When an American comedian wants to make an easy and widely understandable joke about the British Isles, all he has to do is go for either one of two targets — bad food or bad weather.  I hate to add onto any kind of stereotype (especially as somebody that enjoys rain thinks fish and chips is one of the greatest meals known to mankind), but I would add something else to that list — bad radio.

Of course, “bad” is my own definition and is much broader when I am trying to find stations that fit within my pretty tight stipulations for making it onto my Radio page.  Overall, there is certainly nothing “bad” about the BBC but I want to avoid network stations as well as those that do not feature mostly music programming.  The United Kingdom has a small handful of college and “community” stations, but many do not stream or broadcast 24/7.  There are also a lot of stations there with no websites or no way for me to find them since there is no standard by which I can look them up (such as by the call letters used in other countries).

As for the commercial stations there…wow…and I thought that American radio was bad!  Almost all of what I heard in my second go-around in trying to find more good stations to add to my list had no heart, no soul, and no imagination in either the “presenters” as disk jockeys are called there or in their playlists.  Even in the highly populated and greatly important City of London, I could not find one decent non-BBC radio station that was streaming on the Net.  I can only suppose that this is why so many people use public transportation in London as trying to listen to the radio while driving there would make people want to slit their wrists.

All of that being said, I did find two stations over there that are absolutely magnificent.  Both are surprising not only for being an oasis in a desert of radio mediocrity but also for what they play and how the deviate from their standard formats.

The first new addition to my list is a “community” station located in Glasgow, Scotland called Celtic Music Radio.  Most of the time, this station plays music appropriate to its name — folk music from Scotland and Ireland along with high quality modern interpretations of the genre.  However, there is also specialty programming where they explore other “roots” music including reggae, blues, general folk music, Americana, and several others.  Despite my disparaging remarks about UK radio overall, most American “community” stations would give their left nut to be this good.

Celtic Music Radio

The other great station I found in the UK is in Sheffield, England and is also a “community” outlet.  I am a bit angry at them because they stole an idea that I had way back in the early 1980′s — to have a station that focuses on new rock music but that does not totally forget its long and rich history.  That’s exactly what radio2XS does.  They even tag themselves as being the home of “60 Years of Rock & Roll.”  Best of all is that they don’t just mash everything together like a bunch of mp3s they slapped onto an iPod.  Somehow, they get a Marianne Faithfull song to blend well after just having played Rage Against the Machine.  This station does not seem to ignore anything rock no matter how old, obscure, or — unlike many American rock stations — how non-white.  Thus, I suggest to all of my readers that like rock in multiple forms not to ignore this station.

radio2XS

After having dredged these two gems out of the putrid sea of UK radio, I had hoped to find more in the Caribbean to fulfill those requests for more reggae and other “world” music.  Sadly, I found the same thing this time around as I did the first — good stations that were no longer on the air, good stations that had awful sounding streams, and a whole lot of hip-hop trying to pass itself off as reggae.  Thus, the remainder of the next round of station additions as I try to get everything I missed the first time around due to my computer glitch are going to come from Canada and the good ol’ U S of A.  Yes, I was hoping for more diversity but I can only play the cards that I am dealt…and say again to my readers that, if anybody knows of a good station that I missed that mostly sticks to music programming, has a good sounding stream, and broadcasts 24/7, please pass it along.

Those that have been following this site will recall that, when I first introduced my Radio page, all of the stations were located in either the United States of America or Canada. This was not intended and I am glad that an accidental discovery is going to get me to go back and review stations in other countries.

As it turns out, I found that my main computer was having some sort of problem in playing certain streams while the smaller one I am using now while traveling churns them out with no problem on standard media players.  While this will mean a little extra work for me once I finally move into a new home and have to do the dreaded reformat/reinstall on Windows on my main rig, it also means that a decent-sized chunk of new stations are going to be added here for everybody’s enjoyment.

I cannot say at this point how many of these will end up being from other countries as many of the good ones I have listened to in the past, especially in the Caribbean, seem to be disappearing faster than peanuts in front of an elephant’s cage at the circus.  However, my readers eager for at least a little something outside of the American sphere of influence can be assured that I will work just as hard to unearth any good ones that remain as I did on the original list.

This afternoon I worked on Oceania with a focus on Australia and New Zealand since both of those countries speak something resembling English. :-)  These are very unusual countries as far as radio goes.  They both have government-owned broadcasting entities yet they do not dominate.  There are quite a few “community” stations yet they have a much broader amount of programming than similar stations in North America.

Thus, it was hard for me to find stations in this area that met my basic requirements of broadcasting mostly music, had a good quality stream, and put out programming that was not just the same old thing.  In some ways, I was saddened to see that many Australian stations were relying upon some of the same syndicated programming that permeates North America because they just cannot afford to do something original.

However, I did come up with three stations from this area of the globe that I have already added to my Radio page.

The first station is an unusual college/alternative station based at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand simply called Static FM (or just Static).  I call this station unusual because the “alternative rock” it plays is overall much more mellow than similar stations in North America — not that it will put one to sleep by any means.  It is just not the same old buzz-buzz-buzz, drone-drone-drone sound-alike stuff.

Static FM – http://www.static.co.nz/

Moving over to Australia, the next new station on my list is fairly typical of that country’s “community” outlets although it does focus much more on music than most others that have a lot of talk and information shows.  Its call letters are 5DDD but it is better known as Three D Radio.  Broadcasting out of Adelaide in the state of South Australia, the program types seem very similar to a North American “community/variety” station but it is not long to hear that it definitely has an Australian twist to it.

5DDD – Three D Radio – http://www.threedradio.com/

Finally for this round is another Australian station, this time from the country’s Sunshine Coast broadcasting out of Nambour, Queensland.  4SDA is better known as Sunshine FM.  This is another station with a regular-sounding format of “oldies/standards” but with a large amount of Australian flavor.  From what I can tell, they are mixing in hits of the past that never made it off the continent along with others that were famous world wide.  The music selections definitely lean toward the more mellow side so this is a good station to listen to when one wants to relax or not get too distracted.

4SDA – 104.9 Sunshine FM

At this point I have already again covered most of the other English-speaking countries outside of the United Kingdom and North America including the Caribbean.  Unless one of my highly appreciated readers knows of a station outside of those areas — or a non-English speaking one that is so good I won’t mind not knowing what they are talking about — I simply did not find anything that was worth a link.  Everything was either too chatty, too boring, or too government-controlled.

As for what remains…well, that will take a while to go back through because, as one can imagine, it’s a big job to go through three very populated countries and then cover all of the little islands in the Caribbean Sea.  Keep in mind that this second going-through will also be occurring while I am still trying to find a new job.  If anybody is already bored with the stations I have already posted…well, first of all, what in the hell is wrong with you… :-p …and, second, just be patient.  I will try to go through a few regions every day and post any new ones here as I can to bring them to everybody’s attention.

Upon my return to Denver, I have found that, overall, not too much has changed in its radio market…well, except for some of the stations that I really liked back when I was here previously in 2004 and 2005.  Gone now is the great “Americana” station KCVU (first turned into a simulcast of the USA’s first “Jack FM” station and, just recently, flipped to sports talk).  To my great disappointment, KQMT “The Mountain” has given up on having anything resembling a creative playlist blending “classic rock,” “album rock,” and “adult alternative” like it used to and now plays the same old same old (even stooping so low as to regularly play “cheese rock” like Def Leppard) although it is still fairly decent all things considered as they have good disk jockeys and long blocks of music without commercial interruptions.  ”The Mountain” is also still far better than its main competition, KRFX “The Fox,” who still should have a slogan of, “All Aerosmith, all the time.” :-s

Thankfully, with those losses came some good gains.  Some of the non-commercial stations in the wider Denver area have put in extra transmitters or have taken over other frequencies to more fully cover the region.  On the commercial side of things, even some of the stations owned by the major conglomerates seem to be better than most at playing a wider variety of music and having at least some thought over caring about the local audience.

As already placed on my Radio page, KUVO remains one of North America’s greatest jazz/blues stations and KGNU is still cranking out its sometimes oddball programming from what some around here call “The People’s Republic of Boulder.”  However, the great surprise and the latest addition to my list comes from a station that is kind of out in the sticks and who’s frequency was silent for a while until it roared back in October 2009.

Broadcasting from Severance, Colorado, KYEN seems to be trying to outdo the glory days of KQMT by playing some of the deepest and most surprising “classic rock” tracks that I have heard on commercial radio in many years.  The selection of music is often jaw-dropping and so deep that even a fairly informed rock music fan like me cannot always identify the artist.  I have even caught them playing an occasional bootleg track!

The one bad thing I have to say about this small station is that, often times, it seems to be on “auto-pilot.”  Normally, I try to avoid publicizing stations like that as I feel that proper radio comes with a proper announcer to set the mood and inform the community.  However, when I consider how this station must be run on a shoestring budget and think about all of the great music I have heard in the short time since I drove back into this area, the automation can be very easily forgiven.

So…for those of my readers that are still fans of “classic rock,” KYEN comes with one of my highest recommendations.  When they say, “We rock the Rockies,” I usually answer back, “Fuck yeah, you do!”

KYEN will now be found on my Radio page.  For quick reference, clicking on the logo below will open up their website in a new browser tab or window.  KYEN’s stream is available in five different formats so nobody should have any problem in listening to them online.