THE FOLK JOURNAL
20250130
WHERE'S THE RADIO?
Warning: This was recorded as voice-to-text, and edited for your comprehension. So it’s a little rough, and unhinged, like us all.
Matt’s idea for the day. I feel like I miss radio. Radio DJs that play music that I love, that talk about the music. That talk about the artists, what’s going on with the artists, new music coming out, and live shows that are being played. I used to listen to Outlaw Country on SiriusXM. For years I had a subscription, for over a decade. That was a big introduction for me for a lot of underground, independent country and americana artists. There were so many I discovered during that time. Around 2008 it was a lot of the outlaw country guys, classics, Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, but it was also the modern guys. Jason Boland, Ryan Bingham, The Steeldrivers, and later, Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson. But I haven’t had a SiriusXM subscription in a number of years and I wonder if there’s other formats for radio that are maybe more accessible. Is there a way through Spotify to make a radio show? Have they figured out the licensing of music for podcasts yet? I have an idea about radio shows Spotify. You could just record what you would say as a DJ in between the songs and put it in as a podcast. And put it together in a Spotify playlist with the songs that you want to play. You could say OK here’s my radio show but it’s actually a playlist. I don’t know anything about licensing the music other than you need permission. It’s kind of an innovative idea, but it’s also kind of a backhanded workaround. It’s not slick. I feel like there are people who are licensing music for podcasts. Maybe they have ways that they create radio shows on something like Spotify but I’m not gonna do that. I don’t necessarily want to be the one to do it but I definitely have some opinions about it and I might want to be involved. I might want to do it. I might wanna record an episode once a month or something, that might be cool. The problem is, I don’t really want to do the background research. I want to make a playlist. I like that part but I want somebody to tell me the news. What’s going on with these artists? I don’t know all that background information. Anything I know is from what I see on social media. I mean I could report on what people are posting on social media and read about what people are up to, but I don’t want to have to go on Instagram to study. I think this kind of radio show is what I’m craving but I want somebody to do it for me. I want to be the audience. I want to listen. I want to learn and hear about the new exciting things that are going on. It could even be a local thing in Pittsburgh. I’m certainly interested in what’s going on around Pittsburgh and I’m interested in what’s going on around the country in independent country, americana, folk, and bluegrass music. So yeah, I wanna listen to a radio show that plays bunch of new and old music that I love and I want to hear somebody tell me about the songs, the artists, the background history, and music news. What’s going on with the artists? I want to hear all that put together in a show. Whether it’s a periodic thing that’s once a week or once a month or once a day. I think they still have those things on SiriusXM and they have great DJs over there to do it. I don’t know, maybe I need to get a subscription again. I’m just wondering, is there any ways to deliver that to people other than SiriusXM? I feel like it’s gonna be Spotify, but fuck Spotify. Who’s doing it? Who has radio shows that have independent country, americana, and folk music that feature new artists, that feature news about them, that feature discussions about what’s going on with the music. What are those radio shows I can go listen to? Are they online? Are they on streaming services? Tell me where to go. I feel like there’s a few of those that I’ve heard about; Dime Store Radio, Boots and Saddle Radio, The Lonesome Highway Radio Show. These are things I’ve seen on Instagram. Both Kinds of Music is another. I feel like these are just like radio shows. Actual fucking AM/FM radio. I mean that sounds pretty cool too. What is last.fm? mixcloud.com? I listened to WB Walker’s Old Soul Radio Show back in the day but he ran into licensing issues. Do you want to listen to a radio show? A local one is Scar Fire Radio. I want to hear about new music, new artists. I want to learn about old music, old artists that I love, and find out about music that I’ve never heard before. New music discovery is what it’s all about. That’s what we’re all here for. We want to hear the new shit. I love to make playlists. I have dozens and dozens and maybe hundreds of playlists that I’ve made, at least. One of them has like over 1000 songs. I picked every single song over the course of like eight years. So yeah, I love to do that and that’s basically a radio station that I can put on and shuffle but it’s not a radio show that has a DJ that’s gonna tell me about the songs and the artists in the news or discover new music. It looks like Dime Store Radio is on mixcloud.com but I don’t think it has a DJ. It’s just a playlist. It’s cool playlist. It’s gotta be on-demand. I feel like the Spotify format, the podcast format is perfect. Or something online is fine but it has to be on-demand. It has to be on your phone. I really want it to be just like a podcast, but I’m not gonna go through the process to license the music to do that. So, can I do it through Spotify somehow or another website? Sometimes when I drink coffee, I get active. I get ideas and opinions.