Blog: Radio Exile

( Picture Courtesy of the Incomparable Shaun Bryant ) Nobby always gets the last word. See what he had to say "after the jump" 010100000110010101100001011000 110110010100100000011011110111 010101110100001011000010000001 110111011001010010000001110111 011010010110110001101100001000 000110110101101001011100110111 001100100000011110010110111101 110101001000000110000101101100 0110110000101110 http://radioexile.com/wordpres s/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/A dios_RadioExile1-e130889658522 0-120�120.jpg http://radioexile.com/wordpres s/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/A dios_RadioExile1-e130889658522 0-500�250.jpg

Why did I ask everyone back for one more week of posts? Why didn't I just stop when I decided it was time to be done with it? Frankly, I didn't want Radio Exile to vanish from the world like so many other sites have in the past. I didn't want people waiting for another update, confused why I hadn't updated in a week. Or a month. Or a year. Over the last month, I realized I was ready to move on, but damn it, I tried to make a run at it one [...]

The following is a piece from the man who hired me at Inside Pulse Music, Matthew Michaels "You know what 411 needs, Widro? A music site." This may or may not have been what I sent via IM to our fearless BOSS on a fateful night in the summer of 2002, but let the record show that there was SOME sort of conversation, and 411 WAS expanding beyond it's original subject matter, and I DID eventually join the staff to write about music. It began with a recap [...]

I haven’t written anything on Radio Exile (or Broken Dial, as it was known then) since 2007. I realized that when Shawn informed me that the site would be closing down. People don’t think about websites dying. We think these things will be staffed forever by fervent volunteers, never wavered by the realities of time and life and changing priorities. From what I understand, Radio Exile is going away not because of frustration or anger, but because the writers of the site wish to move onto other priorities. Their lives have changed. If you’ve paid attention to the site [...]

How do you write a eulogy to an inanimate, intangible stored batch of 1’s and 0’s that was the only fair-weather friend that never complained and didn’t make me feel guilty? Radio Exile (and the precursory rendition Broken Dial) gave me an opportunity to have my somewhat off-kilter opinions displayed for the world. How many people get to do that? I do want to offer a post-mortem apology to my old buddy Nobby for not staying as committed as I promised I would. If I had only had the time… Read more from Salty [...]

At the time, I loved writing for Spin online content, but the gig was becoming suffocating in the sense that corporate edits were bringing me down. Thanks to an employment encounter with Shawn Smith, Broken Dial became the perfect springboard for my ideas, and ultimately, to strengthen my craft. A clean slate, as it were, to write whatever the hell I wanted. It was quite liberating, and true freedom of the press. That was 2007, and here were are four years later, mourning the closure of its successor, Radio Exile. A number of articles [...]

I’ve hemmed and hawed a lot in writing this swan song. I’ve spent the last week trying to mentally articulate a proper goodbye to Radio Exile. I’ve kept coming back to instances and occurrences that concluded with “that never would have happened if I hadn’t written for RE.” So, rather than go on and on about how much music and writing mean to me, I instead present you with my “This is How Radio Exile Has Made My Life Awesome” essay. What did Holly remember most fondly about her time with Radio Exile? Check it [...]

At a critical moment in the movie “Airheads” (I feel I’ve admitted so much in the first eight words) the band plotting to take over the local rock radio station with toy guns is offered an opportunity to deliver its message, unhindered, over the airwaves. One of the Lone Rangers (I can’t remember if it was Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler, or Steve Buscemi) grabs the mic and yells “rock ‘n’ roll!” There is an ounce of that foolishness, or more, in every attempt at self-expression. All of us hijack something to communicate something that has been communicated [...]

I opened the lonely door to the building that is Radio Exile World Headquarters and, with a measure of slow regret, climbed the creaky stairs to Shawn M Smith’s office on the top floor. I hadn’t been here in some time but nothing much physical had changed. I paused outside his door and looked left, then right. The wood was as worn as ever, the framed photo of Jeff Buckley listed to the left as always, and the water-stained ceiling remained stained. My three sharp raps on the door where quickly followed [...]

Broken Dial/Radio Exile is always with me and is not simply made up of brief memories that can be randomly triggered by a snippet of an album I loved at the time or a narcasstic Google search, which always digs up more embarrassing stuff then you would ever want to find. I remember our website constantly not only because it was a fantastic experience in which I met some great people, but because it plays a key role in a story that I will most likely be telling for the rest of my life: how I met my best friend, [...]

After much deliberation over the past two months (and weeks of back-and-forth decision making), I have decided to shutter the doors on Radio Exile effective this Friday, June 24th. For almost seven years, I have been gifted with the privilege of working with some of the most spectacular writers and human beings, first at Inside Pulse Music, before I was given my own "indie" site in 2006 - Broken Dial which was later renamed Radio Exile. We've fought some really hard battles against jerk managers and publicists while remain staunch in our belief that what we say [...]

On August 2nd, Collections of Colonies of Bees will release GIVING via Hometapes. The release is the first we're hearing from the band since the Milwaukee six-piece worked with on Volcano Choir with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. These Wisconsin post-rock redeemers return for their first album since 20082s brilliant Birds with GIVING , their Hometapes debut and their last album with drummer Jon Mueller. http://radioexile.com/wordpres s/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/P icture-1-e1307557878677-500�25 0.png [...]

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When a group takes the risk of combining sound and vocal styling that initially seem to be polar opposites, it often threatens to make the compilation a “tale of two albums”-the best of songs and the worst of songs. However, on rare occasions, the risk pays off when the yin-yang concept gives the album added depth and diversity thematically and the unique and, at times, competing sounds complement each other in a way that elevates the album to new heights like Fleetwood Mac did with Rumors and Buried Beds does with their second studio album Tremble the [...]

A series of names come to mind upon listening to Little Scream’s The Golden Record ; names like Pink Floyd, the Cranberries, Kings of Leon, the Beach Boys, Sigur Ros and more. Each song has a completely different feel and genre to it and this band band has the cajones to not sound like everybody else when we live in a Z100 music era. Every time you think you can categorize them, they break out another instrument, sound, noise, vocal ability that alters their genre. Who are you Little Scream? You’re [...]

This week on Dirty Laundry, Malia sits down with Nashville's favorite band of brothers Jeff The Brotherhood before their set at the Echo in LA. (Note: Malia is still SUPER effing hot.) Check it out "after the jump" http://radioexile.com/wordpres s/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/P icture-12-e1306506087483-500�2 50.png http://radioexile.com/wordpres s/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/1 02-e1306506190960-120�120.jpg

Well, Apple isn't always perfect, it seems. News from the web indicates that iTunes is the source of an unintentional leak of Bon Iver’s self-titled new album a full month before the official release date. Evidently a handful of incredibly savvy iTunes customers were clickety-clicking around the service and noticed that the album was available there. They quickly grabbed the record before it was pulled down and it's now all over the web. Rumors abound, but it appears that the service was preparing to offer the first single, "Calgary," on the site and [...]

Vancouver-based indie-rockers The Ruffled Feathers have me in a tizzy with their latest video. The band set about writing, directing and filming a cinematic musical with next to no money and have now present for the world this amazing clip, "Blueprints For Our Failed Revolution." I say, bravo. Seriously. Everyone needs to save their money and "buck up" and get it done themselves these days. The single here is from their upcoming full-length album and the band are giving away a free single on their Bandcamp page . So what [...]

Check out a fine tune and video for So Cal’s indietronic brother duo White Apple Tree . “Circles" is the first single from their upcoming full length album Smooth Jaws (37 Records). Check out the video "after the jump" http://radioexile.com/wordpres s/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/P icture-11-e1305699945924-500�2 50.png http://radioexile.com/wordpres s/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/P icture-11-e1305699945924-120�1 20.png

In two weeks time, one of the greatest artists of the 20th century will celebrate a major milestone. On his 70th birthday, Bob Dylan will have already outlived many of his contemporaries (Jerry Garcia, George Harrison), but the man continues to produce amazing work that truly illustrates his influence on generations. The father of modern rock, pop and folk will soon step into his 7th decade of life, and what better way than to share our favorite Dylan records. These are the ones that if you don't own, you should. Is there really any better way [...]