FIP

by rg Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 06:03:45 PM EST

What is FIP?

FIP (radio station) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The concept behind FIP has scarcely changed since its founding: music interrupted by traffic updates and cultural information with a short news broadcast at 10 before the hour, with no advertising. The broadcasts are presented by live announcers from 7 am to 11 pm, after which a robot replays parts of the music broadcast the previous day.
FIP's programming is an eclectic mix of musical genres: chanson, rock, world music, classical music, film music, jazz and more, but connected with a theme. FIP is one of the few stations with this type of programming in the world.

Why Do I Know About FIP?

Here's the story. Any radio heads out there will know the experience of turning the dial. You enjoyed what you just heard, maybe, but...yack yack yack...on they go...or maybe the song you're hearing is irritating you, or maybe it's an opera and twenty minutes in you decide to....turn the dial.

So, it's the evening. You're reading, maybe, or ironing. And you realise that for, what is it now? An hour?--you haven't turned the dial.

And then someone reads the news to you in french.

You leave the dial where it is. You go to bed. Next time you switch on, there it is: music. No chat, no ads, the music is varied, with a french (and jazz!) bias, but the later it gets, the more eclectic the music becomes. And the news...at ten to the hour...what an excellent time for the news! And after nine pm...no more news, just music.

You're hooked. So hooked that you mention it to a friend. Maybe you're at the pub and you say, "Hey, I've found this station where--"

"They play nothing but music and then the news is in french."

"Yeah!"

Turns out your friend has found the station too.

Turns out that lots of people have "found FIP."

Turns out that "finding and enjoying FIP" of yer own accord is a bonding....a sign of taste....

It takes you months to work out that the station is called F.I.P. (pronoucned FEEP), coz you're a slow learner maybe, or most probably coz there are no ads, just music, and you're young so you listen after nine and don't even hear the news.

This station lurks on FM and (being slow) you still haven't worked out exactly where it lurks. And that's because you haven't turned the dial for months!

And then you discover that...everyone you get on with has found FIP.

Just like that!

By turning the dial.

Here's another story. A guy walks into a shop, he's looking around, but the music is good and so he asks, "Who's that?"

"Dunno," says the person in the shop. "It's FIP."

Hold on a sec

rg, aren't you in England? Have you some strange ham radio aspect to your personality? I mean, how can this be? You're listening to FIP, but you don't live in France.

Ah! Here's the myth. A nameless--an unknown--person heard FIP when in Paris, and he (it is a he in this myth) loved it so much that he built an antenna....on top of a pub, or is it on top of his house? No one knows, but the reason we can hear FIP and no one else in England can...I mean, the signal dies as soon as you move out of the centre of town. It dies as you hit the main roads; it dies as the centre becomes periphery...unless you live in a very tall building...coz we're talking limited amplification, we're talking radio waves...

Howstuffworks "How Radio Works"

Let's say that you are trying to build a radio tower for radio station 680 AM. It is transmitting a sine wave with a frequency of 680,000 hertz. In one cycle of the sine wave, the transmitter is going to move electrons in the antenna in one direction, switch and pull them back, switch and push them out and switch and move them back again. In other words, the electrons will change direction four times during one cycle of the sine wave. If the transmitter is running at 680,000 hertz, that means that every cycle completes in (1/680,000) 0.00000147 seconds. One quarter of that is 0.0000003675 seconds. At the speed of light, electrons can travel 0.0684 miles (0.11 km) in 0.0000003675 seconds. That means the optimal antenna size for the transmitter at 680,000 hertz is about 361 feet (110 meters).

Or, if I have my maths right, this antenna ain't so huge...but in the centre...we all get FIP.

Ooops! I mean, we got FIP, because earlier this year the conversation in the pub changed.

"Hey, I haven't been able to get FIP."

"Neither have I."

Wot, no FIP?

Looking For Fip (from The Argus)

Since March 1, the Gallic sounds of FIP Radio have disappeared from the Brighton airwaves and no one seems to know why.
This station is sorely missed - it brought a fresh musical perspective to our city, to the point of inspiring a very successful club night, Vive le FIP, as well as raising house prices for those residents within its small catchment area.

Heh, FIP made me rich!

Right, what happened?

Au Revoir To French Radio In Sussex (from The Argus)

A French radio station that developed a massive cult following in Sussex has been taken off the air after being raided by communications watchdogs.
Paris-based station Fip built up a massively dedicated and diverse range of listeners in Brighton through the last decade after a mystery male fan grew so smitten with it he set up his own antenna to broadcast the station for the city from his home in Hanover.
Listeners ranging from politicians to shopkeepers grew fond of the station's quirky range of music and lack of adverts or chat, which was broadcast on 98.5FM and 91FM. Its popularity grew to such an extent that a special night was set up in homage and people began moving houses just so they could live in an area which could receive the broadcasts, resulting in a boom in property prices in certain areas.
But The Argus can reveal that following a complaint, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) raided the premises in Hanover and confiscated the transmitter, taking Fip off the airwaves in Sussex.
The mystery man behind Fip's broadcasts in Brighton, believed to be a former radio engineer, could now face prosecution although Ofcom last night refused to comment on the legal status of the case.
A spokesman said: "We raided the station but we cannot go into the reasons why we did that. They were known to us before the raid. We also seized equipment but again we cannot go into what was taken."
It is understood the raid took place because Ofcom wanted to investigate whether a breach of broadcasting regulations had taken place.

No more FIP! Boo!

It seemed to be a sign of the times. If something is good, and free, and has no advertising, it must...disappear. Some law is being broken. Good and free? Too good to be true. Stop it.

Fast Forward to Sunday Afternoon

We were driving nowhere aimlessly. I was driving and I don't like driving. There was a reason for being in the car, but the reason was evaporating. There were queues. I agreed with the queues (they mean the cars can't move freely), but...the radio...it was time time to turn the dial.

Good Music!

So rare on the radio these days...for me...but suddenly, there it was: good music. A sitar, a voice, and then some strange beats. I glanced at the radio.

FIP!

"Hey, it's FIP!" I said.

I flicked away and back.

FIP!

I checked the frequency.

91.00 FM.

"Let's go home," said the person with me.

We negotiated a turn, headed home, and then I switched on the radio, tuned to 91.00 FM.

There it was!

FIP is back!

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I will, of course, put my pound coins into any tin that is rattled at me with the words "FIP Fighting Fund" written on it, but it seems that the guy wasn't breaking any laws....seems....he has said (whoever this mythical figure may be) that he will fight in the courts...funds have been raised...

FIP is back!

Ach, I cannae explain it. It's a bit jazzy at times. Between 6pm and 9pm it can get very jazzy and the chat level rises. After 10pm, it's FIP (I have it on now), and, hey! The news at ten to the hour--that's perfect.

And no news after 10 pm is also excellent. (For me.)

Unless the news is musical and is news from people I've never heard of playing music I'd never thought of, and it all sounds great...and then they play the B side of a single I loved twenty years ago...

Computer FIP

Some computers, in my experience, won't play FIP. This computer does, so I'll offer you all the link. Here it is:

http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/fip/endirect/

Click "ecouter" and it'll work or it won't.

And now a confession

Since I started listening to FIP, I stopped buying music. Everything I needed from music was being given to me by FIP, the whole range...

...but DoDo, just the other day, reminded me that I was getting a bit retro in my musical tastes...

...and it was because I didn't have FIP!

Come on, hey! There are great internet radio stations out there, with people who offer out (for free!) excellent music from the past and the present. Which ones do you listen to while typing your most intriguing missives?

Mine was FIP, and now mine is FIP!

I should add that FIP plays a lot of french pop, which I enjoy!

And that's that. Sunday was a good day. We bought a table, so the living room is now livable, and FIP in connection with the mystical figure agreed; "Yes, rg now has the correct environment for appreciating the magic of FIP. Let it be so!"

And lo and thus!

But shhhhhh! There are ALWAYS evil gits out who want to stop your FREE FUN. They HATE free fun, coz there's no money changing hands.

"Ah," they say, "there is money, but you are appropriating unfairly..."

So shhhh. There's always some git who'll stop your fun--but...but...shhhhh....try it out. If you don't like it, no problem. If you enjoy it, quietly pass it on....

Heh!

FIP | 62 comments (62 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

FIP ROCKS! (4.00 / 4)

rg, AWESOME diary.

Since I started listening to FIP, I stopped buying music. Everything I needed from music was being given to me by FIP, the whole range...

I could not agree with you more. My girlfriend got me hooked on FIP and FIP has been my friend eversince.

Such a great story about how that lone antenna made people move houses (!) just to be able to listen to it -- and most of all, the part about how the guy wasn't breaking any laws after all.

Nick Hornby needs to turn that into a novel, or better yet a screenplay.

Thanks for writing it up and spreading the word about FIP!

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 06:32:40 PM EST

Re: FIP ROCKS! (4.00 / 2)

Another FIP fan!>)

Man, but it puts a smile on my face!

Having heard some of the selections from Nick Hornby's book about music I reckon he just ain't never heard FIP.

And...tell me if this is your experience...I still can't work out what they're playing! Something with a sitar on now, before that it was "Young Americans" by David Bowie...

It's like meeting an old friend that I thought had gone for ever....and now here she or he is...back!

Now playing, french rap! with all kinds of influences in there--no other station I've heard compares!

But a friend has told me about a station broadcasting out of Texas (on the internet)...really...radio...

heh! How about this one? They say that there are three things that know no national boundaries.

And by "know" I mean, "They do not understand, comprehend, recognise, or are aware of"

The three are: Music, food, and love.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 06:45:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (4.00 / 3)

And...tell me if this is your experience...I still can't work out what they're playing! Something with a sitar on now, before that it was "Young Americans" by David Bowie...

All the time. I often ask myself, "Who are these people, and where do they get this stuff?" But whatever oracle they are channeling, may they keep it up, and ever be protected from typical commercialism and marketing techniques.

It's like meeting an old friend that I thought had gone for ever....and now here she or he is...back!

Absolutely. Here in China I can only listen to it over the Internet, of course, but when I feel like I need to get "out of" China and go back to my "old self", turning on FIP does the trick.

Was the best gift my girlfriend gave me.

(It's also great to have in the background while memorizing Chinese characters.)

But a friend has told me about a station broadcasting out of Texas (on the internet)...really...radio...

That would be fantastic. Though I can hardly believe it. When I lived in Austin, I almost lost my mind listening to half hour to 45-minute loops all day long, desperately looking for stations that had more variety and/or taste. (My roommate's sister was a salesperson for Clearwater, and she was the sweetest thing, but at the time I did not realize she was doing the work of the Dark One.)

But shhhhhh! There are ALWAYS evil gits out who want to stop your FREE FUN. They HATE free fun, coz there's no money changing hands.

Someone here must have done a diary about great things that emerge spontaneously for the "pure love it", with no incentives for money, fame, power, etc., that bloom into spectacular yet delicate flowers, but eventually get found out, co-opted, bought out, standardized, corporatized, branded, sterilized, and/or just crushed out. Please let that not happen to FIP.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:22:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (none / 1)

I often ask myself, "Who are these people, and where do they get this stuff?"

I read an interview once, where some people from here went over and interviewed the FIP people. Turns out (at least back then) that the presenters do six hour slots, but they rotate through the week, so if I was a presenter I might have the 1200-1800 slot one day and then the 2200-0400 slot another. "If you listen carefully," said the interviewer, "you can hear the different tastes and styles."

They have a HUGE musical collection, wrote the interviewer, which all presenters can pick from (and add to, I presume.)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:52:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (none / 1)

reading this, just reminds me of nights spent listening to John Peel, all sorts of random music turning up.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 08:16:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (4.00 / 3)

(My roommate's sister was a salesperson for Clearwater, and she was the sweetest thing, but at the time I did not realize she was doing the work of the Dark One.)

Oops, that would be Clear Channel.

Must have been conflating Clear Channel and Blackwater.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:43:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (4.00 / 2)

They say that there are three things that know no national boundaries.
And by "know" I mean, "They do not understand, comprehend, recognise, or are aware of"

The three are: Music, food, and love.

And sports, and the importance of family, too, no?

And as a special case of music, I would highlight karaoke. How great is it to go to a karaoke club with thirty people from ten different countries and see everyone having the time of their life and not wanting to go home. Happens over and over.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:33:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (none / 1)

I have to say I would have thought sport and family are both very rooted in boundaries, though I can see a space for something like "exercise regimes" (yoga, chi gong, etc..) and maybe "ties of affection."

For sport, think: England vs. Germany.

For importance of family think: Romeo & Juliet.

Heh!

I think there are others that leap...science maybe, maybe "beauty" (? wot dat be? Maybe "in the eye of the beholder, but that eye of the beholder can't tell 'it's gorgeous' from 'it comes from place X'...)

Anything where, you imagine a border, (sport=Manchester United vs. Man City), some strict delineation (you aren't marrying anybody who's an X!)...

A friend of mine just doesn't understand competitive sport.

"I can understand games," he says, "but basically it's 'I have a red shirt, you have a blue shirt--and we will win!"

Oh how I rambleth!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:45:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (4.00 / 2)

I turned a friend onto FIP at the weekend and got a rave email back this morning: it's his new working-at-home background sound.

Then I fired up ET at lunch time and found this thread. Another case of ET synchronicity :-)

Thanks for the background and the links: I was only aware of FIP from the 'Internet Radio' list on my SqueezeBox.

My other favourite 'net radio is the 'Groove Salad' channel at http://somafm.com/ where the only voice appears to be from 'The AI with the beat' speaking via a Festival speech synthesiser.

by cbatjesmond on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 03:11:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (none / 1)

Another FIP fan! I thought I was going to be letting everyone know about this...but you all knew!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 04:21:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (none / 0)

But I theenk we talk about this before... I was a FIP listener 35 years ago... It's been around that long. And was exactly the same style then, and very good, very popular in Paris.

Money changes hands? A bit. I'm about to contribute my annual French public broadcasting license fee, €116. Glad you can get a piece of it in Brighton!

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 04:47:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (none / 0)

Heh....I'll swap you some BBC, how about that? (£135.50. I have a friend who thinks the BBC should drop all television and just concentrate on radio--hey, how about I swap you one of those Melvyn Bragg programmes for starters ;)

Here you go:

BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - Science Archive

James Clerk Maxwell - great 19th century physicist

And yeah, I may have mentioned FIP a couple of time previous. Cough cough! %>})

I still, though, find it hard to express my pleasure at finding FIP on my radio...after it seemed it had gone.

(It seems the FIP internet site shuts down at 11 pm, while my radio just keeps on going...the later it gets the stranger the selections...)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:12:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP ROCKS! (none / 1)

Great, just at the time when I'd want to listen to it, it shuts down for me.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 10:22:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

Thanks, rg!

I had been listening to FIP for years, but I stopped since it is not broadcasted in Lyon anymore.

Thanks to internet and you I can listen to it again!

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

by Melanchthon on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:03:09 PM EST

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

Another FIP fan!

Okay, another anecdote.

Have you ever heard of Radio 3?

It's the UK's "classical" channel. It seems to have listening figures around the 3 million mark.

Now, here's what they say:

"You see, nobody listens to Radio 3 because of advertising. They just come to the point where they want to hear something....different. And then they find Radio 3."

FIP is the younger, funkier cousin, who doesn't bang on so much.

Indeed, I'd listen to much more Radio 3 if they didn't feel the urge to talk so much.

(Plus the Operas every evening between 7-9 pm...I'm being harsh...;)

But, hey! I was thinking, "Okay, ET readers won't have heard FIP, but that's fair enough."

First two comments: FIP listeners!

I can't express my pleasure in having the radio on again, and never having to turn the dial!

Oh, and while I'm enthusing about the radio, I'd like to recommend the following programmes that can be listened to at the click of a button.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_science.shtml

I tried to pull the links through but failed. Here are the titles, all available if you click the link above. Each programme is 45 minutes.

Antimatter - where has it all gone?

The Permian-Triassic Boundary - when 95% of life was killed off

Gravitational Waves - a new window on the universe

Symmetry - the pattern at the heart of our physical world

Anaesthetics - from ether frolics to pain-free surgery

Microbiology - the story of the invisible masters of the universe

The History of Optics - from telescopes to microscopes, a new way of seeing the world

Archimedes - the Greek mathematician and his Eureka moments

Mars - the search for life on the Red Planet

Indian Maths - laying the foundations for modern numerals and zero as a number

The Speed of Light - a cosmic speed limit?

The Poincare Conjecture - how a 19th century mathematician changed how we think about the shape of the universe

The Needham Question - did China lay the foundations of modern science?

Alexander von Humboldt - the remarkable career of the Prussian naturalist

Galaxies - extra-galactic nebulae, black holes, stars and dark matter

Carbon - the basis of life

The Heart - its anatomical and cultural history

Mathematics and Music - the science behind sound and composition

Astronomy and Empire - the link between colonial expansion and scientific discovery

The Search for Immunisation - and the battle against smallpox

The Royal Society - the first club for experimental science

Negative numbers - how they spread across civilizations

Human Evolution - from early hominids to Homo sapiens

Prime Numbers - the building blocks of mathematics

Artificial Intelligence - the quest for a machine that can think

The Graviton - the quest for the theoretical gravity particle

Asteroids - celestial bodies from the beginning of time

The Rise of the Mammals - life in a cold climate

Magnetism - an attractive history

The KT Boundary - did the dinosaurs burn out or fade away?

Renaissance Maths - the birth of modern mathematics?

Perception and the Senses - how do we see what we see?

Dark Energy - the unknown force breaking the universe apart

Alchemy - seeking the perfection of all things

The Cambrian Explosion - the big bang of evolutionary history

The Second Law of Thermodynamics - the most important thing you will ever know

Carl Gustav Jung - Discovering the Self

Higgs Boson - the search for the God particle

Electrickery - the origins of electricity

The Origins of Life - how it all began

Pi - the number that doesn't add up

Planets - the astronomy of the 21st century

Zero - everything about nothing

Hysteria - the normal state of human beings?

Theories of Everything - still the holy grail of physics?

Dreams - is there a science of dreams?

Rutherford - the father of nuclear physics

Cryptography - secret history of ciphers and codes

Lamarck and Natural Selection - the Lamarckian Heresy

Ageing the Earth - a journey in geological time.

Infinity - a brief history.

James Clerk Maxwell - great 19th century physicist

Nature - from Homer to Darwin

Vulcanology - significance of volcanoes.

The Lunar Society - scientific ferment 200 years ago.

Memory - and the brain

Supernovas - the life cycle of stars

Meteorology - why does it still fascinate us?

Chance and Design in Evolution - Design in Nature

Disease - the fight against diseases and plagues

The Calendar - a history of the Calendar

Psychoanalysis - do people crave dictatorship?

The scientist in history - missionary or monster?

History of drugs - their role in medicine and the arts

Schrodinger's Cat - Quantum Mechanics

Chaos Theory - ws the universe chaotic or orderly?

ET - new life within our solar system

Anatomy - 2000 years of anatomical study

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:38:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

I listen a lot to Radio Classique because they talk very little.

I also listen often to Fréquence Jazz, a Lyon based radio with excellent Jazz, Blues and Soul music programmes.

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

by Melanchthon on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:55:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

I also listen to Fréquence Jazz. Good Stuff.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 04:23:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Radio Nova (none / 1)

While we are at it, here is one of the most original French radios: Radio Nova. It was created by Jean-François Bizot, the pope of french counter-culture and founder of Actuel, the first alternative magazine in 1968

Listen to it: Radio Nova en direct

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

by Melanchthon on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 07:14:02 PM EST

Re: FIP (4.00 / 3)

good radio is a convivial technology: any number of people can listen without using it up, and their pleasure and satisfaction is only increased by sharing it with others...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Mon Oct 29th, 2007 at 08:01:17 PM EST

Re: FIP (none / 1)

Yay! I love FIP. Started listening to it when someone here recommended it in a discussion of radio stations. I feel so cultivated and hip...

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 10:47:44 AM EST

Re: FIP (4.00 / 3)

I feel so cultivated

---Interesting Idea Detector Blinking---

the feeling of being cultivated marks FIP-listening (or enjoying classical music or jazz or gamelan or any other genre-appreciation that requires a trained ear and a little scholarship) as a positional good.

yet it is a positional good that's convivial, i.e. no one else is deprived of position or goods in order for the FIP listener to feel cultivated and hip.

if status is defined as the ability to appreciate quality rather than the ability to consume quantity, then do we have a way of feeding our status-jones as human beings that doesn't involve defrauding and debasing others?

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 04:35:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Status (4.00 / 3)

I've read reports of tests on the effect of different types of background music played in slow food restaurants. Light classical was most effective in getting diners to choose more expensive items from the menu and leave larger tips.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 04:39:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Status (none / 1)

hey great to hear from you, sven. busy schedule lately?

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:19:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Status (none / 1)

very! ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 11:50:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

Probably some kid gave birth in a sweatshop while assembling my computer, which I use to listen to FIP.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 04:55:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

(ugh) good point

also the chips in our computers required 20x their weight in petroleum to manufacture.

but you could have listened to radio FIP via low power FM on a very small cheap radio, if you lived in the right place... the quality of the content is not necessarily mapped 1/1 to the cost of the tech for receiving it.

a really good story is just as good whether read bound in leather on pages edged with gilt, as in the form of a used paperback. so long as the pages are clean and legible, all present, and it doesn't fall apart in one's hands, the story is just as enjoyable regardless of the expense of the packaging.

though audiophiles get all caught up in the conspicuous consumption aspects of perfect audio reproduction, good music can be enjoyed in spite of all kinds of defects of reproduction quality. when packaging trumps content, I suspect, consumerism is insatiable; when content trumps packaging, consumerism is moderated...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:05:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

really good story is just as good whether read bound in leather on pages edged with gilt, as in the form of a used paperback.

I'll debate this another day.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:15:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

It's back on my radio. Yay!

Maybe it could be licenced by local publicly funded bodies across the globe--maybe it already is!

Plus, as we all already have computers (those using a computer at the local library have headphones) so the only additional cost is whatever extra lecktrickery it takes to listen on top of whatever else the computer is being used for (and our french contingent's generosity in paying their annual subs, of course!)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:17:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 0)

Actually, appreciating quality requires exposure to quality, which has traditionally required money (for travelling, concerts, etc.) The Internet has changed much of that, but if cultivation can be had for free (or the cost of computer and Internet, which is not really very cheap) it still requires a certain amount of leisure time, education (even if self-education) and access to social networks that are frankly not easily accessible to the poor. And that still generally entails money, or unnatural cunning.

Before anyone accuses me of being a snob, I'll freely admit that anything French makes me feel cultivated and hip, which is very shallow, I know. I almost just bought a frying pan for no reason other than the Made In France bit on the backside. I actually might still get it. Anyway, status, smatus. Is listening to FIP going to get us a private audience with some world leaders so we can sway their opinions? No. That still generally entails money, or unnatural cunning. Listening to FIP will only ease the terror of watching them drive us off a cliff.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:12:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 0)

Tork abaht...er...

And that still generally entails money, or unnatural cunning.

Those who have spent money trying to get some culture--do they get any, or do they just take part in something that other people keep calling culture?

(As you know, zer artists have access to the habitats where freebie tickets live.)

I was going to mention my not rich at all egyptian mate who gravitated to classical music as it most reminded him of music from back home, which he associates with listening to all the migrating birds singing through his window when he was a baby.

But then I realised that he does, indeed, have unnatural cunning.

Still, it doesn't cost anyone a penny here to switch on radio 3--or FIP!--and they can listen to it as long as any other programme they'd listen to...

...now, thinking about it, "quality" is everywhere--from your fingers to the world in which they navigate--I think "curiosity" is a key...but really, those people I know who understand quality understand it quite independently of "finance"--they just gravitated towards it like...er...humans to food...sommat like that.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:23:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 0)

Don't forget all the cozy social safety net shit you have in Europe which makes doing normal things affordable. Things might be different here, where a quality meal and entrance to a museum or concert still costs money and a university education can put you in debt for your life and no one gets a lot of vacation time so they usually use it to visit often unquality relatives. Or maybe you are just completely out of touch with reality. I don't know. You have a home computer. I don't. And I think you'd be surprised how many other people don't... Anyway, that's a really positive thing you've got going on. Good attitude. Doesn't reflect reality as I have experienced it. Oh yes, we are all just drawn to these things. There's something to that. I agree. But you must be delusional if you think these things are not factors in maintaining class distinctions and that class distinction is not socially constructed in such a way as to keep some people from having to share with other people.

If you think I am overreacting, just this month there was a plan to put a children's museum downtown near some exclusive high rises. The tenants protested it, not wanting poor black kids coming into their area. Unbelievable.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:43:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 0)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:20:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

Heh...here's something else.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:22:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

Aw, thanks! Back when I was a small kid, there used to be a French animation series on the history of the world, beginning with Homo erectus & co and on to the modern days with the same characters. The episodes began with the opening of this Bach piece, I love it ever since.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:35:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

Fantastic playing in that video. Lovely touch. And a great camera position, I really learned a lot from it!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:41:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

Having someone to pull the organ stops for you is a bit of a cheat though. ;-)

I'm surprised theres not a copy of Vidors toccata on youtube.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 12:40:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

help if I could spell Widor wouldn't it

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 12:43:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 3)

I was walking past a church in London a few years ago, on my way to Liverpool St. station. I heard organ music, the door was open, so I stepped in. Someone (yes, it was our someone! She has talents upon her talents!) was practicing some Bach. I sat in a pew and listened.

The church didn't appear to have any crosses in it, and the church was round, with white walls, lots of light coming in from the windows.

Well now I know which church it was.

Or maybe you are just completely out of touch with reality.

Sounds about right for many definitions of "reality".

Here's the church.

Here's the organ.

Though, looking at a plan of the church...

...I'm not sure it's the right one...

And, for those of you who enjoy such things, in the video above I saw...for the first time...the various keyboards used to play that Bach piece (it's the famous one--J.S.Bach-Toccata e Fuga BWV 565--Ta da da! The "scary one", played in the clip by Karl Richter)...and now I'll always remember...those layers of keyboards.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:37:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

funny, i like 'cultured' better...

'cultivated' is how i feel exposed to the msm...

as in 'cult-i-fated'...

cultured is like yeasted...once-rogue bacteria come home to symbiosis...

prodigal...prodigiously so...said prodi...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 04:37:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

DeAnander:

yet it is a positional good that's convivial, i.e. no one else is deprived of position or goods in order for the FIP listener to feel cultivated and hip.
if status is defined as the ability to appreciate quality rather than the ability to consume quantity, then do we have a way of feeding our status-jones as human beings that doesn't involve defrauding and debasing others?

Sadly not. Listening to classical or jazz in the UK immediately marks you as a a certain kind of person and some people will be offended by your existence, while others will make a point of inviting you to the right dinner parties.

As Poemless said, it's very much about class.

Music's dirty little secret is that it's one of the most significant and powerful of all the caste markers and identity creators that people use to define themselves. Advertisers know this, which is 'Be who you want to be' messages are always supported by corporate rock - or these days by hip hop and urban - while 'upscale' images of big lawns, wood panelling and first class anything are almost always supported by classical pastiche.

Music is so heavily loaded with aggressive positional messages that it's almost impossible to listen to it on its own terms, and - especially socially - the convivial aspect is as much about aggressively filtering out people from different castes as it is about the noise that's being made.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 05:47:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

Man, those white lady pensioners have fought everyone else out of those draughty churches, for sure!

Heh! I think you are talking about music as "background noise".

Maybe because of this perceived--didn't occur to me, but must be like food: chips are for proles and fois gras is for the poshoes? Tork abhat shallow! If most people are thoroughly shallow then it all makes sense...I dunno--this percieved "class" element....well didn't I read here--or was it somewhere else?--that the single biggest indicator of class in england is "accent"?

But really--I am in the smallest of small minorities as I listen to FIP because I like the music, the variety--I listen to Bach because he is The Teacher. I hated classical music--consciouly avoided it--until my early thirties as I had bad memories of piano lessons.

I spent an entire performance of the 1812 (I must have been, what, thirteen?) carving shapes into my forearm with a fingernail (one of my own, of course!).

I remember a guy who got most aggreived at us because we started liking "disco" tunes (this was 88/89) rather than "indie" music...we were selling out! But we just wanted to dance!

I don't enjoy english/american rap--I don't like the violent tones. I enjoy french rap--the tones are different: Now, an advertiser would say, "Ah yes, rg is drawn towards the aspirational european influence--"

And, again, if I had video access here I would post Bill Hicks, but I don't, so here's the transcript:

Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that."

God, I'm just caught in a fucking web.

"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..."

How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?

"What didya do today honey?"

"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores]

Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 06:02:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

Thing is - you're a musician. I'm a musician. We listen to all sorts. (Which is a positional thing in itself, but never mind.)

Most people don't have the same relationship to music that we do. The music biz knows this, which is why music is sold (sic) as a lifestyle accessory, rather than as a thing in itself.

I was at an arts development workshop (shudder...) in Swindon yesterday. It was bizarre. Government drones talking about 'strategy' and 'regional development.' Kids (well, they were in their 20s, so they looked like kids) putting on successful dance music events and being told they weren't going to be supported because they, er, weren't something enough. (My guess is compliant - we can't let the peasants run around if they're not going to be 'relevant' to the 'needs of the major record labels.')

Meanwhile the local amateur choral society was off in a corner muttering to itself about how no one who hadn't been through menopause was paying any attention to it.

And so on.

I suggested the South West should have its own Internet radio station to showcase any one and everyone.

We'll see how that goes.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 06:44:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 0)

I can understand this in terms of TV docs. For some reason they always play music that sends me to sleep--esp. when showing vistas of mountains or glades--or even atoms...I saw one episode, the science was interesting, the images were great, but the music...lots of drum'n'bassy sounds there...just getting in the way. A programme without that intrusion would be...ah...

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 06:50:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 2)

I remember a guy who got most aggreived at us because we started liking "disco" tunes (this was 88/89) rather than "indie" music...we were selling out! But we just wanted to dance!

I remember earlier on that those same Indie kids were given grief, because they were selling out, handing music back to the record companies after the do-it yourself ethos of the punk and new wave eras. this was some time about 82/83

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 07:39:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

They didn't all sell out....

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 08:48:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 0)

Excellent!

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Oct 31st, 2007 at 06:11:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 5)

wow. I had only a vague idea that internet streaming radio existed :-) last night my search for FIP got me started on a binge of discovering thousands of international internet radio feeds. I feel as bewildered as a greedy kid in Wonka's chocolate factory -- it's simply outside human capacity to listen to even a small fraction of the firehose of great music and spoken word. and not only live feeds, but huge archives of past "broadcasts".

I like FIP -- I have a hard time parsing rapid spoken French but the DJs have very pleasant voices and I can at least pick up the gist of the headlines, a sense of "what people are talking about." the web site is hard on the eyes, but the audio content is great!

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 04:24:14 PM EST

Re: FIP (none / 0)

Welcome to the club!

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

by Melanchthon on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 05:31:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

a small fraction of the firehose (4.00 / 3)

i have been an internet radio addict since about 2000. so much so that i decided to diary about it a while ago to see if i wasn't the only one on ET. collectively came up with "a small fraction of the firehose of great music and spoken word":

Internet Radio Programs

I also turned this into a wiki here:

EuroTribWiki: Internet Multimedia Programs

Please feel free to add, as I am always looking for new stuff to feed my addiction!

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:15:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Gah! (none / 0)

You don't have Worldview, but you have Coast to Coast? Attributed to me? Make it go away!

Worldview:
http://www.wbez.org/Program_WV.aspx

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:18:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Gah! (4.00 / 2)

that is so weird. i have no idea where i got Coast to Coast: i just looked for the original suggestion and i can't find any comments that mention it. sorry for attributing it to you mistakenly. i made it go away.

and yes, i immediately saw that Worldview was missing and added it -- attributing it to you even before you brought it up!

(incidentally, i am wondering if i should just get rid of all those attributions anyway...)

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:36:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (none / 1)

I stream this station quite a bit.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:53:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FIP (4.00 / 4)

Great diary! FIP - now testing :-)

As for what listen to: I am still hooked on Woxy, an indie music radio from Ohio.

In the airwaves around me, today there are only half a dozen channels playing different mixes of the same crappy pop and techno music. (Rádió ©, which I diaried, is too weak where I live.) But my favourite channel used to be Rádió Bridge.

Rádió Bridge grew out from the Budapest studio of Voice of America, and existed 1991-2002 -- with a devoted following (memorial website) but financial problems. While it generally had a better music selection than others, what really stood out were two sessions: one on Sundays titled "Phantom of the Record Archive", for which a frail-voiced female DJ picked a mind-blowing selection of old & new, world music to indie rock, always rare gems; the other was world music on Tuesday nights, which used to be thematic, so I didn't always liked the style picked, but if I did, I got a selection well beyond the most known (I remember a session on West African pop music most).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 06:27:54 PM EST

K-BOO in Portland, OR (4.00 / 2)

Y'all might like it. It's streaming 24/7, I believe, though I haven't tried it on-line, since I listen to it on the radio (I know - I'm very old-fashioned).

Pacific Standard Time - 5:30 to 7:00 M-F - Folk Strip; 7:00 - 8:00 M-F - News; Later morning - "Positively Revolting", Democracy Now (Amy Goodman); Noon - various music shows, including Highwyyun (Texan for Hawaiian), Celtic, more folk; afternoons M and F - early rock/&/or/roll, TWTh - Latino music; later afternoon - Free Speech Radio News; etc. Saturday 6:00 to 9:00 - old-time country/western; 9:00 to Noon - Bluegrass; Saturday afternoon - Grateful Dead into various R&B and Soul-oriented shows. Evenings I switch to Classical and Jazz stations, so I don't know what's on K-BOO.

paul spencer

by paul spencer (paulgspencer@gmail.com) on Tue Oct 30th, 2007 at 08:25:07 PM EST

Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

I've found the FIP site, but can't seem to get it to work. Anybody got any ideas to help ?

when I was driving around France I discovered FIP to be intermittently available. It's in Paris, South West, near Orange and in some parts of Pas de Calais

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Nov 1st, 2007 at 04:23:06 PM EST

Re: Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

I'm afraid I don't know. I think maybe some piece of software needs to be loaded onto your computer. From the FIP site I found:

Radio France diffuse ses stations en direct au format Microsoft Windows Media

so it may be that you need a newer version of MS Windows Media player...hopefully somebody more knowledgeable can be more helpful!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Nov 1st, 2007 at 04:51:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

What's happening when it dosn't work? are you getting a particular error message?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Nov 1st, 2007 at 10:04:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

No. I press the listen now button, media player loads and....nothing

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 at 08:08:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

Do you have iTunes?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 at 09:08:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

not as far as I'm aware

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 at 09:16:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

I've always found it easier to listen to internet radio stations with iTunes than the windows version.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 at 09:22:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wah !! No FIP (none / 1)

make that Microsoft version

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 at 09:23:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

FIP | 62 comments (62 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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FIP

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