Ashland - From their theme song to their numerous skits, one thing is for sure - Gods of the Bobbleheads are about as unpredictable as it gets.  Combining humor and sarcasm with honesty and intelligence, these guys are a cutting edge breath of fresh on-air entertainment.  After just 3 months of broadcasting through the local 1430 WHAN AM station, GOTB have already won the attention of local media and hordes of addicted listeners.

As I caught up with the creators, Dan “Pasta Fazul” Anderson and John “E. Cab” Massey, I started to realize that maybe, just maybe the Bobblegods were destined to be forged into existence by cosmic forces beyond our comprehension.  And that is just the beginning…

After several failed attempts and a long day in the heat, I finally received a phone call from Dan saying, “We can meet you in an hour at the station for the interview.”

“Great,” I replied, and off I went, heading for a quick stop at the Caboose to grab a couple of 4 packs of Dogfish Head succulency on the way to the station.  Upon arrival, Dan and John met me with looks of exhaustion, pain, and thirst.  The radio station is as primitive as it gets.  Everything in sight is outdated and the musty smell of 1983 still prowls the atmosphere.  Boxes of stuff that no one probably uses anymore were piled up in corners and it was hot as hell.  The perfect place to begin a raw, independent, highly addictive nationally syndicated show.  The kind of setting that makes one hell of a story later after you’ve really made it.  We sit down in a small room at a table with a couple of old microphones, open our beers and start the interview.

33:  Where did you get the name Gods of the Bobbleheads?
Pasta Fazul:  It was actually a guy that I rapped with, who is very talented named Ollie Oxgrill, and he has a song called Ravioli that he does with another guy in our group.  He’s trying to say “Goblins and Bobbleheads,” but it sounded to me and still sounds to me like he says “Gods of the Bobbleheads,” so it’s mine.

33:  Very cool.  That’s interesting.  It’s not a name you would hear every day, especially for a radio show.
PF:  You want me to tell you what it means?

33:  Yeah.  I’m kind of curious, so we’ve got Gods of the Bobbleheads as a name of the show, so in reference to the content, what’s the show about and how does it relate to the title?
John E. Cab:  Yeah.  I think it relates to the title.  The show was founded on the concept of everything that’s cool originally, and somehow it grew into more of a variety skit show.  Originally, it was going to be about tech and video games and all kinds of stuff.
PF:  Yeah.  We were trying to be very interesting with things that we think are cool.
JC:  And then we found that it was a better idea just to run with the music and whatever our guests would bring to the show instead of trying to do everything at one show, while being funny in a smart way, but at the same time, in a crude way too.
PF:  We were going to do fake commercials and the majority of the content would be conversation for the most part of music and then John E. came up with the idea of doing Storytime with Baby Huey.  It was a hit, I mean, we really like it, and from there we moved into doing more segment-type stuff.
JC:  But the name was about the lords or gods making people’s heads bobble with approval.
PF:  Everything cool, you know.  I mean bobbleheads are always nodding in approval, so everything we offer up is dope shit.

33:  So the show airs every Saturday.  Have you noticed a significant change from the first show, like an evolution?  I mean your first concept was about video games and tech, and now…  Is every show changing and growing?  Are you guys witnessing that and is it forced or just happening?
PF:  It’s happening.  We tried to force the first show.
JC:  The first show was a total disaster.  There’s a British show I like called Faulty Towers and it was like an episode of that.  It kept getting worse and falling apart. [laughs]
PF:  Our guest didn’t show up.
JC:  None of our equipment worked.  We couldn’t get the computer program to work right.
PF:  Yeah.  Our music director didn’t want to show up.  We had four or five contributors, people who knew about video games that were supposed to call, that bailed on us the day before.  Dutch called in and he was great.  I would love to have Dutch come back in, but somehow the communication fell through.  He runs a website called Hobby Shop.  Hobbyshop.com is what it’s called I think.  We also had BloggerHouse.net on.  It was just very awkward.  It was completely forced.

33:  Is there a podcast or any evidence of the first show circulating out there?
JC:  No, and I wish there was.
PF:  Me, too.
JC:  But we actually disposed of it never to be heard by anyone.
PF:  Yeah, not intentionally.  I mean, we didn’t record.
JC:  We were gonna podcast and we had built it up with this ad campaign that said “The Greatest Radio Show Ever” and we had made flyers for every day of the week and completely gone over the top.
PF:  They were cool flyers.
JC:  [laughing] The flyers were better than the show.  After everything had gone wrong, we went back to check and listen to it and we hadn’t properly recorded it.
33:  So the whole show was just a flop.
PF:  Yeah.
JC:  Totally.

33:  Did that make you guys just want to quit or did that encourage you to say “Fuck this!, we’re really gonna nail this thing!”
PF:  It was discouraging.
JC:  For me, that was what the first show had to be.  If it had been a success, I would have been like that was a fluke.
PF:  We knew things weren’t going to work right.  We had discussed it.  For me it was still discouraging.
JC:  I was looking at [Pasta Fazul] and he was like pouring sweat.
PF:  [laughs]

Hear more about this beautiful disaster of a first show, and the complete interview on the podcast at the top of this article.

Well, there you have it.  And if you think you’ve learned everything about these guys by just reading this interview and listening to the podcast, think again.  I’m just scratching the surface of what is not only a fascinating beginning of friendship and fate, but also the beginning of their mastery of commanding the airwaves, a universal road they are building that is carrying their audience through streams of humor and madness.

Gods of the Bobbleheads already has their audiences asking, “What’s next?”  There’s only one way to find out, and that is to Tune It In and Turn It On!!!

Live radio broadcast Saturdays 8 – 10 pm on WHAN 1430 AM, Ashland, Virginia with a simultaneous live stream flowing through Bobblegods.com and Studio33.

By Director, Founding Partner and CEO: Chris Mullican

Chris is a Founding Partner of Magazine33 and is a visionary force that largely conceptualized the seed of what is now known as Magazine33.  He grew up in the small town of Reedville, Virginia.  Soon thereafter he spread his wings and traveled across the country, finding a guitar, friends that became family, and spiritual guidance along the way.  Since returning to Virginia, his life continues to be full of love, music, personal revelations, and success.  Look out world, Chris and VPs Ben and Helen have an expansion compulsion - so look for Magazine33 all around the country and the globe soon!!!