left." John lives in a stately home in the woods, restores clocks, looks after his mother and is building a maze. He sounds like he's a bit of a "character".
What time is S-Town available?
March 28th! If you're in the UK and it's not yet out then subscribe to S-Town here to make sure you get the episodes first.
Yes, that is "episodes" plural because, unlike Serial where you faced an agonising weekly wait for your next instalment of what was going on with Adnan, S-Town is coming out with all seven episodes in one go. This obviously makes for a fantastic binging opportunity.
Who is Brian Reed?
Brian Reed will be very familiar to longtime This American Life listeners. He first joined the show as an intern then came back as a staff producer in 2011. He also worked on StoryCorps. Check out some of his best This American Life stories here.
What's up with the clocks?
Impatient fans were teased with the first two minutes of the podcast nearly two weeks ago. In this preview, Brian spent most of it telling us about antique clocks and what an absolute bugger they are to fix. "You often can't tell what's been done to a clock over hundreds of years." He said. "Maybe there's damage that was never fixed or fixed badly. Sometimes entire portions of the original clockwork are missing but you can't know for sure because there are rarely diagrams of what the clock is supposed to look like."
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To fix an old clock, Brian explains, antique clock fixers have to rely on "witness marks" which are dents or holes that once held a screw, or areas of discolouration... basically clues as to what the clock has been through over the years. Which serves as a nice allegory for what happened when Brian was contacted by antique clock fixer John for help with solving a murder. With little to go on, Brian was forced to follow his own real life "witness marks" to get to the bottom of the case.
And what are the best podcasts like Serial and S-Town to listen to when I'm done?
Well thanks to Serial, there's now about a kabillion true crime podcasts. Check out In Sight for unsolved mysteries, They Walk Among Us for UK true crime, Lore for more in depth looks at specific types of crimes and Sword and Scale for some real gore. Check out a few more that other Refinery29 writers recommend here.