Found out today the tip jar has hit bottom again, when our payment to our Shoutcast host bounced; the payment was $29.99 and was for 100 listener slots for a month… can you help? 6 people X $5 = fee covered! Thanks in advance, and thanks for your previous generosity.

The PayPal “Donate” button is in the right-hand column, and down… you may have to scroll a bit to see it.

While we wait for the needed finances to arrive, let’s listen to Ray Charles sing about our situation. My only tie-in to the 80s on this video is that it was recorded in 1982… and, Ray Charles was on the “We Are The World” recording session.

One of the challenges of programming a radio station is not just playing what sounds great to the staff, but playing what the audience wants to hear.

Now working our way through our second year of all-80s programming, a few questions have come to mind about what YOU want to hear on BlackLight Radio. The number of listeners around the world show me we’re generally doing a good job, but I know there’s always room for improvement.

For example, do you listen for the ballads, the uptempo songs, or a mix? Do you prefer more ballads to uptempo hits, or more uptempo hits to ballads?

Here’s a micro-detail which has kept me awake nights: on the front page, when a song is playing, do you prefer to see the album cover, or would you rather see the 7″ single picture sleeve if it’s available?

I’ve been trying to decide what, if any, DJ content should go on the station. Certainly 80s DJs were a big part of the 80s radio experience! I can’t hope to personally duplicate the great sound of legends like Rick Dees & Scott Shannon, but I could certainly throw in my wit & wisdom during a daily shift of a few hours.

Another option would be having me throw in quick facts about the artist or the song right before it plays, all day.

Do you even want the artist and title announced, or are you happy with just seeing the info in your player or on the webpage? What would you like to be hearing from a DJ on BlackLight Radio (if anything)?

It became clear while our streaming server was down that you DO like the tight segues between the songs, and the news, and perhaps some of the other bits we throw in. Is there anything else you’d like to hear added to BlackLight Radio?

Pandora tries to guess what you want to hear next; I don’t want to guess. Leave your comments below, and together we can build a better BlackLight!

(Oh… and thanks for telling your friends about us, linking to us on Facebook & Twitter, and emailing our link to your contacts. Word of mouth is the BEST advertising we can get. Thank you for helping others join our party!)

While I appreciate the convenience of the iPod, I’ve been horrified at the sound “quality” of these devices. Yes, they are digital, but the audio is compressed… depending on the source, VERY compressed. Then listening is done through tiny “ear buds” (how CUUUTE!) which produce nothing lower in pitch than a baby’s cry; these headphones (so-called) have NO bass, from what I’ve heard!

Who could stand to listen to their music this way? Who would WANT to feed their audio through basically a system of distortion, then play it out through something sounding similar to taping aluminum pie pans to the sides of your head?

…Then I got to thinking about how I listened to MY music in the 80s.

Yes, some of us had “boom boxes” (or “ghetto blasters,” if you prefer), and yes, if you were the rich kid in school it was BIG and had LOTS of bass. There was always Mom or Dad’s stereo (when they weren’t home), and my uncle had a KILLER component stereo system with a Pioneer receiver, an auto-reverse 3-head cassette deck, and he even had his hi-fi VCR hooked up to it! MTV was AWESOME at my uncle’s house.

In reality, most of the time I was listening to radio, or tapes, on… on my Walkman(s). The Walkman was very durable. It sounded pretty good, but of course radio stations crushed the music before they broadcast it, and cassettes were usually recorded from records… and were often warped from time spent in a hot car.

And they used headphones.

Not headphones like the big “cans” you might see professional producers or DJs use. No, these were tiny (for the time) “lightweight stereo headsets” (often with ORANGE foam pads, which provided NO comfort for the ear BTW), and those headsets came in two flavors: Not Much Bass, or No Bass & Few Highs.

So, imagine me listening to a warped cassette of a radio station playing a record they had transferred to a tape on a set of these micro-’phones WHILE MOWING A YARD. Oh, yeah… had it cranked to jet engine levels to be heard over the lawnmower, resulting in distortion somewhere in the double-digit percentages.

…Maybe kids today AREN’T so crazy for listening to iPods.

(Have an idea for an 80s-related BlackLight Radio post? Comment on this post, or email me! )