xx From RadioHorizon.com: "For years, 'The Pig,' one of the last great independent-minded radio stations in the country, has been buying comedy commercials from two companies that produce them nationally. "But who knew that the wacky fake breaks would help keep the station streaming on the Web, while those around it are silent? "The Pig never missed a minute, working out a system to drop the nationally aired slots off the Web, and having already subscribed to the entertaining fake promos. (There's) "a commercial for the Jehovah's Witness Protection Plan, the best way to get people never to find you or talk to you again. Later, there's one for the Swiss Army Remote Control, and then those stores at Gargantuan Mall, like Melinda's body stapling, which makes piercing passé by stapling Social Security cards to your chest. And then another for the Second Hand Food Shop, serving leftovers first." Read this piece here. xx

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BY RALPH SLEDGE
I don't want to start off on a bad foot here: I like NPR stations a lot, but they can be, in a way, the Houston's Restaurant of Radio Stations: nice, seemingly high class, but most places you go, they're pretty much the same. Things might be shuffled around a bit, but all that it means is that you hear "All Things Considered" at 8:00 instead of 9:00.

When I first hit the KCRW web page, then, I was a little confused. I had my expectations, and KCRW didn't fit them. Indeed, for a while, I thought that I had made a mistake, that KCRW was not a public radio station after all. It was simply too bizarrely wonderful and different.

After a bit of exploration, I discovered that I was initially correct. According to the "About KCRW" page, the station is "National Public Radio's Southern California flagship..." It is not, however, the same NPR you'll hear in Montana.

Like most NPR stations, the programming itself is fairly eclectic, and KCRW is more eclectic than most. And proud of it. This pride becomes evident quickly, with the more popular shows being "Morning Becomes Eclectic," and also "Sounds Eclectic" which is a 2-hour best-of "Morning Becomes Eclectic."

That's not to say, though, that the station is merely a hodgepodge of random music done college-radio style. On the contrary, the station somehow seems to have a very good idea of who and what it is. What it is, is Public Radio done LA style -- but in a good way. Not so much of the usual Garrison Keillor or Klick n' Klack, but a bit more of shows like "Chocolate City" and "Dragnet," which is apparently a "musical lineup of criminally overlooked tunes."

And, like most NPR stations, KCRW has a pretty good arsenal of news feeds. They claim to carry shows and segments from PRI, the BBC and NPR, and they produce a fair number of original news, commentary and talk programs themselves.

How all of this comes together on the KCRW web page is a beautiful thing. They have three streams you can listen to: a simulcast (i.e. you hear what's being aired), a music-only stream and a talk-only stream. Of course, the music-only and talk-only streams are delayed a bit, but it's still a remarkably nice feature to have, and a fairly unique one at that. Many of KCRW's original shows are archived as well, although in a lower bitrate than the live streams.

The page itself has all the elements to make a reviewer happy: It has schedules, show information and station information all in easy reach, all in a well-designed setting. The semi-modernistic style of the page might get a little confusing from time to time, but it's not much of a learning curve, as the pages generally stay consistent in style and form.

At the time of this writing, KCRW seemed to be having some problems with some of their RealAudio streams. I could access most of the archives, but the live bits would come and go: I'm not sure if this was our fault or theirs, though generally speaking we don't have problems will RealAudio (no problems were noted with the WindowsMedia stream). Still, it's a pretty minor gripe: KCRW is more than worth the attempt. The station itself seems to be a unique creation amongst a lot of cookie-cutter-cutouts.

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From the Wall Street Journal: "Several major record companies, widening their fight to control use of their music online, sued two Internet firms for alleged copyright violations.

"The suits, filed in federal court in New York City, were brought against Aimster, a music-sharing Web service with similarities to song-swapping service Napster Inc., and Launch Media Inc., an online music company in Santa Monica, Calif., that offers radio-style Web broadcasts...

"Aimster, of Troy, N.Y., offers software that works with the 'instant messaging' product provided by AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online Internet service, and allows users to swap music and movie files and the like...

"Launch has in the past tried to cooperate with some labels. The suit says the labels' copyrights are being infringed by the Launchcast service, which lets users influence what they hear in streamed Webcasts. In their suit, the labels contend that because consumers can influence what tunes they hear, Launch needed permission to use their songs in the service."

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