Back in the U.S.S.A.

Technical Difficulties Radio is dead! Long live Technical Difficulties Radio!

We narrowly escaped the event horizon of the black hole left behind when Live365 imploded, and are once again streaming over the netwaves!

Seriously, check this out!

You'll have to forgive the somewhat sloppy web design - I literally put the page together just last night, using HTML and stylesheets I shamelessly stole lovingly borrowed from this blog. I must say, losing Live365 may yet turn out to be a blessing in disguise. All of a sudden, I have a lot more flexibility. Maybe I can display cover art. Maybe I can display the correct cover art. Maybe I can finally fix the weird Unicode issue I always had with Live365, and Leæther Strip, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Δaimon, among many others, can get the props they deserve. Maybe at long last I can finally achieve world domination! Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa! Ha! Ha... Uh, where was I? Oh, yeah.

Anyway, yes. Technical Difficulties is back, until the next disaster strikes. Huzzah!

And Then There's Nothing

Well, folks - looks like this is the end of the line for Live365.com. If you haven't seen it, here's the bad news:

We are sad that we are closing our doors at the end of the month. There are always possibilities that we can come back in one form or another, but at this point in time, January 16, 2016 is the last day that Live365's streaming servers and website will be maintained and supported.

I don't know what that implies for Technical Difficulties Radio just yet. Will streams continue to stream forth automatically until the servers crash? Will I be able to send a live feed from my server, or just be restricted to my backup rotation? Or, as seems most likely, will it all just go away?

Compounding this is one of the reasons Live365 folded in the first place: the elimination of the small broadcaster licensing category. Again, I have no idea what this implies for Technical Difficulties Radio. There's a lot of pessimism about the future of independent broadcasting, and concerns that the more successful stations will abruptly find themselves put out of business by spiking royalty payments. But my listenership is not that large (and I like it that way, thank you very much), and so having to pay royalties on each individual stream doesn't sound like it will be that expensive for me, but I just don't know yet.

So. Lots of things up in the air. I am exploring alternatives to Live365 right now, and I will let you all know what happens. It won't necessarily be easy or straightforward, but right now, I think I can manage to keep Technical Difficulties alive. Fingers crossed...

Closed for Remodulation

"So, CHR.... just where have you been for the past month?"

Let me tell you. I've been right here, computerless. The server that hosts the broadcast has had recurring problems with the hard drive that contains the music. Last month, it went belly-up for good. Followed immediately by the other hard drive, the boot drive. The music and playlists were backed up on an external hard drive, but everything else was lost.

The laptop that I use to manage the music and the playlists, well, that had been having problems too. The wi-fi card had failed, and I was tired of trailing a long ethernet cable behind me wherever I went. Both computers went to the shop.

I finally have them both back. The laptop had to go to an Apple-certified technician, who for reasons as yet unexplained, reformatted the hard drive. So, the only data that survived this experience was what I kept on that external hard drive - all the important stuff, but nothing else. I'm... a trifle peeved, let's put it that way. Compounding the peevishness is the fact that the shop failed to call and let me know the computers were ready - I could have had them back late last month.

But no matter. What's done is done. I can now rebuild, and I am rebuilding. As I write this, there is a  brand new, pristine, empty hard drive being filled up with music. I had them upgrade the RAM while they were at it, so the listening experience should be smoother and less prone to the occasional jitters some of you may have experienced in the past. Soon, the real broadcast will resume. The ads will cease, and all will be right with the world. Soon.

A Severe Case of Spatial Displacement

Due to circumstances outside of our control... actually, due to circumstances completely within our control, there will be no live broadcast tonight or next Friday. We are suffering a severe case of spatial displacement, which is just a high-flown way of saying I'm on vacation. I will return to the live intertube-waves on Friday, September 18. Until then, for better or worse, the machines will be in charge...

Normality Partially Restored

One of the evil ghosts in the machine has been exorcised. The playlist is playing again. We have returned to our regularly scheduled noise. No more ads haunt our dreams. We have yet to restore our live broadcast capability. One thing at a time. We appreciate your patience.

I'll Disappear

Technical Difficulties Live will be taking a brief hiatus in early July - there will be no live broadcast on July 4th or 11th. We will resume on July 18th. Until then, enjoy the ginormous playlist currently in rotation.

Adds, Announcements, and an Apology

First, the apology. I haven't been updating the blog with playlists as assiduously as I ought to. Sorry about that.

Now, the announcements.

First of all, Valentine's Day has come and gone, and as of this weekend, Maschinenherz is off the air. But it was fun while it lasted, and most of the songs will find a spot on Technical Difficulties' regular rotation, if they're not there already. My heartfelt gratitude to everyone who tuned in - I love you all. Same time next year...?

Second of all, I took the regular live stream off the air earlier this week for maintenance - that maintenance being using iVolume to adjust the volume on all the mp3s in my library - Every. Single. One. Hopefully, this will result in less variation in volume between songs, and hence, a better listening experience for all y'all.

As for adds, the big one is that I now have in my sweaty little hands a copy of the new Recoiled EP from our friends at Cold Spring Records, featuring some "lost" Coil remixes of Nine Inch Nails songs.  I also recently picked up several volumes of the Muslimgauze Archive Series. Other recent adds of note: I somewhat belatedly grabbed VNV Nation's Transnational, and Crystal Castles' (III), as well as a whole bunch of Ad Noiseam's back catalogue that I was missing. All of these will be trickling into our  regular rotation in the weeks to come - expect them.

Maschinenherz - Industrial Love Songs

So, Live365 is doing this special "Love365" type thing for Valentines Day, and I somehow talked them into letting me do a broadcast devoted to the many fine love songs industrial music has produced over the years. After a frantic weekend of listening to dimly remembered songs on dusty CDs, poring over lyric sheets, and ripping and transcoding and uploading and wondering what I had gotten myself into, I am pleased to announce that Maschinenherz - Industrial Love Songs is live and broadcasting right now as you read this.

So, if you're in love, lovesick, in sick love, in love with industrial music, or sick of the ordinary love songs that everyone else is intent on inflicting on us this time of year, go listen. And suggestions and requests are welcome - leave 'em in the comments.

Maschinenherz.

Dark love songs. Noisy love songs. Love songs with teeth. Industrial love songs.