Complete the sequence: WFMU, KFJC, W_ _ _ , K _ _ _, ...
April 6, 2016 5:29 AM   Subscribe

Are there any other "free form" and eclectic radio stations that stream besides WFMU and KFJC?

(does not have to be US centric)
posted by ennui.bz to Media & Arts (42 answers total) 37 users marked this as a favorite
 
There's WNUR in Chicago. There's probably other college radio stations that do that, too.
posted by ignignokt at 5:33 AM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


This Week on WXYC:

Tonight on the Inside Track, tune in for Once Upon a Time in Japan, a compilation of 15 hot cuts of Japanese house from the early to mid 90’s...

On tonight's New Science Experience we will be continuing our NSE Technician Showcase...We worked with 15 WXYC DJs to show them how to use our fancy industry-standard club DJing equipment and asked them to prepare a set...

This Sunday, from 1 to 2pm, join us in exploring the traditions of the American South on Hell or High Water! The hour will feature ... UNC's renowned Southern Folklife Collection...A WXYC DJ will put everything in its context ...

Sunday afternoon, Broken Music will feature works by experimental ensemble Common Objects...

And Monday’s Outside Track ... a new release from Japanese artist Ytamo. Conceived as an accompaniment to an exhibition by the Argentine plush sculptor Natali Katz, it somehow sounds just like that. Ytamo kneads a swath of synths, horns, bells, clicks, plucks, snaps, and other electric detritus into sticky groovers that tighten up over the course of the album - hard to describe, but easy to enjoy.
posted by amtho at 5:39 AM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


WEFT out of Champaign, IL. Mostly locally produced shows from volunteer "airshifters" and a small amount of non-local, non-standard public affairs/news programming.
posted by drlith at 5:54 AM on April 6, 2016


WXYC's kickball archrival, WXDU, also streams. Most of the shows are freeform, but there are a few specialty shows, especially on the weekends (schedule here). I am partial to the Sunday afternoon block of Divaville Lounge (stuff from tin pan alley to the swing era) followed by Ross' local (NC) music show (disclosure: I am friends with both of those DJs).
posted by leesh at 5:55 AM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]


WRFI in Ithaca NY
posted by veery at 5:58 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


CMU's radio station, WRCT, is exceptionally free form, if by free form you mean "at the whim of the weird nerds that go to CMU and want to work at the radio station." http://www.wrct.org/about/
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:08 AM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]


Georgia Tech's WREK fits the bill.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:15 AM on April 6, 2016


KDHX is St. Louis's listener-supported community radio station. I don't know if they fit the definition of "free-form" per se, but they have a wide variety of 2-3 hour shows every week. Some are pretty genre-specific while others may wander around a bit more. Here is their weekly schedule. Click on the title of a show for more information on it.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:18 AM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


KDHX is free-form within each two- or three-hour program. The DJs have their styles but pick out whatever they want. I've heard glitchy electronica, bluegrass, blues, Brazilian, alt-country...
posted by notsnot at 6:21 AM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


WNCW is my local one. You never know what you are going to hear and the sets are so long that you will never find out what that song you loved was. Plus they play vinyl often and are located on the campus of, kid you not, Isothermal Community College in Spindale NC. I thought that was some kind of in-joke when I moved here.

And here is a tool you can use to find more.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:23 AM on April 6, 2016


KOOP in Austin, TX.
posted by lownote at 6:30 AM on April 6, 2016


KGNU in Boulder.
posted by nickggully at 6:30 AM on April 6, 2016


I moved away 8 years ago, but still stream WPRK.
posted by galvanized unicorn at 6:37 AM on April 6, 2016


CFRC is a campus-community radio station that streams live online from Queen's University here in good ole Kingston, Ontario. Bonus fun fact: it is the oldest campus radio station in North America. Additional bonus fun fact: Shepherd and me are on the air every Saturday morning from 8-10 am.
posted by Kitteh at 6:50 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


WRUW (my own alma mater, so to speak) & WCSB here in Cleveland are both college stations that allow individual DJ's to select the music they play.

(Which is a pretty good way to find eclectic music broadcasting - look for US college radio stations and check their "about" page. Most will talk about serving the local community and playing underrepresented music, but if they also talk about "broadcasting as curriculum" or "real-world experience in media delivery" or such, then part of their purpose is to train students for a career as a radio DJ. Which means they probably operate more like a commercial radio station, where there's a relatively small playlist handed down from a program director, and each DJ has to pull most or all of their music from that playlist. It's the other kind of station you want, where 2 hours of big band will be followed by 2 hours of grindcore. Or heck, maybe it'll go from big band to grindcore every two songs, if that's how the DJ feels that day.)
posted by soundguy99 at 6:53 AM on April 6, 2016


I rather enjoy WMPG
posted by wizardpants at 7:01 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think "community radio" may be the maguc phrase you are looking for. We have WOOL here in Vermont along with WGDR and WFVR.
posted by jessamyn at 7:05 AM on April 6, 2016


kexp.org is mostly indie in the day. More diverse at night and on weekends. KXT in Dallas is slightly, IMHO, more eclectiv than KEXP. Both are public radio stations. Both play lots of music not heard much or at all on commercial stations.
posted by tayknight at 7:18 AM on April 6, 2016


WRFR in Rockland, Maine.

WERU farther up the coast.

WRIR from my old stomping grounds of Richmond, VA.
posted by JanetLand at 7:18 AM on April 6, 2016


WPRB in Princeton NJ, which has turned me on to a lot of excellent music over the years. It's maybe not as good as WFMU, but it's still pretty damn good.
posted by zchyrs at 7:41 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


KXRY in Portland
posted by vespabelle at 7:48 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Here in Milwaukee we have WMSE, which celebrates its 35th birthday this year. They've pretty much got every color of the rainbow.
posted by Fister Roboto at 7:49 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


WMFO, Tufts University radio. I was a DJ there in the early 80's. Broadcasting since the 60's and is largely freeform.
posted by cosmac at 7:50 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


Tampa Bay area representing with WMNF, you can even listen to it online. Eclectic is a generous word to describe it. News, volunteer DJ's, the works.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 7:56 AM on April 6, 2016


Not a campus station, but a totally awesome eclectic indie station nonetheless is KBAC in Santa Fe, NM. Still streamin' it from my new pad in AZ.
posted by strelitzia at 8:01 AM on April 6, 2016


BBC 6Music, sort of. It varies in the amount of, well, variety. Daytime is pretty tightly indie/alt-rock centric, but evenings and weekends it gets a lot more free-form, especially shows like Cerys Matthews, Mary-Anne Hobbes and Gilles Peterson.
posted by parm at 8:04 AM on April 6, 2016


Here in Philly we have G-town Radio. I can vouch for Reckless Curiosity as a good place to start for music there.
posted by ActionPopulated at 8:33 AM on April 6, 2016


KFAI out of the Twin Cities has more variety than you can shake a stick at!
posted by mfu at 9:02 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


WIDR in Kalamazoo is Western Michigan University's student-run non-commerical radio station.

And from my home town of Louisville, Kentucky, WXOX just made the jump from Internet radio to broadcast.
posted by Gelatin at 9:07 AM on April 6, 2016


KALX Berkeley
KAOS Olympia
KWMR Point Reyes Station
posted by gyusan at 9:17 AM on April 6, 2016


KCRW is the NPR affiliate in Los Angeles and has it's own separate music stream with many eclectic DJs whose musical profiles can be found on the website. Protip: Henry Rollins(!!!).
KUOM is the U of Minnesota's college station and is killer, but mostly focused on currently emerging indie rock/punk/hip-hop and a heavy nod to 80s and 90s post-punk.
posted by thenewbrunette at 9:39 AM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


A little plug for the local community radio station I helped found: wfvr.org
posted by terrapin at 9:51 AM on April 6, 2016


KTRU and KTSW. Texas has some pretty great ones!

You might also like Red Light Radio.
posted by Brittanie at 10:08 AM on April 6, 2016


My alma mater, the University of Chicago, has a great radio station, WHPK. It has lots of freeform/eclectic programming, but part of what makes it so great is that it's also the Hyde Park community radio station, so it's drawing from a more diverse DJ population than just 18-24 year old students. A lot of the DJs are just true music enthusiasts with incredible knowledge of specific genres or time periods. A lot of the best shows are aired outside of typical work hours (e.g. late night/wee hours of the morning), so this is a good recommendation for folks outside of the US.
posted by capricorn at 1:56 PM on April 6, 2016


KUZU is new in Denton, TX.
posted by czytm at 2:00 PM on April 6, 2016


Response by poster: awesome! thanks all...
posted by ennui.bz at 2:03 PM on April 6, 2016


WORT in Madison, WI is great
posted by brbmaroon at 4:47 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


KXLU here in Los Angeles, a service of Loyola Marymount College.

Unfortunatly, the college is a bit conservative and puts their hand in a little to far. KXLU *could* be the WFMU of the west coast if they ran an archive.


vespabelle: "KXRY"

Heavily underrated! KXRY just stated as a new freeform station by music lovers in Portland from basically thin-air*.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KXRY
In 2012, Cascade Educational Broadcast System formed a board of directors and entered into a Local Management Agreement with Common Frequency, LLC, who had received the station from Reed College that year, to broadcast on KRRC. The original intention was to found an all-music station that focused on local DJs. On March 11, 2013, the station changed its call sign to KXRY. In 2013, progressive talk was added to the programming lineup with several of the former hosts of KPOJ including Carl Wolfson, Adam Klugman, and Thom Hartmann.[1]

KXRY launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website Kickstarter on December 16, 2013 with the goal of raising $40,000 to fund the launch of the station. The campaign saw unexpected success and reached over $100,000 during its month-long funding period.[2]

On March 15, 2014, KXRY began broadcasting a full 24/7 schedule[3] of programming under the name XRAY.fm. KXRY broadcasts talk programming from 7am to 3pm Monday through Friday, and music during the rest of its 24/7 schedule. The station's music programming is hosted by over 70 Portland disc jockeys, most of whom are live in the studio during their show. KXRY started broadcasts from a studio on SE 8th and Main Street in Portland, Oregon and then built and moved into a new studio on N Killingsworth and N Albina.
posted by wcfields at 5:36 PM on April 6, 2016


Wow, that's a lot! Have to drop in to represent Boston with WZBC
posted by thefool at 6:21 PM on April 6, 2016


WHRW is Binghamton University's student-run free-format radio station, located, appropriately, in Binghamton, NY. I've been volunteering there off and on for almost ten years, and it is always an adventure to tune in.

The only actual constants there are several long-running shows, and the Public Affairs block of talk shows on weekdays from 4 to 7 PM. Aside from that, even the nominal genre of a DJ's show is only a suggestion; they take "free format" seriously.
posted by t3h933k at 2:53 PM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Good old KDVS 90.3, UC Davis's student radio, based in Davis, CA. Freeform programming :) I really like their mobile app.
posted by yueliang at 4:08 AM on May 4, 2016


In Portland, in addition to KXRY, we've now got KFFP, Freeform Portland.
posted by bink at 10:43 AM on May 9, 2016


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