Hi everyone.  Hope this blog finds you well.  I haven’t blogged in a long time.  I’ve been working hard and finishing up summer semester at American River College.  I have two more classes to go in the fall and then graduate with my AA in Business.  I have led a fantastic life, but there is only one thing in my lifetime I regretted not doing, and that was to get some sort of college degree.  I’ve spent the last 3 years working on this degree, while also working full time.  It isn’t easy going to school and working and raising a family, but it can be done.

As you all know, we had some issues with our streaming last week that left me very stressed out.  We tried a new bandwidth company, and the guy really sold me a bill of goods.  He fabricated a bogus company and guaranteed me good bandwidth, and I paid for 6 months worth of advance bandwidth.  But after five days of horrible streaming (I know all you experienced how choppy it was.), I asked for a refund, which he refused.  I am now out a lot of much needed cash, and will have to sue him to get my money back.  I don’t understand people these days.   There seems to be less and less integrity in business.  I hope this is not a glimpse of the business world to come.  We need to get back to a “my word is my bond” mentality and conduct business with grace and integrity.

I thought I’d start off this week with the beginning of my music industry story.  I’ve led a very colorful life and have many interesting music related stories to share.  I started in the music business when I was 18 years old, working for a management company in Hollywood.  They managed bands like Angel (Greg Guiffria) and Quiet Riot in the U.K.  From there I went over to ABC Records and worked as an assistant in the promotion department.

ABC Records was the coolest place to work, especially in the promotion department.  Many of the promotional staff went on to become some of the most influential record industry executives of the 80’s, including Johnny Barbis, who co-manages and is a lifetime friend to Elton John.  It was hilarious that around 10:00 or so, people would gravitate to the back parking lot, to smoke the cigarettes of their choosing.  (hand rolled or store bought).  I worked for a guy, Marvin Dean, who went on to be an indie promoter, as did I.  The atmosphere at ABC Records was unbelievably laid back, and nobody was tripping on anyone else.   It was all about the music, and at that time, we were breaking artists such as Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and on the RnB front, Rufus and Chaka Kahn were emerging.  Also, while I was working at ABC Records, we were breaking Poco and Steely Dan’s “FM” was released.  I was already a Steely Dan fan, but when “Aja” hit the airwaves, Steely Dan was elevated from chic cool to mass appeal.

I lived with my now husband in a little back house in Hollywood.   The living room was like a shack tacked on to the back of the house. The floor was literally just carpeting over the cement slab.  It was all wood and when we finally moved out, we did some wall repairs and found out much to my horror, that we had been sharing the house with way too many cockroaches. 

The bathroom, which was off the one bedroom, was exceptionally “different.”  It was painted a kind of forest green and featured a hidden toilet paper dispenser that popped out of the wall.  The rest of the place consisted of a little breakfast nook and a long kitchen, which I rarely was in because I didn’t cook.  My husband ended up adopting the stage name of JohnE Sandwich, because we lived on sandwiches for years.  We sure could conjure up a mean sandwich!

We adopted a little puppy named Nektar. (spelled and named after the English band, Nektar).  This 1970’s band was one of our favorites at the time.  They released a sensational album called, “Remember The Future,” a conceptual album about a blind boy who communicates with an extraterrestrial being.  I’m going to have to find the album in my collection and try to convert it to mp3 so that I can turn our classic rock fans onto this truly unforgettable classic rock gem.  Getting back to the dog, he was part spaniel, part retriever and he was smart as a whip!  We taught Nektar to close doors on voice command, and he was a frisbee champ.  Nektar went everywhere with us.

We lived in that little place for a few years.  The rent was $350 per month.  We were starting out our life together and in music.  We didn’t have a pot to pee in, but were very happy. Boy those were the days!!

Here is a picture of that little back house.  You can see all the wood and the bass bow hanging on the wall next to me and my puppy, Nektar. I am sitting on steps that led up to the bedroom.  Of course that is a king sized waterbed!

Nope, sorry, I can’t go through the week without voicing my own personal take on the American Idol finale results.  Is it just me, but didn’t Lee DeWyze look like a deer caught in the headlights through most of his performances?    Sure, his voice is pleasant, and I was enthralled with the incredible medley and performance with Chicago, but come on folks, he doesn’t have half the talent and star quality of Crystal Bowersox (lovingly referred to as Mama Sox.)  It is interesting that she was pinned with that nickname, presumably because she is a mother.  I did notice that she exhibits some of the persona and demeanor like another beloved music Mama – Mama Cass (but with half the berth).

Being a singer myself, I know the difficultness of the songs Crystal chose.  I challenge anyone to try singing Black Velvet and bringing the song home like Crystal did.  In the finale, her performance with Alanis Morissette was inspiring.  The only good thing that I can say about the results is that maybe, if we look back in history at previous Idol winners, being the runner up is actually a good thing.  Daughtry is a perfect example of an emerging and enduring star, who was not a winner.  Ruben Studdard is an example, in my opinion, of a past idol winner that just seems to be on permanent idle.

Finally, OMG – could we have done without the Simon tribute?  He has about as much warmth as a frozen tundra.  Also, the fake adoration from Paula to Simon was close to making me hurl.  I guess you could consider it a true love-hate relationship between them.  But do we have to witness it in prime time TV?  Lastly, poor Ellen D.  She looked so lost and out of place with the creepy love fest that was going on between Paula and the AI judges.  Ellen, I still love you! 

A word from me to Lee DeWyze: Lee,  I’m taking a wait and see attitude with your future music career.  To Crystal Bowersox, I want to say that you had my vote all the way.  You are a class act, a gracious runner up and one hell of a talented young lady.  I can’t wait to play and promote your first record on GotRadio. 

(Major sigh of relief)….we got through our first week of re-launch, with I believe to be minimal casualties. I can’t thank everyone enough for all their comments and posts.   Putting up a brand new site is quite an undertaking.  And really it’s not the front end look and feel that is the hardest part; it is the million things that make the site work correctly on the back end that is so darn tricky.  Once again, my sincere thanks for everyone’s support.

One of the features that some of our loyal front door listeners were posting that they were missing was the fast forward feature. I’d like to take a moment to express my thoughts on this issue.  I really felt during the seven years that GotRadio was out there doing on demand radio (ability to fast forward), that nobody ever went out of their way to let us know that it was a feature that kept them coming back to GotRadio over other radio websites.  I actually got the feeling that most people weren’t even aware that fast forwarding through the songs was possible.  Also,  as a long time radio geek, I wasn’t satisfied with the amount of time it took for the songs to buffer up and play, so the song transitions sounded “clunky” to me.  The time between songs now is much tigher and the overall listener experience is much more satisfying to me. I also feel that if there is a constant need to fast forward, then we must not be choosing the songs that our listeners enjoy.  What the free GotRadio service is about is well programmed radio stations!  These should be stations that you want to put on in the background, while you work, surf, clean the house, party, play….and not have to mess with it.  For those listeners that really want to dig in and customize their listening sessions, we very much intend to re-launch our membership.  We have some really cool ideas that I believe will blow P@nd0r@ out of the water! We'll keep you informed as the new membership progresses. But if you just want to kick back and enjoy great channels of music, the free GotRadio service is where we want you to settle. 

Have a great weekend everyone. And remember…..It’s o.k. to be mad, but it’s never o.k. to be cruel.

Here’s a picture of my son, Sean,  who is also our new Todays Hits programmer  and our dog Parker.  This picture always makes me smile!

What a long strange trip it’s been into the realm of audio streaming. Can you believe it’s been 7 years since the launch of the first GotRadio.com website and player?  I’d say we have definitely come a very long way.  The first GotRadio player was a “skin” over the windows media player and as you see, it looks like it belongs in a spaceship.  Maybe it’s because we felt like we were launching into outer space when we first entered into the universe of online radio streaming.  On second thought,  the player looked like one of the first hand held gaming devices.   I think Gameboys were really big in 2003!

Well I guess you can say we scratched our seven year itch and are celebrating with a brand new GotRadio website launch. On the new GotRadio website, we’ve graduated from windows media streaming to Flash MP3 streaming.  The good news is that our wonderful MAC music lovers will now be able to enjoy all the features and music at GotRadio.  When we first started GotRadio, of course we had limited technical human resources, so I made the business decision to stream only in Windows Media, not Real Audio and not MP3.  As it turns out, boy was I wrong.  Not only has the percentage of Mac users gone through the roof ( I think the MAC users will eventually take over the world), but now we have Firefox and Chrome browsers that are overtaking good old Internet Explorer.  The new GotRadio website is thankfully cross browser and MAC compatible- Woo Hoo! 

I'd like to point out a cool new feature on the website.   We now display the top song in the channel each day, and you can actually start the stream with that song.  You will notice however, that the stream is no longer on-demand, which allowed you to fast forward to the next song.  The option to fast forward will now be offered only to our GotRadio Members.   We think that the song transitions now are much tighter and you will have a better radio listening experience with the flash /Mp3 streaming.

Justin and myself have had a great time building GotRadio into one of the largest independently owned and operated online streaming networks in the U.S.  (By the way, Justin is the chief architect and designer of GotRadio and 100hitz.) Justin is THA MAN behind the scenes – literally, making it all happen.  I am so thankful that we have not only remained partners all these years, but he’s my best friend as well.

Speaking of friends, that is how we think of all our GotRadio listeners and loyal GotRadio members.  You are our friends.  Let me give a big shout-out here to all our members!  Don’t dismay!  Once we get this new site rolling, we’ll be concentrating on our new membership offering.  (which of course will now also be Mac user friendly).    In order to access your membership, be sure to click on the mygotradio button at the top of the home page.

So my friends - welcome to the new GotRadio.  We sincerely hope you like where we’re headed and that you  continue to enjoy all the great music at GotRadio.  Until the next time…