After over seven years of beaming it out from the Radar Station, I've finally decided to call it a day for our streaming radio show (only the radio show, the rest of the site is very much here to stay!).

The web is now awash with music and far better radio shows and there just doesn't seem to be any need for me to add to the hubbub any longer. It was a fairly innovative idea back in early 1999 when I first started broadcasting via the web - I wasn't aware of any other fan sites which gave their visitors something to listen to while browsing. This was before peer-to-peer sharing of music became notorious, before iTunes, and before the now seemingly infinite number of streaming audio services / radio stations began filling our lives with wall-to-wall music.

For the first few years the rather oddly named "Tromblown Orchestra" was an hour of music available via streaming audio, changing on a weekly basis, and bringing in a good share of favourable comments and loyal listeners. I will never forget Simon Smith's regular updates about his children's Saturday night Connect 4 tournaments for which my show used to provide a regular soundtrack. Nor Dara's recent message of nostalgia for his mid-teens when he "absolutely treasured" the show.

The name changed to the far hipper "Disco in an ambulance" as it moved to my now-defunct music site Clicks and Klangs, but the format stayed the same. Then I discovered Live365's services and decided to mutate into a constantly rotating and evolving mess of 7 hours of all kinds of musical japery.

My favourite bits were the special editions; 60s garage and the complete broadcast of Revenant's Grow Fins sampler in the early days through to extended Bush-bashing in more recent years. What started out as an optimistic kiss-off to the world's most dangerous man on election night turned into a defiant and angry howl of indignation as it gradually became clearer that there would be four more years of him to come and the play-list was adjusted to suit. Music is indeed the soundtrack to our lives.

But now, there just doesn't seem to be room for it on the web anymore and so I'm going to save myself cash and time and let it fizzle away. The subscription renewal at Live365 is now overdue and I'm sure they'll pull the plug fairly soon.

Thanks for your support for this project over a very enjoyable seven years, I'll miss it.

Posted by Graham Johnston at 8:33 PM - post a comment