This particular blog is written as a summary of the many events in the history of farpastpost radio. Thanks for reading!

In The Beginning…

It was 2003, I think, and Terryn and I were stoned, bored, and wishing we had some good new music. We had spun Tool’s Lateralus for the fifteen-thousandth time, and we were bitching about how with the exception of Tool, rock and metal hadn’t progressed much in the last 10-15 years. Sure there was grunge and alternative. But we were referring to the progress of GOOD MUSIC! We’d probably had that same conversation a dozen times.

At one of these occasions our friend Matt overheard us and suggested we go through his CD collection of progressive heavy bands. We went through looking for the gems, happy to find anything good, even if it only came in single song increments. Jackpot! Along with a shit-load of extreme metal, and indie-rock bands, we found a small genre of bands, like ISIS and Pelican, often referred to as post-metal. Holy Shit! We were fans of Neurosis but had no idea that a whole new generation of bands had taken it to the next level. Thanks Matt!

Our love for metal returned and we were pleased to know that it could be emotionally rich and beautiful, without losing its heavy end. That got us motivated to look for more bands of the genre. In our search we figured out that we were already fans of a related genre, called post-rock. Mogwai, Godspeed, and Slint are a few examples. But now we were finding many more great bands. Well hell…Terryn and I looked for every band ever referred to as post-rock. We listened to bands considered to be post-rock in the 90’s like Tortoise and Bark Psychosis, as well as the bands of the time like Explosions in the Sky, and Saxon Shore.

Whether they considered themselves post-rock or despised the genre and any association with it, we listened for the similar sensibilities in ambiance each of these bands seemed to be striving for. Fuck! What had we been missing all this time. Godspeed, Mogwai, and Neurosis had not only released classic albums, but new bands This Will Destroy You, Caspian, and Yndi Halda, new to the scene were standing on their shoulders and crushing. We started freakin' out about all this new music.

We started talking about maybe doing a radio show or a podcast to harness some of our re-enlivened energy for good music. We started doing research, looking at internet resources like Decoy Music with their list of the top post-rock bands. The Silent Ballet was a huge inspiration for us; they convinced us that there was a large enough scene to support a radio show. Wikipedia’s definition of post-rock and its suggestion of bands that belong to the genre helped fill-in some gaps. Then Myspace became our next big resource for new bands. At this point we had about 50 bands we thought would work for a post-rock/post-metal podcast or radio show.

We looked into what it would take for two computer illiterate stoners to do podcasting. We also thought we should pay royalties. The original thinking being that we might have a better chance at getting desirable advertising or sponsorship if we weren’t pirate. And also, we just really wanted to support the bands we were going to feature. The easiest and cheapest thing to do was broadcast from my home computer. But to do a 24/7 station like we wanted would have required a dedicated server. That was clearly outside of our budget. We looked at going through Shoutcast.com but couldn’t figure out how to get past the PC only hurtle. I still have a Mac and I’m not giving it up! And we didn’t want to have to add up our royalty dues. That’s where live365.com kept looking sweeter. They provided the 24/7 server, tracked our royalty fees, and had a built in listener base.

On December 10, 2006 we did a 7 day trial of live365, and within days we had listeners and raving emails in support of the show. So we settled in and started to build farpastpost radio. Origin of the name is another tale. We started with a 64k stream, and that sounded like shit! Also, LIVE365 inserted commercials into our broadcast, and that really sounded like shit! We spent extra money every month to not be subsidized by undesirable commercials and to give our listeners a good sounding stream at 96k. This was a huge improvement to the shows quality and character. We picked-up a lot of regular listeners. Fans in Germany and Canada were loving the show, but the U.S. was by far our biggest demographic. We attempted at our first blog on blogspot.com, but never kept up with it. It’s kinda dead now, and this blog has taken its place. We started our Myspace page and our website. Bands started submitting their music and doing interviews. Listeners were enjoying the show and befriending us on Myspace. The ball was rolling.

We had a few setbacks. We could barely afford to maintain the show let alone build on it. Terryn and I had very little time to focus our energies in an efficient manner. And then there was/is the threat of being shut down due to retroactive royalty rates that congress and the major record labels still seem to be in limbo about. On top of everything our website looked like amateur hour, and we couldn’t afford the time or money to do it right. We knew that there was the possibility of sponsorship but didn’t have the time to search for advertising we could find agreeable.

Because of listener support via email, Myspace, and Paypal donations, we’ve kept this show going. You’ve all been the driving force keeping farpastpost radio alive. We want to thank everyone who has supported us in any way shape or form. We hope to be a part of this community for as long as there is one. And if you’ve read this far…Holy Shit!

More blogs to come…

Cheers

Mike Terryn

farpastpost.net

post-rock & post-metal radio