Music and Radio Magazines

Music and Radio Magazines

I've loved magazines from being about ten years old - well, not quite magazines in those days. it was music papers. A friend at school (Ian Colebourne - where is her now?)  had an elder brother who was chucking out his stash of Record Mirror and Mersey Beat issues. These were weekly tabloid size on newsprint, I think I got some Fabulous 208 mags from him too which had lots of pictures of music stars,mainly Cliff and Elvis. 

I began taking Disc and Music Echo myself and then  Record Mirror, especially as they covered the radio stations, and especially those on the ships which Melody Maker and the NME ignored. The Melody Maker had been running since 1926 but folded into the NME in 2000, which itself has recently collapsed to just 20,000 copies a week. The electronic version has not taken off and has less than 2,000 subscribers. 

I continued subscribing to these and more throughout the 1970s - they provided much needed information when I was DJing and for many years kept huge archives of back copies of Mix Mag, Blues & Soul, and those papers. 

Its only pretty recently that I've been persuaded to move most of them on, although I still have about 20 years of Record Collector. It was one of my favourites for many years, as was Radio & Records (an American weekly, now sadly gone). I still have many years of Private Eye, essential reading once a fortnight. 

A while ago we were asked to recommend a library of books and of periodicals  for a radio station to make sure their presentation team were up to date.  I spent a couple of days trawling through whats available, and thought this might be a useful exercise to repeat now, so here is a pretty comprehensive listing of the magazines you can find at your newsagent today.  A far better way though is to subscribe which has five great advantages.  

1. It makes sure you don't miss a single copy.  That's can be very important if you are very busy! You get extra free gifts too - exclusive music CDs, and so on
2. You often get each issue s a few days before it appears in the shops,
3. Your copy turns up nicely sealed in a plastic wrapper,  not dog-eared and well thumbed like some of those at the newsagents!
4. Its often much cheaper as a subscriber - you can get up to a half or so off the cover cover price.

Happy reading -  but don't forgot to come back here for my Blog every now and then!

Paul

Acoustic  Monthly guitar, incl tutorials.

Alternative Press   Live rock music  

Audio Media (for engineers)

Bass Guitar Mag a monthly 

Bass Player Leading UK bassist's Monthly. 

Big Cheese  Fashion & music for teen boys

Billboard (American)

Blues

Blues & Soul  Long running fortnightly

Clash (UK independent)

Classic Pop

Classic Rock

Country Music People.  UK monthly

DJ Monthly  Clubbing DJ monthly (UK)

Downbeat  Jazz and Blues monthly 

Fader   Leading Culture bi-monthly

Fireworks   bi-monthly, melodic rock 

Froots (folk  & roots + world music)

Future Music

Guitarist  Very popular monthly mag

Heat Magazine   Lifestyle and pop / RnB
Hip Hop Magazine US fortnightly urban

i-D   Style & Culture

Jazz Journal    Monthly, since 1948

Jazz Times US monthly, jazz with soul

Jazzwise  modern and stylish jazz

K-Mag   (Drum & Bass monthly)

Kerrang! (World biggest rock music monthly)

Live UK  (concerts, equipment & tours

Living Blues Afro-US with US radio charts

Maverick bi-monthly quality country mag

Metal Hammer Hardcore & loud rock mag

MixMag (dance music and DJs lifestyle)

Modern Drummer  Monthly 

MOJO (rock, Alternative and World Music) 

Mondo DR   for sound & light engineers

Music & Copyright  

Music Tech Magazine

Music Week UK Recording industry

NME rock and pop week paper

PowerPlay  Heavy rock and Metal monthly

Prog

Record Collector bible of vinyl fans

Rhythm Magazine   summers magazine
ROCK
Rolling Stone Iconic pop culture mag

Songlines  World music bi-monthly

Sound On Sound equipment focussed monthly

The Source Monthly hip-hop / urban

The Wire   

Time Out    Listing magazine for London 

Top of the Pops  Teen fashion and charts.

Total Guitar monthly, covers amp's too.

UNCUT  new & classic rock music 

VIBE   Hip Hop Magazine

We Love Pop Teenyboppers monthly

Wire  Monthly underground music mag

XXL  Quarterly American hip-hop mag

ZERO TOLERANCE experimental metal

Soul music on UK Radio

Soul's big hole in the radio market?

The shock news this week that Ministry of Sound has abruptly closed its radio outlet took some time to sink in.  As an old soul boy myself  I find myself tuned to more and more soul outlet, and the MoS channel, although poorly presented and with a music format that was literally "all over the road" was a key port of call as my fingers wandered top and down "the dial". (strange how we say that, even though like so many I pick my stations out on a keyboard!)

I was first turned on to soul music by Johnnie Walker playing the latest hot American sounds on Swinging Radio England in 1966.  t was here I first got into Wilson Picket, and others from the Atlantic and stay labels as well as the very latest tracks from Motown, usually months before they were released by the UK Motown office at EMI in London. When I began DJing, I also played a lot of UK releases that never even got radio play - stuff like the Karate Boogaloo by Jerry O and heaps of stuff on the Action, Soul City,  Direction and President labels. Getting hold of American pressings came later, when I heard stuff on AFN from its giant station in Frankfurt that played the latest US  releases.  

We've never had a radio station solely for soul in the UK that was available on regular radios and covered the whole nation. Some DJs have a love for soul and play as much as they can - Tony Blackburn is a great example, Dave Gregory too and of course Robbie Vincent, all of them heard all too rarely on the radio. But there isn't a radio station that you would call pure soul that has become mainline, big time and a huge success.

I know some of the DAB channels have some soul, some of the time, and I'm always grateful for it and pleased to help promote it. But DAB reception is so poor in many areas, especially in parts of the North. In Wales, Cornwall and Scotland its almost inaudible outside the major population areas.   parts ofThis is the reason 'land pirate' stations have thrived - there is a huge market of listeners who want to hear the music of their choice on the radio.   

The explosion on online radio means that at last almost anyone can open their own radio station. Listeners voice with their feet (OK, their ears!) and we have seen several stations come and go. Perhaps one of the longest surviving is SOLAR which began as a tower rock pirate in London. They are now heard on two of the small scale DAB trial stations (in London and Norwich) as well as online. They feature some well known DJs from the soul scene, such as Tony Monson and Les Adams; great names and very competent and they really know their soul.  The station however does veer towards jazz, lounge and all kinds of laid back stuff that don't appeal to me.

If you want  something a bit more uptime, there is Glitterball Radio, Northern Soul-100mph, and Station X which I do dip in and out of quite often, but I notice from the listener count that their audience often is a big fact zero. Clearly they are not reaching the hundreds of thousands listeners that we should fans KNOW are searching for some up tempo soul to speed their day along.  

So why aren't these stations more successful and achieving 'big time' status?  The reasons are very simple - they are lacking in one of the FOUR GOLDEN RULES OF SUCCESSFUL RADIO, essential elements you need to make a radio station succeed:

1. PROGRAMME a  format that's in demand
2  Make it  easy for listeners to FIND the station 
3.  PROMOTE -  tell people you're there!
4. Keep listeners listening, by engaging with them

once you have a solid station, with regular listeners
5. Market the station to sponsors - advertisers, etc

There are many other skills needed but those four above  which can be simplified as:
Programme  Engineer  Promote  Communicate

Thee are the vital ingredients.  If any one of these elements is missing, the station cannot succeed.and then
  SELL the air time   which means market!

(I don't think of it as selling the listeners, I regard this as renting out all those pairs of ears!)

Now YOU can now have your own radio station

Listening is now moving towards online, and with more mobile WiFi capacity becoming available and very cheaply ANYONE can have their own radio station. No licence is required.  All you need is the KNOWLEDGE  to do it, and we have the solution for that. its all in this eBook

You could start by checking out a book I just published as an eBook which tells you exactly what you need and where to find all that you need. 

Internet Radio 2016 comes complete with links to all the suppliers - equipment, music, staff training, etc. It's your starter for a successful radio station and it will cost you only £6.89, so why not grab a copy now?  I think you'll be pleased that you did!

Never forget those  Golden Rules of Successful Radio.

And I look forward to hearing YOUR radio station !

Paul

Need help launching a radio station?  Contact Worldwide Broadcast Consultants 

Internet Radio in 2016, how to launch your own radio station

Internet Radio in 2016

How to launch your own Internet Radio station

I've worked as a broadcast consultant for many radio stations since the early 1980s and recently have had a lot of calls from people wanting help in setting up radio stations online; internet radio, or web radio, as they are known. It's now possible for almost anyone to run their own radio station 'online' and have it heard all around the world. No licence is necessary (in most countries) and it can now be very cheap to set up a radio station to run pretty much automatically. 

Indeed, some of the service providers let you upload your programme items, say music, announcements, commercials, etc and the transmission computers (called a server) will mix the whole lot together in a continuous stream - a full round the clock service provided under the guise of your radio station's name. You don't even need your radio station's studio to be switched on, you just pop in and out of the stream whoever you want to broadcast live.

CLICK HERE

for more details on the Book

Almost 100,000 stations have now gone online and with some developments just around the corner, such as the huge increase in data capacity,  this will rise quickly. We could well see around a million radio stations available to listen to within the next five years.

We are not able to advise every one who wants to broadcast, and so have published a book telling exactly how anyone can set up their own radio station. The Internet Radio book explains the system, how to arrange transmission, what equipment is required and how and where to obtain it. The book also has a lot of essential tips on how to run a radio station to make it successful. How to fund your station, not just the initial finance, but ongoing revenues. What are advertisers and sponsors looking for and how they might provide the money needed to sustain your stationed make it a successful business. 

The Internet Radio 2016 book has over 77,000 words, that's 353 pages long and it's available on line now to download instantly to your electronic reader. You can see it on Smartphones, tablets such as the iPad, laptops and desk top computers - as well as Kindles of course.

It costs just £6.89 and that's for more information than you will hear on a two day seminar.  You can read the book's 38 chapters about radio as often as you wish, and use the links in its pages to contact suppliers and agencies. The book tells how you can make  some great savings and help your radio station to sound even better.

Written in February 2016, the book is bang up to date and includes details of the new CRB copyright rates for American stations and the closedown of Live365. Radio stations needing distribution can get online immediately with a transmission provider, or server company, called Listen2MyRadio, which has a great offers on right now - just tell them Paul Rusling sent you. Click the socks in the picture above for details!   

Have look at the World of Radio web page for all the details and decide if the book could help YOU or perhaps one of your friends realise that long held dream:

 - your very own radio station 

The eBook is called 

Internet Radio 2016: How to launch and operate your own station

Internet Radio 2016 is published by World of Radio. There is also a web site of the same name that also contains lots of relevant information.

The World of Radio web site describes what the specialised pieces of equipment, such as encoders, and processors, are for. It describes why you need them and how they achieve their purpose.  As well as the 'server side' equipment, programme sources are included, such as the radio station playout and automations software, legal sources of downloadable music, hardware such as mixing console and microphones too.

The book also describes the difference methods of digital formatting for broadcast and the various transmission services companies, who is doing the best deals for small broadcasters. This is a constantly changing field and the website is updated on a daily basis.

Click HERE for details of the DAB+ Radio 

Radio is Stressful. FACT !

Radio 8th most stressful job!

Broadcaster” is the eighth most stressful job you can have, according to a new study by CareerCast.com. They looked at 11 different kinds of job demands that evoke stress, both physical and mental. 

Stress is determined by various factors, but the most important 11 of them are: obligation to travel, deadlines, working in the public eye, competitiveness, physical demands, environmental conditions, hazards encountered, the life of oneself or others at risk, meeting and interacting with customers and/or the public, and the potential for job growth.

Among the other carriers checked were Active Military Personnel, Firefighter, Airline Pilot, Policeman,  PR Director, Events Coordinator, Taxi Driver, Journalist and senior corporate executive.

The least stressful jobs included hair stylist, medical lab technicians and records officers, dietician and Librarian. 

Favourite TV Advert, and favourite music.

Favourite TV adverts  

I took part in a radio discussion recently and was asked my favourite radio and TV commercials.   I thought that I might share this with you, as they are probably very unique and not ones that many would share with me!

Most haunting tune ever for me would be the Skol International beer commercial aired on Radio Veronica in 1968 and 69 (it may be what started me drinking - that was 1968!). I think not was also used on TV in several countries, maybe even the UK too.  

It was sung by the amazing Patricia Paay, who also coincidentally recorded several jingles for my favourite radio station then, Radio Veronica.  She later had great success in the Netherlands as a singer and made many hits, as well as becoming a well known TV presenter and pundit. 

I also confess to loving the TV jingle that most people find "cringing" for Johnsons 'Shake and Vac'. It starred an little known actress called Jenny Logan doing a manic dance around a suburban lounge with her vacuum cleaner. I'm still not sure if I find it erotic or the song is just a very clever earworm.  

For pure comedy the TV ad that really cracks me up is SMASH - the one where the aliens are sat around a space ship console laughing at the primitive way we cook our potatoes: "Then they smash them all to bits." Sheer Brilliance! 

Favourite Music 

For many years I kept a note of which my favourite music tracks were - its around 400. Tunes that just have a certain magic for me and which i could never be without. If I'm feeling a bit low I just pop on a few of these and they really are like medicine. Who needs drugs? 

Music can really make you feel so good. Many are landmark tracks from kye moments in my life, although strangely there are few from my first radio broadcasts (on Radio Caroline in 1973) although there are many that bring back memories of Radio Veronica, the leading Dutch station in the 60s and 70s.  

My favourites cover many genres, the whole spectrum of music almost and while there are a lot from 1966, a quick run down revelas I am still bvery much "into the music"  right through the 80s and 90s, even into this century. My children will be so surprised to see that!  

One of the most dominat rooms in our home for many years has been the Record library, the singles alone numbering tens of thousands.  One of the reasons we only moved house very rarely! 
Click here for a listing of Paul Rusling's favourite music tracks (mostly singles!) 

Nostalgia from Holland on 192.tv

Nostalgia from Holland on 192.tv

email: info@192tv.tv            www.192tv.nl

Last month the 192TV channel opened its new studios in Nijkerk in the Netherlands. Although run by a bunch of radio aficionados, (OK then - Anoraks!) this is not of such narrow appeal as you might expect. It is in fact a very widely watched channel.  The 192TV channel now has 2 MILLION subscribers in Holland alone where its available on a number of outlets. 

They are the same people who bring one of Internet Radio's most entertaining radio channels, 192.nl. Former Radio Veronica audio and programming guru, Ad Bouman and Rob Stellings, Rene Kroon from TMF, The Music Factory, and former record label executive Bert van Breda. 

Largely due to its programme content including chunks of old shows from Beat TV,  the BBC, KRO, NOS and many more. It is in fact like an all gold radio channel, but with rarely seen footage from days gone by.  I must confess I often wallow in the nostalgic programme material it offers. 

192TV takes the viewer back in time 24/7 with clips and TV shows of all kinds of artists from the  sixties and seventies, interspersed with original jingles from that time.  They also run stuff from the 80s, 90s and the noughts too  The most popular strips though seem to be the ones featuring the Beatles and they recently ran some exhibitions in the studio related to the band, and their visits to the Netherlands.   The Beatles Top 30 was also a popular programme event (Ive been trying to see it again, a pity that 192TV does not have a 'Watch it Again" feature. 

 

Vinyl is booming

VINYL IS BOOMING

My first visit to a record pressing plant.

Vinyl records, they seem to evoke a certain magic in many of us music lovers, and I cant really work out quite WHY this is.

Ive been collecting records since the 1960s. AT first they were simply a tool, if you wanted to work as a Disc Jockey, you simply had to have a decent collection.  My first DJing was in clubs in early 1968, and I can well remember borrowing records from friends at school - William Rosenberg, and Steve Foster were my main sources. God Bless them, they had such impeccable taste. 

(Eventually I built up my own great collection which was either soul, or out and out rock music - always on singles.  We had to have a special room for my collection which went to "several tens of thousands" items, mostly singles. I rarely got chance to play any and got tired of getting offers for individual items, so last year I sadly sold the lot.  But my interest in the things seems to have grown even stronger if anything!)

I was never interested in the actual vinyl itself though - after all, it was just a disc of plastic stuff, i didn't even understand how it was made and remember my excitement at seeing the first pressing plant I encountered in London in late 1969.  But records were not really that attractive - the EMI and Decca group ones had very uninspiring labels. EMI's labels were mostly black, and they often had scant information on them - in fact they printed more nonsense about the "recording rights being protected" than they did about the song or the artiste.  In the UK in those days there were only very occasionally a unique picture cover, unlike our friends in the USA where they tried hard to market the records in shops by enfolding them in a nice colourful jacket (sleeve) often with a picture of the artiste.  Made it worth paying the Dollar and 50 cents.

Prices of Singles

The price of singles in the UK for most of the 1960s was 6/8d, or three for a pound!  I think it was about 1970 that the price began edging up - 7/3d, and 7/6 I remember. or if you were prepared to wait until the record had dropped out of the chart, you would find the hits of the day were often available from market stalls for about 2/6d. They got their supplied from Juke Box operators, who seemed to believe that once out of the Top 40 chart, no one would want to pl;ay a record any more. How wrong they were on that count!

By the 1980s the UK record companies had caught on to the picture sleeve idea and about half of releases were issued in one, though often it was only the initial batch of about a thousand or two.  Suddenly someone hit on the crazy idea of several different picture sleeves for records. Same record, just a different sleeve. the avid fans of certain artistes would order a copy of each one, which gave a good sales push and resulted in the record entering the chart in a high position. Then it escalated into having slightly different pressings of a song, and thing up to 6 different versions of a song might be issued. The fans had to shell out more and more. Different format too became much in vogue, coloured, vinyl, an extended mix on a 12 inch disc, and even the artiste's image pressed into the vinyl.  Different shaped discs; it worked for vinyl (but a nuisance to store them) but not for cassettes. They 

still made up about 15% of single releases as late as the late 1980s.

Advent of the Compact Disc

When CDs came in (1983) record companies were able to sell their entire back catalog again,  with alleged better sound, no scratches, longer playing times and in a smaller, more practical format. The public fell for it and consigned their precious record collections to the skip. Literally millions ended up being off loaded at boot fairs. The cost of a CD was about 14p , compared to a 45 which was nearer 50p. The record companies couldn't believe their luck! 

The CD soon replaced the cassette releases, and for a while the pundits claimed that the 7inch vinyl single would die out too. Around 2000 it looked like it might, as the record business struggled to come to terms with the concept of downloads.  They soon realised that they had to "sink or swim" though and embraced the download MP3 idea, which brought down the cost of music to the consumer. After all, there was no tangible product to press or manufacture, much less distribute.  thats what caused the wholesale demise of record shops. Well, almost.

In 2009 the demand for decent vinyl pressings bagel to rise and was soon over a million pieces a year. Not matching the peak enjoyed by the Beatles and others - in the early 1960s you needed to sell a couple of Million to have a number one hit, more recently its been around 30,000 downloads in a week. The biggest CD and DVD producer are Optimal Media in Germany. They recently installed new presses but still cannot cope with the demand from their customers.  They work three shifts a day and all weekend, but still cannot keep up with the demand.

Problems with Pressings    

"The real problem is not in the pressing – the bottleneck is in the electroplating," explains Silke Maurer of Handle with Care Records. Electroplating is the process of coating the master lacquer in a metal layer to produce stampers. It is time-intensive and requires highly trained personnel.

As well as the lawyers only being produced by two companies, the actual stylus that cuts the record is made by only one company, Apollo in the USA. 

A trip to a pressing plant really opened your eyes.  Many machines look like they are from a museum.  They spit out a records that are either automatically placed in a sleeve or put on a spindle so they can be sleeved by hand.  Its the lacquers that are the big problem now, only two companies in  the world are still making them. 

Shedules are very difficult to predict, and this too is forcing up the value of vinyl discs to unheard of levels. The older material too on original labels is regarded as much superior to new releases. They command silly prices when they are sold, which I will talk about next time.