040-043_radioguide.indd

Internet Radio Guide
Favorite sites from the world of Internet radio
Take a tour of some favorite Internet radio sites from the experts at Linux New Media.
BY MATHIAS HUBER, MARCEL HILZINGER, KRISTIAN KISSLING,
OLIVER FROMMEL, AND PETER KREUSSEL
We have some very musical au- "Downtown Soulville," and the breath- short, has a great Internet department. I thors and editors at our tech- taking world music mix on "Give the recommend tuning in to the wide spec- nical center in Munich, Ger- Drummer Some." The station has live trum of BBC radio stations that offer ev- many. We asked these experts to de- streams in Real and MP3 format, along erything from sports, to news, to current scribe their favorite Internet radio sites. with archived broadcasts and Podcasts.
Britpop http:// www. bbc. co. uk/ radio/.
One of the best things about Internet WUSB is based on the East Coast, at My particular favorite is BBC 7 http:// radio is its international reach. You can the Stony Book University campus in www. bbc. co. uk/ bbc7/, which treats lis- easily tune in to a tiny station on the Long Island, to be precise. In the nine- teners to light entertainment from the other side of the world if you like ties Eric Corley proved what an indepen- stream. Of course, you may not be able dent radio station was capable of with to understand the DJ if you don't speak night-long phone-ins on a wide variety the language, but if you choose the right of subjects, live reports from telephone address, the music is all good.
booths, and music from an archive of tens of thousands of LPs.
 MATHIAS HUBER The program, which has the unlikely College Chaos and British Humor sounding name of "Brain Damage," is The USA has a legendary radio land- archived at http:// www. 2600. com/ scape. Innumerable small stations run braindamage/. Eric, dubbing himself by colleges or local communities provide Emmanuel Goldstein, is publisher of the unbeatable diversity. And thanks to the hacker fanzine 2600. He chats with col- Internet, you can listen in, no matter leagues on the air about cellphones, where you are. New Jersey-based WFMU RFID chips, data protection, and politics (http:// wfmu. org), for example, has a in the weekly "Off the Hook" show jam-packed program full of the kind of (http:// www. 2600. com/ offthehook/).
Besides working for Linux Magazine, Math-
music that never makes the mainstream Moving to Europe, the venerable Brit- ias Huber puts a lot of energy into expanding
stations, including old soul rarities on ish Broadcasting Company, or BBC for his impressive music collection.
ISSUE 66 MAY 2006
Internet Radio Guide
playlist entry for http:// www. radioparadise. com. This takes me to a tiny private station broadcasting at URL http:// 64. 236. 34. 4:80/ stream/ 1048 with music to suit a variety of tastes. Besides MP3 and Real Media, the online station also broadcasts AAC+. Linux is not just an exotic addition to the website for Ra-dioParadise; in fact, they specify both Xmms and VLC as compatible players.
 KRISTIAN KISSLINGBerlin, Teheran, Marseille Marcel Hilzinger is a Suse guru who inte-
Motor FM started regular Indie rock grates more or less any kind of device with
broadcasts February 1, 2005. This Berlin- his Linux system.
based station, which was founded by ex-Universal boss Tim Renner, promotes For current information and playlists, previously unknown artists beyond the surf to http:// www. swissgroove. ch. I use mainstream. The private station com- the Xmms player.
pletely does without advertising and Luckily, you can find many Internet news and is funded via parties, sales of stations with excellent jazz, and if Swiss- music via the Internet, and merchandis- groove does come to an untimely end, ing, which is quite an unusual approach you can always revert to a station such in the private radio scene.
as http:// smoothjazz. com, which broad- Motor FM plays good, but often totally casts on the URL http:// 64. 236. 34. 4:80/ unknown, local artists such as stream/ 1005. Smoothjazz has a good mix "T.Raumschmiere" or "The Robocop of melodic soul and jazz, mainly featur- Kraus" but also plays successful interna- ing instrumentals. Smoothjazz mentions tional Indie bands such as "Art Brut" or Xmms as one of its supported players.
"Block Party." If you happen to visit Ber-lin, you can also tune in on FM 106.8 MHz, a frequency that Motor FM shares As a Swiss guy living abroad, I some- with the children's channel Radio Teddy, last 50 years of the BBC archives. This is times need a dose of Swiss folk to keep broadcasting from 9 pm to 6 am every where to meet old friends, such as Miss away the homesick blues. And when I day. In Stuttgart, Germany, you can tune Marple and Sherlock Holmes, along with need it, I go to Radio Top at http:// in on 97.2 MHz, but if you don't happen real treasures from the history of the streaming5. sunrise. ch:8162. This station to live in the area, just tune in on the "Beeb," including performances from gives me the kind of music that 30 to 40- Web. The website at www.motor.de gives the earlier years of comedians such as year-old Swiss people remember from listeners a live stream, which you can Peter Sellers and John Cleese.
their school days; the schedule also in- play on Linux using the Mplayerplugin.
Or maybe you would be interested in cludes a smattering of current hits. To listening to the rising stars of British learn more, visit http:// www. radiotop. ch.
comedy? If so, try the BBC New Comedy I occasionally tune in to Radio24, Tar, setar, du or tombak…no these are Awards; "Listen Again" gives you Real Switzerland's first private radio station, not new Linux archiving formats, but streams of past episodes.
and a former Italian-based pirate that broadcasted news and cool sounds to  MARCEL HILZINGER Italy and central Switzerland prior to the opening of the Swiss radio market. No limits jazz, funk, and soul are avail- Today, the station has a balanced mix of able on SwissGroove at http:// 63. 249. 3. current hits and evergreens.
194:8010 or via a number or mirrors. For more information, go to http:// SwissGroove offers me just the right kind radio24. ch. You will find a live stream at of mix of excellent jazz and funky soul http:// 206. 165. 150. 201:80/ radio24-hi, for that I need to concentrate on my work. example, although you need an MPlayer The program has a great mix of house- to play it. On the downside, both sta- hold names and lesser known artists. tions have regular advertising blocks.
Unfortunately, the station is undergoing Kristian Kißling works for the Linux New
financial stress at present, and there is Media Software Competence Center and
genuine danger of the operation folding. When I want to chill out, I just click the mainly takes care of multimedia topics.
ISSUE 66 MAY 2006
Internet Radio Guide
traditional Persian instruments. with accessing the station: as the Radio Darvish is named after Dar- link to the stream is hidden in a vish Khan (1872-1926), a musi- Flash, you can only tune in if cian from Teheran who performed your browser is configured cor- classical Persian music using the rectly. If not, just surf right to the above mentioned instruments.
stream at http:// 205. 188. 215. His heritage is now preserved 225:8008/ listen. pls. by the Iranian Internet radio sta-tion www.radiodarvish.com. Al- Oldschool Hip-Hop though this music may sound un- Beatbasement.com plays hip- usual to Western ears, stick with hop that deserves the name. The it, and you too may be fascinated stream is just 24Kbits, but with a by its idiosyncratic style. The in- fat bass sound that will soon strumentals, in particular, are have your speakers bouncing. very reminiscent of the psyche- The station tends to avoid MTV delic sounds of the 60s.
fave raves such as Eminem, fo- Figure 1: Soma.fm has eight streams to cater to a wide range
cusing on old-school masters of musical tastes.
such as Guru and Kool Keith with Marseille, the old harbor town in original beats.
France, lives from its African immigrants Salad"), to House and Funk ("Secret If you are a fan of mainstream US rap and its location close to the sea. Marseille Agent"), to Indie rock and pop ("Indie stations, you will appreciate the fact that is the hip-hop center of France, and the Pop Rocks"). The streams, along with the Beatbasement program is ad-free. local radio station Radio Grenouille plays bandwidth and formats, are all listed on Again, the station relies on financial both traditional French music and Indie the homepage (Figure 1).
support from its listeners, so "Keep it rock. On rare occasions, listeners are Rusty Hodge, who started experiment- treated to programs that deny any at- ing with Internet radio in 1995, launched tempt at classification, such as avant- Soma.fm in the year 2000, finally fulfill-  PETER KREUSSEL garde music in the style of John Cage.
ing a lifelong dream. Now, the insanely This is a big experiment, and it does expensive broadcasting license fees (that I've heard that there are still one or two take some tolerance on the part of the now apply equally to Internet radio sta- souls who just don't like techno or hip- listener. You can check out the station on tions) threaten the existence of the sta- hop; they tend to run and hide when the Internet site at www.grenouille888. tion. At present, Soma.fm streams eight confronted with house or charts and channels, with more scheduled.
would rather drink dishwater than listen As even the smallest Internet station to mainstream pop. On the other hand,  OLIVER FROMMEL in the USA is asked to pay royalties, these people revel at the thought of Nev- Soma.fm relies on the financial support ille Marriner's rendition of Bach's Bran- Soma.fm, from the homeland of Internet of its listeners; you even get a T-shirt denburg Concertos. If this sounds like dreams, is an Internet station that pro- with a donation of US$ 50.
you, the Internet has plenty to offer.
vides a variety of streams to suit differ- To get away from the constraints of the ent tastes. The servers are located in a Breakbeats and Samba daily rush, just tune in to Swissradio.ch. cellar in San Francisco's South Of Market Whereas Soma.fm focuses on providing Besides a repertoire of Barock oratorios, area, which explains the idiosyncratic clearly categorized channels, Dublab.
Mozart operas, and romantic concert name. The musical repertoire covers com (Figure 2) is always good for a sur- pieces, the radio station is characterized everything from Ambient ("Groove prise. The musical style is described as by the fact that its recording archives "Eclectic." You'll find minute-long breakbeats juxta-posed with Samba and low-fi tracks that sound like Simon and Gar-funkel – but with-out the acoustic guitars.
sticks to its motto of "positive music Oliver Frommel runs the Linux New Media
and culture." The Software Competence Center.
Figure 2: Dublab.com is always good for a musical surprise.
ISSUE 66 MAY 2006
Peter Kreussel also works at the Software Competence Center; if he
is not hacking at his computer, you might find him playing keyboard.
comprise about 80 percent chestra at http:// 70. 85. 180. historic recordings. This is re- 114:8080 to the delight of ally unusual and maybe a bit your audio player and your ears. The complete musical And that takes us to the offering of the City of Bir- name: "Radio Crazy." Besides mingham is online at http:// classical music, the station www. birminghamusic. com/ also broadcasts jazz and radio. php.
swing. You will find the web-site at http:// www. swissradio. Soothing Classics ch and the audio stream at Klassikradio.de is dedicated to http:// www. swissradio. ch/ relaxing background music, streams/ 6034. m3u.
juxtaposing classical composi-tions with pieces by sym- The Complete Mozart phony orchestras. Between 6 Fans of classical music are and 8 pm, the station broad- driven to distraction by the casts classic movie tracks. many radio stations that just Klassikradio has an excellent play individual movements, sound quality due to its band- rather than complete works. width of 128Kbps. You will This is not the case with Mo- find the station homepage at zart-mp3.com, a Mozart only http:// www. klassikradio-shop. de/ playlist/, and the audio If the fact that the audio stream at http:// 212. 211. 137. stream is a measly 32Kbps 136/ 3165klassikradio_live. does not faze you, you can mp3?=. wmv.
tune in to http:// www. live365. com/ play/ 293999? Variety on the Web SaneID=62. 245. 157. 194-1135 Web radio has breathed new life into a technology MAL&VisitCount=1 24x7 for that many considered de- the nearest thing to musical funct. For the listener, this means greater variety and The City of Birmingham free access to music around Symphony Ochestra has played its way to interna- If you haven't gotten tional acclaim. Former con- started with Internet radio ductor Simon Rattle cele- yet, surf the stations in this brated rousing triumphs with article and see what you this body of musicians. You think. Keep what you like, can tune into recordings with and surf on to compile your this extremely disciplined or- own list of favorites. ■

Source: http://www.swissgroove.ch/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/linux_magazine.pdf