[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Oh, I love the echo and it's...

ROBERT KRULWICH: A big echoey chamber we're in.

JAD: Well, sort of, yeah. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab.

ROBERT: The podcast.

JAD: And we're coming to you on the podcast not from our usual space, which is the studio in New York. Now we're in LA, and we're sitting on a stage.

ROBERT: It's Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA. We're on tour. So we have a show, a live show that we do.

JAD: We couldn't get back to do our podcast in the normal way, so we're gonna do it right here on stage. And we're here. We wanted to actually just talk a little bit about what's gonna be happening next week. Next week we have this awesome show.

ROBERT: Which we call Color because that's what it's about. It's about the nature and the peculiarities and the anecdotals and the everything of color.

JAD: That's right. We're gonna explore all kinds of things about the different colors: reds, blues, greens, yellows, and all the shades in between. But we're gonna play cool stuff right now, because here's the cool thing about this show. We—one of the experiments we're doing for this colors podcast is we are working with a ton of really talented musicians who are gonna be playing a lot of color-themed songs. And tons and tons of great musicians are gonna be on this hour, including Reggie Watts. You may remember him from the Curious Sounds concert we aired a couple months ago. Amazing dude. Does this whole, like, a capella looping situation. Just him, a mic and a little box. And while we've actually been here on tour, he was back in New York City, and so we kind of missed each other.

REGGIE WATTS: Can you guys hear me?

JAD: But we called him up on our cell phones and had a little chat.

JAD: Okay, can we all hear each other?

REGGIE WATTS: Yes, I can hear.

ROBERT: I can.

REGGIE WATTS: I can hear each other.

ROBERT: So I guess you're gonna do the Kermit song, right?

REGGIE WATTS: Yeah, I'm gonna attempt...

JAD: Green.

REGGIE WATTS: Yeah, I will use those words in it. [laughs]

JAD: So Reggie, what does it mean to be green to you?

REGGIE WATTS: Well, eco-friendly environment is very important to me and the planet really needs help. No, I guess being green, I don't—you know, I don't know. I guess being green is like—it's about being different. So I guess it isn't easy being green. It's not easy being yourself.

JAD: We're sorry we can't be there to witness it live in person.

REGGIE WATTS: I'm pretty relatively angry, but it's okay.

JAD: [laughs] All right, well, thanks, Reggie.

ROBERT: They're calling for us to go on stage, actually.

JAD: Yeah, we got to run back on there.

REGGIE WATTS: Fine. Go do shows.

JAD: Okay, well, good luck. We can't wait to hear it.

REGGIE WATTS: All right, guys.

JAD: Thank you.

REGGIE WATTS: Bye.

[REGGIE WATTS: That was Rick Santorum and Gerf Garkin talking about some of the classic elements of WNYC right here.] We'll be right back.]

[REGGIE WATTS MUSIC PIECE [singing] You rolling it? Okay, ready? Okay, here we go. It's not easy when you're green, it's harder than you've ever seen. All the others, they might be just a little bit. Just a little bit to me. It's not easy being green, easy being green. When you think about how the differences in the shades, they seem to make everyone a little bit worried. Don't worry. 'Cause the color of the grass, it's green. And the color of the trees, mostly they're green. And the envy that people have inside is green. And the Emerald Castle, because of its name, it's not easy.]

ROBERT: That was Reggie Watts with "Being Green."

JAD: Okay, you know that Radiolab is listener supported, right? We rely on you guys listening, the people who listen to this podcast, to chip in to help us pay for producing it. So we decided to start something a little new to make this whole relationship a little more fun.

ROBERT: Yup.

JAD: We've launched a brand new Radiolab digital membership. We'll offer you exclusive access to a ton of mp3s that we recorded for this color show, some great online posters, behind-the-scenes videos, and all kinds of things we're going to be making for this in exchange for $75.

ROBERT: So you'll have, like, several of these songs that you can just ...

JAD: Oh, yeah, there's gonna be a bunch. We recorded a lot of these songs and we're gonna make a bunch of them available. They're really, really good.

SOREN WHEELER: Hey, this is Soren, senior producer at Radiolab, sitting in New York, not on tour in sunny Los Angeles. But Jad and Robert asked me to just toss a couple of these songs in here so you could get a taste of what we were offering with the whole digital membership thing. So the first five that we're gonna offer up are The Flanks doing a beautiful bluegrass version of The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." We've got Buke and Gass tearing up New Order's "Blue Monday." We've got Eric Friedlander doing a kind of classical treatment of Miles Davis' "Blue and Green."

SOREN: We've got Lost in Trees doing Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" and Homeboy Sandman and Jaunty doing an original song called simply "Brown."

[music medley]

SOREN: And that's just a few of the songs. We got tons more. And you get all of them for just 75 bucks if you become a digital member. So back to Jad and Robert.

JAD: So please help us support the show. Go to Radiolab.org and click on Become a Lab Partner.

ROBERT: That's Become a Lab Partner.

JAD: The Lab.

ROBERT: Become a partner of the lab.

JAD: Yeah. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Next week, our color show. We're really excited about it.

ROBERT: Coming very, very, very soon.

JAD: I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: Thanks for listening. Thanks, John.

SOREN: One more thing. Big thanks to John Delore for recording and mixing the podcast on the stage in LA. And on the way out, here's The Lonesome Organist doing "Green Onions."

[LISTENER: Hi, my name is Andrew Bennett. I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. Hi, I'm Andrew Bennett, originally from Melbourne, Florida, currently residing in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and I'm a Radiolab listener. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. Thanks a lot. You guys all have a good day. Bye.]

[ANSWERING MACHINE: End of message.]

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