In the early days of Star Wars fan-made radio shows, Jedi Talk came first, pioneering live, streaming episodes. Then came the French language, live/streaming show Star Wars en Direct, alongside the English pre-recorded fan film genre spin-off Digital Llama Radio. After that, ChronoRadio blazed a trail for single-host Star Wars shows, followed by the oddball humor of Requiem of the Outcast, which launched on September 1, 2003, coinciding with the launch of Star Wars Fanworks.

One year later, on the first anniversary of Fanworks, Robbie Chastain premiered another groundbreaking new show, Star Wars and Beyond, the first radio show in the Star Wars fan audio genre to be a Star Wars fan audio community program that was, as far as content, based on the idea of "Star Wars and More." It is a format that has been expanded upon by other programs in the years since.

Star Wars and Beyond (SWAB) ran from 2004 through 2007, going through one apparent cancellation of its "Version 1" run before returning for "Version 2" in 2005. Now, Chastain is gearing up to relaunch the series again in 2008. In the lead up to this relaunch, we are presenting the original Star Wars and Beyond library here in the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed . . . with a twist.

Among the many classic episodes that will come through the feed, we will also be presenting never-before-heard Special Edition re-edits of several key episodes, produced by Robbie Chastain over the last few months, allowing fans to, if we may paraphrase the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition commercials, hear them again . . . for the first time.

We begin our presentation this month, with further episodes to come throughout the year.

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/swab.html

As readers and listeners saw earlier in the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed, Joe Harrison's Conquest of the Empire made a splash in fan audio dramas beginning in June 2005. Almost a year later, in March 2006, Harrison's EUII Audio Corps (now Lion's Mouth Entertainment) launched its first online radio show (previously unavailable via podcast feed), A Long Time Ago Radio, better known to many as ALTA Radio.

Hosted by Joe Harrison, Silas Carder, and Andrew Gilbertson, the series focuses on Star Wars "and more."

Now, with Lion's Mouth Entertainment's website hosted by Star Wars Fanworks and Joe Harrison aboard as the newest staff member at Fanworks, we felt it was appropriate to begin releasing this series, previously available only via direct download, through the Fanworks Audio Feed.

We begin our presentation this month, as we catch up on the five episodes that are currently available. We will continue with simultaneous Star Wars Fanworks website and feed releases with each new episode.

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/altaradio.html

Jedi Talk is frequently noted (and rightly so) as the first Star Wars fan-made radio show (a "podcast" without a "podcast feed") to make its debut online, kickstarting a genre. From 1999 until its end in 2002, Jedi Talk represented a pioneer in Star Wars fan audio . . . but not just in the subgenre of radio shows.

During their run, the Jedi Talk team also produced a series of thirty (thirty-one if counting a Celebration appearance) episodes of a parody entitled Stormtrooper Bob.

When the Jedi Talk archives went offline, Stormtrooper Bob remained online in the form of low-quality ASF files on TheForce.Net Fan Films. When the site eventually turned away from audio productions in 2003 (prompting a shift in the genre and the creation of Star Wars Fanworks), the mood shifted and the series was eventually removed from TFN at the creative team's request. Later, the series was aired again within episodes of one of the shows inspired by Jedi Talk, Star Wars en Direct.

Now, the original high-quality episodes of Stormtrooper Bob are being released here as MP3s as a standalone series for the first time in this quality level for a whole new audience to enjoy.

Over the next few months, we will be releasing the entire run of the series on the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed.

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/stormtrooperbob.html

Jedi Talk has become the stuff of legend in Star Wars radio show fare. In fact, it was the first online radio show based entirely on Lucas' saga and the only show of its kind on the internet from 1999 through the births of Star Wars en Direct and Digital Llama Radio in 2001. Now, after the show's last hurrah in 2002, new productions carry on its legacy of high-concept talk radio programming, but neither would have been possible without the groundwork laid by Jedi Talk, the groundwork that told us, "if you air it, they will listen" in true cornfield ghost fashion.

During its run, Jedi Talk aired episodes live via streaming technology, inviting listeners to join in the experience every Sunday night for nearly three years. The team also managed to score live interviews with notable Star Wars personalities.

In a very real way, this program is the grandfather of the entire fan audio genre. It is to fan radio shows what Second Strike was to fan audio dramas, and it is to the fan audio genre as a whole was A New Hope was to the Star Wars saga.

This, friends, was our beginning . . .

Now, almost a decade after the show's original premiere in 1999, the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed is proud to present, in association with LucienMaier.com, the full library of the original Jedi Talk radio show episodes. Each episode, when in segments, has been merged into one file per show, providing an uninterrupted experience, and compressed into standard quality (similar to that used for Rayzur's Edge Audio's ChronoRadio) for faster download.

We begin our presentation this month, with further episodes to come throughout the year.

You can visit the Jedi Talk team on MySpace here: http://www.myspace.com/jeditalk

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/jeditalk.html

In 2002, while working with Christopher Hanel of Digital Llama Radio (DLR) on the Second Strike audio drama and with great interest in online radio show production after having been a guest and guest mixer for DLR, Nathan P. Butler returned to an idea he had considered the year before. In 2001, Butler had considered a series of audio clips to go with his Star Wars Timeline Project (now the Star Wars Timeline Gold). Now, though, Butler began considering a new radio show dedicated to Star Wars continuity as a companion project to the chronology document.

Thus, on May 16, 2002, Butler premiered the first audio production out of the gate from what he called "Rayzur's Edge Audio" (named for the team in the forthcoming Second Strike audio drama and the idea of being on the "cutting edge" of Star Wars fan audio). Billed as "the Star Wars continuity buff's internet radio show," ChronoRadio ran for five years (85 episodes) before concluding in May 2007.

This was another show that helped redefine a genre. Just as Jedi Talk would inspire Star Wars en Direct, Digital Llama Radio had inspired ChronoRadio, which would go on to inspire numerous other radio shows and podcasts in the years to come, as it became, in essence, the flagship radio show for Star Wars Fanworks when the site launched in September 2003. This would also be the radio show that, in part, led to Butler taking part in official Star Wars publications, such as his freelance writing of the story Equals and Opposites for Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars Tales.

For the first time (outside of a very brief stint of releasing abbreviated podcast versions of a scant handful of episodes), we are proud to present ChronoRadio via podcast feed. With approximately 100 hours of content that includes regular episodes, supplemental episodes, special one-topic episodes, numerous interviews (Star Wars and otherwise), short "enhanced audio book" fan fiction tales (Serial Editions), and film commentaries, this was among the most respected of the early generations of Star Wars fan audio.

We begin our presentation this month, with further episodes to come throughout the year.

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/chronoradio.html

In 2001, the fan film community was entering a major boom phase, as fans, hyped for Attack of the Clones and spurred on by The Phantom Menace came out of the woodwork to produce fan films.

Two years before, in 1999, the Star Wars fan audio genre had been quietly born with the launch of the Jedi Talk radio show, which streamed online via Real Player (and, by the way, has been made unavailable by its creative team in any online archival format, so we won't be seeing those archives return anytime soon, if ever).

In 2001, a team led by Sebastien Mineau and Dany Pepin, inspired by Jedi Talk, began their own live, streaming radio show in French (exclusively French language at the time), Star Wars en Direct. That inspiration became the first "lineage" of inspiration (so to speak) in Star Wars fan audio.

Meanwhile, a second lineage of Star Wars fan audio was being born in the fan film community. As a lead-in to their (later phenomenally successful) fan film The Formula, the core members of Digital Llama Productions (Christopher Hanel, Abe Peterka, Steve Phelan, and Justin Whitlock) began production on their own pre-recorded online radio show, Digital Llama Radio, focused around Star Wars, fan films, and moviemaking.

The series became an instant hit in the fan film community, releasing five independent episodes before being picked up by TheForce.Net Fan Films, where the series produced another eleven episodes (twelve if one considers the two-part eighth TFN episode as two separate episodes).

The series would see the introduction of the then-wife of Abe Peterka and another star of The Formula, Becca Peterka, while also later adding Josh Wasta to the panel.

Digital Llama Radio would eventually spawn a spin-off series about gaming entitled Digital Llama Player's Guide in 2002, which ran for five episodes.

Finally, in 2003, the classic Digital Llama Radio would merge with Digital Llama Player's Guide into a single production, Digital Llama 2.0 (which brought in another host, C.J. Mobberley), but that new series would only last for two (or three, counting another two-parter) episodes before the series would quietly fade away.

The impact of DLR, DLPG, and DL2 can be felt through Star Wars fan audio, as DLR itself was the project that inspired ChronoRadio, which in itself later inspired quite a few other radio shows (podcasts). Christopher Hanel, thought of as the godfather of DLR, was instrumental in the first Star Wars fan audio drama, Second Strike, which he mixed alongside Nathan P. Butler, setting the stage for an audio drama genre to come.

Today, Christopher Hanel continues in film making, comedy, and audio production. His newest project is Riff Raff Theater (http://www.riffrafftheater.com), which also now features its own podcast, Riff Raff Radio. We urge those who enjoy these classic Digital Llama Productions projects to visit the RRT page and check out this new venture.

Over the coming months, we will be, with Hanel's blessing, re-releasing all 23 (25) episodes of the classic DLR, D2, and, yes, even DLPG episodes here through the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed. We are proud to present these classic series to many who will hear for the first time just why they are considered a fan audio great, even now, years later.

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/digitalllama.html

(Riff Raff Theater can be found at http://www.riffrafftheater.com.)

2003 in Star Wars fan audio is usually noted for the birth of fan audio dramas for the genre, but as those dramas were emerging, so was a classic fan audio parody, one of the longest running Star Wars fan audio projects outside of podcasting.

Jeff Roney (now of RoneyZone Productions) created a brand new parody series centered around the concept of Star Wars parody and sketch-style comedy. Presented as Tatooine TV (a "television" approach without video, hence a bit of a play on words), Roney's new series would last from 2003 until 2007 in both pre-recorded and life forms.

With over 45 episodes and over 11 hours of content, Tatooine TV (TTV) is a fan audio classic . . . and the emergence of one of fan audio's biggest contributors and supporters, Jeff Roney.

Over the next few months, we will be releasing the entire run of the series on the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed. This month, we begin with the first four episodes.

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/tatooinetv.html

With the success of Second Strike's three acts/episodes, Nathan P. Butler of Rayzur's Edge Audio wanted to continue pushing ahead with Star Wars fan audio dramas. Rather than creating one large story, however, as had been the case with Second Strike, Butler's next series of projects were to be short audio dramas. As such, it only made sense to craft these tales into Star Wars fan audio's first audio drama series (if one considered Second Strike a three-part whole, rather than a series, per se).

The five short audio dramas produced by Rayzur's Edge Audio and released monthly from July through November, 2003, were standalone tales, set within the same general "timeline" as Second Strike. The series first two episodes (Doubts Cast and Dreamscape) were written by Butler in collaboration with Pete Dixon (originally for Dixon's abandoned fan film series, Force Tales). The subsequent three episodes (The Mob, Addiction, and Responsibility) were completely new, the latter of which centered around a secondary character from Second Strike.

After one month (December 2003) with no new episode, the series returned with an altered format in January and February, 2004. At that point, the series had been opened to other creative teams, leading Sean Koury and Christopher Walker to each write one episode (No Way Out and To Overcome, respectively), both of which were mixed by then-newcomer Steve Fluharty. Butler remained aboard as, essentially, a series Executive Producer.

The Anthology series entered an indefinite hiatus after seven episodes in 2004, though Butler has stated that others who wish to create episodes for the series may contact him to do that very thing.

(Other concepts have emerged for the series from Butler and others but have never entered production . . . with one exception. Matt Loewen's tale Runaway was originally slated to be an episode of Anthology, but was later changed into a standalone audio drama.)

Our next seven releases through the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed will be the complete series run of Star Wars: Anthology, as we continue to bring you a look back at classic Star Wars fan audio.

More information: http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/anthology.html

As the founder and operator of Star Wars Fanworks: The Home of Star Wars Fan Audio, I would like to welcome you to the Star Wars Fanworks Audio Feed, an all-new way of getting your fix of Star Wars fan audio from Fanworks.

Fanworks launched on September 1, 2003, to provide a home and hub for the growing community of amateur audio producers whose projects centered around the Star Wars franchise and its fandom community. Since that time, the genre has grown from a small handful of creative individuals into an entire creative community that is out there, actively creating podcasts (which we used to just know as "internet-based radio shows"), audio dramas, and audio parodies, while also, in some cases, branching out into other creative genres as well.

Since 2003, the RSS feed has developed into an easy and effective way to get audio productions out to listeners. While many in the Star Wars fan audio community embraced this new technology and created feeds for their own productions, there has never, until now, been a centralized feed that is meant to focus on fan audio productions from various creative teams and specifically designed to include audio dramas and parodies alongside podcasts, rather than being exclusive to podcast (radio show) style materials.

As a fan, a creator, and a patron, I welcome you. As our genre of choice would say, may the Force be with the fan audio community.

--Nathan P. Butler