All Didgeridoo, All the Time. Yes, Really

One of the glories of Internet radio is that you can find a channel for just about anything. Hyper-niche programming that would be uneconomical or even unthinkable for a terrestrial station presents no problem at all when streamed over the web.

C'mon, Steve (you're thinking), I'll bet you can't find me an around-the-clock, all-didgeridoo channel.

And to that I say, Hah! And invite you to click the "Play" button on this page to hear Radio Didgeridoo.

In the world of music, didgridoos always struck me as a curiosity, just one of those odd Aussie contributions to world culture along with boomerangs and beer in oil cans. I once saw a stand-up comedian incorporate one into his act, and I have a brother-in-law who brought one back from a trip to Australia, though I don't think he has ever attempted to play it. Other than that, most of my knowledge of this aboriginal instrument comes from National Geographic specials.

Oh yeah, there's that old pop song, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport," whose lyrics reference a didgeridoo. For years I thought the sound in the background was a didgeridoo, but turns out it's a "wobble board" (which doesn't sound anything like a "didge," I can now tell).

Playing a didgeridoo involves vibrating your lips -- this is what produces the characteristic droning sound -- while performing circular breathing through nose and mouth, aided by tongue and cheeks. This is a difficult technique, yet when mastered, allows good didgeridoo players to keep a single note going for up to 40 or more minutes if they desire.

For all the skill involved, didgeridoos seemed to me to be quite limited in their capacity to entertain for very long. Radio Didgeridoo might force me to rethink that, at least a little.

The playlist on Radio Didgeridoo is surprisingly varied. Just considering the didgeridoo playing alone, the pieces demonstrate that it's possible to get into many different rhythms with these instruments. Then, there's the accompaniment -- percussion, usually, but also sometimes flutes and other wind instruments. Very rarely you may hear some vocal accompaniment, as well.

Still, the droning of the didgeridoo is front and center of the recordings -- and continuous. The effect is either annoyingly monotonous or pleasantly hypnotic, depending on your mood and the circumstances of your listening. Listening to Radio Didgeridoo for two or three hours straight, I've experienced both. In this I would liken it to New Age music, or perhaps trance music. If that offends any didgeridoo devotees, well, I'll just plead a newbie's ignorance; after all, the time I've spent listening to this station today exceeds by far all my didgeridoo listening heretofore.

A surprising fact about Radio Didgeridoo is that it is not based in Australia, but far from there. It is the project of enthusiasts in Poland.

The web site is opaque if you don't know Polish, but with the help of the Google translator I was able to glean that the main person behind Radio Didgeridoo is a Pole who is himself an accomplished didge player with some CDs to his credit.

I further gather that there is a didgeridoo scene in Poland, if you can imagine that. Among the goals of the station's founder(s) is to widen that scene by spreading appreciation for the instrument and teaching young people how to play. The web site includes instructional resources and links for purchasing didgeridoos, among much other information on the history and current state of the instrument.

The didgeridoo might never appeal to more than a miniscule slice of the music-listening population, but it's good that, with the Internet, the interests of even such a small (and probably scattered) segment can be served. For the rest of us, the existence of stations such as Radio Didgeridoo affords us a break from routine and the opportunity to sample something different.

Warning! I Have A Didgeridoo by Instrumentals
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Out of Hospital: Hermitage FM

Oftentimes a radio station's "back story" strikes me as much as its programming. Such is the case with Hermitage FM, a community station in Leicestershire in the U.K. (Web site - Listen)

Not to say their programming isn't good. In fact, I like it well enough to include in my current "#1 Faves" list that I have set up on my Aluratek wi-fi Internet radio. That puts it in rarefied company.*

The back story for Hermitage FM is that it started out as a hospital radio station in 1976. At that time and for years afterward it could be heard only over the hospital's internal speaker system.

In 1999 it became the smallest hospital radio station in the country to be granted a broadcast license (hospital radio stations must be a U.K. phenomenon; I'm not aware of them in the U.S.). In late 2000, under the name Carillon Radio, it began broadcasting to its local community on an AM channel. Its studios then were still situated above a hospital X-Ray department.

Just last year, the Carillon folks went on the air with Hermitage Radio at 99.2 FM, becoming "the first hospital broadcaster in the country to become a Community radio station." The FM station broadcasts to North West Leicestershire while continuing to serve its original local area via its old AM outlet. It also has its Internet stream, of course.

The station (or stations) has come a long way since its hospital days, evidently. It now boasts three studios ... and even a coffee lounge ("located below our Coalville studios on Hotel Street"), complete with a book room. Radio, coffee and books -- sounds like something I might have designed as my ideal retreat.

Why do I like this station?

First, there's the local aspect. Some people are drawn to Internet radio because it offers a wealth of uninterrupted music streams. I, on the other hand, enjoy getting a taste of local color (or in this case "colour") from distant places. Hermitage FM provides that in the form of news and announcements for the several Midlands towns it covers. Besides, I have to know where Hermi the Hedgehog, the station's mascot, is going to show up next! (That's him at a St. Georges Day event. We don't have St. Georges Day here ... or hedgehogs.)

The station's music is a mix. It tends toward top-40 and oldies, "oldies" being the '70s, '80s and '90s. Nevertheless, it surprises me with songs I have never heard before, possibly because the top 40 in the U.K. at any given time was never exactly the same as here in the U.S. For instance, last night I was listening to a great old song I had never heard and wondering who the singer was, and it turned out to be Bonnie Tyler, who had hits in the U.S. but not with this particular one.

I especially like the station's playing of what I think would fall under the heading of Northern Soul. This was a phenomenon from the 1970s when clubs in the north of England played obscure mid-1960s Motown-esque soul records, songs that got little or no airplay when they were released in the U.S. Yet it's a wonderfully fresh sound to my ears -- from 45 years ago.

* The others currently are WFMU (free-form station from New Jersey), WHAY (Americana from Kentucky), WPAQ (Old Time and bluegrass from here in North Carolina), KMRC (swamp pop from Louisiana), Radio Caroline (its oldies stream), and Big Blue Swing (Internet-only blues/swing station).

Internet Radio Awards Competition Begins Soon

The Internet Radio Awards competition for 2010 will open in one month. These awards are an initiative of The Carter Group, a web site and graphic design company.

This is a competition for favorite internet station, as voted on by listeners. The catch, though, is that you can't simply write in any station you happen to like; the station must register to be among those presented as choices. The station must also post a voting button on its own web site.

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There are only 98 stations registered for this year's competition, but I notice some big ones there, including one of my favorites, Radio Caroline. This number is up from last year's 80 registered stations; of that 80, only 32 actually competed. The winner of the Internet Radio Station of the Year for 2009 was Purple Radio, which features a variety of deejays playing an eclectic mix of sounds (including the obscure and strange) -- reminds me of WFMU, except that the latter is a long-established over-the-air broadcaster whereas Purple Radio is Internet-only.

In addition to the Internet Station of the Year award, there are separately voted genre awards. The winners in the current genre competition will be announced May 10.

Internet radio awards are a great idea, and my hat's off to the Carter Group folks for coming up with some. I hope that more radio stations register and enter the competition in years to come. We the fans of Internet radio can help in this by making our favorite stations aware of the awards and urging them to participate.