Two Sundays ago I was hanging out at free form radio station Radio Valencia in San Francisco, and in walked jazz singer/guitarist Meredith Axelrod. Axelrod spoke with the Gramophoney Baloney show’s DJ McShmormac, then schmoozed some more with DJ Ferrara and Malderor and Dr. Junk. Of course we all wanted Axelrod to sing. As a bonus, […]
It has been a year since I posted my review of the Kindle Fire as an Internet radio device. A lot of digital water has gone under the bridge since then, and I’ve replaced the Fire with a Google Nexus 7. Sorry Kindle, but the Nexus 7 is the tablet for me. Nothing personal. I […]
I am reviewing the furious responses of our readers to Eric Klein’s story on the format change at KPOJ in Portland. Only ten days ago it was Progressive Talk Radio. Now it is a sports channel. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” one comment exclaims. “Put talk radio back on KPOJ immediately! We have enough sports […]
East coast community radio stations WBAI-FM in New York City and WFMU-FM in New Jersey are still trying to dig themselves out of the Hurricane Sandy swamp. Yesterday, all the Pacifica stations ran a network-wide emergency fundraiser for lower Manhattan’s ‘BAI. Here’s an excerpt from Pacifica Executive Director Summer Reese’s appeal: When Superstorm Sandy hit […]
The US Office of Inspector General has put out a report that I’ll bet has the Department of Homeland Security cringing. It chronicles the epic fail of a scheme to build an interoperable radio communications system for the DHS and its network of 22 sub-federal agencies. The target was a common channel usable by the […]
Emily Hellwell over at the Inside NPR blog has a piece titled “How Public Radio Scotch-Taped Its Way Into [the] Public Broadcasting Act.” I thought of titling this response post “How NPR took a scissors to public broadcasting history.” The essay acknowledges the most famous part of the story—that the 1969 law almost went through […]
I’m looking forward to this Sunday morning, when I will be on the Gramophoney Baloney show again over at Radio Valencia in San Francisco. This week the show’s host DJ McShmormac is planning a four hour Armistice Day special. I asked him for specifics on Facebook: “4 hours of recordings dating from the WWI-era 1914-1918 […]
Everybody is saying that the Republicans are going to have to engage in some “soul searching” in the wake of yesterday’s Obama victory. I’m not hearing a whole lot of that from Rush Limbaugh. “What are we supposed to do now?” the Rushbo asks. “In order to get the Hispanic or Latino vote, does that […]
Intrigued by Spacial’s announcement of a visually impaired/beginner friendly online radio service, I decided to take up the plunge and start a Sam Vibe radio station myself. Here it is: Piano con radio, a classical piano radio station with eight pieces written by Hindemith, Prokofiev, Ginastera, Debussy, and Faure: I’ve got the interface set up […]
Hurricane Sandy is taking its toll on community radio. This just in from WFMU in New Jersey: Frank The Storm has taken our 91.1 fm transmitter off the air, as of Monday at 3:00pm. We’re trying to get the transmitter back up as soon as we can, but Frank knocked out all electric at the […]
