About Harris Radio
Harris Radio broadcasts worldwide 24/7 via the Internet, playing music from unsigned artists and independent labels. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Harris Radio was created to offer "Intelligent Music for Intelligent Minds" in reaction to the dearth of good music on homogenized corporate-controlled mainstream over-air radio. With an emphasis on the acoustic/folk/alt-country/pop/rock genres and a commitment to play politically/socially-oriented and protest music, Harris Radio provides a unique play list for its audience and a much needed promotional outlet for emerging musicians.
Harris Radio is owned and operated by Pete Harris and operates according to a "for-loss" business model. It costs me $ to run this station, but I get no revenue for it. Actually, this thing is a pure hobby for me. Some people collect stamps, I just do this. Harris Radio has been operating since August 2002.
Harris Radio also publishes Indie Sounds NY, a monthly publication and a blog covering the NYC indie music scene. Also, Harris Radio operates GigApple.com, an online gig calendar for indie music in NYC. Both are free. From time to time, Harris Radio hosts music nights at NYC venues.
I started Harris Radio because (a) I hate the commercial over-air radio stations that I hear in New York City, (b) I wanted to help in some small way the many live artists that I go to see here.
The cornerstone of the playlist for Harris Radio is made up of independent bands/artists that I go to see live in New York City, and elsewhere. It also includes other indie bands/artists, and sometimes even a few mainstream AAA favorites of mine. The playlist is refreshed monthly (to be kept up to date on the new playlists, join my mailing list).
Some have pointed out that the playlist seems to have both a female and a Canadian bias and they'd be right. The former is because I've always liked the female voice on songs; the latter is most likely down to a favorite former bartender being a Canadian (with the most superb of female voices). I also play some 'protest' music, which I do because (a) I usually agree with the subject of the protest and (b) I believe in freedom of speech.
Harris Radio is hosted by Live365, which takes care of paying 'mechanical' royalties to songwriters and publishers on my behalf via organizations like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (and their affiliates) and to performers via SoundExchange. Live365 does suck a bit at times, but it's the only streamer that I know that makes an attempt to pay royalties to artists, which is why I continue to use it.
The Harris Radio broadcast is a continuous loop, segmented into programs. Songs are encoded at 56kbps for decent-ish quality, which means you will likely need a DSL or cable Internet hookup. Apologies to those bandwidth challenged among you but I decided it's pretty unlikely that people will dial up for hours just to listen to music. You should be able to receive Harris Radio using Windows Media Player, Real Player, iTunes, Winamp or the Live365 player. I've used the Live365 player, iTunes and Winamp, and they work well. If you are having access problems, or want to get Harris Radio on dialup, tell me!
Please link to Harris Radio. Artists, bands, record labels, fans, all of you. Please link your Web sites to Harris Radio. If you have room, you can use the following logos to place on your Web site, and link to http://www.harrisradio.com:
