On the Air: Do-It-Yourself Radio for the Computer Nation

There are certain givens to life in the computer age. For instance, your usually reliable PC will crash just as you reach the end of that big project, swallowing all your work like the whale that swallowed Gepetto. Then the inkjets on your printer will run dry exactly seven minutes before the closest supply store closes.

And, most pernicious of all, names like MP3, Winamp and SHOUTcast invariably turn out to be secret code for “Hey, kids, you can really have fun messing around with these programs!”

MP3 is the relatively new computer format for storing and playing music, paving the way for easy exchange of music over the Internet. While the music industry fears the technology will lead to uncontrollable piracy, its most recent and unexpected effect has been to turn legions of computer-owning teens into commercial-free Internet broadcasters through Winamp and the 6-week-old SHOUTcast Web site (https://www.shoutcast.com).

“I decided that since I have a fairly fast connection, it would be fun to try it. And it stuck,” says Mikey Lebeau, a 15-year-old computer buff who streams a library of 175 songs over his Left Coast Punk station from his home in Los Altos, outside San Francisco.

The stations work simply. Through SHOUTcast, computer users download free Winamp audio software, which receives and sends MP3 files. It also sends human voices, so users with microphones can deejay their own music collections.

SHOUTcast also maintains a list of active stations, automatically dropping any that go silent for five minutes. Listeners type in any active station’s code, the connection is made and the music flows.

Alternative rock and techno predominate, but some sites broadcast oldies, classic rock, classical and jazz. One site offers all Tool all the time, relying on songs recorded at four concerts by the hard-core group. A station called Xaos broadcasts a mix of alternative rock from the flatlands of Texas because, the Web site says, it’s too far away from population centers to get real radio.

“Broadcast was not the primary application of Winamp,” says Justin Frankel, vice president of business development for Nullsoft Inc., the Sedona, Ariz.-based creator of Winamp and SHOUTcast. “The bulk of users are playing MP3 files they’ve downloaded onto their hard drive. We’ve made some little adaptations that allow people to use their player to broadcast not just through speakers, but onto the Internet.”

Nullsoft makes its money through advertising and through licensing its software to Web sites that sell MP3 in secure formats the music industry hopes will subvert the burgeoning free-flow of recorded music.

But as they might say at Xaos, in the wilds of Texas, it could be a little late to close the barn door. Most of Lebeau’s broadcast library came from free downloads from the Web and copies of MP3 files from friends, and also from converting his own and friends’ CDs into the MP3 format and then sending them out into the world.

So far, he says, he’s identified two audiences for his station: his friends and fellow punk and ska fans.

“People are generally positive about it,” says Lebeau, who plans on a career in computers. “The most response I get is someone looking to hear a particular song. . . . But it also seems punk lovers who use the computer a lot tend to leave it on while doing work.”

Go figure: Punk as workplace Muzak.