FAQ

Send me an email at the new address, requests@radiodeadair.com

Please place the artist and the song in the subject line (Artist – “Title”) and the link in the body of the email, if necessary. This makes it easier for me to keep track of the list of songs. Note that if you send me a request a week in advance, it’s not going to happen. The DMCA doesn’t allow for that sort of thing. Make the request the night of the show, during showtime.

There are probably a couple of reasons. First, the SoundExchange license I operate under requires there to be at least a one hour lag time between when I get a request and when it gets played, to prevent a stream from being a “virtual jukebox.” I know this is silly, but this helps keep the stream legal so I do my best to comply.

Next, I get upwards of a hundred requests a night, and the show only runs for five hours. Not everyone’s requests are going to get played. It happens. Whining, complaining, and making comments to the effect that your request hasn’t played yet doesn’t help this; in fact, it adds to my stress during a broadcast. I’m entirely a one man operation on the technical side. I do all of this myself. I’m juggling a lot behind the scenes. Not every request is going to get played. It’s nothing personal.

Last, there’s a chance that I either can’t find your request, or it’s inappropriate for the stream. There’s really no way around that.

Good question! I pay. A lot. Or rather, my gracious and wonderful audience pays a lot. Each year, I renew streaming music licenses for ASCAP, BMI and SoundExchange; the cost comes in at a little over $2000. It’s a pain, but just like NPR, you folks come through at renewal time and help keep RDA legally on the air.

Because the aforementioned streaming license is for just that: streaming. If it includes music, it absolutely cannot be recorded and made available later, even if it’s on Blip or YouTube. Sorry, but I want to keep the show on the air, so I play by the rules.

The other issue is storage space. Recording the live bit each week takes 1GB, and it adds up. My 1.5TB hard drive is almost full as is; soon I’ll need to look into a larger hard drive or even a NAS to keep up with the archive (which I keep for everything). In the meanwhile, I’m struggling to find room for it all, so I try to keep the size to a minimum.

Incidentally, I do keep an audio recording of every show in their entirety, for licensing and record-keeping purposes.

No all-caps. (On the internet, it’s yelling.) Plus, people use it to try to “Talk over others.”

No spam. (Typing the same thing over and over, multiple repeated characters, etc.)

No abusing other listeners. (Do I have to explain this one?)

No circumventing being kicked from the channel. (Rejoining immediately, etc.)

No arguing with the channel ops.

First infraction is a warning, second a kick (ten minute timeout), third is a ban. Other things might get you warned or kicked at channel ops’ discretion. They’re there to keep the chat running smoothly because I can’t do that and run the show at the same time, and they’re volunteers. Don’t give them shit.

We all clear? Good.

Because this is not 4chan. The show does use adult language and we have some pretty risqué topics from time to time, but outright abuse is a non-starter. Slamming someone for their sex, race, or religion makes people not want to be there, and that’s unacceptable. If you say the sort of horrible words that could end a celebrity’s career (google Michael Richards for an example), you will be kicked, and potentially banned. The ops will use their best judgment on this. Be decent, is what I’m saying.

I honestly don’t know.

It could be any number of reasons: your local service, your browser, your flash updates, your system updates, your cookies, your operating system . . . take your pick. I don’t know, and I can’t stop in the middle of running the show to help you with troubleshooting. I’m on the backend; Ustream is the front end. If you’re having trouble viewing a stream, you should go to them for technical support.

If the stream isn’t working for everyone, I promise you will know. But if no one has mentioned it and the show seems to be progressing as normal for everyone else, it’s likely a problem on your end. I advise you to make sure your Flash plug-in is up to date, and if need be try launching the show in a different browser, like Chrome or Firefox or IE depending which your system uses as a default.

Also, “lagging” is not “lagging.” That’s not the correct term, and it’s confusing because it means something entirely different than what you think it does. This makes me concerned there is a problem with the video and audio sync. It’s like saying “your house is on fire” when you mean “you have a hole in your shirt.” It’s not helpful.

What you’re talking about is a disruption of the stream causing it to pause and re-buffer. And I’m sad to report there’s nothing I can do about that; that’s an issue between your computer and its connection to Ustream’s servers. It’s completely out of my hands. If there’s a genuine problem with the show’s throughput, I promise you I would see it from my end. The data stream would fluctuate and/or cease entirely. Again, your best option is to contact Ustream’s technical support.

Incidentally, this kind of applies to all streams you view, be it on YouTube, Twitch, Livestream, what have you. Sorry.

Usually we begin around 11:30pm Eastern each week, plus or minus five to ten minutes. Unless something has radically gone wrong, it never changes. If you ask this question in the channel, people may respond with “take a shot.” Congratulations, you have become part of the drinking game.

While we’re on the subject, I’d invite you not leave en masse when the segment is over. There’s still two more hours of show-time afterward. Stick around.

I used to say no to both of these, but now I think I’m opening up both. Send them to the normal request email, but include “Invisibles” or “Reviewer” in the subject line.

Because taste is subjective. There are even requests that I don’t enjoy myself, a lot of the time (and just as many that completely baffle me). But like with every source of entertainment, it’s not personally designed for the individual. I try to do a variety of things. You won’t like all of them.

Saying you dislike a song? That’s okay. Discussing why you dislike a song or artist on their merits? That’s cool.

Taking the time to pointedly scream that you hate the song or comedy bit or whatever that’s playing is flat out rude. Informing the channel that you will be muting your stream is just as bad. If you don’t like what’s playing, then by all means turn down your speakers . . . but don’t try to make someone else feel bad because you dislike their choices. You’re adding stress, you’re making the environment hostile, you’re making what I do less fun and (most important and relevant to you personally) the Ops will kick you for it.

So yelling “MUTING!” or “EEEEENNND!” or “God, this fucking sucks” or any variant thereof or in-between will be unpleasant for us, and you. Please refrain, ‘kay?

Also, scientists have demonstrated that for every instance you say “This again?” in response to a video you’ve seen before, it represents one less occurrence of having sex in your lifetime.

Mike is the producer. In the case of RDA, this means he loaned Nash money when he really needed it, and in return gets to see his name in the credits (yes, that was the deal).

He regularly purposefully requests things that are horrible (though, he may like them), because he lives off the suffering of others. He is responsible for the majority of Army of Lovers requests in recent months.

Kathryn is not Tara, the woman who appears regularly on the show. This is apparently a common misunderstanding. She has done a cameo before, and may do so in the future, but she’s not as funny as Tara, nor does she have an army of hippos at her command. She does, however, have a lovely tiara.

Kathryn is a long time listener that started giving Nash ridiculous things to rant about on his show, mostly because watching Nash lose his shit over other people’s stupidity amused her. It started as one or two, but then blossomed into what we see from the show today.

She doesn’t pay attention to the links people put on the RDA Facebook, usually using her own judgment and research. Nash has about a half hour per episode and she finds him between 20-30 links a week. If you suggest a link to her during the show that doesn’t get played, it’s usually for one of two reasons. It’s because there isn’t enough time, or because it’s not a good link.

Send them to nash@radiodeadair.com or tweet me a link to @Nash076. I can’t guarantee I’ll use it, but I’ll look over everything I get.