In 1975 and again in 1984-1992 Dr. Demento was distributed on LP vinyl records. There was a history of distributing shows on transcription discs, but this and other shows are now found all over the internet along with other forms of "bootlegs" thanks to digital recording and LP record players co-existing. [more inside]
posted by morganw on Dec 9, 2009 - 14 comments

Oregon! Oregon! A Centennial Fable in Three Acts is a musical comedy by famed radio comedian and Looney Tunes voice actor Stan Freberg that was commissioned in 1959 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Oregon statehood. This year, on the 150th anniversary, Stan Freberg and Pink Martini will revive the musical with a new 4th act written by Freberg (check out the complete Pink Martini concert on the page). For more Freberg goodness check out these 15 episodes of his radio show and this 1999 interview which includes some of his classic sketches (sketches in RealAudio format).
posted by Kattullus on Mar 26, 2009 - 40 comments

For the fourteenth year, Yo La Tengo will murder the classics tonight. (Previously: 2002 2006 2007 2008) [more inside]
posted by roll truck roll on Mar 13, 2009 - 61 comments

"We are urging music stations all over the U.S. to send us photos of their gold and platinum records." Hearings are starting on the RIAA's new pet bill. They're feeling the pinch and would like a few of their gold records back. [more inside]
posted by arcanecrowbar on Mar 10, 2009 - 74 comments

the doyouinverts sings songs about old friends who don't play videogames anymore, Edge Magazine's scoring system and a love song to an imported Japanese videogame. They are a regular feature on British videogame radio show/podcast One Life Left.
posted by The Devil Tesla on Mar 1, 2009 - 4 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

Want to hear your favorite song? Just type in the name and it will play. Like magic. [more inside]
posted by AstroGuy on Dec 8, 2008 - 109 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

Whole Lotta Shakin' - a PRI documentary series on the history of rockabilly, hosted by Rosie Flores.
posted by Miko on Apr 26, 2008 - 14 comments

The pop music industry has sadly come to depend on “heritage acts” – wrinkled, dyed-hair, aging stars – to pack houses and make money.

“Whatever a future superstar act will be, it won’t be as ubiquitous as the acts from the ’60s because we were all listening to Top 40 radio.”
posted by The Jesse Helms on Apr 11, 2008 - 54 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

Go way back into time with a deliciously analog collection of mastermixes from 1980s-era soul radio from London. [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Feb 29, 2008 - 3 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

Streaming interviews and performances from KGSR in Austin. Rufus Wainwright, Willie Nelson, The Gourds, Gomez, Kelly Willis, Pete Townshend, and many more.
posted by ColdChef on Aug 19, 2007 - 12 comments

Just watched a tv show, looking for the music you just heard? Playing the radio, and didn't catch the DJ saying the title? On the go? In the woods? (Also)
posted by desjardins on Aug 14, 2007 - 14 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

Radio 1.0 meets Web 2.0. TUN3R is a virtual AM/FM radio for the internet, complete with a little dial and a boss key, creating a uniquely satisfying way to search for radio stations. On a related note, also worth perusing is this discussion of the expanding world of social music sites. That list misses quite a few neat sites including the graphically stylish Musicovery; the Hype Machine, which pulls music from blogs; and Goombah, which reads your iTunes library, but there are many more. [some prev]
posted by blahblahblah on Jul 24, 2007 - 16 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

A Chicago DJ broke the Icky Thump silence and Jack White's heart in the process. Q101's Electra received a presumably illegal copy of the White Stripes' new album and aired the entire thing (a week after the first single's video hit the internet, weeks before the official June 19 release and well before the album had even become prominent on the shadow internet). According to Electra, Jack White called from Spain to sternly reprimand her. In an instant, hearts were crushed and pirates emboldened as the album's radio rip spread through the back channels of the web.
posted by pokermonk on Jun 1, 2007 - 69 comments

shortwavemusic An audio blog of music and noise (and musical noise) found on the shortwave band.
posted by carter on Apr 25, 2007 - 22 comments

Buried in code within a CBC press release regarding the revamp of CBC Radio is the death of the late-night radio show called Brave New Waves. Long rumoured, deeply cherished, widely chronicled, rerunned since May 2006, gone this March.
posted by myopicman on Feb 1, 2007 - 48 comments

SWEDEN.SE:Music gives you a selection of the best Swedish pop and rock music right now.
posted by mr.marx on Oct 25, 2006 - 16 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

annoyed by algorithms? finetune radio lets you create your own station and choose the tracks
posted by petsounds on Sep 22, 2006 - 10 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

Last.fm isn't just for humans. Matt Biddulph, a systems architect for the BBC, rigged a homemade plug-in for Last.fm (Previously on MeFi) that, over the course of a year, transmitted over 50,000 songs played on BBC 6Music to a Last.fm account named Sekrit. (Oh, and wondering what MetaFilter users listen to?) (via waxy)
posted by Robot Johnny on Apr 28, 2006 - 32 comments

It's not over until the fat lady sings, and she's not due up till midnight. BBC Radio 3 has devoted its schedule to a week of Beethoven and a month of Bach. Now it's going for the endurance record: devoting a day to a complete performance of Wagner's Ring cycle: a rare thing for a work and composer more often discussed than listened to, and more often excerpted or parodied than heard in full. The website offers even more lavish augmentation this time, including live libretto translation and commentary.
posted by holgate on Apr 17, 2006 - 12 comments

Bluegrass Talk Radio
posted by liam on Mar 16, 2006 - 12 comments

So You Think You Hate Country Music? Then listen to this. The roots of American country music may surprise you. In this series of NPR programs, trace the gradual development of real country music through the first half of the 20th century. Learn how a woman's instrument of the late 1800s, the parlor guitar, became the the central symbol of country and rock; see how African-American musical forms like gospel and blues meshed with the development of country and early rock and influenced the traditional forms in turn; listen to German-Mexican hybrids of accordian style; find out why women had so many honky-tonk torch songs to sing in the late 40s. The series contains hours of content (narrative, interviews, music tracks), and a multitude of excellent links for deeper digging.
posted by Miko on Feb 2, 2006 - 111 comments

"Open Source Radio" was what I found at 1550 AM when I was tuning around on the radio.
It didn't sound at all like AM radio, and it wasn't a pirate.
It's Infinity Broadcasting/CBS Radio/VIACOM, but it's also klezmer weddings, motivational spam, Rhino Records, current Japanese music, self promotion, unsigned bands, and things that I can't identify.
posted by the Real Dan on Jan 11, 2006 - 23 comments

The Swing Years And Beyond is on in a matter of minutes. Five hours of swing, lounge, big band jazz and rhythm 'n blues is streamed live for five hours from 7 PM to 12 Midnight Pacific Standard Time every Saturday night. Streamed live but not archived, alas. But enjoy, you who tune in tonight. You who do not, bookmark this thread and tune in next Saturday. It's a great program.
posted by y2karl on Nov 5, 2005 - 24 comments

The Wire This award winning CBC radio series incorporates interviews, music and sound to explore the impact of electricity on music, from Edison to Caruso to Les Paul to Bjork. Exhaustively researched and beautifully produced, it's somewhere between a documentary, a remix and a music show. The home site has excerpts, playlists, and the remix from each show, but you can listen to all eight episodes in their entirely at PRX (you'll need to login first).
posted by Turtles all the way down on Oct 21, 2005 - 16 comments

Arnold Schönberg Web Radio - a rotating program of documentaries, lectures, history, the composer's own words, and recordings of nearly all his works. The Schönberg center also has some beautiful manuscript pages scanned.
posted by Wolfdog on Sep 7, 2005 - 9 comments

Tagging bbc radio songs via mobile phone
posted by Tlogmer on Aug 30, 2005 - 7 comments

Pandora. Bound to draw comparisons to Last.fm, LAUNCHcast, and Musicplasma, Pandora (formerly Savage Beast) is a music discovery web application that recommends music based not on popularity, usage habits of other users, or genres/categories but on the deconstructed elements of how the music itself sounds. Fruit of the Music Genome Project, music analysts have for more than five years spent 20 minutes analyzing each song in its ever-growing database for nearly 400 distinct attributes, so when you ask it, "Why is this song playing?" It answers, "Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features electronica influences, mild rhythmic syncopation, surreal lyrics, use of call-and-response vocals, and string section beds." (YES! Thank you!) Currently live on public beta. [Flash, 128kbps streams]
posted by Lush on Aug 29, 2005 - 44 comments

Subtitles on the radio. Last night Radio 1, the BBC's flagship youth station, broadcast an hour of Welsh language music and chat. The webcast includes subtitles.
posted by ceiriog on Aug 24, 2005 - 6 comments

Cool Keys Radio. A true labor of electric piano love that will undoubtedly sate the taste of even the most ardent lover of the instrument.
posted by melissa may on May 29, 2005 - 6 comments

Alan Cross is a name that is known in Toronto. He's the guy from 102.1 Edge who has the best rock'n'roll show in the business, called The Ongoing History of New Music. His knowledge is so encyclopedic it's creepy. He's personable. He's interesting. He's current. He's uber-cool. And you can either podcast his shows or read them yourself. I'm no rock newbie, but I'm currently enjoying Building A Record Library: Part I. The History of Selling Out is interesting enough to provoke the question, did REM, Husker Du and Sonic Youth really do it for the bling bling? Speaking of Husker Du, are they possibly the fathers of Emo? Do yourself a favour: give him a listen and a read. note: the site's a bit rough on the browser
posted by ashbury on Apr 27, 2005 - 28 comments

Radio David Byrne. Music for haircuts.
posted by liam on Mar 29, 2005 - 12 comments

The Dr. Demento Show : Post all 1,338 Dr. Demento Shows in my collection as high-quality stereo...
posted by cedar on Mar 6, 2005 - 24 comments

RIP Tommy Vance. For years the voice of BBC Radio 1's 'The Friday Rock Show' and, for TV viewers throughout the UK, the voice of a multitude of adverts, Tommy Vance has died following a stroke. RIP you gravel-throated bringer of rock.
posted by TheDonF on Mar 6, 2005 - 9 comments

Sounds Like Radio "casting you the best in new music; transcending oppressive style and genre restrictions; unleashing the world's musical underground". Sort of a music blog, presented as radio shows. There's all kinds of interesting music here, from all kinds of genres, most-all from unsigned acts. Surprisingly varied, and good.
posted by biscotti on Mar 3, 2005 - 13 comments

From the Top is a weekly radio show broadcast throughout the USA. It originates from Boston's New England Conservatory, but travels all over showcasing young classical musicians. The show can be heard (RealAudio) from the website, and there is an extensive library as well an archive of past shows (photos too)... the kids are very talented, and the show's hosts are great at bringing out their personalities.
posted by indices on Feb 26, 2005 - 2 comments

WFMU has a blog! (Me very happy!)
posted by lilboo on Feb 10, 2005 - 21 comments