Testing 1-2-3-4… Is there anybody out there?

We've got some catching up to do. It's been about a year
since the last official Musical Justice newsletter hit the streets.
This one comes with what I hope you'll think is exciting news.
On June 29th, Musical Justice will be launching a new station with
improved CD-quality sound for all the listeners out there with high-
speed connections. For those of you with dial-up connections, the
old low-bandwidth version will still be out there too, giving
listeners a choice that I've been debating for awhile.

You see, over the past year I was teetering on the brink of pulling
the plug on the station several times. I'd tried several things
to grow the listener base and nothing seemed to increase it, so
I'd begun to question the time and expense of it all. After
all, the whole goal was to expose as many people as possible to the
music I love and sometimes it seems like if you aren't moving
forward, you're losing ground.

But I started to get a second wind last fall, when I read a great
article in Paste Magazine on the amazingly underappreciated
Cincinnati band, Over The Rhine. In the article, Linford Detweiler
says "I want to be in a band because there are records that I
feel like I almost couldn't survive without. And you think,
`If I could do that for one other person, then this is
great.'" Hmmmmm, I thought…

Then I started to get some real momentum this spring during my annual
trip to Austin for South By Southwest. I was down there with a big
group of close friends and saw so many great acts including Richard
Buckner, Patty Griffin, and the Old 97's, but the highlight was
seeing Marah tear up the legendary Continental Club. Then as if to
prove that set wasn't a fluke, a couple weeks later they had an
even better show at the tiny Replay Lounge in Lawrence, KS. It was
the best show I've ever seen and all for a $2 cover. Are you
kidding me? Two bucks?

A few weeks later, Matthew Ryan came to Kansas City. He recognized
me immediately and asked how the station was going and we talked
music and had a few drinks after his set. I've been pretty lucky
to get a lot of quality "hangin' out" time with Matthew
and Marah lately. Their talent is obviously every time you hear
them, but what you don't get on the CD is how down-to-earth and
authentic they are. They put themselves on the line every day for
their music. Their passion and intensity for what they do
jumpstarted mine and got me excited about doing this again.

So, the new station launches on the 29th. That date was chosen
because it's also the release date for the new Marah CD,
"20,000 Streets Under The Sky". Trust me on this one, go out
and buy that CD right away! In preparation for the upgrade, I'm
in the lengthy process of rebuilding the MP3 song library from the
ground up, converting about 2000 CDs into high quality MP3Pro files.
If you are a VIP listener on Live365, you'll get CD-quality sound
after the switchover. But that's also good news for Musical
Justice AM listeners too, as I'm re-ripping those files too to
take advantage of upgraded equipment and better software.

Anyway, a little more about the new station… I felt like Musical
Justice had lost its edge over the past year by trying to mix in some
more popular music like Norah Jones or Tom Petty to bring in
listeners and get more exposure for the other acts on the playlist.
It didn't work out that way. I'm skipping that stuff as I
redo the song library and playlists so that it doesn't even get
on the air as an accident. The new Musical Justice is going to be
repositioned at the intersection of No Depression, Little
Steven's Underground Garage and my favorite college radio
station, 97-X in Oxford, Ohio. That means a lot more music from the
Pixies and the Replacements and a lot less Norah Jones and Sheryl
Crow. We're still gonna twang but I think its gonna rock a LOT
harder too. You may have already noticed some movement in that
direction. In addition, we've added about 50% more disk space to
our Live365 account which means our active playlists will be 50%
larger and have a lot more variety.

Oh and one more important piece of information… on the 29th, the
high-speed webcast will take over at the current address,
http://www.live365.com/stations/39801. That means that if you are a
low-bandwidth listener, you'll find the old station at a new
location. Its moving to
http://www.live365.com/stations/musicaljustice.

Hope you'll be listening! Let me know what you think of the
changes...

Jeff