I first noticed streaming radio years ago, when I was visiting with a Dutch friend who was living in New York City at the time, and that annoying TUZZ-TUZZ Ibiza-style electronic dance music was pouring out of his computer. Turns out he was homesick and liked hearing his hometown FM radio station. Its Web site had a free, live Internet broadcast stream.
Now, most good radio stations stream for free from their sites, and a quick Google search of call letters, frequency, and/or hometown name usually finds them. I’m a little nostalgic for old-school hippie chat from the Pacifica Network stations in California, so I fire up www.kpfk.org and listen live. They’re shadows of their former selves nowadays, with way too much internecine squabble and not nearly enough Alan Watts, but it’s still fun sitting in Brooklyn and listening to California live-broadcast radio. When I want NYC morning news and weather, I’m much more likely to visit www.1010wins.com than fiddle with fuzzy AM radio reception.
My favorite sources are live365.com (which I’ll describe here in some detail), general directories, guides to local radio stations, and Yahoo’s listings.
Really, at the moment you’re reading this, you’re probably about nine clicks away from a big pile of free Web radio and music.
There are alternatives to internet sources. I rented a car in L.A. last month and it had XM satellite radio. It was pretty neat (go Willie’s Place!) but to get a subscription and a satellite radio device for home would be expensive compared to what I can get for free (or really cheap) via Internet. Car commuters may love XM and Sirius but for a car-free Brooklyn guy who doesn’t want thirty-nine flavors of ESPN? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Look at live365.com and compare it to satellite radio station or digital cable subscription services. Sure, the satellite outfits have hundreds of themed stations, but they have nowhere near the same degree of station specialization.
Where else am I going to find FM- or CD-quality streaming radio stations that specialize in playing only 1930s Weimar-era German swing, jazz, and dance music—or only Bob Dylan covers—or Haitian Kompa classics? Drum&Bass? World Beat? Trip Hop? Contemporary Greek pop music? Smithsonian Folkways label gems? Trad? Country? There are stations on live365.com devoted to each of those topics, and thousands more.
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