Record Store Day, now in its fifth year, is an annual celebration of the independent record store. This year it goes down next Saturday, April 16. Participating stores hold special events, like in-store concerts, while selling limited-edition singles and albums. I’ve been attending since 2008 and enjoy the recognition of the threatened species of the […]
A couple of interesting pirate radio stories passed through the transom this week that I need to share. First, a writer calling himself “Captain America” wrote a short piece for the Albuquerque, NM Alibi fondly recalling an unlicensed micropower station called Rebel Radio that broadcast from that city’s “student ghetto” during the mid-90s, a period […]
The long-surviving Seattle band Pearl Jam has just announced a new box set re-release of their second and third albums, Vs. and Vitalogy. In addition to five LPs and four CDs, the box set will include a cassette recording of a January 8th, 1995 broadcast from Pearl Jam’s Monkeywrench/Self-Pollution radio series. During the 1995 and […]
Every few days I check in with YouTube to see who has posted a radio related video, and this fun Sesame Street routine came up. These two critters keep turning the dial until they find something nice and atonal to relate to. They’re not very subtle, indicating their preferences via “nope nope nope nopes” or […]
A mysterious pirate radio station cropped up today during the 2010 01SJ Biennial Build Your Own World conference in San Jose, California. According to the festival website, ZER01 and other artistic collaborators will convene in San Jose from September 16-19 to present various events and performances. The pirate radio arm of this event is airing […]
Oh man, somebody buy me one of these for my birthday. It’s Crosley’s newest turntable and it’s totally portable, battery powered, comes with a USB connection to link to a PC or Mac, includes a software suite for ripping the audio, plays 33-1/3 and 45 RPM records, has an FM transmitter, and full range stereo […]
Jose Fritz of the great Arcane Radio Trivia has been traveling around and writing about what he hears on different regional radio dials. He just posted from the Seattle-Tacoma area and it’s interesting that he picks up a very diverse set of noncommercial stations featuring indie rock, NPR news, jazz and even dance music. He […]
Did you get fooled today? Radio stations are often one of the last remaining outlets to celebrate April Fool’s with gusto. Morning show DJs read fake news reports, radio shows are replaced, and some stations switch their formats for 24 hours. Howard Stern once pretended that he’d been fired on April 1st over his crude […]
I’ve only lived in Chicago for two years, but I’ve been listening to WXRT in brief spurts for the last sixteen years when visiting the city. Living in the Central Illinois college towns of Champaign-Urbana, I’d often heard about WXRT from friends and acquaintances from the Chicago area. Inevitably it was the one station that […]
I am a college and community radio loyalist and these days I never listen to commercial radio unless someone else has put it on and I have no way to control the radio (during cab rides, in doctor’s office waiting rooms, and perhaps via cheesy hold button music, etc.). Since coming up with a list […]
