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Had I been more responsible this time around, this episode would have been shared with the world at least a month before Netlabel Day 2026 took place, not as the event is happening. Here's the inescapable fact about life, though...it just...keeps...lifing. At any rate, 90% of the show is comprised of Creative Commons licensed cuts, including a mini-documentary in support of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a Playstation-inspired drum and bass joint from MICROMECHA, and a collaboration between Devin Morrison and Moonchild's Amber Navran.
Give a brother 50 minutes, if you please. As always, I thank you for your time and your ears.
This episode's track list (title / artist / source / license):
All comments, questions, and general feedback can be sent to radiobsots@gmail.com. Record a voice message and send it my way or leave one at the Speakpipe page!
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**SCROLL DOWN FOR THE FULL TRACK LIST**
Monday, July 14, 2025 marked my second time around hosting a takeover of the Netlabel Day Radio stream. For two hours, I got to share a bunch of Creative Commons licensed tracks live from my living room. I'm always thankful for opportunities like this and I gotta give a shoutout to my big brother and Netlabel Day facilitator Omar Willey for entrusting me with another 120 minutes to go live on the NLD Radio stream. Honestly, I'm grateful to share music with any and all that are willing to take the time to listen. I'm always amazed at what I'm able to find within the CC music virtual bins.
Among the featured netlabels are active imprints like blocSonic, Business Casual, Jumpsuit, Flowerpot, Dusted Wax Kingdom, and Monster Jinx. Thanks to the Internet Archive, I was also able to include works from netlabels that ended their run over 5, 10, or even 15 years ago like Melodica and Subwise. And whenever I can represent for labels that are indie staples like Stones Throw or Atjazz Record Co., I consider that a bonus. Other cuts were discovered on Bandcamp, Free Music Archive, and Jamendo. A little digging goes a long way, resulting in a freeform mix of hip-hop, soul, jazz, rock, and various forms of electronic music.
Some brief corrections: "Not Myself" by Lovespirals was listed as Creative Commons (some rights reserved) at the time of the broadcast, but now is under full copyright (all rights reserved). And I announced that "Drifting Dawn" by Abigail Press was released on Trippin' The Rift, which is incorrect. It was actually released on Melodica, a netlabel from years past that I stumbled upon on the Internet Archive. And about halfway through the episode, I mentioned Willam Maggos and his podcast Culture War Radio. Unfortunately, his show is no longer producing new episodes, but I shared part of his CC music manifesto from the podcast website during the livestream as it was a sentiment that I wholeheartedly agree with. His last post on the Democracy Of Reach website continues that line of thought and is well worth reading.
As this episode unfolds, keep your ears on the alert for verses from Chuck D of Public Enemy and Kool Keith of Ultramagnetic MCs and Dr. Octagon fame. There's a live cut by APB recorded at the WFMU studios and even a Latin jazz joint that dates back to 1968. A little something for many, and hopefully served up in a way that makes sonic sense. If you need an extended session for your next road trip or just some tunes to get you through your work day, I certainly hope that this episode provides what you're looking for.
This episode's track list (title / artist / source / license):
All comments, questions, and general feedback can be sent to radiobsots@gmail.com. Record a voice message and send it my way or leave one at the Speakpipe page!
Visit the BSOTS Linktree for all the podcast and social media platforms.
This episode's track list (title / artist / source / license):
More often than not, just thinking about social media engagement makes me exhausted, but I've found reasons to hang out on Mastodon more than other platforms. It mainly has to do with an active and growing indie music community, including music makers, music lovers, and tech developers that are often a combination of the former two categories. It's just nice to witness them all speak to each other, brainstorm in real time, and make things happen. No social media platform is perfect, but what I'm learning on Mastodon gives me incentive to make return visits and engage with the community while I'm there. It also makes sense to share what I'm learning there with the BSOTS listening audience, particularly if the information is related directly to music appreciation, sonic curation, and/or media preservation.
There's an embrace of open source tools on Mastodon as well as Creative Commons licensed works, and I have stumbled upon a number of great CC music releases since I've been there. Respect due to Ryno The Bearded for putting me on to Warik, an artist that reminds me of the beauty of well-crafted pop music. The jangly guitars, catchy lyrics, and soulful bump of "Yellowish" have made it worthy of many rewinds on my player. On the electronic side of things, there's Alphabets Heaven and their album Your Lifestyle, a gorgeous and sun-kissed psychedelic beat tape that straddles the fence between hip-hop and house. Many of the songs on that release are brief, so I included two within this episode. And I can't get over the crunchy programming of Rephazer's "Peat," full of foreboding bass tones and a lighter melody that floats right above the surface.
Half of the joy of searching through CC music websites is the discovery and surprise that happens along the way, but since you can't be everywhere at once, it's always helpful to tap into the tastes and preferences of other CC music fans. I learned about AMARAFLEUR through watching one of her videos on the Friends Of CC Music YouTube channel. Hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa, her left-of-center R&B displays a certain vulnerability that you can't turn away from. "DontLetGo" benefits from Aule Whan's futuristic hip-hop styled production. This is a head nod essential right here. I also have been coming across some incredible drum and bass tunes lately, but I never thought I'd find a CC licensed joint featuring Cleveland Watkiss, arguably one of the most charismatic vocalists that the UK has given to the world. "Energy" is a well orchestrated jazz stepper and a no-brainer to include within this episode.
Live jazz for the dance floor is delivered in top form courtesy of Australia's Alexander Flood. "Life Is A Rhythm" is a peak hour tune made with the house heads in mind. The episode concludes with a rendition of "Rhapsody In Blue" that entered the public domain earlier this year. It's rare that you get to hear a sound recording in the public domain from 90 years ago that represents the composer's original artistic intention, but this version of the composition actually features George Gershwin on piano. It's amazing that this classic work is available for all of us to access and interact with now. This is why I continue to crate dig within the CC music virtual bins: you'd be amazed at the familiar names or few that you'll find. Trust and believe that your curiosity for CC music discovery will always be rewarded. With all of that said, here's hoping that you will enjoy the show and I thank you so much for listening.
Theme music edited by macedonia (originally produced by cy tru). ID drop courtesy of Kahlee.
All comments, questions, and general feedback can be sent to radiobsots@gmail.com. Record a voice message and send it my way or leave one at the Speakpipe page!
Visit the BSOTS Linktree for all the podcast and social media platforms.
This episode's track list (title / artist / source / license):
If you're reading this, it means that you made it out of 2024. Happy New Year and welcome to Camp Lo-Fi. I hope and pray that you will be able to experience peaceful moments and great music throughout this year. I pulled this episode together as 2024 was coming to a close, making this the first sonic statement for Radio BSOTS in 2025. To kick off a new year of the podcast, this episode and the next episode will focus on my participation in the Netlabel Day Radio live stream marathon that took place in July of last year. I initially recorded a 30-minute test run for the stream and figured that I should share that with the listeners.
I gathered together some Creative Commons tunes from indie labels that ended up releasing later works under full copyright as time went on, but they're still imprints that I hold in high regard (namely Tokyo Dawn, Budabeats, and Error Broadcast). All cuts played during the test run can still be found online via Jamendo, Bandcamp, and the Free Music Archive. This set of music leans heavy on the sounds of international beat culture, particularly that first decade of the early 2000s where the lines between electronic music and hip-hop production got blurry (and for the better, in my opinion). Featured selections from Comfort Fit, Suhov, Bluntspeakers, and Apes On Tapes are probably the best examples of this.
Outside of the test run, the show opens with a selection in honor of ccMixter turning 20 years old (featuring the voice of Madam Snowflake - check out the video below for a snapshot of her artistic journey) and closes with an addictive, head-nodding joint from Fields Ohio. I also get to share some listener feedback this time around. As a bonus, I couldn't let the episode end without the words and voice of the late, great Nikki Giovanni. As always, I welcome your interaction and hope that there are some selections within this installment of the podcast that grab your attention and increase your curiosity about other gems that can be found within the world of Creative Commons licensed music.
Theme music by Cy Tru (edited by Macedonia). Background music by Techniken Defunkus. ID drops from Morganics and Jonny Sonic.
All comments, questions, and general feedback can be sent to radiobsots@gmail.com. Record a voice message and send it my way or leave one at the Speakpipe page!
Visit the BSOTS Linktree for all the podcast and social media platforms.
This episode's track list (title / artist / source / license):
Looking back over the last ten shows for the BSOTS podcast feed, eight of them featured at least one Creative Commons licensed tune. Even after more than 15 years of podcasting, the CC music landscape still feels like largely uncharted territory for me, which is probably why I've felt the need to dig through the online crates to see what I can find. In addition, I've been listening to prior BSOTS episodes from over a decade ago, revisiting the music that I have played on the show and taking note of the songs that still sound great to me so that I can reintroduce them on future episodes. This show marks Camp Lo-Fi's long overdue return to the feed and is where my CC music appreciation agenda kicks into high gear. The seven songs featured are a mix of tunes from prior BSOTS episodes alongside selections receiving their first spins, cutting across genre and released between 2009 and 2023.
The blocSonic netlabel opened my eyes and ears to the world of CC licensed music. It was through their netBloc series of compilations that I was introduced to a network of artists and online labels, most of it (if not all) available to freely download and share. The blocSonic offerings in this episode are courtesy of last year's album from Wals and a stellar cut from Public Enemy (as heard on netBloc vol. 44), featuring the always on-point lyricism of Chuck D and special guest Brother Ali. Another notable hip-hop moment is "Zo0o0o0p!!!," the brief but absolutely banging cut from Kidkanevil featuring Oddisee, a ridiculously talented emcee and producer whose music I've been championing on this show for well over a decade. Isak Gaines moves us into the unpredictable and experimental side of jazz with "Dance Of Contradictions," a song that sonically lives up to its title. A bouncy yet broken groove for the first half of the song gives way to a beatless abyss of sound effects and saxophone screeches before bringing the hammer down with a distorted bass line and a defiant horn section.
Niki J Crawford's "Ridiculous Love" was an unexpected surprise that I stumbled upon over on Jamendo, a sultry soul offering made all the more seductive with the wetSkin Hot Summer ReMix. It's percussion heavy with a slight Brazilian influence and a breezy shuffle topped with acoustic guitar strums and Niki's powerhouse vocals. Yoko Absorbing's "Old Futuro Blues" is a short, sweet, and somewhat off-kilter cut that lives in repeated moments of loops, locked grooves, and live instrumentation. And there's probably no better example of the sonic treasures waiting to be discovered over at the Free Music Archive than live recordings of legendary poet Nikki Giovanni. "In The Spirit Of Martin" is her ode to not only the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but to the struggle and perseverance of the Civil Rights movement as a whole.
If you're Creative Commons curious but have been unsure where to start looking, hopefully episodes like these can demystify this world of music one song at a time. Thank you so much for listening.
ID drop courtesy of DarrenKeith. Theme music by Cy Tru (edited by Macedonia).
All comments, questions, and general feedback can be sent to radiobsots@gmail.com. Record a voice message and send it my way or leave one at the Speakpipe page!
For the past two decades, "pause" merely existed as long-form commentary on the BSOTS website. Roughly a week after Jam Master Jay's murder, the bile in my belly fueled a rant in my brain and it all came spilling out onto my computer keyboard. More emotional than logical, it wears my sarcasm and cynicism like spike-studded armor. I'm definitely in my "I said what I said" bag here, back when I had no problems taking an either/or approach when dividing music into rigid yet subjective categories like "commercial" vs. "alternative" and viewing hip-hop as if it were a sonic civil war with only two sides: "conscious" vs. "gangsta." I had one foot out the door of the culture and the music when I wrote this and it shows.
Creative Commons licensed tunes break up the commentary, featuring selections from netlabels like blocSonic and Dusted Wax Kingdom as well as cuts scattered across Bandcamp, Jamendo, and the Free Music Archive. The blocSonic cuts include guest verses from Chuck D of Public Enemy and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run-DMC. The sound of dusty vinyl underneath certain parts of the commentary comes directly from a project entitled This Is The End, Beautiful Friend by File Under Toner. The description of this project on the Free Music Archive begins with the following question: "Are the hiss, crackles, and pops on records protected by copyrights?" All of the featured sounds are from the locked grooves at the end of various records, which get messed with using delay, reverb and other audio techniques. I thought that these works added just the right amount of tension at certain times, more than traditional background music would. The locked grooves running into themselves in this circumstance just sound so stark, like it's occupying the space where Jam Master Jay's cutting and scratching used to reside.
I live with me all the time, enough to know that the longer I hold on to this episode, the more that my own doubts and anxieties will keep me from releasing it into the podosphere, so I have to let it go. It's going to do whatever it does. Here's hoping that you will give this one a shot and consider it time well spent.
ID drop courtesy of Kahlief Adams. Theme music by Cy Tru (edited by Macedonia).
All comments, questions, and general feedback can be sent to radiobsots@gmail.com. Record a voice message and send it my way or leave one at the Speakpipe page!
A
few months ago, I came to the conclusion that I use my podcast feed
like a pop-up shop, disappearing for indefinite periods of time until I
have something to share with the public and then returning to the
podosphere without so much as an alert or hardly an announcement. Parts
of my being remain 100% unapologetic about that. For someone who's
been podcasting since August of 2005 with the initial hopes that this
show would reach as many listeners as possible, one would think that I
wouldn't have such a disdain for online public interaction. Then again,
I can't remember the last time I've attended a podcasting conference.
Maybe it's a sign of getting older, maybe it's just a result of me
doubling down on my hardcore introverted tendencies ever since the
COVID-19 pandemic started.
Late in the month of June, I got this
burst of inspiration and recorded some voiceovers, which sat untouched
on a SD card for almost two months before I started editing them.
Seeing as how the month of August is an anniversary month for Radio
BSOTS, I suppose it makes sense that the final push to get this episode
out is happening now. The songs featured on this one were released
between 2013 and 2021, the majority of which came out in 2020. Seeing
as how America and the world is still in the midst of the aftereffects
of that catastrophic year, that's probably not a coincidence, either. A
number of these selections reflect the racial strife that came to a
head two summers ago along with a lyrically critical eye on Trump's
presidential agenda (never mind the perpetual state of the pandemic
that we're still not out of, but a large section of humanity pretends
isn't really a thing anymore).
So this is my summer offering from
Camp Lo-Fi. Eleven songs plus a 17 year-old blog entry equals 49
minutes of your time, served up in a BSOTS GONE (buck)WILD style.
(Admittedly, the music does the heavy lifting.) Hopefully, you will
consider it time well spent. Thank you for listening.
ID drop courtesy of Kahlief Adams. Theme music by Cy Tru featuring Jonny Sonic.
All comments, questions, and general feedback can be sent to radiobsots@gmail.com. Record a voice message and send it my way or leave one at the Speakpipe page!
Should anyone have any doubts as to what my answer is to the question posed in this episode's title, please know that it's a resounding YES! I had a Frank Zappa album title in my head while creating this show (Does Humor Belong In Music?), but ultimately it's a reaction to all of the DMCA takedowns issued to podcasters by the RIAA last year and this year. In fact, I received an unauthorized material notice of my own early on in 2020 (for a song that I never played), and now seems like the perfect time to finally share that story. In addition, I talk about the days when resources like Podsafe Music Network and IODA Promonet were still around, back when it felt like the term "podsafe music" was more concrete and not some abstract theory or intangible concept.
All of the songs featured in this episode are Creative Commons-licensed tracks, meaning that they're all free to download, to share, and to enjoy. Some come from netlabels like blocSonic, Mahorka, and Kahvi Collective while others were found over at Bandcamp, Jamendo, and the Free Music Archive. It's a mix of hip-hop and electronic cuts including a pair of gamer jams and even a live cut from 2017 featuring Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab fame. I think this episode is the right one for Camp Lo-Fi to ease its way back into the podosphere.
