I woke up and remember having to go into my room to get some clothes or something out of my chest of drawers. I was very quiet, as I could hear Rev snoring and didn't want to wake him. Well, I got whatever it was and I was headed toward the door when I heard in a commanding voice,"Don't move or you're dead!". I turned around to see Rev with a .38 revolver in his hand pointed in my general direction, but sort of moving around so as to cover a wider target area. I remember screaming something to the effect of, "No--don't shoot." Rev replied, "One wrong move and you're dead." Well, then I started talking a mile a minute..."Rev, it's me, it's Barry, don't shoot Rev...I was only getting something from my chest of drawers..." Finally, Rev said, "Is that you, Barry?" The incident was soon over, and I had escaped with me life. I guess, from his perspective, it must have been kind of weird to be alone, blind, on the road 3,000 miles from home and rooming with a bunch of lunatic young musicians many years his junior. But to this day, the picture of Reverend Gary Davis that sticks in my mind the most is early in the morning, half-awake and blind as a bat, with a .38 in his hand pointed in my general direction. It was one of the most frightening moments of my life - Barry Melton
I regret to inform you that Weenie Juke Radio will be closing down at the end of this month. Weenie Juke has been 'on the wire' (mostly) for almost 10 years. Our current licensing entity, Loud City announced earlier this month that they were shutting down by the end of the month. While Loud City has also announced that they are trying to negotiate for someone to continue the operation, I've decided to take this opportunity, regardless of the negotiated outcome, to close the Juke.
Many factors weigh in this decision. The various licensing entities and the creation of the DCMA make it difficult for hobbyist radio operators to follow the many, rules. These rules are really aimed at the large operators and in large part take the fun out of it for the small operator.
While we have some intense interest in Weenie Juke from a few of our die hard fans, in general, there is not much listening traffic on Weenie Juke. I think this is due to a large number of sources where old country blues can either be obtained or listened to. I'm continually amazed at the number of country blues tunes on youtube for example. Pandora, Spotify and other custom stations now carry country blues.
We do plan on "moth balling" the Juke in the event that circumstances change (as we did previously for about a year, while waiting for the licensing situation to shake out) and the Juke will be passed on to whomever or whatever (if anyone) may want to continue the site when the Steering Committee has grown too old and grouchy.
The Juke has been fun - many people have supported and contributed to the Juke in many ways, but I'd like to especially thank Rivers for his technical work on the great set of Juke web pages and of course Richard, who was the delightful and humorous voice of Weenie Juke. Sad as it may be, let's all raise our glasses and bid a fond farewell!
Weenie Juke has been a great resource and it will be sad to see it go. That said, if the regulators make it impossible to be fun for those that run it, I can thoroughly understand the decision to pull it. Thanks for making it available for the number of years it's been online.
Too bad, sorry to see it go. The Juke was a great resource to hear songs that I did not have a copy of several years ago. But yes, there is so much country blues content online now.
What a drag! I've lately been in a sort of artist search mode on YouTube and the likes, but I was hoping to be able to return to the Juke after a while.
Thank you guys for all the great work you've done with the Juke. I think it, along with this forum, has been the most valuable tool in my remote country blues education!
Bummer- I had to voluntarily give up the daily Juke a while back so it wouldn't be completely banned due to bandwidth issues- I could listen during the off hours.
I'm gonna miss all the Country Blues knowledge I gleaned from the Weenie Juke, I guess I'll have to search for another source.
AND..... thanks to everybody who contributed to the great selection of music that was featured.
Wow that's terrible, understandable, but terrible. I was actually listening to it more recently. While there is a lot of stuff on youtube it can't be used as a real radio type stream. And where else can one find the depth of programing knowledge that we have here? Maybe we can find some university that wants to take it on. Lets poke around for options. Perhaps we could just rename all the songs and use made up names for the artists?
Logged
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)
I'm sad to see the Juke go, and bitter about the reasons it has to go. I suspect many stations that play small, independent artists will be disappearing. When not just a station but a whole licensing entity decides to throw in the towel thanks to pressure from entities like SoundExchange and the RIAA, then the corporate pablum peddlers are winning. This is what they wanted all along, and as Slack notes, they have made it difficult for any small operator to meet their demands.
I suppose some of the internet radio traffic will go to services like Spotify, which has a pretty poor royalties model from what I understand. Not sure what the answer really is, but part of it surely should have been to allow space for small operators without requiring the ridiculous hoops one must jump through just to exist.
The music business is truly a mess. But so is everything else these days, so no shock here.
I'm sorry to see the Juke go, but it's understandable, given how difficult the modern mess has made things--things that should be easy and simple. Imagine that you couldn't let your friends listen to your record collection unless you filled out the required paperwork and coughed up dough for every spin of a platter. In essence, that's what it amounts to for the small outfits like WC.
Thanks to Slack, Rivers and the everyone else who made the Juke the quality source for all things Country Blues over the years. It will be missed.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2014, 07:23:58 AM by Stuart »