This is certainly an indicator of strong growth for internet radio and streaming services. Music royalties agency SoundExchange announced Tuesday that it ended the year collecting $292 million in royalty payments, up 17% from 2010. These royalties are paid by internet, satellite and cable TV music-only services for the right to play sound recordings, and are distributed to the owners of the sound recording rights. The payments are based upon listener hours, which means a service pays more royalties when more listeners are tuned in. Terrestrial radio is excepted from these royalties by statute, though all broadcasters are obligated to pay songwriting royalties via agencies like ASCAP and BMI.

SoundExchange also reports that 15,300 new artists, labels and rights holders were registered last year, and therefore became eligible to receive royalty payments.

I am definitely of two minds with regard to these payments, often known as “mechanical” royalties. On the one hand, I think it is only fair for musicians to be paid when services base their income on playing recorded music. But on the other hand, there are many non-commercial services that do not turn a profit, and for whom these payments can be burden. Furthermore, it is reasonable to question how much money individual artists see from these collections, since the major record companies arguably own the majority of mechanicals rights.

Even the for-profit services like SiriusXM satellite radio and Pandora have been protesting. They say that the SoundExchange fees are too high and that the terrestrial radio exemption is unfair. Last fall SiriusXM made waves by reaching out to the major labels to negotiate individual contracts that would bypass SoundExchange, in the hope of reducing its rates. Such a move is legal because SoundExchange is the default statutory collection agency for those who don’t have other agreements with rights holders. The catch with bypassing SoundExchange is that you end up with a lot of individual contracts to hammer out. The risk for artists with such arrangements is that those who own the rights to their recordings might have difficulty collecting their due royalties.

In any event, this rise in royalty payments are a strong sign that more listeners are turning to online radio and music streaming services, in addition to the more established satellite and cable providers.

I’ve known about this station for well over a decade now. As a metalhead living in Central Illinois I’d occasionally travel north to the Chicago area or Milwaukee to see concerts and encounter banners and fliers for an all heavy metal station on the AM band called Rebel Radio. However, I can only recall hearing the station once when on the highway between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Music radio on the AM dial is nearly an anachronism now, and most of the practitioners now are either ethnic stations or easy listening. Nevertheless there are a few hold outs–mostly mom and pop operations or stations owned by relatively small groups–that program niche formats on AM stations. Being on the air for about sixteen years certainly qualifies WPJX 1500 AM in Zion, IL as a true AM music veteran.

Unfortunately, WPJZ isn’t exactly a powerhouse when it comes to transmission strength. In fact, the station broadcasts with just 250 watts from the far northeastern Illinois town of Zion, a good 38 miles from the Chicago city limits. What that means for a city dweller for me is that I simply cannot tune it in, no matter how hard I’ve tried. The stations serves southeast Wisconsin about as well as Illinois, still missing most of the major north suburbs of Chicago. Adding to the frustration is the fact that Rebel Radio does not yet have a web stream, although its website currently promises one soon.

Then, today while perusing their website again I noticed a note saying Rebel Radio is simulcast on a co-owned station, WKTA 1330 AM in Evanston, the first suburb north of Chicago, on Sundays from 4 to 8 PM. So this afternoon I tuned in Rebel Radio for the first time, thanks to WKTA.

First off, this is truly a heavy metal station, playing many examples of the genre from the more mainstream–like Metallica–to the lesser known–like Armored Saint. At least during this four-hour window there’s a live DJ spinning the tunes and talking quite knowledgeably about the bands and songs, pointing out local concert dates as appropriate. That element alone is quite refreshing and rarely heard on commercial radio, even if it also includes a too-long inane phone call from a friend of the DJ calling in from a Renaissance Fair.

In terms of fidelity, I’m not terrifically impressed. Contemporary heavy metal has a pretty broad frequency range and often is not mastered to be optimized for radio like a lot of pop and mainstream rock music. That means there’s a fair amount of sound in the high and low frequency extremes that AM radio doesn’t cover well. I think it takes some pretty good EQing and signal processing to make metal work well on AM. On the whole the station doesn’t sound bad, but the midrange and high end sounds pretty crowded and compressed. A little strategic equalization might let the high end come through a little better and make the station a little more listenable. I acknowledge that the main station WPJX might sound better than the simulcast that I can tune in. And, to be fair, on a portable radio or boombox the sonic compromises are far less perceptible.

Listening to Rebel Radio I was reminded of the Z-Rock syndicated heavy metal format. I first listened to it when I lived in New Jersey in the late 80s and early 90s when it was broadcast on an AM station out of New York on 1480. It didn’t always come in well in Passaic County where my parents lived, but I did tune in occasionally when looking for something different on the radio dial. Even at the time I didn’t think the sonic quality of metal on AM was that great.

Nonetheless, Rebel Radio proves that there must be a very loyal audience for heavy metal on the radio willing to deal with the compromises inherent in music on AM.

Former general manager Taylor Dearr in the WNUR music library (photo by Jennifer Waits)

I’m a vinyl enthusiast myself, having never given up on the format since buying my first record some thirty years ago. Whenever I fill in a music shift on WNUR I make a point to spin some vinyl from the station’s library. Unfortunately, space constraints prevent ‘NUR from maintaining a library as expansive as WFMU’s. Nevertheless I’m quite happy to have an impressive array of great albums to choose from.

Fellow Radio Survivor Jennifer Waits always checks out the record collections at the college stations she tours on her own blog Spinning Indie in addition to writing about vinyl’s continued use in radio here at Radio Survivor. I find that the college student DJs at WNUR are very enthusiastic about playing LPs. It seems like any hour I walk into the station I’ll find at least one turntable spinning or ready to start. Hitting play on a CD or MP3 will never have the visceral experience like cueing up a record and hitting start on a Technics 1200.

The next morning I googled the station and learned that it’s a relatively new one, debuting August 2009 in Chicago after starting on the FM dial in Osh Kosh, WI in January 2009. Since then I’ve tuned in a number of times intrigued both by the introduction of a new radio format and the fact that it’s a new music station on the AM, rather than FM dial. In particular my interest in piqued since this discovery came just a week after Jennifer’s post on the Aesthetics of AM.

When I initially encountered the station it was playing an Ella Fitzgerald number that I can’t recall. So at first I assumed it was an adult standards / nostalgia format station that I’d somehow never heard before or that was coming in from a more distant market due to the luck of nighttime AM propagation. But a couple of songs in they played Steely Dan, which might qualify as classic rock, but is way too recent and rocking for an adult standards playlist.

The Avenue bills itself as “timeless cool,” drawing on artists who seem to have classic jazz elements as a point of commonality, but otherwise might fall more solidly into rock or adult contemporary camps. The website’s masthead features pictures of Norah Jones Diana Krall, Ray Charles, John Mayer, Nina Simone and Harry Connick, Jr–a somewhat more eclectic array than I would normally expect from a commercial station. Even if all these artists have each sold millions of albums none of them are big radio mainstays.

At the same time, many of the artists heard on the Avenue, like Ray Charles, were once radio mainstays, especially during the heyday of AM popular music radio in the 1960s and 70s. So their music sounds quite at home in the restricted audio bandwidth of AM. Many of these other artists, however, came to prominence in the FM and CD era of high fidelity and low noise. I haven’t heard any John Mayer on the Avenue yet, but music from Norah Jones and Harry Connick sounds pretty well at home on this AM station.

Interestingly, the Avenue is only heard at night, signing on at 6 pm and signing off at 5 am. During daylight hours 950 AM is Relevant Radio, a syndicated Catholic format. Both Relevant Radio and the Avenue are owned by Sovereign City Radio Services.

Location map for the Avenue's nighttime transmitter

Also, the nighttime AM dial is notoriously noisy due to overcrowding of stations and an infestation of electrical interference coming from all sorts of appliances from fluorescent lights to computer monitors. All this adds up to making the Avenue a frequently frustrating listen. Even when using a very good receiver with a tunable AM antenna the music is often marred with buzzes, hums and other interference that is too annoying to ignore. Although I’ll attempt to turn off every offending appliance in the apartment, I’m sure my neighbors’ appliances still interfere. Yet, some evenings I’m lucky enough to secure a nice clean signal that shows off how pleasing the rounded off edges of AM fidelity can sound.

Beyond sound quality I find myself actually enjoying the mix of music the Avenue has to offer. To my delight the station steers way clear of smooth jazz, a genre I have little tolerance for, while embracing the intersection of jazz with pop and rock music. The evening mix of music can still be a bit too soft and adult contemporary for my taste, but livens up closer to midnight mixing in more classic standards and be-bop alongside jazz-rock. It’s not a challenging station to listen to, but one I’d feel confident playing in the background during a nice dinner party, feeling assured that it would never get too smooth or too dissonant.

One way to avoid the interference and noise of the nighttime AM dial is to tune in to the Avenue’s web stream. The fidelity there is definitely more FM like, even if it suffers from compression artifacts like a lot of online station. But to me, the station suffers online. There are hundreds of vocal jazz or similar classic jazz and rock stations on the internet, and the Avenue’s isn’t quite special enough to stand out. It’s in the context of the AM radio dial that the Avenue is such a breath of fresh air, ready to accompany someone on a late night drive or settling down for the night.

The Avenue does feature some very Chicago-centric programming that certainly makes the station more unique. In particular Friday nights feature “Live from the Green Mill” which has live recordings from this legendary Chicago jazz club in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. I have yet to hear the program, but I plan to tune in soon.

It will be interesting to see if the station survives to breathe some more life into Chicago’s AM radio dial.

Although I’m a huge evangelist for the ongoing importance of terrestrial radio (especially non-commercial radio), the AM slice of the radio band is a place that I only turn when I’m in my car looking for news, weather, and traffic information. But back when I was a kid, AM radio was huge and was the home to some of my favorite DJs and music shows. So, what happened?

In a fascinating essay, “The Day the (AM) Music Died,” in the PopMatters “Retroactive Listening: Perspectives on Music and Technology” series, Jay Somerset provides some historical perspective about how and why AM radio moved away from music to talk programming. He also discusses how the mono sound of AM contrasts with FM stereo and why certain styles of music were more suited to AM. He writes:

“Welcome to 1982, the oldies endpoint; the year the music froze, on the AM dial at least. Nowadays it seems ridiculous, but there was a time, before the fragmented niches offered by Internet and satellite radio came along (third-wave psychobilly radio, anyone?), the music dial was divided into two camps: contemporary hit music — almost exclusively AM’s domain — and older, or classical, or college, or jazz on newfangled, niche FM.

If you wanted a hit single, you produced it to sound good on AM radio, which meant eschewing deep bass and the low end for something that would sound best on the treble-heavy, tinny sound of an AM receiver, such as Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production… To sound good on mono AM, you needed a dense, reverberant, everything-at-once sound rather than a dynamic, stereo recording that only sounded good on FM, which the majority of people never even listened to.”

He goes on to make the point that when music programming left AM for the cooler realm of FM radio around 1982, AM radio became the home for talk radio, sports, weather, and news. Despite the dominance of talk radio today, there are some holdout AM oldies stations that are mostly playing hits from 1965 to 1982.

As he wraps up his essay Jay talks about the trend for some modern musicians to simulate lo-fi, AM-friendly sounds and he wonders if any of these artists will ever actually get played on AM radio. He speculates that with changes to the terrestrial radio landscape, AM music radio could transform into a place that embrace these indie artists (he mentions Kurt Vile, Best Coast, and Neon Indian) who now find their homes on satellite, Internet and college radio:

“It would be interesting to actually hear some of this music that simulates the AM listening experience through lo-fi recording techniques on AM…At this point, it’s hard to imagine new music on AM. Yet now that satellite and Internet radio are kings and FM has gradually become a wasteland of oft-trotted Tom Pettyism, music may once again save the dial.”

He argues that AM radio could really open up to a variety of voices:

“AM has developed into a niche marketplace, not unlike community television from the early-’80s, with broadcasters renting out time slots for fractured audiences (religious, ethnic, federal workers, etc.). So it’s at least possible that an enterprising DJ with an ear tuned to the fringe pop…might start using AM again as a sound source, renting space, as it were, on a station and playing this music.

Why wouldn’t this music wind up on AM? Or is AM radio truly a long-gone source for music, forever frozen in the 1965-1982 period… Would people start tuning back into AM to hear specialized and contemporary AM programming that highlighted music like chill wave? It’s a possibility because, after all, the music may have died in 1982, but the sound lives on.”

Another interesting point to make is that with MP3 technology, younger ears are getting more and more accustomed to lo-fi music; so AM may actually be closer sonically to that sound coming out of iPod earbuds than to high fidelity music emanating from vinyl played on their grandparents’ stereo systems.

Do you think that certain styles of music sound better on AM radio? And what do you think the future of AM radio will be?

My #5 is not appointment listening. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I do know when it’s on, and if I happen to be in a radio listening mood at that time, I will be sure to tune it in. In fact, when it comes to commercial radio–especially syndicated commercial radio–it’s my favorite program currently on the air.

Little Steven’s Underground Garage stands out from most commercial music radio because it still shows the idosyncratic touch of its namesake host. Focused on the somewhat ill-defined subgenre of garage rock, the program plays rough-edged rock and roll that finds its roots with 1960s bands like the Troggs who went on to inspire early punks like the Ramones and later rockers such as the White Stripes. While this sort of rock is a mainstay of the Underground Garage, Little Steven takes a kind of “I know it when I see it” approach to the show, including a healthy does of Motown and other early rock nuggets alongside the more catholic selections. But his approach is not a hodge podge, like any real music DJ he draws connections between the songs he plays, often explaining why he deems an unorthodox choice worthy of inclusion.

Host Little Steven Van Zandt is otherwise known as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, but in his off time has dedicated himself to the promotion and preservation of garage rock. While I certainly like most of the music labeled garage rock, I would never have considered myself a particular fan, as such. I first became aware of Little Steven’s campaign for the subgenre when a band local to Champaign-Urbana, IL, where I used to live, The Blackouts (now The Living Blue) won his first Underground Garage Battle of the Bands. That’s when I first tuned in to the program Sunday nights on the local classic rock station.

I keep tuning in to the program because Little Steven doesn’t keep trotting out the same lineup of so-called classics each week, just changing up the order. Sure, you’ll hear some of his favorites like the Dictators way more often than you would on any other commercial program, but that’s a good thing. It really sounds like he digs into the archives to pull out lesser-known gems. He also features newer bands, such as the Raveonettes, who receive little if any commercial radio play.

As a host, Little Steven is definitely unique, bringing a sometimes cheesy sense of humor to bare, backed up with sound clips from 50s and 60s horror and science fiction b-movies. At times his attempts at relevant commentary and humor are a little awkward and hackneyed, but they’re also sincere, and mercyfully short. The music is still front and center.

This being syndicated commercial radio there’s a fair share of bad national commercials to sit through, in addition to local spots. But the fact that the Underground Garage is on the air in the first place is bit of triumph. Little Steven started the program in 2002 without the help of the usual national radio syndicators like Westwood One, enlisting the sponsorship of the Hard Rock Cafe to get started.

There’s an Underground Garage channel on satellite radio, too, managing to survive the merger of XM and Sirius. When I had Sirius as part of my Dish Network package I’d occasionally listen to the UG channel. It features a range of guest hosts, like Joan Jett and Handsome Dick Manitoba (of the aforementioned Dictators), in addition to slots hosted by Little Steven. As I recall the playlist was looser than many other Sirius channels, but still had a definite rotation.

I’ve most appreciated the Underground Garage those times when I’m driving across the middle of the country on a weekend night and in between the same uninspired pop country and adult contemporary fare I stumble upon Little Steven’s mushmouthed Jersey accent. Thanks to Mr. Van Zandt for keeping rock n roll radio alive for at least a couple of hours a week.

The oldest music store in the city, Aquarius is not big, and it’s far from comprehensive in its selection. If you want the latest Black Eyed Peas or Bon Jovi albums you’re probably better off going to Ameoba. Instead, Aquarius specializes in arcane, experimental music, including obscure heavy metal. For most people the store would be inscrutable; to me, it’s heaven.

But it’s not just the inventory that makes Aquarius great. It’s that every CD and record in the place appears to be careful chosen, even curated. For a store its size quite a bit of space is given over to employee favorites and new releases. And every single one of those new or favorite albums has a paragraph-long write-up on the front describing the artist and album in loving detail.

Aquarius Records website features a long list of new releases and reviews.

So what the hell does this have to do with radio? I learned about Aquarius for the first time when the store’s owners Andee Connors and Allan Horrocks were guest DJs on WFMU’s Brian Turner show. I was amazed at Connors’ and Horrock’s deep knowledge and passion for all of this obscure music that I’m also a big fan of. I was also blown away by the idea that there was a real brick-and-mortar store out there specializing these obscurities. I knew I had to visit the first chance I could get.

What’s best about Aquarius Records is the same that’s best about radio. Great music radio is about passion and curation, like an auditory art gallery where the DJ carefully and meticulously shares new music that she loves, that moves her or intrigues her.

Like radio, the music industry–and record stores in particular–are supposed to be in their death throes. But a store like Aquarius seems to survive, and even thrive because it appears to be motivated by passion inasmuch as profit. Community and college stations like WFMU hold on because they, too, are fueled by this commitment to serving up what’s interesting and good.

When you can find the new Bon Jovi anywhere, why go to the radio or an actual record store when Wal-Mart will be easier and cheaper? The new 7″ from Boris or CD from MOEBIUS / PLANK / NEUMEIER may be more obscure, but the fan is likely far more dedicated.

I might find any of these obscure releases at Amazon, but I’ll have to look hard, know what I’m looking for and then there’s a good chance there won’t be a review. I’ve bought several CDs from Aquarius based on their review alone and never been disappointed. I think that’s because I can trust the guys running the store, the same way I trust my favorite noncommercial radio DJs.

This isn’t a commercial for Aquarius–they’re certainly not sponsoring us (yet?). I just think it’s important to be reminded about how valuable a little informed, passionate guidance can be in discovering new music in this age of file-sharing, Pandora and Amazon.com.

I had the opportunity to speak with a group of high school and college age interns at an independent music promotion agency here in Chicago on the topic of the music radio. More so than any random grouping of teenagers and young adults, this was a group that is passionate about music and the artists that create it.

Chicago

Yet, when I asked the group of about twelve interns if they listen to radio, only five rose their hands. Of that group a few of the older ones said they listen to public radio, primarily for the news. A couple said they listen to Chicago’s most well-known and widely respected commercial AOR station, WXRT, and one said she listens to a couple of the pop stations on occasion.

When I asked why they listen to little or no radio the answer was pretty similar to what we’ve been hearing in the press. They said there’s too much repetition, not enough music that they care about and way too many commercials. A few also said that none of the stations they’ve heard are diverse enough for their tastes. They don’t want to pick a station that only plays hip-hop, rock or dance music; they like their genres blended.

I was actually a little surprised by that last response, though I shouldn’t be. One of the reasons I’ve preferred college and community radio all these years has been for the relative diversity of their programming. I’ve especially loved late night freeform radio because of that tendency not to be bound by genre, a constraint which most primetime noncommercial radio tends to adhere to.

But it probably took me until late college to really appreciate the value of true genre-crossing freeform programming, not just a playlist-free college rock program with the occasional jazz or rap track thrown in. That’s probably due to not really being exposed to that sort of radio until college, and the fact that it takes some time to acclimate to it after a lifetime of hearing strictly formatted commercial radio.

Both the radio listeners and the interns who don’t listen to radio all said they primarily rely on the internet, and on friends, to learn about new music. They cited music blogs and Pandora as primary sources, but also mentioned using the iTunes music store to check out what’s hot and listen to samples.

The ability to customize their music experience and not be a slave to faceless programmers was a rationale they all agreed upon. When I asked if they ever get playlists from a friend or another source, like a blog, several said they do, but made it clear that it’s very different than how they’ve experienced radio. The intern coordinator, who I’m guessing is probably the oldest of the group, said that it was clear that even the commercial station he listens to doesn’t care much about him or even the music it plays.

Your humble author

Interestingly, none of the interns (except for the one who works with WNUR) was particularly aware of most of the college stations in Chicago, nor listened much to any of the most well-known indie rock stations with popular live streams, like Seattle’s KEXP or New Jersey’s WFMU (full disclosure: I’m wearing a WFMU t-shirt right now). At least one said he’d heard of KEXP, primarily through their connection with music festivals and because they record and make available online many live in-studio performances.

I asked the interns who listen to public radio if they ever learn about new artists that way. I got some tentative yeses, as they reflected that they’d heard artist interviews and some song excerpts and occasionally make use of the online archives.

Towards the end of the discussion I proposed that I think there is still life and potential for radio as a music medium, although it’s clear that changes need to occur if the commercial side is going to survive. I asked them what would entice them to listen to radio.

In response the intern coordinator asked why hadn’t a station created a more interactive environment, wherein listeners might be able to participate in the selection of artists and songs. I didn’t have an answer so much as another question: how is that different from an iPod playlist or Pandora? He reflected on that for a moment before acknowledging that it’s not.

Then I asked if instead they might be interested in listening to a station where it seemed like the music was being chosen with more care and artistic integrity, more like a music blog or a live DJ set. I got plenty of head nods indicating, “yes,” but I’m not entirely sure I’m convinced. One young woman said that it would have to be pretty good to get her to change her habits.

Therein lies the rub. It isn’t the case that commercial music radio only needs to regain listeners that it’s lost. No, it has to entice a whole generation who were never listeners to begin with.

photo credit: thomasbrandt/flickr

I’m certain that some erosion of listenership was inevitable due to the rise of the internet, cable television and the multichannel universe. But the loss of an entire generation of listeners was not so unavoidable, and is due to turning radio from an entertainment into a soulless commodity, no different than real estate or pork belly futures.

Still, I’m cautiously optimistic, especially if the giants like Clear Channel continue to sell off and give away stations to smaller groups who might be more connected to local communities. Perhaps one way to connect up radio with young listeners is via the artists themselves, as personalities which young people obviously trust and respect way more than the local Clear Channel top 20 + 20 minutes of commercial station. I’ll have more on that last thought soon.

San Francisco commercial radio station Live 105 just launched a show on June 28th that airs on Sunday nights from 10 until midnight which is being touted as “100% User-Controlled Radio.” Listeners sign up for a service called Jelli in order to help formulate the playlist. According to Jelli’s website:

“Jelli is 100% user-controlled radio℠, enabling users to take over a radio station using their web browsers. Leveraging the power of the web to reinvent traditional broadcasting, Jelli empowers the community to interact with the broadcast in real-time and determine dynamically what plays on the air.”

I signed up for Jelli and have to admit that I was excited about potentially being able to re-shape Live 105′s playlist. However, as you might guess, the song selection that I had to choose from limited. I scanned through the choices trying to shake things up a bit by voting for all of the more obscure bands and for the genres that are outside of Live 105′s current playlist.

Amid all of the expected rock tracks from Green Day, AC/DC, and Rancid, I was surprised to see some wild card song options including soul, reggae, Tom Jones, Bee Gees, jazz from Miles Davis, country from Willie Nelson, hip hop from Jurassic 5, Run DMC, and a Tribe called Quest. There were even selections from college radio favorites like The Cramps, Vivian Girls, Squirrel Nut Zippers, American Analog Set, Sonic Youth, Galaxie 500, Sleater-Kinney, Dead Can Dance, !!!, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Diamanda Galas, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and old punk like Agent Orange. So, I wonder. If all the indie kids got on here and voted for a list of non-mainstream stuff, could we have a Sunday night commercial radio show that was both listenable and unexpected? I’d love to see that.

Jelli’s press release upon their recent launch reveals that users are selecting songs from a limited, pre-approved universe. And, amazingly, they admit that even though it’s “100% user-controlled,” it’s also automated programming. They describe this as a “social jukebox.” The press release states:

“The Jelli experience is enabled by an innovative ‘social automation’ platform, which combines radio automation capabilities with web services to enable real-time control of radio infrastructure by web applications.  This platform creates fully automated, highly targeted, ‘radio ready’ programming which is format neutral and FCC & DMCA compliant. In addition to live 24/7 online and mobile streaming, Jelli can uniquely transform traditional FM/AM/HD broadcast experiences with its partners around the country, enabling crowdsourced programming in their market.”

It’s an interesting idea, and I definitely found the whole voting experience on Jelli to be a fun time-waster. But will people tune in or feel in control? And will the playlists seem much different than what airs on radio already? One nice thing is that users can request that certain artists and songs are added to the system. Take a look at Jelli’s blog to see some of the recent adds, which include a lot of retro artists, new bands, and some surprisingly innovative choices like Tom Waits. Additionally, you can take a look at the most voted for tracks for a given week. This week’s top picks included the likes of Third Eye Blind, Beatles, Tom Petty, Ramones, and White Stripes.

I’d like to get more rebel users on there voting for non-mainstream artists in order to shake things up and broaden the on-air playlist. Diamanda Galas playing on Live 105? One can dream…

It was there in 1909 that an engineer, Charles “Doc” Herrold, broadcast his first voice transmissions. He began regular broadcasts in 1912, and his station became KQW, which evolved into KCBS…

Herrold, said [San Jose State University Professor Mike] Adams, used a spark cap, and his audio was crude. He was a pioneer in broadcasting entertainment, said Adams, but he had no financial support and was bypassed by inventors of the superior vacuum tube. Herrold’s station lasted until the United States shut down radio stations during World War I. He obtained a license for station KQW in 1921, but lost control of the station, which relocated to San Francisco in 1934 and became KCBS in 1949. Oh. Well, then: Happy 60th Anniversary, KCBS!

Another way that radio honors its history is with groups like the National Radio Hall of Fame. Voting is now open for 2009 nominees, including radio pioneer Dr. Demento.

And, finally, an article on CNNMoney.com posits that services like Pandora (an Internet service that selects music for you based on music that you already like) may be the future of radio. The piece quotes Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren:

“There’s a huge frustration among listeners that radio doesn’t play music they like,” Westergren says. “Once you use personalized radio, why would you go back to a station that is programmed for you and half a million other people?”

Well, yes…you probably wouldn’t. But, if you listen to non-commercial stations with lengthy playlists and DJ-curated shows, you might be disappointed by a random, computer-generated DJ-less playlist. The article continues:

However, not everyone sees it that way. “Traditional radio forces you to listen to new things,” says Bob Lefsetz, author of the influential music industry blog the Lefsetz Letter. “Pandora’s recommendations are ridiculously tame.” The New Yorker’s pop music critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, agrees: “I wish it were more adventurous.”

Agreed. And the future of radio is still TBD…