Doin’ it to death

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.

11 Comments

  1. Well, you sure are a fine finder of karats of sound-light! I’m impressed at what you’ve produced, and have enjoyed very much of what you freely
    gave on your site.
    Beefheart has been in our family for decades. The ones outstanding to me,
    personally, are “bluejeans and moonbeams” (Further than we’ve gone” is a testiment to the tenderness beneath the wrath), Doc at the Radar Station.. just biting!, and “Lick My Decals Off Baby” is just some kind of MasterPeace. It will be the legacy of people like Van Vliet, in my opinion, whose efforts and insight will blow clean the burnt ashes of the present Sad America.
    Thank you.
    Kathleen Wright

  2. Thank you. Don’t let burn out burn the fire party down.
    …party down.

  3. Much missed, and appreciated while it ran.

  4. Sorry to have missed this. I’ve been a fan for years and tried to see him every time he played Scotland. Always a great performance even the time he arrived late and bad tempered. He did barely 50 minutes and just wandered off stage never to return. A greatly missed performer.

  5. i am from buenos aires argentina, i am 15 and i play the bass… i must be one of the 10 persons who knows Beefheart in my country, and i wanted to congratulate for your website. And even though i never reached to listen your radio show, i imagine it would have been marvelous, i´m sorry it´s over.
    Anyway, keep running this wonderful website dedicated to popular music´s most underated genious, our dear Captain.
    Diego “Zig Zag Wanderer” Rullansky

  6. ITS RATHER A PITY THAT I TUMBLE ONTO YOUR WEBSITE AFTER THE RADIO SHOW HAS BITTEN THE DUST……IT SOUNDED LIKE JUST THE THING A YOUNG (56) ASPIRING MUSICIAN LIKE MYSELF WOULD HAVE ENJOYED SAMPLING….ER, UH, RATHER, HEARING……..THE CAPN HAS BEEN AN EVER PRESENT JOY AND INFLUENCE IN MY MUSICAL TASTES EVER SINCE I FIRST HEARD “TROUT” BACK IN THE DAY………IF YOU FIND YOURSELF WITH NOTHING TO DO , CHECK OUT “SAD ANGELS” ON MYSPACE.COM/WILLYPOTTS……WP

  7. Too bad you stopped the broadcast. It was one of the best and most avant garde of all streaming audio. Oh well, at least we can still see the Captain’s videos on U Tube. Thanks for the years of quality entertainment, something I used to look foreward to while surfing the net.
    Pedro48

  8. why dont you host your radio show on ShoutCast?

  9. only the lonely know how lonely the only is!
    freeky frogs make music and toads make worts
    happy birthday deatah trap,, tied up in court
    moon river on the moon, the pres is a coon,
    texas medicine gone rag time, and dylan stepped out on his wife, what is the world but a buckminster fuller dream, of bucky balls and music halls, and piano tops to swim on, love and happy birthday time still not still, happy birthday don, let the time spill. mickey from the roxy on sunset strip. Come to la and play but get wormed up at santa cruz on the way! love you kid!
    Time of your life spot light kid

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