BlowUpRadio.comTesting out a new liveblog app, so follow this thread as throughout today I am going to give you insight into how I put together out our new music shows each week (and may ramble off on some related tangents too)
Among our special radio shows each week are two new music shows:
BlowUpRadio.com Presents New NJ Music - Monday @ 7pm ET
with replays Tuesday @ 6pm ET, Wednesday @ 9am ET, Thursday @ 3pm ET, & Friday @ 12:30pm ET
and
Lazlo's Den Presents New Music - Tuesday @ 7pm ET
with replays Wednesday @ 10am ET, Thursday @ 4pm ET, & Friday @ 1:30pm ET
The former is all about new NJ music, the latter is all about new music from outside the Garden State.
Every day at BlowUpRadio.com we get new music, and I listen to somewhere between 50 & 100 new releases every week, some weeks even more.
The music comes via the artist themselves sending it to me, or a PR person sending it to me. I also look on sites like Bandcamp for new music tagged #NJ or #NewJersey (though I have found Bandcamp's search often misses new releases with those tags).
People sending music downloads to us is always the best way to get it to us (we need downloads to play on air).
I listen to everything that comes in, though I do not always get to personally reply to everyone who sends music to us. Unfortunately, I have been very busy lately which gives me less time to work on this labor of love...
... which quick side track, this is a hobby for me (or as one friend recently put it, a vocation). I don't make money doing BlowUpRadio.com. I do it because I love doing it, and don't mind spending a little bit of my money to do this.
I think this is the reason I'm still doing this after 25 years, while I watched others come and go after a few years. If you are doing this to make money, good luck, but I think most find they can't & quit.
Anyway...
As I listen to the new music, the songs I like I put into a folder, one for each show.
Sometime over the weekend I start seeing how much music I have for each show and figuring out if I have too much or too little. The average 1 hour show I do is about 50-52 minutes of music. About 5 minutes of me talking, plus commercials I am required to put in by Live365, the station's host.
Looking at both folders, I have too much music for the new music shows this week. This is okay because some weeks I have too few songs.
So how do I decide what to play.
First, I look to see if there are artists who I have played recently on the show. Generally when a local artist releases an album I try to add 2 or more songs from the album I like, but if I've already added song(s) from them, they are the first songs to be put into next wks folder
On the Lazlo's Den side, I get music from major labels and artists you are likely hearing on other stations. As much as I love these bands, you can hear them elsewhere, and they don't need my little station as an outlet.
For example, artists who have new music I enjoyed but just don't have room for this week on the new music show include: Death Cab For Cutie, Michael Stipe, They Might Be Giants, and MUSE.
Sidetrack
In the late 90's MUSE was the opening act on a bill at Tradewinds. They had a song getting a little bit of airplay on WHTG, but was largely unknown in the US at the time, hence why they were on shortly after doors opened.
They wound up putting on my fav performance of all 3 acts on the bill that night, and have been a fan since.
Moral of this sidetrack, show up early to a show, you might catch an amazing band before they hit it big
So I slowly whittle each show down to the 50-52 minutes I can fit into an hour, putting the songs I can't into a folder for next week's show.
Then I take each show and try to arrange the best order for the songs so that I'm (under normal circumstances) not going from a mellow acoustic song into a loud punk song, where the segue between the songs would be jarring.
Depending on the songs on the show, some segues will work better than others
Once I am happy with the order of the songs, I do what is my least favorite part of this whole process, but one of the more important parts.
Finding the links for each artist and putting together the playlist pages that you see on http://BlowUpRadio.com
Because as I say every show, if you like the music you are hearing please consider buying their music. They make a lot more money from purchases then they do streaming royalties. #SupportGoodMusic