Part of the reason I became interested in radio/podcasting is because of experiences I had listening to college radio stations as a kid growing up in rural Ohio. I would spend weekends with my dad, and his house was close enough to Cleveland to occasionally pick up radio broadcasts from WRUW, WUJC, and WCSB. I would stay up late into the night listening to a mixture of local programs (Lost in Thought in Tobacco and Psykick Dancehall were two of my favorites) and syndicated shows like Hearts of Space. The mixture of punk, electronic, experimental, and just plain strange sounds pouring from the speakers was completely new to me, and the polar opposite of what I heard on mainstream stations. I would tape snippets of these shows, attempt to decipher the mumblings of the DJ and write down the tracklistings, then carry these crumpled paper lists with me to the record store in search of new music.
Now that the Internets have invaded, it should theoretically be a lot easier to find new music. But I still miss the feeling of stumbling upon a particularly good radio show. Since we began our podcast, I’ve been looking around online for other shows that are in the spirit of the college radio programs of my youth.
So far, I’ve found one: Otic Radio, a podcast from the musical collective known as Cast Exotic Archives. Their playlists, arranged by style or mood, are a fantastic mixture of weird electronic post punk, droning space synth, and gnarly garage rock. There is no DJ to ID tracks, but each track played is clearly listed on a text file and can be downloaded directly. I’ve listened to one and a half podcasts from these guys, and I’m hooked. Hopefully more interesting alien sounds await in the far corners of the interwebs…
BLANKED AS ORDERED 
