Alongside the Stream 101 shows I was doing until 2022, I’ve been doing the Eclectronica Radio Show on Rogue State Radio, which broadcasts alternate Fridays from ten until midnight. I want to talk about what that’s meant and why I think live radio broadcasting still matters in an era when recorded content dominates.
Rogue State is a serious online radio platform. The Eclectronica show sits within a schedule of broadcasts from labels and artists who are genuinely committed to what they do, and the context shapes the experience of both playing and listening. You’re not performing to an anonymous algorithmic audience. You’re part of a community of people who have chosen to be listening at a specific time to a specific thing.
The live element is important to me in a way that recorded mixes are not. When you’re playing live on radio there is no undo. The decisions you make in the moment are the record. That pressure produces a quality of attention and commitment in the playing that I find very difficult to replicate when I know I can go back and fix things. The best sessions I’ve had on Rogue State have had a spontaneity and a flow that comes directly from that constraint.
I wrote years ago on this blog about the different kinds of broadcasting I’ve been part of over the years, from OldSkoolRadio.com in the early 2000s through to Deep Blue FM and Fire Radio and the Base Music Podcast and Stream 101. Each of those contexts has taught me something different about what it means to share music in real time with people who are choosing to listen.
The Rogue State broadcasts are the most musically serious context I’ve played in. That raises the standard and I like having a high standard to meet.
