Andy Kershaw's back. BBC radio DJ Andy Kershaw, champion of world music and an old mate of John Peel's, was sacked from the airwaves three years ago after some personal problems. Now he's back, with a Radio 3 series called Music Planet, where he and Lucy Duran travel the globe listening to each region's traditional music. So far, they've tackled Deserts, Oceans and the Arctic, and all three 60 minute programmes are available online. I think they're rather good.
posted by Paul Slade
on Jan 30, 2011 -
9 comments
19th-century newspaper ads for patented stomach cures and digestive aids [...] foregrounded mince pie as the K2 of digestive summits. But for every published warning on the dangers of mince, the newspapers published a poem, essay, or editorial praising it as a great symbol of American cultural heritage or a nostalgic reminder of mother love and better times bygone—or even, as the State of Columbia, South Carolina, asserted in 1901, a beneficial Darwinian instrument that had "thinned out the weak ones" among the pioneering generations.
So wrote Cliff Doerksen in his wonderful, James Beard award-winning article
Mince Pie: The Real American Pie. Doerksen not only gives the history of this once most American of foods, he also makes two mince pies from 19th Century recipes to see if they are indeed all that. This is but one of many great articles Doerksen wrote for The Chicago Reader in recent years (links to a selection below the cut). Sadly, Cliff Doerksen
passed at the age of 47 just before Christmas.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 29, 2010 -
73 comments
"But this wasn't quite enough and so then I got the idea of having all thirteen of the lowest tones of the piano played together... In other words, I was inventing a new musical sound later to be called 'tone clusters'... Anyway, this was my professional debut as a composer." Henry Cowell's musical autobiography. Cowell was one of the most important figures in 20th-century American music,
described by John Cage as "the open sesame for new music in America." In this hour-long program recorded four years before his death in 1965, compositions from every stage in Cowell's career are contextualized and discussed by the man himself.
posted by No-sword
on Aug 8, 2010 -
10 comments
Feel like listening to a concert tonight? Something
classical? Or maybe
folk is a bit more your style?
World?
Jazz? Nearly every day, two or three more live concert recordings are added to CBC Radio2's '
Concerts on Demand' library, with nearly 900 concerts now in the list. Each concert is given just as presented live, and you can either stream the whole thing, or choose track by track. Timings are given for all the music, and photo galleries and full descriptions and credits round it all off. All in all, it's a fabulous presentation, and there is more music here than you will ever be able to keep up with!
posted by woodblock100
on Feb 10, 2009 -
22 comments
Progressive rock was kicked off American radio circa 1985 (not so much fired as
pressured into
resigning); today, there's virtually nothing on mainstream radio in an odd meter (5/4, 7/8, etc.). At Odd Time Obsessed, though,
everything is.
[more inside]
posted by kurumi
on Jan 19, 2009 -
73 comments
The Tone Generation is a radio series by Ian Helliwell 'looking at different themes or composers in the era of analogue tape and early synthesizer technology'. The original globe-trotting series:
Great Britain,
France,
Germany,
Italy,
Holland,
Scandinavia,
Eastern Europe,
USA,
Canada,
Rest of World. Bonus programmes:
Expo 58,
The RCA Synthesizer.
All links are to MP3 files, except the first one. Alternatively, you can slurp down the lot in one go by subscribing to the podcast feed.
posted by jack_mo
on Nov 21, 2008 -
4 comments
Voices and Music of World War I and
Voices of World War II: Experiences From the Front and at Home both feature spoken word, sheet music and songs galore (all audio RealPlayer). The Great War site has plenty of stuff, but the core is the collection of songs,
anti-war,
patriotic,
France-themed,
Kaiser-knocking and so forth. The WWII site also has a whole bunch of music, demonstrating the changing mood of the US, from
conflicted feelings about the start of the war to
conflicted feelings about the atomic bomb. Among the artists are Nat King Cole, Leadbelly, Benny Goodman and Fats Waller. But in addition the wonderful songs there are newscasts, speeches, propaganda and other radio broadcasting of all kinds.
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 17, 2008 -
10 comments
Calling your personal online radio station
the best of everything seems designed to provoke controversy. But in this case it's just one "mature consumer" taking a stand against big media and youth oriented marketing. Be sure to read the
about page.
[more inside]
posted by Grod
on Jun 19, 2008 -
24 comments
Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics... again! For the 12th straight year, this legendary
group of music nerds from
Hoboken, NJ encamps to the studios of local free form radio station
WFMU to play, on the spot, three full hours of listener-requested covers. The request show, part of the station's annual pledge drive, happens tonight
(Sunday, March 2) from 5-8 pm EST, and thanks to the wonder that is the internet you can
listen (128k MP3 stream) and
pledge live from anywhere in the world
(or catch the real broadcast in FM at 91.1 in NYC / New Jersey and 90.1 in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, Western NJ and Eastern Penn).
[more inside]
posted by kowalski
on Mar 2, 2008 -
46 comments
Soukous Radio is an online radio station that plays/streams this energizing, joyous, African fusion music, known for its bright guitar sound and rumba/salsa beat. The name, Soukous, is derived from the French word secouer, to shake. A popular, recent Soukous video by two Ivory Coast singers, DJ Eloh and DJ Mix,
The Bobaraba (which means “big bottom” in the local Djoula language), celebrates booty shaking.
[more inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Feb 21, 2008 -
25 comments
The DeZurik Sisters committed only six songs to record during their recording career, but were the first women stars of the
Grand Ole Opry and the
National Barn Dance. Now WFMU has
32 tracks of theirs from their early appearance as The Cackle Sisters on the Purina Checkerboard Squares Radio Show. Download away and hear the yodeling that swept the nation in the early 40s.
posted by 1f2frfbf
on Aug 2, 2007 -
7 comments
After 15 years, Schickele Mix is no more - "Dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal" - That's the tag line of
Schickele Mix, the best, broadest, funniest, and most interesting music education program ever heard. Created and hosted by Peter Schickele (best known for his other entertaining music education creation -
P.D.Q. Bach - a fictional composer son of Johannes) Schickele Mix juxtaposed Bach with the Beatles, Elgar with Duke Ellington and the Everly Brothers, Tuvan throat singing with twanging Texas Swing, or Schubert with Spike Jones in "suites" demonstrating the universality of musical techniques and themes. Checkout the
playlists and you'll see what I mean. After 15 years of broadcasts and re-broadcasts, Schickele Mix is no more. This is a shame, since three and a half years of educational weekly programs could be repeated for new audiences, if not continuously, then with a gap of a couple years until something better comes along. These programs have such rich content, it's a shame future audiences can't be created. I've got to wonder whether it's not just the 5 cycles of repeated playings (which, by the way, I've never gotten tired of) that's the whole reason for its disappearance from the airways. The program depends on a wide range of recorded music. Perhaps the new proposed
performance royalties, or even
merely their threat, have managed to claim Schickele Mix as a victim. As Peter Schickele said at the end of each program,
"It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that certain je ne sais quoi. And with the apparent demise of Schickele Mix, we've lost a serious source of that important "je ne sais quoi."
posted by fpatrick
on Jul 22, 2007 -
34 comments
Radio Sherpa We show you what is playing on your favorite radio station right now. If you see a song or program that you like, just click on the album art to make your selection. You can play the song, learn more about the artist or song, or even buy it. Only in Boston at the moment.
posted by srboisvert
on Oct 4, 2006 -
5 comments
What's playing? What songs are playing on the radio right now and where, an interactive map. Less fun, but much more useful is the site's ability to look up a station and tell you what songs they recently played.
(via J-Walk)
posted by caddis
on Aug 1, 2006 -
18 comments
Dutch broadcast station VPRO's
website is Holland’s biggest platform for alternative music. Here's a
link to a shitload of streaming live concerts and tracks.
You'll have to do a bit of cut and paste once there, but it's the easiest way for me to link to the list. For the cut-and-paste-inept, there's a standard
interface, but the site's not in english.
posted by dobbs
on Jul 8, 2006 -
11 comments
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is pumping out a pile of podcasts that have covered
the importance of offensive comics to Art Spiegelman,
600 bands over 54 shows,
Captain America versus the American government,
Amy Sedaris and geekdom,
the journey of young immigrants,
French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut and Harper's publisher John MacArthur discussing Europe and America perspectives since 9/11,
the after life,
sex with monkeys,
what radio producers do,
the french word "corps",
Bonnie Fuller's "The Joys of Much Too Much: Go For the Big Life — The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You've Ever Wanted (Even If You're Afraid You Don't Have What It Takes)",
Veteran Washington reporter Helen Thomas and some other bits & bobs [Breakdown inside]
posted by boost ventilator
on Jun 5, 2006 -
25 comments
KCDX: Five years of non-stop rock. "
There is no discipline at KCDX, where the song choices are as chaotic as a schoolyard at recess... The signal, which started broadcasting throughout central Arizona and much of Phoenix in 2002, played an eclectic mix that included hits by Huey Lewis and the News and an obscure 1971 tune about cannibalism by the Buoys. There were no commercials, no DJs, no way the station made money."
posted by rkent
on May 1, 2006 -
29 comments
