HOTG Internet Radio - Streams Up

You read it right. We've got a big new webcast going on until further notice at our new HOTG station.

Some months back, a good friend of mine, who is a fan of the blog, of his own accord set up a streaming internet test site featuring the some of the songs that had appeared on HOTG in the past few years and displaying my associated posts from the archives. He performed this amazing (at least to me) feat to encourage me to make the songs I've covered here that are no longer accessible available for listening again, and to give the archived posts more exposure. And, I've got to admit, hearing the songs streamed really has much more resonance and impact than just accessing a few of them at a time and/or simply reading about them. So, I was impressed and intrigued by the idea; and we continued to work on it at time permitted - an often glacial pace for me these days. Then, the fate of the entire internet radio concept was thrown into question due to the efforts of the powers that be in the Entertainment Industry to impose huge new royalty rates and rules for internet dissemination of music. Congress got involved, at least held hearings; and the deadline for the imposition of the changes has now been pushed back to September of this year for a "compromise" of some sort to be reached. For a good general explanation of how complicated webcasting has become, feel free to read this related link, and then wonder why the hell anybody would still want to do it!

Even though we have not totally gotten our site together in terms of some minor details, like how it looks, we do have a limited number of licensed working streams available for your listening pleasure with about 10 hours of New Orleans grooves currently in rotation, and more being added to the playlist as I get a chance. We thought we'd better get something up now, or maybe lose the chance forever. Most of the playlist content comes directly from HOTG posts from 2004 to the near-present. Music links on the blog should go into HOTG Radio rotation once the are deactivated here. Also, there is and will be more contemporary fare from the Crescent City available, too - that is, if webcasting is allowed to exist at an affordable level for small fry niche streamers like us. Write your Congress-persons, yell out of windows, whatever you feel is productive, if you want to help, protest, whatever.

Again, you can "tune in" at http://www.hotg.org - this experiment may only last a month, or maybe go on for years. Hard to say right now. If it goes beyond September, we'll have to find some more funding besides our own pockets; but that will be addressed later in online brainstorming meetings with plenty of beer on hand. If anyone out there has any ideas about that, your input is welcome.

Now that I have you full confidence and trust, how about some disclaimers, etc:

As I said, there are a limited number of streams. If you can't get one right away, please try back later. There are several choices for listening, based on what type of media player or operating system you use, so please try the other listening links, if the main one doesn't seem to do the trick. There are the usual Frequently Asked Questions (that we've frequently been asking ourselves these past few months) to read at the Help link, too. Also, just so's ya know, do not expect the highest audio quality to come surging down the pipe. The streams sound much better than I thought they would with the bandwidth we can afford, which is why we're doing this at all. Oh yeah, and if you don't see the post text change with each song, you can hit "Refresh" to move along the page to match the song, if you want to keep up with it (not required - no homework - no tests). Your understanding, patience and a tropical, Third World expectation of efficiency will be appreciated. Requested additions to the playlist will be considered within the bounds of what HOTG is all about.

Anyway, hope it works for you. Enjoy the radio round-up. To ask questions, make requests or comments, etc, send emails concerning the webcast to radio at hotg dot org, using, of course the 'at' symbol and an actual dot. I or my tech savvy compadre, Jockomo, will see what can be done.
Peace,
Dan

PS _ Thanks to Red, Jeanne, Alisa, Ed, Art and a few more folks I can't remember at the moment for helping with the initial testing phase.