SomaFM is one of the largest American music radio stations available only through the Internet . The radio station operates from the founder's garage, Rusty Hodge, in San Francisco . The repertoire of the radio station is downtempo -style music, chill-out and ambient .
History
Rusty Hodge began broadcasting as a pirate radio station at the Burning Man Music Festival in 1999 . After receiving a lot of good reviews, upon his return to San Francisco, he launched an online broadcast of the station’s first channel - Drone Zone. The radio station was named after the San Francisco area of South of Market, and the drug “catfish” from Huxley ’s novel “ Brave New World ”. From the very beginning, Rusty Hodge emphasized that the station operates on a non-commercial basis, and to this day there is no advertising on SomaFM channels: Hodge and his assistants work on the broadcast voluntarily, as well as through donations from listeners.
In 2002 , the DMCA Act came into force in the United States, which allowed the American Recording Association to collect royalties from online radio stations for broadcasting each track, which, according to Hodge, was supposed to bankrupt the station. SomaFM ceased broadcasting in June 2002. Rusty Hodge organized a campaign to lobby for amendments to the DMCA law through local senators , and for some time considered the possibility of broadcasting from servers in other countries - including Russia . However, following Hodge’s testimony in the U.S. Congress , amendments to the DMCA Act were passed, allowing small Internet radio stations to resume broadcasting from the United States.
Channels
As of 2012 , the Internet radio station SomaFM broadcasts in various musical genres on 24 channels:
- Dub Step Beyond is a dubstep , dub and electronic music channel dominated by low frequencies.
- Groove Salad is the most popular SomaFM channel (the second most popular), broadcasting mainly downtempo and lounge music.
- Suburbs of Goa - a channel that broadcasts a lounge and a chillout with a bias in Asian and Indian ethnic music.
- Lush - a channel that broadcasts a light, mostly vocal lounge and chillout .
- Space Station Soma - a channel broadcasting " space " ambient .
- Indie pop rocks - channel broadcasting indie pop and indie rock .
- Digitalis is a channel broadcasting light electronic post-rock .
- PopTron! - A channel broadcasting electronic pop music .
- BAGeL Radio is a channel broadcasting alternative rock music .
- Covers - a channel that broadcasts cover versions of various popular compositions
- Secret Agent - a channel broadcasting downtempo, nu-jazz and chillout compositions on the "spy" theme.
- Boot Liquor is a channel that broadcasts classic American country music and rockabilly .
- Sonic Universe is a channel broadcasting nu-jazz , fusion and avant-garde jazz trends.
- Illinois Street Lounge - a channel that broadcasts Latin American jazz and a classic "lobby" lounge .
- Drone Zone is the very first SomaFM live broadcast channel.
- Mission Control - a channel that broadcasts old and new NASA broadcasts recorded on electronic ambient .
- сliqhop idm - channel broadcasting IDM and glitch .
- Underground 80s is a channel broadcasting British synth-pop of the early 1980s.
- Tag's Trip is a channel broadcasting progressive house and trance .
- Beat Blender - a channel that broadcasts downtempo , dub and jungle .
- Black Rock FM is a channel broadcasting music from the 2010 Burning Man festival.
- Doomed is a channel that broadcasts dark ambient and its varieties.
- South by Soma is a music channel featured at the South by Southwest Festival.
- SF 10-33 is a channel broadcasting San Francisco police / fire department radio transmissions recorded to ambient music (10-33 is the police radio code "Emergency, all units stand by" (Emergency, prepare all crews).
- Fluid - a channel that broadcasts such relatively new areas of music as: liquid trap, chill trap, future soul, ambient , future garage , downtempo and instrumental hip-hop .
Other channels:
- Xmas in Frisko - a channel that broadcasts American Christmas music; this channel appears only in the Catholic Christmas season
- Christmas Lounge - a channel broadcasting a Christmas lounge and classic “winter” tracks. The channel broadcasts from the end of November until the first of January.
All channels are accessible through direct connection to SomaFM servers, however, Icecast broadcasts via http protocol as well, for those users who for one reason or another cannot connect directly.