Tag: Lonely Oak Radio
A touch of rock history as an indie music radio “Experience”
I hear a lot of small-time, unknown artists on Lonely Oak Radio. I’ve been listening to that Internet streaming radio station for two and a half years now and while I’ve taken to some of the tunes and the performers that I’ve crossed on the station, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to someone of even moderate fame.
That changed today when I heard a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member early this afternoon.
Read MoreSongs in the queue for Spotify Playlist review
I’m approaching a year as a Spotify playlist curator, having started the Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist in May of 2018. While the playlist has amassed 107 followers in the time it’s been active, I don’t know how many of those “followers” actually listen. I’ve already talked about that downside of Spotify though, so I’ll move on.
The Underexposed playlist is at 137 songs, it’ll keep growing as time goes by, as will the Softer Side of Indie 2019 playlist as I cross songs that fit the angle I’m going for with that list.
How do I find the songs, though? While I’ve crossed some posted on Reddit’s Indie music community (which have tended to fit the Softer Side 2019 playlist most often), the majority of the songs I’ve posted on the Underexposed playlist have come from my listening to Lonely Oak Radio and other indie stations (Only Rock Radio, Catorweb, and Indie Star Radio primarily). When I cross a song that might fit the bill of the playlist, I put the name of the song and the artist into a txt file queue of songs to potentially add after review.
Read MoreThe indie music scene and Lonely Oak Radio
Are you into the independent music scene or do you have curiosity into what’s currently going on in that music realm? Perhaps you’d like to discover a new flavor of rock/alternative/pop music? I’d like to recommend a radio stream for such.
I’ve been listening to Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist (Note: Don’t take that as a sign everything Lonely Oak plays is on the softer-sound side because it’s not, its only a fraction of the sound cache the station produces). Not many of the acts on the station are widely known, that’s the life of the indie artist – the chase for exposure
This link will take you directly to the radio stream of the site. No, it’s not a bare-bones audio stream tool but shows the song currently playing as well as the artist and the next artist. There are links to AmazonMP3.com so you can get the song playing if you’re interested in as much. It’s just really integral to have knowledge of what’s playing (without a DJ yammering at length before and after the song plays). It’s also integral to actually hear music without having to deal with advertising (or pay a monthly fee for ad-free radio).
If you’re an artist, you can submit your music to Lonely Oak Radio here. If you’re a fan or supporter of an artist featured on the station, you can donate money to Lonely Oak Radio to get a song to play a few days in a row (the quirk is knowing if you’ll actually catch the song on-air, but I digress).
There are more indie stations out there than I know of, providing more music y little known artists they world over… This stream is just one sampling of what’s out there.
The ode to The Great American Stupid
There are many indie bands out there that never went anywhere, such as Desk. You’ve never heard of Desk (unless you got to this blog post by directly searching for the band, in which case I say “Hi!” ☺) and shouldn’t have at this point – the group called it quits a few months after releasing the album All-American Awesome.
Yet there’s something relevant at the moment off of an album that was produced in 2016 and released in May of that year. Something that American society or specifically the politically inclined may or may take interest in. Oh, and rock music fans – I can’t forget rock fans.
I crossed track #6 from the group’s 7-track album while listening to indie radio station Lonely Oak Radio. The title alone seemed timely and came off as a word of protest: “The Great American Stupid”.
A song released before the 2016 Federal Elections that’s fitting in 2018? Indeed. The song is aimed at the Dotard in Covfefe, now-President Donald Trump. The lyrics (which are posted on the group’s Bandcamp listing of the song) are below.
There are likely more noteworthy protest songs out there by indie groups… How far the tunes go depends on how well the number is put together and how much effort is put into exposure. In Desk’s case, not much was done but it is out there.
Tomas Fornstedt — Outer Space
Back in January, I posted a song by Tomas Fornstedt here because I had been listening to it for a year after crossing it on Lonely Oak Radio…and discovered that was on YouTube but never had been accessed by a listener up until I found it.
In fact, Tomas’ YouTuve page shows (as of this writing) most of his songs from his last album have never been listened to through YouTube. Oh, sure, Tomas has a SoundCloud account and that is a better music-first community than the expected-video YouTube, but YouTue has general wider popularity and Google will show a pretty nice bias in search results and list YouTube songs in search results… if those songs (or videos) actually see the light-of-day publicly.
To cut to the chase, Fornstedt released a new single in January called “Outer Space”. Like “Be My Friend”, I discovered I was the first person to ever listen to the song via YouTube. When Tomas promoted the song on Twitter, he pointed to Spotify.
Yeah, well, I’ll embed it here — the accessible YouTube listing :
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIs-LVF8HU4[/embedyt]
The one thing I will say about “Outer Space” and this presentation — I don’t know if it does this in other formats on other sites and the MP3 purchase, but I was taken aback about how abruptly it ends. It’s not a fade out, there’s no final instrumental strum, it just sounds as if a recording device was shut down abruptly. That sort of mars the overall flow of the music. That’s just one man’s opinion though. I’ll let you be the judge for yourself.
Pint Size Hero — Spin the Wheel
Again, this is an act I caught on Lonely Oak Radio. I wanted to revisit a song and was surprised to discover I’m the first person to cross the music on YouTUbe.
The difference here compared to Tomas Fornstedt and “Be My Friend” is that “Spin the Wheel” by Pint Size Hero has been available on YouTube since May 2015.
Listen and judge it as you will:
Interest in a song by way of a radio stream
I happened on this, “Be My Friend” by Tomas Fornstedt, by chance while tuned in on Lonely Oak Radio.
Give it a listen, what do you think?
