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Radio Daze
Cross country drives and lodging in strange cities have always been about so much more than tourist traps and continental breakfasts in hotel lobbies. They are also opportunities to immerse oneself in the many flavors of culture through what Marshall McLuhan identified as the hot medium of radio.
I rediscovered radio several years before the Covid Times. I don’t miss the dial and the commercials, even though they’re still very much available. But so are the deejays and the music and all the wild spontaneity of live whatever-casting on public, college and listener supported radio stations all over the worldwide web and across a vast array of apps. There is still, as always, plenty if not way too much fresh hell and bullshit but also a fine degree of genuine progress in our technological advancement.
The internet is a good thing that the military-academic complex and Al Gore made for us. Radio was the internet before there was an internet and now, the internet opens up the opportunity to explore more radio around the world.
No less an authority than Peter Stampfel, the former lead fiddle player of the Holy Modal Rounders, raved about the Radio Garden app on his Facebook timeline. Based in Amsterdam and launched in 2018, “Radio Garden invites you to tune into thousands of live radio stations across the globe,” the app builders declare in their introduction. “From its very…