Louisville, Kentucky’s business paper says that one of our favorite Internet radio stations is going to fire up its Low Power FM signal in the fall. ARTxFM won its Federal Communications Commission LPFM construction permit late last year. Now the station’s General Manager Sharon Scott is telling the Louisville Business First that the operation has obtained a tower lease at the Nulu Technology Center (“Nulu” = East Market District of Louisville).
The goal is to reach audiences in at least six Louisville neighborhoods besides downtown. The station has raised around $20,000 from its board and listeners. A membership campaign seeks $50k more.
“Our mission is to serve the Louisville community and artists worldwide,” Scott told the First.
Last spring ARTxFM brought a giant boom box to the city’s Pegasus Parade. It was very big and, well, very blue. But other community radio stations are also experimenting with huge mobile sound gadgets. County Linx Radio of Lincolnshire, United Kingdom has managed to snag itself a great big “Funk Bus”—a gift from the East Lindsey District Council. The plan is to use the vehicle to broadcast the station at community events and travel out to schools to teach sound and video editing.
“Our radio was set up to help local people share their experiences and keep in touch with each other in what is an extremely large and often rural County,” Linx radio’s About page says.
Lincolnshire is indeed one of England’s bigger counties, much of it looking straight out to the North Sea and the Low Countries. There’s lots going on around Lincolnshire, community radio-wise, and it’s part of a big expansion of community radio in and around Northern England. Late last year Ofcom, the UK’s broadcast regulator, gave a license to Endeavor Radio of the Boston/Lincolnshire area. Endeavor started out with a temporary license in 2006 (its name was Stump Radio back in those days). Now it covers a wide range of county festivals and such.
Speaking of Internet radio, Soma.fm in San Francisco, California has been busy launching some great new channels. In the order mentioned in the email message announcement that we received, first there’s Celtic/Gaelic oriented Thistle (speaking of the British Isles), hosted by Fiona Ritchie of the NPR show “Thistle and Shamrock.”
Next comes Fluid, which Soma.fm describes as “that strange point on a musical map, where Instrumental Hip-Hop, Chilled Trap, woozy Electronica, and Future Soul meet, exchange ideas, collaborate, and spawn in the soft, bluish glow. Unwind and detangle amidst the soft harmonies, deep bass, smooth chords, ethereal vocals, and dynamic percussion.”
Then there’s Left Coast 70s, summarized as so:
“In the late 70s and very early 80s, when the mood was mellow, and the vibe was softer, many rock artists started creating slower, thoughtfully-produced tracks. Drawing lyrical influences from the folk singers before them, and bringing together some of the best session players of the day, these artists stepped outside their comfort zones to create some of the best mellow rock ever made, a sound that blossomed out of Los Angeles and spread up and down the west coast.”
Last but not least, check out Metal Detector: “From black to doom, prog to sludge, thrash to post, stoner to crossover, punk to industrial.” That pretty much says it all.
Finally, the senior care oriented Nundah Activity Center of Nundah, Australia has started a new Internet radio station and is looking for volunteers. We are talking Eastern Australia here: Queensland just above New South Wales, looking out upon New Zealand and the South Pacific Ocean and all points beyond.
