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Thanksgiving turkey for annual Alice's Restaurant radio tradition. Photo: J. Waits/Radio Survivor

Alice’s Restaurant on the 2019 Thanksgiving Radio Menu

Catch Alice’s Restaurant on the 2023 radio dial. See our latest listening guide. In fall, 1967, Arlo Guthrie released “Alice’s Restaurant,” unintentionally launching a Thanksgiving radio tradition that persists more than 50 years later. The Thanksgiving-themed 18+ minute story-song is beloved by folkies and classic rock fans who continue to search the radio dial for […]

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Bluetooth Walkman Blues

Don’t Waste Your Money on that Bluetooth Cassette Player Kickstarter

Last week – coincident with the original Walkman’s 40th birthday – I saw all these articles reporting on this supposedly “world’s first” Bluetooth enabled portable Walkman-style cassette player/recorder, named IT’S OK (yes, the brand is in all caps). Reactions to this Kickstarter ranged from snarky to excited, but all the coverage struck me as a […]

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Podcast 150 - Sympathy for Kenny G

Podcast #150 – Sympathy for Kenny G

What killed smooth jazz radio? Why aren’t there any commercial classical stations any longer? And, why do radio stations have a “format” to begin with? Matthew Lasar joins us to explore these questions about the fundamental organizing principle of most music radio. Matthew is a co-founder of Radio Survivor and the author of three important […]

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Radio Hammer Station

Radio Hammer DJs Fight Villainous Baddies

I’ve joked about the common trope of “DJs in peril” in popular culture; with numerous films portraying radio hosts as the target of evil-doers. The tables are turned in the video game “Radio Hammer Station,” in which a crew of pirate radio DJs battle “a wide variety of villainous baddies,” including aliens, zombies and “horribly […]

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How Radio Isn't Done 16x9 - 2

Podcast #141 – How Radio Isn’t Done, According To Negativland’s Don Joyce

Musician, DJ and radio artist Don Joyce passed away nearly three years ago, leaving behind a voluminous archive of his unparalelled collage radio program “Over the Edge.” The documentary “How Radio Isn’t Done” sheds light on this member of Negativland, his life and his work in recontextualizing the never-ending flow of media messages that flood […]

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Drowned City

Tour East London’s Pirate Radio Scene in “Drowned City”

I’m delighted to keep stumbling upon video artifacts of pirate radio, like the 1970s Portland public access footage and 1990 shortwave pirate documentary I recently shared. Next up I’ve found a more contemporary documentary from 2014 looking at London’s pirate radio scene. The city has long been a hotbed of unlicensed radio activity, such that […]

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