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Friday, June 11th
Squeezing radio streams and digital music
During our last few breaks in Port Douglas, in North Queensland, which has become our favourite holiday destination, local radio station ‘The Lounge’ has become a part of the ‘audio backdrop’ to this wonderful place. Whether on the hi-fi in the house or on the car radio, my wife and I have come to associate its idiosyncratic offering of “cool, calm and relaxing” music with our vacations. We’d already often tuned in to the Internet radio stream on our home Mac when back in Amsterdam to bring back memories before our recent return trip last month.
So it was that we of course tuned the receiver in our rented house to 106.3 again, and all was fine for the first few days. Our house this time was at the bottom of Flagstaff Hill, from the top of which is the mast that broadcasts the station. Then one evening the house lights flickered and the The Lounge went off the air. I e-mailed the owner, who kindly told us that they were working on restoring the signal, but while we were waiting we used my laptop connected to the house system to tune in to other streamed offerings.
Via the Live365 portal we found a station we really liked – providing a solo piano stream called “Whisperings”. In fact we liked it so much that within a few hours I’d signed up for their “PureStream” variant. For $30 a year, this provides a higher quality 128kbps stream and an expanded playlist with no ads. I also downloaded the Whisperings iPhone app, which I’ve since used to enjoy the great music and block out the noises when travelling around Amsterdam.
When we returned from Port Douglas a few weeks ago I decided to look for a digital audio system that I could use to access Internet radio and stream music from the collections on our Macs, both through our hi-fi and on portable players that we could take anywhere around the house. There are a number of alternatives, but it’s hard to find any for sale through retail outlets here, so I soon realized I’d have to buy online. I eventually chose Logitech’s ‘Squeezebox’ system. We now have a ‘Squeezebox Duet’ (above) attached to the hi-fi and two ‘Squeezebox radios’ (below).
Most mornings I now listen to Radio 4’s Today programme FM Internet stream in the bathroom and then take the 'radio' downstairs while making the coffee. At other times we can listen to The Lounge, Whisperings, any other Internet station or digital music over our Wi-Fi system anywhere around the house. One of my best investments.
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Wednesday, April 21st
Musical memories of the Bay Area...
Located in Paradise, California, a little town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Radio Paradise is run by the husband and wife team of Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith. They’re justifiably proud of the way they program their playlists, carefully blending different musical styles & genres together so they flow smoothly.
The playlist for the last six hours as I write this gives a good impression of the Goldsmiths' eclectic and – if it isn’t too non-PC or at least too subjective for me to say so – ‘good’ taste. Bill and Rebecca are pictured below. It runs the gamut from Doves and Traffic through Los Lobos and Peter Gabriel to Porcupine Tree and Van Morrison. Regular readers of this column know that, when it comes to choosing an Internet radio stream for music, I tend to plump for one of two of my favourite genres – folk and jazz. Radio Paradise provides a great solution to get me out of my cultural rut.
It also reminds me of the variety and quality of music programming I got used to in the eighties when I was running the European business of an electronic music instrument manufacturer based in San Jose, California, where on the station's servers is located. On my frequent stays in the Bay Area I often used to listen to KFAT (San Jose) and KPIG (Santa Cruz), so it came as no surprise when I discovered that Bill Goldsmith used to work as a programme director and DJ at these stations.
The site is comparatively sophisticated, allowing listeners to click the song title on the playlist or in a mini-browser window to post a comment. They welcome CD submissions from artists & record labels, but their playlist also includes many established artists of many kinds. They also welcome requests for artists not currently being played from listeners who think they would fit in to their music mix.
A wide range of listening options is on offer. The 192k MP3 stream that can be played via iTunes is my favourite, although it's limited to 450 listeners maximum, so it's often only available when most of America is asleep. They also offer a 128k streams in AAC, MP3 and RealPlayer, which are still really good quality.
If you’d like to add a stream to your player’s favourites that brings back the much-missed category of ‘progressive music’ without being an ‘oldies’ station, I can heartily recommend tuning your Internet radio dial to Radio Paradise. Two weeks ago they optimized their website to work seamlessly on the iPad. While I'm still having to wait as patiently as possible for Apple to launch the iPad in the Netherlands, I can recommend other iPhone users to download their free and excellent iPhone app (see on my phone above). It allows you to stream the music at your choice of three different bandwidth rates, and shows you what song is currently playing. When you touch the album cover, you are taken to the mobile-optimized web page for the current song. Radio Paradise just gets better and better.
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Thursday, February 11th
Streaming idiosyncrasy: Internet radio from the backwoods
I'm recommending two Internet radio stations today that share a number of characteristics, one of which is that they are both labours of love.
Hober is a wonderfully idiosyncratic Internet radio station which broadcasts from a geodesic dome (above) in an oak forest outside Washington DC. Although the last time I checked the dome houses three stories, three T1 lines and 30 computers, the music programming is about as far removed from high tech as could be imagined. As founder Gregor Markowitz explains: “Let’s face it, there are most likely a lot of artificial creations in the vicinity of your computers right now. The last thing you need is artificial music. Hober brings unvarnished sounds into a glossy space.”
You used to need the free RealPlayer to listen to Hober's streams. In this case, the player window displays details of the tracks being played, messages from listeners and recommended website links. A couple of years ago they added an MP3 stream, so since then I've often tuned in using iTunes.
Much of the music you’ll hear on Hober Thinking Radio is what is often described nowadays as ‘Americana’ – bluegrass, American folk, blues and so on. But the overall effect is more eclectic and multi-dimensional than that implies. The essential theme is that most of the programming is acoustic, and they regularly include seldom-heard ‘World music’, jazz, celtic, reggae and pieces from select contemporary artists. Hober Thinking Radio is a breath of fresh air-waves on the Internet. When your ears feel like returning to nature, give them a treat by tuning in to this great station.
My second recommendation is Whole Wheat Radio, broadcasting from a little plywood cabin (above) in Talkeetna, Alaska. Like most webcasting stations, they focus on independent musicians, but their choice of genres includes acoustic, folk, jazz, classical, bluegrass, singer-songwriter, swing, big-band, new age, instrumental, blues, spoken word, and humour.
One of the things that’s really special about Whole Wheat Radio is that they’ve compensated for the fact that the music is usually programmed in advance – so the volunteer DJs are not always live online – by allowing the playlist to be over-ridden by listener requests. Their website was converted into a 'wiki' a while back, which is entirely appropriate to their open, cooperative approach. An example of how well the community feel works is that a listener competition produced a number of new logo suggestions, including the fun one above. Listeners can make requests, chat to each other, and even call in to an Alaskan number to leave a message that's broadcasted at the end of the current song. I applaud founder Jim Kloss for his terrific contribution to Internet culture, and thoroughly recommend that you give WWR a listen.
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Friday, December 11th, 2009
Get ready to tap those chicken feet…
My old pal Sean Bergin is bringing the latest version of his ‘Song Mob’ to the Bimhuis next Monday evening for a free one-set concert. The set will also serve as a presentation of his new CD ‘Chicken Feet’, which features recordings made at the same venue two years ago. The title track has become a Song Mob favourite since he added vocals to his Mob (‘my own band’) in 2005 and it being featured on the first Song Mob CD, ‘Fat Fish’ in 2007.
Sean arrived in Amsterdam from South Africa a few years before me in 1975, and I got to know him in the early ’80s when I was introduced by an even older and sadly missed mutual pal to the Sunday afternoon jam sessions at the Engelbewaarder. His music, and the several formations he performs with, reflects a wide range of influences, but nearly always features improvisation together with his South African roots, warm personality and sense of humour.
The latest incarnation of his Mob playing at the Bimhuis on the 14th will feature daughter Una’s vocals, Anna Koene on harps, Felicity Provan on cornet and vocals, Ernst Glerum on bass and Alan Purves on percussion. Australian Felicity Provan has been mainly based in Amsterdam since 1990, and has regularly played with Sean and other local improvisers since then. She’s often been featured in one or other ‘Mob’, including their performances at the North Sea Jazz Festival, and can also be heard on ‘Fat Fish’. Ernst Glerum is this year’s winner of the prestigious VPRO Boy Edgar prize, which Sean himself won back in 2000. He’s played with Sean on and off for years, and is featured on previous Mob CDs ‘Copy Cat’ (1999), ‘Mob Mobiel’ (2003) and ‘Fat Fish’. Scottish percussionist Alan Purves has also often played with Sean in and out of Mob iterations, including ‘Mob Mobiel’, and shares his affinity for ethnic rhythms. A guaranteed blast..
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Friday, October 9th, 2009
Probably the best Internet folk station. Period.
In the five years since I first discovered Folk Alley, I've recommended it to many people who I know share my affection for quality acoustic music. It remains one of my online music favourites, so I'm delighted to spread the word again as this month's recommended Internet radio destination .
FolkAlley.com is produced by WKSU-FM in Kent, Ohio, a service of Kent State University that first went on air 50 years ago. Folk music has long played an important role in WKSU’s programming, and the University has hosted the Kent State Folk Festival for over three decades. WKSU supports live folk concerts at venues across Northeast Ohio and broadcasts more original hours of folk music than nearly any other radio station in America.
The streaming music programming for Folk Alley is created and hosted by Jim Blum, and the eclectic mix he chooses features both established and obscure singer/songwriters, Celtic, acoustic, traditional, and ‘world’ music. Blum has been hosting a folk music show on WKSU for over twenty years. He provides entertaining, informative yet unobtrusive (short!) commentary on the music he’s playing in the stream. The site also features a blog he writes, which includes news, CD reviews, artist interviews and reflections on the industry.
Versions of the stream are available in the three most popular formats: windows media player, real player and MP3. The latter format means the stream can be run from iTunes, but note as always that you really need a broadband connection. FolkAlley.com is unusually well-designed for a ‘streaming radio’ website.
A feature I particularly like is the continually updated ‘playlist’ window, which lets you know the title, artist and reference number of the track to which you’re listening and the same information for the ten previously played items. Despite being a fan of the genre, the playlist has already turned me on to a number of talented people I hadn’t heard before.
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Friday, August 21st, 2009
The beer part I can get. Why a sextet should call themselves a trio eludes me. I’m sure there’s a story behind it, but none of that matters now, because...
Trio Bier Rides Again!
It’s been around 15 years since this legendary Dutch band released their debut, ‘Verspilde Tranen’ (‘Wasted Tears’, or perhaps ‘Tears Down the Drain’). In between there have been a number of others, together with a collection of farewell and comeback concerts to keep us on our toes.
As my relatively free translation of their own ‘bio’ goes: “A band that sings in Dutch, who perhaps began too soon, or just as likely stopped too early: Trio Bier! They’ve certainly been called the best kept secret of the Netherlands. Their farewell concerts – yes, there have been a few – have drawn fans from Limburg to the north of Noord Holland, and were played in sold-out venues from the Paradiso to the Kleine Komedie.
But blood will out and breeding will tell – the ‘wild young guns’ have been working on a big comeback! After years of uncertainty and some great ‘Heintje Davids’ (a famous Dutch revue singer, just as famous for his own comebacks), the time has come for the ‘resurrection’ of Trio Bier!"
Recorded after the same fashion as ‘the basement tapes’, the new CD ‘De Droom Voorbij’ (‘The Dream is Over’) could perhaps be subtitled ‘the attic tapes’, as it was recorded in an improvised studio under the roof of band member (and genuinely nice bloke) Rini Dobbelaar’s Amsterdam home. The twelve new songs – which you can preview here – have a wonderful rough-hewn quality. Singer Jan Eilander tells us that they’ve not yet been mastered, but I hope once they are that they retain this quality. You can hear them live and judge for yourselves on Thursday 3rd September, upstairs at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. Highly recommended.
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