Anna and Generic Insight Radio were one of the first shows I listed on Hardware Media & Radio but for some reason, I never fully followed up on it since. Anna’s show & playlists have come a long way and I’m glad to have done this interview. Check out the show at the links below and tune in every Wednesday from 10 pm-12 midnight - Dave K.
How, why and when did this show start?
Generic Insight Radio began this past February of 2006. I’ve wanted to do a radio show since I was 14 years old, especially since my first major exposure to punk rock and hardcore music was through college radio. I didn’t have the Internet back then so I actually had to spend my nights adjusting the antenna on my radio, since all the college stations were on the low end of the FM dial. I would listen to radio shows such as Crucial Chaos (NYU’s classic hardcore show) and the Friday Night Frenzy (which was a weekly punk show broadcasted from the Jersey Shore… how I managed to get this station in Brooklyn, NY is still beyond me). I used to sit in my room and play music loud and pretend I was a DJ announcing bands. Anyway, to make a long story short, I discovered Winamp’s SHOUTcast site about a year ago but didn’t have a clue how to make my own show, until I finally found a server to host a SHOUTcast radio show on. Basically, since I know and listen to a lot of bands (and have not been able to get my own show at any college radio stations) I wanted a show to finally fulfill my dream of being a radio DJ and also be able to expose people to smaller or unsigned bands they might have never heard, along with the big bands they already know.
Have you been involved in anything else punk/hardcore related (bands/fanzines/show promotion)?
Yes. The name of my show “Generic Insight” actually was first a fanzine I did when I was in high school. The zine was very short lived (as in, I only put out one issue) but I always liked the name, so I kept it when I decided to do my radio show. I also briefly wrote for another friend’s zine in high school, called “You’re Wondering Now” doing reviews and interviews with bands. Some other friends of mine had a webzine a few years ago entitled “Eat.Sleep.Repeat” which I did some show reviews for, but that’s it as far as my punk/hardcore journalistic endeavors went. I also have done a TON of show promotions - I used to help promote shows at The Temple, a DIY run venue out of my hometown of Brooklyn, NY for a few years before it got shut down in 2003. And in 2004, I worked for The Street Syndicate, doing street marketing and promotions - they’re a pretty big music promotions company, and they manage some big bands like Thursday and Stretch Arm Strong. So I’m no stranger to doing stuff for the punk and hardcore scenes. Promotion and marketing is actually what I hope to go into as a career one day.
Why a punk and hardcore music radio show?
Punk and hardcore have been my favorite genres of music since I was 12. I got into them in the typical “I found punk rock because I didn’t fit in anywhere else” fashion, but it was the truth. Punk rock and hardcore taught me it was okay to be an individual, and not give a shit about what anyone else thinks. So I owe a great deal of me turning into the person I am today, thanks to the bands I grew up listening to. Because these are my favorite music styles, its what makes up most of my music collection, and its the types of bands I go see most often, so it just seems natural for me to want to play this music on my show.
How do you decide what to play?
My weekly playlist depends entirely on three things: 1) whatever I’ve been listening to a lot of lately, 2) listener requests, and 3) me browsing through my music files and just adding random mp3’s I feel like playing. I try to mix it up as much as possible and have a varied flow - sometimes I’ll have say, a strictly punk block or a strictly hardcore block, or a block of specific artists. But I try not to keep it all restricted to one style. So if you listen to my show, its not uncommon to hear Bad Religion followed by Cursive followed by Minor Threat followed by New Found Glory followed by Sense Field, etc. As far as requests go, I’m not picky. If someone wants to hear something I don’t have on my computer, I’ll download it and play it for that person. Also, I try and not repeat the same artists week after week, so I regularly write my playlists on the show’s Myspace page blog to use as a reference when I make each week’s playlist.
What do the other DJ’s on your station think of your show?
What station? Haha. The show is done on my computer, out of my
house, so I’m the only DJ at this “station” – but I still live at home,
and my family thinks it’s a riot. My mom doesn’t quite understand the
whole thing and my brother laughs at me every week when he hears me
talking into the mic introducing a song or whatever.
What kind of set
up for broadcasting do you have at your disposal?
Well, as I said before, my show is run entirely on Winamp SHOUTcast software. I have a server set up on a SHOUTcast server site called serverroom.us, and a computer mic that I keep plugged in at all times to talk in between songs. The way I broadcast is I open my Winamp, have the playlist ready to go, connect to the server via the SHOUTcast plug-in, and then once it’s connected, I’m good to go. I also use a recording program called Audacity to record my shows, and most of the time I have mp3 recordings of the show available to download or stream at the show’s archive site.
What media do you prefer on your show (vinyl, CD, mp3, etc)?
CD and mp3 files only, though I do use m4a and wma files too since Winamp supports those formats. Vinyl, I can’t use since I don’t know how to use or even own a program that will allow me to rip vinyl to my computer.
We all know that the 1980’s was the best time for punk and hardcore in general. Now that we are more than halfway in the 00’s, what time period do you think is better: the 1990’s or the 00’s?
Wow, this is a tough question. I’m only two months shy of turning 25, so if you do the math, obviously I’d be lying if I said I was punk during the 80’s, haha. I grew up in the era of 90’s punk and hardcore, but I’m at a disadvantage because I didn’t start going to shows until 1999 – I was 17 then, even though I was into the music since I was 12. I don’t know what the shows were like prior to the end of the decade, so I can only report on the live show scene from 1999 until now. Musically though, with a couple of exceptions, almost all of the bands I consider to be my all-time favorites were bands that are considered staples of the 1990’s – Strung Out and H2O are my two favorite bands ever, and my other top all-time favorites list includes Lifetime, Avail, Kid Dynamite, Bad Religion, Snapcase, Quicksand, Texas Is The Reason and Sense Field – all bands that I got into in, and either were around in or have been around since the 90’s. More recently, two bands from this decade have struck a chord with me to the point where both bands have lyrics that are (and are going to be) tattooed on me – those bands being Down To Nothing, a straight edge hardcore band from Virginia who just signed with Revelation Records, and Marathon, a punk band from Rochester, NY who unfortunately just broke up a month ago. Down To Nothing is the band whose lyrics I have tattooed on me, and I’m planning on getting Marathon lyrics soon. Those two bands have meant a lot to me in the last couple of years and I obviously I would never have found out about them if I didn’t keep myself updated with the new music of this decade. I’m constantly going to shows and I’m constantly finding new bands that I love thanks to the Internet (which I didn’t have in the 90’s) and also through word of mouth. I think I’m going to go 50/50 for my answer to this one and say both time periods are equally great. Though most of the bands that have inspired me and that I still love to this day all are from the 1990’s, the 00’s have been when I started going to shows and since I’m still finding new music I love, this decade has been great as well. I know so many people that complain about the music of this decade sucking so they don’t listen to anything new, and I don’t blame them. But just keep looking and you’re bound to find something from this era that you like. The good, underground, REAL punk and hardcore is still there today - you just need to dig a little deeper for it.
What kind of reaction are you getting from broadcasting on-line? Any weird requests?
All my friends that have listened to my show so far think it’s awesome. A lot of them don’t even realize that I do it out of my basement (they think I actually broadcast from a studio!) From promotion through message boards and such, I have a few regular listeners that I’ve never met who keep listening every week, so I guess that means they like it! As for weird requests, I get those all the time, most of it jokingly but sometimes serious. Once a friend requested to hear Bon Jovi, which I played even though they don’t really fit in with the overall music styles I normally play. Another friend once requested (as a joke… I think) to hear NOFX’s “The Decline”, which if you’ve ever heard that song, you know it’s like 18 minutes long, so it would take up too much air time. Occasionally I’ll play something that doesn’t fall in the punk, indie or hardcore categories, just to spice things up a bit. A couple times I’ve opened my show with random rap songs just to throw people off, haha.
Where do you think the future of Internet radio and podcasting is heading?
I think its definitely becoming more and more popular. It seems like
so many commercial/college radio stations are now streaming on the
Internet and whatnot, so I can only see it becoming bigger from here.
It’s way convenient to just turn on your computer, sign online and find
a radio show or station to listen to – I know it sure beats the hell
out of finding static on an FM or AM dial. So for its future, I can
only see it getting bigger and brighter.
What are your favorite
internet radio shows/podcasts that you listen to regularly?
Most of the Internet radio shows I listen to are my friends’ shows, so don’t mind me as I do some plugging, hehe. Blacktop Memories is a (mostly indie/emo though they do play some punk and hardcore) radio show run by my good friend Jessica and her friend Becca, they run it from the Rutgers University radio station on Saturday afternoons. Check that out at myspace.com/blacktopmemories – it streams online and the link is there. All of my friends’ radio shows I have linked at Generic Insight Radio’s Myspace page so check that for some more links. As for shows/stations that are done by people I don’t know personally, Punkradiocast.com has some awesome shows that I tune in to from time to time. Radiobeat Radio, which I think you have linked here on the site, is a great weekly hardcore show based out of Boston. The only Podcast I listen to regularly is called Issue Oriented, which is hosted by Ronen Kaufman, who sings for Zombie Apocalypse and used to sing for NJ hardcore stalwarts try.fail.try back in the day. His podcast is basically him ranting and raving about random stuff, mostly what’s on his mind in music and politics. Check that out at www.issueoriented.com, I think there’s a new episode monthly.
Any advice for the up and coming internet radio DJ?
Sure. First of all, if you really want to have a radio show or station online and you don’t know how to do it, don’t give up. It took me a year but I finally figured out how to do it. For live broadcasting, if you use Winamp, SHOUTcast is the easiest way to go – just go to shoutcast.com and download the software, and read how it works. I suggest serverroom.us to use for server space, though there are others out there as well. Make sure you have a computer mic or headset with a mic – its more interesting to your listener to hear someone talking or telling jokes or whatever between songs; otherwise, it’s just like you made a playlist of your own music to listen to and that’s boring. If you use iTunes, you might want to look into Podcasting instead of SHOUTcast. If you want to record your shows, use a program like Audacity or Adobe Audition, both great audio recording programs. The last piece of advice I have is this – sometimes servers (I know serverroom ones have this ability, not sure about others) show the number of listeners you have when you’re broadcasting live. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have a lot of listeners at first or even after a while. If you want to get a decent amount of people listening, then PROMOTE YOUR SHOW! Tell your friends, post on message boards, do band interviews, make flyers and stickers to hand out at shows, etc. Get the word out – people won’t listen if they don’t know about your show or station. If you don’t care about the number of people listening, then you don’t need to do all that, but the main thing is just try and have fun. I love having my show week after week regardless if I have 4 listeners or 40. It’s fun for me, which is the main reason why I do it.
Website: http://www.myspace.com/genericinsightradio
Some archives and interviews: http://www.worlds-attack.org/genericinsightradio