Freeform Radio Master—Dave Dixon On WABX

It was 1967 and, if we were lucky, once in a great while we might hear something cool on AM radio—Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth being a harbinger of what was to come. In the autumn of that year, Detroit’s WABX-FM began broadcasting The Troubador, an experimental show, for an hour each week.

For the first time we could listen to an eclectic mix of blues, rock, folk and jazz all within the same program. And in stereo, no less. Within six months the X was broadcasting similar programming for most of each day. For this listener, there was never any looking back at the limited, uneven, preformatted AM station offerings we had had to endure up to that point. (Remember the Zombies being followed by Percy Faith?)

As an impressionable 15-year-old music hound, I would frequently call and have lengthy conversations with the DJs while ostensibly doing homework. John Small, who soon moved over to WKNR-FM, was always very welcoming. Then ABX added Dave Dixon to its staff; he would go on to become the esteemed leader of the legendary "Air Aces."

Dixon had a “golden ear,” introducing attentive listeners to cross-cultural music on a world scale. Only on his show could one be exposed to such gems as Paul Horn’s Inside the Taj Mahal, Gandharva from Beaver & Krause, Richard Harris singing MacArthur Park and Harry Nilsson’s The Point (a complete LP side). In between, he might have mixed in a cut from John Mayall’s Blues From Laurel Canyon, some Savoy Brown (with original vocalist Chris Youlden), Cat Mother & the All-Night Newsboys and a track from Tim Buckley’s Happy Sad release. Toss in some Brian Auger Trinity (featuring Julie Driscoll on vocals) and Laura Nyro singing Eli's Coming for good measure. Not to be overlooked, Detroit artists such as Frost (Dick Wagner), the Amboy Dukes (Ted Nugent), SRC and the Stooges (Iggy Pop) would also be integrated into the mix.

Continued...
Often Dixon wouldn’t play an entire track. Instead he would seamlessly blend portions of disparate genres into a cohesive audio excursion that might last an hour, interrupted only for a FCC-mandated station ID break. His instrument was comprised of matching turntables, a mixing console and a headphone set.

I miss the days when I was INFORMED [about] new
music… even the music I didn't like I grew to appreciate
for its uniqueness. It was truly an education back
then… How will [this generation] expand [its musical]
horizons?? Surely not from corporate radio stations.

Smogboy, from At Detroit forum, 12/10/06

During his career Dixon was fired from more than one station, being labeled as gruff and argumentative. While that very well may be true, to this listener—and frequent caller—he always had time to talk about music, share what he knew, and be an encourager. This was perhaps most important, for I had started on a voyage of musical discovery long before Dave Dixon and WABX, and wondered why others didn’t seem to find music as important to their daily existence. Instead of snuffing out that desire, his unique ability as audio interpreter, alchemist and promoter fortified my quest to be ever on the alert for recordings of interest.

Today the closest one can get to freeform programming in this style rests with college radio stations having limited range, unless they're also streaming on the Internet such as WNMC in Traverse City, Michigan. While it doesn't quite match Dixon's artistry, the Internet's Radio Paradise does a credible job of filling the void left by the demise of freeform terrestial radio. (Albeit Dixon's shows were sometimes extraterrestial.)

Dixon left ABX in 1974. After 10 years in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market, he returned to Detroit, where for several years he played the same type of unique music mix on public station WDET as he had during those heady days of the “Air Aces.”

Listen to a 1990 Dave Dixon aircheck while he was on WDET:

After a few years doing a talk show on WXYT in Detroit, Dixon died at home in May of 1999 at age 60. His legacy is that of programming shows in the way that a painter chooses colors and textures, painstakenly and deliberately applying them on an aural canvas to provide much more than a fleeting impression.

"Broadcast" Media From PC To Stereo and TV

Wirelessly Transmit Streaming Media
Through Your House—On the Cheap!

Problem: Your PC is in one room and the entertainment center in another. Your aging stereo receiver isn't Internet-ready and your budget doesn't include a replacement any time soon. For the same reason, purchasing a dedicated hardware component is out of the question, even if there is room in the entertainment center for another box.

And yet you would really like to be able to stream Internet radio, rockumentaries, and other media sources from your PC to your entertainment center.

Solution: Several companies offer an inexpensive transmitter/receiver package that can "broadcast" both video and a stereo audio signal between rooms. These are easy to install and generally work very well—easily pushing the signal through walls. Although there are several from which to choose, one such system is the AVS-5811 from RF Link (pictured), which is under $120. Savvy eBayers might pay much less.

Such transmitter/receiver sets deliver the A/V signals using radio frequencies (RF differs from infrared, the latter requiring an unobstructed line of site and offering limited distance). The RF Link AVS-5811 operates in the 5.8 GHz range, where wireless phones and microwave ovens won't cause interference. It also has four channels from which to select in the event that something else in your home causes interference. (Whichever channel you use, make sure that both the transmitter and receiver are set to the same one.) And although a clear line-of-site is not required, the RF Link AVS-5811 boasts a 300 foot transmission distance in such installations.

Audio: You'll need to purchase of some inexpensive adapters to hook up the transmitter to your PC. The red and white audio leads require a single female stereo RCA-to-male 1/8" mini-plug adapter, about $2. Connect the male end to the audio out jack on your PC's sound card, usually located at the rear of the PC chasis and color-coded light green on recent-vintage computers. Match up the red and white female RCA leads of the adapter with the corresponding male cables on the RF transmitter.

Now connect the red and white male RCA leads from the RF receiver to an unused set of RCA inputs on the back of your stereo receiver (except those marked Turntable). The inputs marked Tape 2 Record would be a good choice.

To listen to Internet radio, first access the audio source on your PC. You'll want to control the final volume level from your stereo receiver, not your PC, so set the PC volume to be sufficiently loud. Now select the Tape 2 Monitor input source (often labeled "Mode") on your stereo receiver. You should now be hearing your Internet audio source and, if this is all you want to do, you're all set. See the summary below.

Video: Transmitting video from your PC to TV is a bit more involved. First, it's best if your TV is of recent vintage and includes auxiliary inputs either on the front or rear of the set. These provide a better quality picture. If your TV is not so-equipped, purchase a simple RCA-to-coax adapter for a few dollars. It is to be connected between the yellow video cable of the RF receiver and the coax antenna input on the TV. (The picture quality may or may not be to your liking in this scenario.)

Continued...
On the PC side of this setup, we're going to assume your PC video subsystem doesn't presently offer an S-video output on the rear of the computer chasis (if it does, skip to the next paragraph). If this assumption is true, the least expensive way to convert your PC video is to replace the present video subsystem with an adapter card that includes an S-video port. There are many, but a quick Internet search turned up a PNY GeForce FX 5200 256MB VGA card for under $50.

A few more dollars gets you a male S-video to female RCA adapter, which you'll need to connect the RF transmitter's yellow cable to the PC's S-video output. On the RF receiver side, simply plug its yellow composite video cable into the matching colored RCA receptacle on your TV. Here you will most likely have to select a video input mode on the TV, similar to when you watch a DVD or VHS video tape.

Summary: None of this is rocket science, with the possible exception of replacing your PC video subsystem. Get a knowledgeable friend to help. Beyond this portion of the project, your local electronics retailer (Radio Shack, Best Buy, et al.) can help you. Cables To Go is also an excellent source for online chat help as well as for purchasing most of the requisite adapters.

Streaming media aside, we should also mention that RF transmitter/receiver sets such as the RF Link AVS-5811 can be used for other applications when not being used to transmit streaming media. A common example is in the simultaneous viewing of video programs on a second TV/monitor without use of any wires. Another is the ability to relay any indoor audio source to a set of self-amplified speakers positioned outdoors.

Napster vs. Metallica: Music Industry Redefined

The following is an excerpt—reprinted here by permission—from Greg Kot's new book, Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music (Scribner, $25). They being long tired of homogenized corporate radio playing the same twenty hits (Hotel California, anyone?), "it tells the story of how the laptop generation created a new grassroots music industry, with the fans and bands in charge."

Herein Radiohead reinvents the way in which it distributes music directly to its fans:

Whenever he considered the possibility of Radiohead going into business for itself, guitarist Jonny Greenwood got a little queasy. “It makes me think we’re gonna be sitting in endless business meetings talking about how to do it off our own backs, rather than sitting in studios recording music.”

But Radiohead was genuinely unsettled by what it saw as the major labels’ inability to adapt to the marketplace. The long lag time imposed by the majors between finishing an album and actually releasing it to set up a proper big-budget marketing campaign was particularly irritating. The band appreciated that its fans were almost ridiculously vigilant. As soon as word would get out that Radiohead had finished working on an album, the Internet began to buzz with anticipation. A leak of the new music would inevitably follow, and Radiohead fans were soon sharing the music and debating its merits. Inevitably, Web sites would jump in with their critiques of the still-unreleased work. It was flattering and yet frustrating for the band; increasingly, they sensed the problem was not with the fans, but with their label’s inability to keep up with how fans were consuming music.

By the fall of 2007, Radiohead had a new album ready to go, but still hadn’t pulled the trigger on any kind of record deal. It decided to release the album anyway, through its Web site. On Oct. 1, Jonny Greenwood posted a terse announcement on radiohead.com: “Well, the new album is finished, and it’s coming out in 10 days. We’ve called it In Rainbows.”

So much for the big marketing plan. In the land of the major labels, Greenwood would’ve been drummed out of the public-relations academy for his utter offhandedness. For an artist of Radiohead’s stature, it was customary for a big label to plot out the details of an album release months in advance, to line up shelf space at retail stores, programming at commercial radio, and full-page ads and interviews in Billboard, Rolling Stone, and the usual print-media suspects. But for the first time in its existence, Radiohead had no such constraints. It could now effectively function as its own record company, record store, and distribution service rolled into one—at least temporarily. So Radiohead instructed its fans that on Oct. 10, it would provide an access code to a digital download of the new album to any customer willing to part with an e-mail address.

The price was left to the customer’s discretion, the virtual equivalent of a giant tip jar.

Continued...
“It’s up to you,” the checkout screen read for preordering the ten-song disc.

Do not insult Death Cab.

Also available to order was an expanded, physical version of the album, to ship two months later. Priced at the U.S. equivalent of $81, it would include an 18-track double album packaged in both CD and vinyl versions, with lyrics, artwork, and photographs in a hardback book and slipcase.

Radiohead’s distribution strategy for “In Rainbows” reduced the decade-long debate over Internet downloading to a single, deceptively simple question: “What’s this piece of music really worth to you?” It was a question that respected the intelligence of the potential buyer, a question that bristled with moral, ethical, economic, and aesthetic considerations. And yet it was a question that could be answered with a simple mouse click, in prices ranging from $0.00 to $99.99 (the order form didn’t accommodate three-digit dollar figures).

It was a brilliant move made even more potent by its timing. Only a week before, a federal jury in Minnesota had awarded the record industry a $220,000 judgment against Jammie Thomas for the crime of downloading 24 copyrighted songs and making them available for file sharing. Thomas was hardly alone. At the very moment her verdict was being read, more than 9 million consumers were sharing music files around America, according to media management company BigChampagne.

As one of the more marketable names in the business, Radiohead was in a position where it didn’t have to give away anything. It had the cachet to charge $10 or more for its music, and rest assured that most of its fans would gladly pay. But it clearly wanted no part of a music industry that labels its own customers as thieves. By declaring, “It’s up to you,” Radiohead made it clear whose side it was on.

The Internet exploded with Radiohead-related chatter. In the three days after the announcement, blogpulse.com, a search engine that reports on daily blog activity, showed more than a 1,300 percent increase in the number of posts mentioning the band.

The behind-the-scenes mechanics of the deal were intriguing, all the more so because Radiohead really wasn’t interested in talking about them—perhaps because it might’ve appeared unseemly to gloat. The band stood to profit handsomely from any paid download. What’s more, they didn’t have to share the money with any middlemen.

Journalist Greg Kot, whose previous work includes Wilco—Learning How To Die, writes a blog for the Chicago Tribune. Read the entire Radiohead excerpt, and Greg's other posts, at Turn It Up—A guided tour through the worlds of pop, rock and rap. Floydian readers may also be interested in this earlier post about Radio Paradise, the best thing to happen to multi-genre music listening in the public realm since WABX, the station the glowed in the dark. Oh, yeah....Radio Paradise plays both Radiohead AND Death Cab For Cutie!

Radio Paradise: Eclectic Internet Radio At Its Best

Publisher's Note: After high school, Radio Paradise's Bill Goldsmith worked for a several radio stations in California & Hawaii. While commercial radio degenerated into an überprofit-controlled conglomerate spewing a highly-distilled, homogeneous listening experience in markets across the U.S., Goldsmith had a plan. His idea—not all that unique to those who remember the heady days of "underground" radio in the '60s—was that listeners really wanted audio entertainment provided by an informed "DJ [turned] loose in a music library, with no goal in mind but to ...[create] a seamless flow that [spans] decades, genres, and styles." The Internet is what made Goldsmith's dream viable.

Goldsmith and his worldwide Radio Paradise listeners have turned me on to more new, commercial-free music than I ever would have heard elsewhere. But be patient when sampling RP—being an eclectic mix, there are those times when a few tracks may not be your cup 'o tea. Try again in an hour or perhaps the next day—there is very little on RP that isn't listenable around the clock.

The biggest problem a band has is getting its music heard. For years, the music industry was confined to four multinational corporations that dominated the revenue stream of 70% of the music coming in, and four or five radio conglomerates that controlled what music was going out.

Greg Kot, Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music
Time magazine interview, 5/21/09

Dave Belfer-Shevett at Planet Geek! interviewed Goldsmith in 2004. Although Radio Paradise has greatly changed (for the better) since that time, Floydian Slips thinks you'll find this abridged version of Belfer-Shevett's interview with Goldsmith to still be of interest.

[dbs] Bill, how you got to be the producer of one of the most popular online music stations on the 'Net?

[Goldsmith] I spent the 1990s at...a funky little FM station near Santa Cruz, California called KPIG. We were everything that FM radio had convinced itself that it couldn't be: adventurous, irreverent, creative, and thoroughly unique. We were also wildly successful—regularly out-billing the local Clear Channel stations in spite of the fact that we mostly played music that nobody had ever heard of before, made fun of our advertisers, had a certifiable left-wing nut job as our news commentator, and let the DJs (gasp) pick the music on their own shows.

Continued...

In 1994 I learned a little HTML and built a website for KPIG, and in August 1995 I inaugurated the world's first full time webcast using Xing Streamworks software. It was 16 kBps MP3 (so you can imagine how bad it sounded) and we could only serve about fifty listeners, but I was thoroughly and completely hooked on the idea of Internet radio. I saw it then—and I see it now—as the natural successor to FM, with a worldwide reach and an unlimited number of channels.

In 1999 I left Santa Cruz to relocate to Paradise, [CA] where my wife, Rebecca, owned a house (we were married in 1999) and I spent the next year working as a consultant for KPIG and other stations while I put together the dream project that had been bubbling around in my head for decades: a station of my own—where I could play exactly what I wanted to play and say what I wanted to say, without worrying about what any station owners or advertisers thought. What made it all possible was that magic confluence of technologies called Internet radio.

So, in February of 2000, Radio Paradise was born.

[dbs] How many folks are on your team? I know that you are the Voice of Radio Paradise, and we hear Rebecca on occasion doing spots, [but] are there others that help keep the station going?

[Goldsmith] It's pretty much just Rebecca and [me]. We've been outsourcing our webhosting since the beginning of last year, and we utilize some freelance design help here and there—but other than that it's just the two of us. Rebecca handles all of the finances and is our music reviewer. She spends several hours each day combing through the CDs and music files that we're sent, searching for the stuff that meets our picky standards. I do the music scheduling, DJ breaks, web design, and technical stuff.

[dbs] From the technical side, how does RP produce its shows? Do you come up with your playlist on the fly, a day ahead, etc?

[Goldsmith] That depends. When we're taking time off we can schedule things up to two weeks in advance; other times I'm working just a few minutes ahead of air time. Due to the nature of our setup, the station is never quite "live" in the traditional sense. Everything is preplanned & prerecorded at least five minutes or so ahead.

[dbs] The music industry has always been on the [scale] of large monopolies such as Microsoft and Clear Channel. How do you see the online music industry faring as it gains popularity and attracts the attention of these giants? I point to issues such as proprietary music formats, licensing, and digital rights management systems.

[Goldsmith] The big media conglomerates have been trying to control and dominate the online music space for several years now. I think that eventually they will accept the fact that the rules are just different here—that, for instance, tightly controlling users' ability to freely copy music files will never quite work. They'll need to come to terms with the fact that the monopoly they've enjoyed over the distribution and marketing of music is over. And that for every door that the new technology shuts, two or three others are opened. The idea that the only way the music industry can be profitable is if they restrict access to their product is just flat out wrong. Plenty of people in the industry get this and are already thinking along new avenues. I think we'll see some interesting stuff develop over the course of the next five years or so.

[dbs] Here's a big advertising opportunity. If you had to give the elevator speech about RP to someone who hadn't heard of it before, how would you pitch it?

[Goldsmith] Radio Paradise is the old 1960's progressive-FM philosophy ("put a DJ in a room full of records and turn him/her loose") applied to the whole universe of 21st century music: modern & classic rock, world music, electronica, acoustic, even a smattering of jazz and classical—with a real human DJ in full control, not just an "iPod on random play" jumble of styles. It's radio-as-art, rather than radio-as-marketing—something you just don't hear on FM any more. Try it. It's addictive.

Leon Russell, Frank Zappa, Iggy Pop & Friends

And So We Get Started...

This blog is about music...many genres of music, as it happens, though I'm not predisposed to country nor rap. I'm a bit old-school, but you'll find my tastes are all over the place—from John Coltrane to Hoyt Axton, Roy Orbison to Vivaldi, Diana Krall to Blue Oyster Cult.

That's not to say that I don't appreciate an occasional offering from an Alan Jackson or a M.C. Hammer (like I said, I'm a bit old school), but don't expect to learn anything about the latest alt rock by reading any of this. Once in a while I may let my fondness for some group like Porcupine Tree, the Doves, or Durutti Column be known, but unless I get tipped off by (the best thing to happen to Internet radio), or by my daughter, Brooke, I don't spend much time chasing that down. Sorry. There are only so many hours in the day in which to listen.

Rather, I'm writing this blog to hopefully broaden your own audio spectrum: to perhaps turn you on to some obscure piece of music that's really going to do it for you. Like anything recorded by Yulara. But I'm getting way ahead of myself.

Along the way, I intend to provide you with some historical background—as much as I care to, that is. For example, that the record companies originally told George Benson to, as the title of an unrelated Frank Zappa recording attests, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar. They believed that no one would ever want to hear poor George sing and, thankfully, they were very wrong.

(Though you've probably heard George's rendition of The Drifters' On Broadway by now, check out his version of Leon Russell's This Masquerade. And now that I've mentioned Leon, were you aware that it was he who penned This Diamond Ring, a big Top 40 hit for Gary Lewis & the Playboys? And yes, Gary is the son of Jerry Lewis, the goonier half [?!] of the Martin & Lewis comedy team. It turns out that, way before Joe Cocker and Mad Dogs & Englishmen, ol' Leon was a L.A. studio musician playing with the likes of some guy by the name of Glen Campbell.)

See? That's the kind of historical stuff I'm going to be weaving through this blog. Along with ideas for some really cool segues (track mixing) you probably wouldn't have ever considered. We'll talk about gear, from semi-audiophile stuff all the way down to the smallest flash-based MP3 players—though it is not my intention to compete with the likes of Sound and Vision magazine or Engadget.

And I'll relate some personal stories, such as going on a school-sanctioned field trip to see/hear Cream the first time they played Detroit in 1967. Or having Iggy Pop (aka Iggy Stooge) lick my Kodak camera lens. Or catching an early Grand Funk Railroad (subsequently forced to shorten their name to Grand Funk) at an outdoor summer festival at Mt. Holly (near Flint, MI).

But wait! Did someone mention the blues? And jazz? Zydeco? Ambient/trance/acid jazz, et al.? And a whole lot of other stuff? Writing this on a PC holding well over 27,000 processed tracks stashed on 1TB RAID5 disk array (and easily twice that many that have yet to be "processed"), I think I've got the subject covered, though I know of a couple of guys whose collections dwarf mine.

Happy listening!