29 October 2010

Venezuela - Crack-a-lackin' Caracas

Wow! That Malawian station has to have been one of the best so far, huh?

OK, what do you say we head to Venezuela today? Pinky's dad went down to Caracas on some junket when he was in his 20's. He always insinuates that he partied pretty hard there. That's funny to imagine for a couple of reasons: 1) it's Pinky's dad, and 2) we don't really think of Caracas as a party destination. That's probably due to our current governments' friction but maybe things were different back then.

Fancy Caracas!

Pinky's dad reports that the income inequality was very apparent. Wonder what it's like after Chavez's "revolution." Pinky's brother did a show down there a few years ago and the government almost commandeered all their sound equipment. Yikes. We forget the details but we don't think he was too enthused about it. 

Hmmmm. Not so fancy.

Pinky does remember that his brother's hotel was right across the way from Chavez's compound and that he saw his helicopters. SIIIGH. It must be pretty rad to have a helicopter. Pinky used to draw them all the time in elementary school.

<We really wish we had a Pinky original helicopter drawing to put here. Circa 1993, of course.>

Chavez in his 'copter. Getting in? Jumping out? Just showing off that fancy red shirt?


On a side but not unrelated note, when Pinky was 10 or 11 years old he bid $20 and won an auction for a ride in a little private plane from some guy at his church. And, that blowhole never took him! $20 is a lot of money at that age - it's like 2 months worth of allowance! Who stiffs a kid out of $20 AND a plane ride at a charity fundraiser? It's 15 years later and he's still pissed. If he ever see him again, he's gonna say "Listen up cool-whip! Where's my plane ride?" Yeah, that's what he'll say...

Long story short, Estrella FM comes blaring out of Caracas at 91.9 FM and it's gonna make you want to dance! Enjoy, y'all!

Hit Radio en Vivo in the top right corner


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28 October 2010

Malawi - All Local All the Time


Did you interpret any of those coded messages from the spy radio yesterday? Yeah, us either. Although, now that you mention it, Ellen was pretty sure she heard something about the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations, but maybe with all those numbers it was really just something about fish sticks.

Let's continue our journey around the world via radio. Hey! You guys wanna go visit our friend Terry in Malawi! OMG! Us, too!

Wait. What's that you say? Terry's already moved back to Pennsylvania? What? We're bad friends for not visiting during the two previous years he was actually in there? Geeze.

It looks like the pancreas of Africa and pancreases are awesome!

Terry almost moved to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia and Pinky got excited about promised to visit. But, Terry held out for Malawi instead, which was probably a good move since Mongolia has the coldest capitol city on the planet. One time Pinky, with the help of our friend Hart, tried to figure out how much it would cost to go see Terry in Malawi - but PickleMyPeaches it was pricey. Sorry, Terry. But, we're "visiting" you now, buddy!

 Holy Jesus, that looks divine! Are you sure we can't go?


Let's forgo the piecemeal air travel and cruise on over via the radio waves. Grab your sunscreen and let's tune in to the dulcet tones of Radio Yako... This one seems like it's gonna be a pretty awesome station. Awwww rad! No commercials!

Radio Yako is a non-profit internet radio station that exists to promote Malawian artists. All the music we'll hear will theoretically be by Malawian artists, so hopefully we'll be able to avoid that damned G6 song. We're really excited about listening to this station all day and wish other countries had this format!



And, if you want to read Terry's blog documenting some of his time in Malawi, you can click here. Or, here. Or, even here.

Also, check out Radio Yako on Facebook and Twitter!


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27 October 2010

Numbers by the Zillions

How'd you like that Nepalese station? Pretty good stuff, huh? Makes one want to get better at yoga and high altitude living.

Today we're gonna do a weird one with no particular national boundaries. Better pull out your tin-foil hat and your best conspiracy theory (we know you've got one)! 

Ever hear of numbers stations? That's OK, Ellen hadn't either. This crazy dude told Pinky about them at a Volkswagen show years ago. This guy was also obsessed with chemtrails and stuff, so Pinky ended the conversation pretty quickly. Pinky had completely forgotten about them until one changed numbers a few days ago and a science fiction blog he reads went wild. (PS: Nerd Alert!)

You've got to listen between the numbers.

OK, so number stations are these creepy repetitive shortwave broadcasts of people reading numbers or of weird music notes or Morse code. No one quite knows what their intentions are, but they're generally assumed to be coded messages sent out by intelligence agencies to their spies, though no government has acknowledged that posit. Though they're kind of considered a relic of the cold war, apparently their activity has slightly increased since the fall of the Soviet Union. Bizarre.

Thanks to "Math for Liberal Arts" we know what this is!


We have a feeling that there probably isn't enough material here to last a whole work day and it's gonna be hard to listen to a full day of this gibberish anyway. We suggest going back to visit one of our previous radio stations. Namibia, anyone? That Libyan one deserves another go 'round, too.

If you're committed to listening to number stations all day - and we won't judge you if you are, nerd - utilize a search engine and you're sure to find tons of recordings and a few live streams out there of these stations.

Makes us want to shoot a polar bear with a hand gun.

Anyway, dig out a filling and slip a cyanide capsule in the crevice, click the play button at the top of that little playlist, and let's get a taste of some of the broadcasts out there.


PS: the Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations is available in a 4 disc set - we def suggest checking it out!


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26 October 2010

Nepal - Killing it in काठमांडौ

Hey! Whatcha doin'? Just wishing you had a remote control car in your office so you could run it into your coworkers' Achilles tendons and chase them away? Yeah, us, too. It would be a little more subtle than a flame-thrower...

How'd you like that Jordan station? We've had better Arab stations, but that one wasn’t bad. Ellen liked the variety of the quality of the music. Some was really horrid and some was really amazing.

Anyway, what do you say we head off for Nepal

Nepal is the only country in the world to currently have a flag that is NOT a rectangle. Wouldn't flags be cooler if they couldn't be rectangle shaped? Imagine the possibilities!

Triangles! How novel!

Aside from being the birthplace of the Buddha, Nepal is best known in the states for housing Mt. Everest, or at least half of it. Everest straddles Nepal's north western border with it's other half residing in Tibet - uh, we mean China. Tibet doesn't exist or something like that. It is Everest and all if it's 29,029 ft that keeps Nepal's large tourism industry going. 

Today's station come to us from the capital city of Kathmandu (काठमांडौ), which is also most traveler's first stop in Nepal. After getting acclimated to the 4,500 ft elevation, climbers stock up on supplies, find a sherpa, update their Facebook status one last time, spin the prayer wheels at monkey temple of Swayambhunath (स्वयम्भूनाथ स्तुप) for good luck, and start their journey to Everest. Fingers crossed they make it back.

We'd like to buy a vowel.




Don't forget to bring down all your trash with you after you climb Everest! The mountain has been dubbed the world's highest trash dump - with 120 tons of trash and 120 dead bodies. Yikes! We bet your local dump isn't quite that bad off, especially in the dead bodies department.


Changing the subject slightly, we were bummed to learn that the search for Chhewang Nima, a Nepalese sherpa who went missing during an avalanche while scaling Mt Baruntse, was called off yesterday. He had lead over 19 expeditions in his life time. For our lazy asses, completing even one expedition seems like the accomplishment of a life time. We have much respect for Chhewang Nima Sherpa.


You know, for a nation with so few internet connections (only a few hundred thousand for 30 million people), they have an incredible array of web-accessible radio stations! It's a veritable buffet! A bunch of them were news or global pop stations, but still. Seems like the music on this one is pretty good, and though there are a lot of breaks, the commercials aren't too bad and the news is in English, which is interesting to hear.


So, with out further ado, it's music time!




Having streaming problems? Try Radio Kantipur!



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25 October 2010

Jordan - عمّان Airwaves

Man, that Portugal station was awful. Sorry about that. We suppose it was gonna be tough to top Bangladesh anyway. 

OK, let's continue our journey around the world! It's been a while since we were in the Middle East. You guys wanna go to Jordan? Good, let's go to Jordan.

Remember that awesome facade in the cliff face in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that you were all "WOAH. Where is THAT?!!!" Well, we'll tell you. It's in Jordan! It's a 6th century city called Petra. Cool, huh? Tourism contributes a big chunk towards Jordan's GDP. Not specifically for Indiana Jones, just in general, you know?



After WWI, Transjordan was carved out of the Ottoman empire and kinda tooled around under British rule until after WWII. Apparently the Brits made a request to the UN to release Jordan from their control, which is kinda weird and totally out of step with the colony hungry Britain we know. Was it because they were totally broke from the war and wanted to shed some financial obligations? Was there an independence movement? Who knows?

There was a justifiably super-complicated turf-war going on here with Israel and Palestine, but it seems that Transjordan shacked up with a chunk of Palestine and became Jordan shortly after the creation of Israel and the ensuing regional war. Sorry for being sloppy, but was and is a pretty sticky situation and outlining the complexities is just not reasonable.

After decades of hostilities, Jordan and Israel finally made peace in the mid-90's, making Jordan one of only two countries in the region to have full diplomatic ties with Israel (Egypt being the other.) In doing so, Jordan ended up getting hundreds of millions of dollars in annual US aid, a special economic zone that allows them to forgo US tariffs if they use Israeli supplies, and the king got his face on an Israeli postage stamp. Sounds like a pretty good deal to us.

So 51.5% of the population is male, which is pretty unusual. How is it skewed towards males? With a patriarchal culture, did females not reply to the census? Is it due to the large amount of foreign labor that tends to be men? These laborers are protected under Jordan's labor laws, the only Arab country to do so, and if you've heard some of the horror stories from the UAE or Saudi Arabia, you'd know how great that is.

Ummmm... Let's see. What else. Woah! The Queen is GORGEOUS, y'all!

drooooooooooooooool.

Oh! Looks like they actually have a very competitive transport and knowledge-based economy flourishing, too! Even more so than the UAE! It looks like a big part of this is political, as it seems like they don't have much beef with anyone in the region anymore, and a lot of other countries in the region are pissed at someone else. So, these countries, and nations from across the globe, do business with Jordan instead. They've got a TON of free trade agreements with a pretty diverse group of nations. And with Iraq and Palestine being perpetually unstable, it seems that a lot of the companies from those nations operate out of Jordan.

Looks like they've got little oil or water, which means they have to import energy and food and that necessity has a habit of driving a nation to make good with it's neighbors. You know who has control of tons of water in the Middle East? Turkey. With the coming food crisis, expect them to be strutting around. Saudi Arabia is already pretty much renting agricultural land in Africa. Israel knows how to conserve water, so expect them to be selling a lot of technology for it. Will they sell to Arab countries through Jordan? Might be a good idea...


Whew! There is so much to say about Jordan - we definitely can't do it justice here!

Let's see how good of an ambassador this radio station is! Transmitting from one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world - Amman (عمّان), Mazaj FM is a radio station of the future with presences on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the web. Also, they play music. Enjoy! 


Click on the long text under the little blue radio icon on left hand side of the page. It looks like this in Arabic:


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22 October 2010

Portugal - Ave Aveiro!

Oh hey! Man, we don't know how we're gonna top that Bangladeshi station! It was a super-duper, to say the least!

And, today we visit our 25th country!
Only 232 (palindrome alert!) more to go! (depending on what we recognize as nations)

What do you say we head to Portugal today?

So blue!

Pinky had the chance to go there about a decade ago when he was 16ish. But for some outlandish reason, he passed on it and have been kicking himself ever since. His family was on one of those "if it's Tuesday this must be Belgium" trips, and at the very end of it they could have carried on from Madrid to Lisbon. His mom was up for it, but Pinky and his sister were travel-weary from a month on the road and were ready to go home. 

He's always regretted that decision and feels obligated to go one day, just in rectification. His mom is going to beat him to the punch when she gets to go next year for some embroidery workshop and his brother worked a show there a while back. He said there are some CRAZY black and white tile sidewalks and plazas there. We're promptly adding those tiles to our "must see list."



We won't be in the capitol today though. Let's head off to the Aveiro district in the central coastal area! It reminds Ellen of Malta, especially the boats. Hopefully the music will be as awesome as these pictures!



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21 October 2010

Bangladesh - Dancing in ঢাকা

Oof. Don't get us wrong, we enjoy classical, but a whole day of that Greenland station was too much. Once 2:00pm rolled around, Pinky went back and listened to that Algerian station that we heard when he was in Tennessee. 

Let's cut to the chase because Pinky's found an AWESOME station for today. We're off to Bangladesh!


Initially a weird satellite province of Pakistan called East Pakistan, Bangladesh fought and won their Independence in 1971 with the help from the Indians. Get this though: Bangladesh's secession was catalyzed by a cyclone that killed almost half a million people. The lackluster response from the government in Pakistan galvanized support for the independence movement that culminated in the Bangladesh Liberation War. It's one of the first times in modern history that a natural disaster incited a civil war. Wow! Maybe New Orleans should take note and leave our sorry butts for our lackluster response to Katrina.


With such a large population and such a relatively small land mass, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world (imagine half the population of America squashed into New York state). Their supporting their population will surly lead them to face problems in the future. But, they were marked by Goldman Sachs as one of the "Next Eleven", and are expected to be one of the fastest growing and largest economies of the 21st century. 

Unfortunately, they face a SEVERE threat from global warming. If their economy does significantly expand, it will be interesting to see what a government with some economic sway will contribute to the climate change conversation. Ten years ago during an extreme flood, about 2/3 of the country was underwater. Imagine if that becomes a normalcy. It might look like millions of climate refugees pouring into India...




Isn't it weird talking about the economic promise of such a poverty-stricken and governmentally corrupt nation? We guess we were saying the same thing about
China in the early 80's though. As China ages into their demographic time-bomb, we suppose manufacturing will begin to move elsewhere. With all those people in Bangladesh, labor would be super cheap and those jobs could lift millions out of poverty, and all those waterways would significantly reduce the need for building expensive transport infrastructure. Plus they'd be super close to India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and those other burgeoning economies. Symbiosis y'all.


Anyway, after IndependenceBangladesh switched back and forth between parliamentary democracy and military dictatorships with coups occurring about every 10 years. Since 1990 they've been rocking the parliamentary democracy, and it looks good on them!


Be sure to check out some Bangladeshi cinema while we're here. King Kong and The Hulk!




I love when King Kong dances.







OK. Time for business! Live from Dhaka (or ঢাকা), capital city on the banks of Buriganga River, We bring you




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20 October 2010

Greenland - Nuuk, Naturally

Man, that Cuban station ended up being fantastic, huh? We think it could give that Namibian station a run for it's money as one of our favorites.

OK, we're aching for some cooler weather. Let's continue our journey around the world by heading to Greenland, which is decidedly cooler than Cuba.

With only 57,637 people in the entire country, Greenland the least densely populated country in the world. The city of Asheville is larger! And, Asheville is rinky-dink.

Their parliament, Kalaallit Nunaanni Inatsisartut, only has 31 members. Talk about getting stuff done! This is there parliament. They can all fit in there! We both had classes in high school that required larger rooms!



We never knew, but apparently it's under Danish rule. The US tried to buy Greenland after WWII, but the Danes politely declined. And, thank goodness we didn't get it. Where would we put that 51st star?

Greenland is edging towards independence though. They have been granted domestic self-governance last year. We know what you're thinking and we agree. Last year was 2009 and that's basically the future! Not being free at this day in age is mind boggling. Oh boy did that sound American....

You know what's really cool? They have a 100% literacy rate! When do you EVER hear that?!

So, let's get down to business. Pinky really wanted to stream this station from Hans Island,  since it looks like it's run by his kind of people (whatever THAT means), but they won't stream it to you unless you have a Hans Island ISP. (Ellen's note: This has got to be a hoax. According to Wikipedia, which doesn't lie, there are no inhabitants of Hans Island. And, this guy looks like he's fresh from the funny farm. He also looks like he doesn't know how to use a toothbrush, much less a computer. So, I'm highly skeptical that there even internet there.) Pinky thinks this is pretty awesome. Those guys must be CRAZY. And, trust us, we love the crazy.


Hans Island is waaaaay the fuck up there. Way the fuck.


The only non-news streaming station we could find broadcasting in Greenland that wasn't boosted from Canada or Denmark was this classical station, and even though it's in Danish, it ought to be a nice change of pace, and kind of apropos for how we imagine Greenland to be.

Let's escape the cold and tune in to the capital city of Nuuk, Greenland and chill out - both literally and figuratively.




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19 October 2010

Cuba - Havana Heat

Hey whatcha doin'? Just shakin' all that Cheez-It salt out of the bottom of the bag into your mouth? That's pretty gross.


Anyway, how did you like Kazakhstan? There ended up being a bunch of late-night techno -- sorry, "house" -- in the afternoon, which kinda helps when you're trying to move a mountain of paperwork. Although, we're embarrassed to tell anyone that we listened to it, except for y'all, of course.

Let's head to Cuba today! Our friend Martha requested we take a trip to our Missile Crisis neighbor this past weekend. She went down there a few years back. It's Pinky's boyfriend's ancestral homeland, too. And, since he's laid up in bed with some kind of flu, maybe he can tune in today. 

Just some scary Cuban Missile Crisis top secret intelligence documents to make you crap your pants.


Pinky had a bitch of a time finding a live streaming station that wasn't news, but finally found this one after trying about 3 dozen websites. Literally. Man, who would have thought? This one sounds like it'll be a little more poppy than we wanted to represent a sound as distinctive as Cuba. It seems like we're getting about a 70/30 awesome to crappy mix so far, which now that we think about it, is probably far better than anything else we've done.

Get ready for some pork sammie eatin', cigar smokin', can goods stock pilin', embargo survivin', lifelong president and his crazy brother havin', antique car drivin' entertainment. Enjoy!

Click on "Audio Real en Internet" on the right hand side of the page.



Also, here's some gay Cuban radio soap opera info. Sounds sketchy? It's not!


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18 October 2010

Kazakhstan - Amazing Алматы

Like tattoo magazines or Scottish accents, that station from The Gambia was initially fascinating and engaging, but quickly fizzled out, and ultimately ended up being annoying.

Enough with the adverbs, let's move on to Kazakhstan.

Ok, so we know you’re pretty much all thinking about Borat, but let's see what else Kazakhstan has to offer – beyond comic fodder. 

If you weren't before, you are now...

Because it’s the largest land-locked country in the world with vast resources and few good rivers, trade has and always will be a bitch in Kazakhstan. This leaves them vulnerable to the influence of more powerful neighbors (i.e. Russia.) Sure, you can build a lot of roads with all that oil money, but that’s when the prices are good.

Did you know that the folks who lived there are thought to have been the first to domesticate the horse? Cool, huh?

Like pretty much everyone else in that part of the world, they ended up being Russia's bitch for most of the 20th century, finally declaring independence at the end of '91. At that point they were the last Soviet state to do so.

Former Soviet states... Kazakhstan is #6.

Man-o-man, is it a big country, and man-o-man, is it a corrupt one. Currently, Kazakhstan is run by a nutjob kleoptocratic autocrat now, who's rumored to have squirreled away over a billion dollars in foreign accounts. Whoa. That’s like, for lack of a better term, a lot of money.

Ok, what else... Hurm. In addition to oil, they're big in the agriculture field, too (no pun intended.) John Deere and Caterpillar were doing pretty brisk business over there before the financial crisis hit. They like that dependable American machinery, and with land comparable to the Dakotas, they perform well there. They're a HUGE wheat exporter, and it's pretty wild watching them get drawn into the grain cartel that Russia is trying to build with them and Ukraine right now. Scary stuff. Grain is totally the new oil.


So, today we're tuning in to a station based out of Almaty - or Алматы - which means "full of apples." How quaint! Kazakhstan sounds so hearty with all of those tractors and apples. Алматы is a large city of almost 1.5 million folks living a stone's throw from the Kyrgyzstani boarder - but Kyrgyzstan is a whole other kettle of fish that we'll fry up later.


See? Apples!

So, for today, just click that little play button, or you can download the RealPlayer thing by clicking that link in the line above the play button. This station is probably gonna be all awful Russian pop, but Pinky couldn't find a nice authentic old school one, so you can blame your misery on him. Whatever! Bye!



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15 October 2010

The Gambia - Killa Kololi

Well, our little trip to Micronesia didn't work out so well when the station went dark at midnight, huh? Time zones are so annoying. It sucks 'cause that was a pretty rad station. You ought toeck it out again another time. Pinky ended up having streaming problems (the radio, not prostate cancer) and gave up on streaming the previous day's show and just went back to that awesome Namibian station we heard recently.

Since some of us are already in Africa, how about if we just go ahead and ride up to The Gambia for today's trip.

Oooooo, tropical!

It's Africa's tiniest country at only 4,000 square miles. That's even smaller than Jamaica, which is pretty small. One time, Pinky rode a bus clear across Jamaica in a single afternoon. The driver blared Celine Dion the whole way and had coke spoon fingernails. Great hair though. 

Gambia's identity is dependent upon the river that runs through it. The tiny nation is literally built on the banks of the Gambia River. At the widest point, the country is still less than 30 miles wide. 



That river's brought them a lot of pain, though. Being nice and deep, (not to mention the only river in West Africa navigable by ocean-going vessels) the Brits were able to sail right in and set up a slave trade. In the end about 3 million people were forced into slavery. Their population today is less than 2 million. Woah. 

The current president Yahya Jammeh said that The Gambia "is one of the oldest and biggest countries in Africa that was reduced to a small snake by the British government who sold all our lands to the French." Ouch. 

Yahya Jammeh looks like he means business...

They've had a pretty stable democracy ever since independence, except for a coup attempt in the mid-90's.

Let's tune in and take a listen. They're supposed to be well-known in Western Africa for their exceptional music and dance. And, if this DJ ever shuts up, maybe we'll get to hear some tunes. 

Once you open the page, it will automatically start streaming... get ready!



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14 October 2010

Micronesia - Y-Y-Y-Yap, Y'all!

Good morning, weary world travelers! We hope your day of respite was refreshing. But, as is the case so often, we're itching to go! As much as we hate to make you do it, it's time to put your anti-embolism socks back on, creatively fold yourself in that coach seat, plug in your headphones, and drink yourself into mile-high oblivion. Wait. That sounds kinda nice...

So our little trip to Olomouc in the Czech Republic had some regional stuff but turned out to be mainly global pop. If we hear that damn "Wave Your Flag" or Shakira's "Waka Waka" Africa song one more time we're going to launch net guns at them. Argh.

Let's head out to Oceania today and visit Micronesia (the Federated States of)!

First, let's get oriented. This is where we're going today (or is it tomorrow?). Yap Island is way the fuck out there, huh?



Although it looks like paradise, Micronesia holds some haunting nuclear secrets. The US conducted dozens of nuclear tests there with little regard to the inhabitants. Former Secretary of the State Henry Kissinger even said, “There are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?” Yikes.

And, here he is macin' on Sarah Palin. 'Nuff said.

Imagine little kids playing in three inches of falling radioactive dust thinking that it's miracle snow. Yeah, that happened. Picture entire islands vaporized. Yup, that happened. Look up "jellyfish babies." They are writhing masses of shapeless tissue that come out of the womb, breathe for a minute or two, and are quickly buried in shame. That happened, too. While we've detonated far more nuclear test bombs within the confines of our own domestic interior, we've got a pretty big expanse of land that just ain't available to these folks. They do, in fact, live on islands (ya know, those small bits of confined land thrust up in the middle thousands of miles of water?).

Annnnnnnyway. A handful of Warren Wilson kids went to Micronesia through the WorldWide program a couple of years ago. We're not sure what islands they were on though and they can tell their stories far better than we can. The only thing we know for sure is that it's damn pretty!

Is this real life? Daaaaang.

OK, let's forget about the crimes of our forefathers for a few moments here and tune in and see what Micronesia sounds like today. There's some pretty great tribal chanting interspersed through the playlist.





Aw crap. They went off the air at midnight. Well this is just the pits. Ummm... Well. there're some archived shows you can listen to as well. Just click the links right below the listen live button thing. Sorry, folks!



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13 October 2010

JET LAG!

Oooo, y'all. We have some serious jet lag today. We think it's because we've been wearing those anti-embolism socks for way too long. We'll hit the road again tomorrow, we pinky swear!

In the mean time, feel free to revisit any of our illustrious radio stations or take a day to figure out just exactly what the hell time zone you're in.


Betcha didn't know that Ellen travels exclusively by Segway, even after the Segway guy died by driving his off a cliff. We repeat: OFF A CLIFF. Those things are bona fide death machines!

Any who... Have fun, ya dingos!



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12 October 2010

Czech Republic - An Ode to Olomouc


We kinda liked that Azerbaijani station. There was a lot of DJ chatter, but their inflection and cadence weren't over the top, so it wasn't too annoying. 

How'd you like it when they played MJ? He really did belong to the world... sigh.

Today let's head to Olomouc, Czech Republic! Kesi and Pinky fell head over heels for this little college town a few months back. They saw a wedding, hung out in college bars, saw an anticlimactic clock, made Brataslavan friends with a strange hobby, bought flowers, got some stockings, drank plum moonshine in the back of an accordion repair shop, ate raw beef, salivated over the ironwork, gave a 15-year-old girl a self-esteem boost, and so much more. If you're in the area, make it a priority to visit. Isn't the town crest totally rad?


Here are some pictures stolen from Kesi's blog to give you a feel for Olomouc.


Brass model of the town in the city center.


Astronomical Clock - keeping time and track of everything.


Pinky wistfully staring at a wooden accordion player outside the accordion repair shop.


Pinky and Kesi drinking plum brandy in the accordion repair shop's back room. 

They had such an amazing trip that we are going to try to relive their trip vicariously through the power of internet radio. This station will probably play lots of crappy top 40 stuff, but to hear the regional pop you gotta wade through the American stuff. We're the most dominant entertainment culture in the world and it's hard to escape it. 

Strap on your accordion, grab your favorite wool coat and scarf, and have fun in the Czech Republic!


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11 October 2010

Azerbaijan - Blaring from Baku

So, that Chile station was pretty meh, eh? There sure were a lot of accordions – which we love, don’t get us wrong – but it was so early in the morning!

Howsabout we head over to the politically seething Caucasus where the next world conflict is most likely to occur. Let's stay out of Russia for the time being. Also, Pinky is feeling kinda passive-aggressive against Georgia right now because he drank some crappy Georgian wine a week or two ago which was probably his own damn fault for automatically buying it because it was the slightest bit exotic even though he knew good and well that it was cheap wine (plus he’s a beer guy anyway), and we’re just gonna go ahead and stop this run-on sentence right here.

Moving on.

Want to do Azerbaijan today? Good! Us, too.

Although after WWI they established themselves as the first modern republic in the "Muslim World," granting women suffrage before the US and UK, Azerbaijan was invaded pretty quickly by the oil-hungry Soviets and ended up supplying a lot of the oil that Russia consumed in WWII.

Just to give you an idea of where in the world Azerbaijan is... right in the thick of the crazy.

All that oil has kind of defined what we think of Azerbaijan today. The area is so saturated with oil and natural gas that spontaneous fires erupt. This is simultaneously awesome and terrifying. Imagine walking your dog when SHAZAM! The park bursts into flames? Like we said: awesome and terrifying. During the Soviet period they definitely suffered through some extreme environmental degradation because of it, but there's a whole lot to offer here beyond liquefied dinosaurs. For example, there have been folks living there since the Stone Age! There's even a village that's been inhabited for 5,000 years! It's called Khinalug (Ketsh Khalkh as locals call it) and you definitely need to check it out:




PS: we'd totally live here for 5,000 years!

Let's head over to Baku - the capital city nestled on the coast of the Caspian Sea (more like PRINCE Caspian Sea) - and see what's emerged from all those ancient cultures and empires and forgotten names. 

Baku is the largest city and port in all of Azerbaijan and all of the Caucasus! Also, it's nightlife is supposed to be pretty hoppin'.

Seems like there might be a good bit of DJ chatter on this station, but we'll see...

Click on one of the "__K" numbers at the top of the page to correspond to your internet speed.



Also, this station has a one-hour program that seems like it might be interesting. We LOVE the 1998 site design, especially the flames.

Just click on the "Yeni" icon in the left menu bar



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