Making Psychedelic Waves | SpiritPlants Radio DJ Newsletter #1 | January 2010

Making Psychedelic Waves
SpiritPlants Radio DJ Newsletter
#1 January 2010

1 - Radio Anniversary
2 - Revised Schedule / Archives Page
3 - 2009 Radio Stats Review
4 - My Interview with Shamanic Freedom Radio
5 - Lowcast Stream
6 - Holiday Station IDs Link
7 - Cool Listener!

Hello everyone,

A SpiritPlants Radio DJs newsletter is a project I've been planning for a couple of months. Beginning it, finally, as we also begin the new year. My hope for this newsletter is twofold: first, to make sure all the DJs involved in the radio receive regular monthly news updates; the second is to generate more list discussion among us all.

That said, onto this month's contents:

1) Radio Anniversary

SpiritPlants Radio celebrated 6 years on air in November 2009. Since I was unsure of the actual date the radio began, I used the date that my show, which had been on previous radio stations, began its run on SpiritPlants Radio (11.22.2003). In 2008, this was also the date the radio launched its weekend schedule of programming & began 24/7 streaming. So maybe it should be anniversaries being celebrated: for my show, the radio launching, & the weekend schedule and 24/7 streaming! In any event, I think marking such watersheds is a fine thing—a time to reflect & think fine thoughts of past accomplishments & future plans.

2) Revised Schedule / Archives Page

The same weekend as the radio anniversary, the radio's main web page & its archive page both received long-needed makeovers. The weekly radio schedule, which had been a JPEG image, is now an HTML table; the advantages being a faster load (images take longer to load in web browsers) &. more importantly, each show in the schedule is linked to additional information.

Regarding this second point, I've been strongly encouraging DJs to build blogs to associate with their shows. Here are some links to blogs from DJs with recent shows:

Radiohuasca with DJ Zart: http://radiohuasca.blogspot.com/
River's Edge with Catfishrivers: http://catfishrivers.com/?cat=18
Under Eternity Blue with DJ Arkstar: http://undereternitybluemusic.blogspot.com/
The Lavender Dancer with DJ Senz: http://thelavenderdancer.blogspot.com/
ElectroMindMelt with DJ IgniTrance: http://ignitrance.blogspot.com/
DJ SvB Presents: http://svenvanbro.blogspot.com/

The radio archives are now located at my Scriptor Press website on Yahoo! Small Business. They are easier to stream or download, a definite improvement, especially given how popular they are.

3) 2009 Radio Stats Review

From the two sites we track listener stats on, Statcounter & Google Analytics, I've assembled a PDF report of how we did from May to December 2009. You'll see we gained listeners as the year went on. My favorite stat: 5852 visits from 64 countries / territories. We really do broadcast "'round the world"!

Report link: http://spfradio.yage.net/spiritplantsradio_2009_listener_statistics.pdf

4) Shamanic Freedom Radio Interviews SpiritPlants Radio

Also on that anniversary weekend, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by OpaqueLens of "Shamanic Freedom Radio," an excellent podcast we are pleased to be associated with. We discussed underground radio, the counterculture, efforts by governments to repress free speech online, & other related topics. My purpose in doing the interview was to reach out to the listeners of Shamanic Freedom Radio, & also to highlight the fraternity between SpiritPlants Radio & OpaqueLens project. The hour-long interview can be streamed at:

http://shamanicfreedomradio.podomatic.com/entry/2009-10-26T17_12_45-07_00

5) Lowcast Stream

SpiritPlants Radio has long lacked a lowcast stream for those who still have dial-up or comparable online access to the Internet. For awhile our friend Azure provided this stream [http://brandyrae.dyndns.org:8000], but this ran into problems. We're hoping to get Azure's stream back up soon, but other ideas on filling this need are welcomed.

6) Radio Station Holiday ID Links

For the three weekend holiday sabbatical from new weekend schedules, Catfishrivers & I streamed a "Best of 2009 SpiritPlants Radio Year in Review" playlist (so all of you with shows this past year were represented). To make this even more fun, I asked nine of our DJS to make a holiday station ID. I've assembled all of these clips into one track (7 minutes) which you can listen to at:

http://www.scriptorpress.com/spiritplantsradio/stationID/holiday2009.mp3

7) A Cool Listener!

I'm not sure who this guy is, but his cool website links to our station's main page. Check out his site, lots of neat stuff (he seems to work with ceramics & forges, among other things): http://www.eartvic.net/~jozricbal/example%20web/desk.html

That's all for this month. I hope you found this issue worth your time, & free free to post responses to me or to the discussion list! Expect another one next month!

Peace,
Raymond