Atlantic Oldies 2NG

So, armed with a large collection of diapers (nappies in my English), baby wipes and the “best thing since sliced bread”, the Diaper Genie the last month has just gone so quick. I deliberately didn’t record any new shows on 2NG (The Rick Ainley Show) as I knew time would fly but nothing prepared me for just how quick it went.

I was able to restart recording shows and that’s going well. This week (Labor Day week) the show is dedicated to Natalie and daughters everywhere. I enjoy the show and periodic emails that come my way as well make it really worth it. Check us out here

I’ve also been looking at adding new shows to 2NG as well. Mike Landecker, a seasoned DJ from Texas came on board this week, and I have some emails from fellow DJ’s that I need to sit down and go through. It seems that whilst our listeners love the great music mix, having some personalities goes down well too. Helps make us different to some other stations. If you’re a DJ or Show host and I haven’t got back to you yet, my apologies.

iTunes also spring cleaned its listings last week. Previously we were listed in two genre’s but sadly now only one, “Golden Oldies”, but most importantly we had two speeds listed. 128k and 24k. The 24k was popular with office listeners etc. It did account for between 20-30% of my daily listeners but sadly, only one speed is listed now (128k). The 24k is available and can be found here.

One thing that sticks out in my mind is that many people said to us recently was “Watch out, you’ll be driving her to college soon”. We laughed, but deep down we now know that those 18 years will go so quickly. Oh, diaper change coming…..

Earlier this week, I joined that popular world of parenthood. On Thursday at 2:01pm our new daughter, Natalie arrived, and from now on, my years of being selfish are over. For those you who have experienced this, you were right when you said “Nothing in the world will prepare you for then”. That moment when she is born is one that I will never ever forget, and for those who will experience it one day, “Just relax and enjoy”.

The long journey begins now, and so 2NG’s youngest listener is now officially “Daddy’s Girl”.

So, obviously 2NG won’t be tended too as much for a while, but the oldies will still keep coming and I should be back with my shows fresh in September.

Wow, I was looking at the blog and noticed I haven’t posted for about three months. Time flies, I’m entering baby world and they tell me time flies even faster, so that is scary in itself. Express train to old and creepy!!

Well, we’ve been having some fun on Atlantic Oldies 2NG. I’ve added a few more shows, even one by myself. The Rick Ainley show can be heard three times a week. Sundays @ 11am, Tuesday @ 2pm and Thursdays at 10pm (this week @ 8pm). All times Eastern.

Starting next week, Bill Rollin’s Teatime Special will get a West Coast Teatime presentation. Thursdays at 5pm Pacific (8pm Eastern). It’s a great show, if you get a chance listen. (Sunday & Tuesday 12pm, Thursday (after 9th July) 8pm, Eastern)

Richard Todd’s Retro Chart Countdown is also new(ish), every week he takes a look at the Top 40 from the UK charts for a given year. That show really goes through the memory, plenty of songs you had forgotten about!! (Sunday 9am, Monday 8pm and Thursday 12noon Eastern)

We’ve also jumped on the Twitter bandwagon! www.twitter.com/atlanticoldies Why not sign up. We tweet infrequently so we won’t inundate you.

Have some music to add to the library soon, so the sounds get even better. Take care and be safe.

So, I find myself with a few spare hours thanks to the economy, having been “furloughed” for a week. Well, yesterday I decided to do a live show in the middle of the day, which is peak audiences. Hell, it’s my station and why not.

So this morning at 11am EDT, I went live for two hours. I had already made the second hour a request hour, and I received requests from the U.S, UK, Holland, Germany, Canada and China. This was all exciting, but it led to a song I would not normally play on Atlantic Oldies 2NG, but it does meet the criteria..

My criteria for inclusion is simply, Top 40 from 1956-1985, in the US or Europe, and not rap, or real heavy metal…, and this request was for a Christmas number 1 in the UK charts in 1980!!

Now, the sad thing was, I actually had the single. A piece of Vinyl, all 7″ of it. So I transfered it to MP3 yesterday, and subsequently it aired for the first time this afternoon. It did receive a reaction. John in NJ remembered some trivia, in that John Lennon had sung three numbers 1′s, and penned a fourth, but this song and one other bad one interrupted him from having four consecutive numbers ones..

The song – Yes, it did get to number 1 was St. Winifreds School Choir and “Grandme, we love you”.  It will make the odd rare occurence, but in the meantime, in case you really like it (and hey, who bought the single!!)

Regular listeners cannot help but have noticed that 2NG – Two Nations Gold has now become Atlantic Oldies 2NG. Just like that, and I have received the odd email asking why?

Well, 2NG has existed for about 3-1/2 years now and truth is a lot of the music that entered the charts of either the U.S. or U.K. came from European singers and bands. As anything, things become stale and a change is a good as a rest so I decided to change the name. It comes down to trying to reflect more of what I play, and as time goes on I hope to be adding more of the chart topping sounds from some of the European charts. Many crept into the American or British charts but generally didn’t do well.

This all takes time, my real job has kept me very busy with the Inauguration right now, and I write this before I head off to a roof-top in freezing temperatures to make TV pictures. Once the dust settles, the sound of the station will be tweaked.

Let us know your thoughts and once again, thanks for listening.

Wow, one of the great unwritten mysteries is that time flies quicker the older you get. I can recall writing some entries in my blog last year and suddenly here I am, writing an entry for the end of 2008.

Whilst I love Christmas music, it does drive me nuts if I get immersed in it, so that’s why I like to pop in one an hour during the run up to Christmas. That way I get my fix of oldies and Christmas oldies at the same time. Traditionally listenership drops during December as many listeners do like the Christmas music and pop on when they work or do the chores around the house.

Bill Rollins hosts the Teatime Special here on 2NG, and I was able to hear the whole show today, he played two hours of great Christmas hits, quite a few I haven’t heard for years. You can enjoy this show again on Tuesday and Christmas Day itself at 12noon EST, 1700 GMT and 9am PST. Well worth a listen, with a mince pie and a tot of brandy.

So anyway, I think it’s time to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and to those listeners who celebrate Hannukah, have a very Happy Hannukah. Here at 2NG house we celebrate both and I look forward to the potatoe Latkes tonight. Be safe and have great 2009.

p.s. We should be playing the 2NG Top 100 in January!

Last Sunday (9th) I took the opportunity and took 2NG live for two hours. It was great fun, we had many listeners and really took radio back to that golden era when it wasn’t controlled by liner cards, consultants and the urge to maximise profits.

Many listeners took the opportunity to use the Webchat and interact with me in the studio as well use the phone line. That said, I would have loved to have more callers, but hey, even real stations sometimes struggle with callers as well.

I played a great range of music, introduced the Top 5 from this month in 1966 and 1974 with a twist! I played the number 1 in Holland and the U.K. as well as the U.S. Added a few news headlines and a new feature is born. So, this next week you can hear November 1974 again, and then thanksgiving week, you can hear the music and headlines for November 1963. Some great music.

I really did enjoy the live show I did, and the listener comments were favorable, so I hope to be able to do it again. Can’t guarantee when yet, but will update the website when I can.

Radio has been in my blood as long as I can remember. Huddled under a blanket as a kid listening to the Big L – Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres MW (or 1439kHz AM!) and the Top 20 on a Sunday evening at 6pm when Stereo BBC Radio 2 would hand the precious stereo to Radio 1 for the hour.

Career wise I planned to be a radio magnate but for some reason I ended up in Television where I still am today. It’s as fun as ever but more pressured today. That is why 2NG was born. My station broadcasting the music I love and I know, by listening you do to.

So, a few years ago I was contacted by another Internet Radio station owner, Alan who started Rewind 45. Musically very similar to mine but different all the same. He had different songs to mine and different playlists. We emailed back and forth over the years, listening to each other’s station and frequently we asked for and offered each other advice that helped make our stations better and run more reliably. We both knew it was fun and a hobby.

Sometimes I would have his station on as I worked or pottered about the house. Even though I had many UK oldies, I was always amazed by the tracks that he had and many memories that they bought back. Alan concentrated on getting some presenter led shows as they gave the station some personality and did that very well. Roger Davies had a brilliant idea, those Rare 60′s tracks and I was pleased when Alan suggested that I air it on 2NG as well. Now I do and I hope it continues. Rewind 45 had another show, and I hope to be able to take that soon.

Last week Rewind45 had to close down. Alan, for personal reasons felt he would be unable to continue administration of the station over the next few months. I felt sad for him as I was in the same position 18 months ago when I closed 2NG down due to finance. Alan went one stage further and had some last shows, one by Roger Davies and the final hour by Bill Rollins. I listened all afternoon, and it bought back all of those memories I had in the seventies. Radio was a living breathing thing…, it had personality, it talked to you and it played a wide variety of music that you loved. Today, sadly radio is too focused and too narrow.

When Rewind45 closed, I actually felt sad. I had gone though the same emotions when I closed 2NG last year. I was fortunate that I was able to revive 2NG a few weeks later and I hope that Rewind45 will return in due time. Let us hope it’s “au revoir and not good-bye”

So, it is really amazing how time flies. Have you noticed that the older we become, the quicker time flies!! We’ve been remodeling our kitchen, and I write this the countertop people are here drilling merrily away. Also, as some of you know I work professionally in TV so as we get closer to the U.S. Election my time is getting sucked up!!!

Last weekend I modifed our streams, and they sound better than they ever did. Previously our highest MP3 stream was 64k but for now, I changed that to 128k stereo MP3 which sounds a lot lot better. We still also offer the 24k mono stream for dial-up and office listeners. Offering higher quality than MP3 at lower bitrates we also offer a pure Windows Media stream and also a AAC+ stream that sounds fantastic as just 48k!

So, now we offer the following:

• 128k MP3 Stereo – Almost CD like
• 48k AAC+ Stereo – Almost CD like
• 64k Windows Media – Almost CD like
• 24k MP3 Mono – like AM(MW) radio.

The Windows Media stream will most likely need Window Media Player and the AAC+ stream will work just fine on Winamp (PC) and VLC (for MAC, PC and Linux).

Happy listening, Richard

One of the more popular pages on our website is “About Us“. That in itself surprises me however but I also have promised for some time that I would pop up some pictures. Well I did that this week, but I thought I would take a little time to explain a little about the 2NG studio here in Washington, DC.

So, here is that picture. The 2NG studio deep in a bunker somewhere. The actual computer that houses 2NG and the thousands of songs sits to the right of this picture. THis operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

The Studio is only powered up when I need it, and so a few times a week I’ll throw the switch, and add or categorize new songs, look at the following weeks playlist and sometimes record new promo’s etc. This is also where I’ll perform live shows when I have the time. I’d love to do a weekly show but frequently we’re often traveling or doing other things!

For the techies that love this kind of thing, the audio mixer (or board in American!) is an old Arrakkis 2100SC that I found on eBay. The mic is a Sennheiser MD421II and the headphones (cans in British broadcast speak) are Beyer Dynamics DT100′s (These are very common in the U.K. but rare in the U.S.). The computer screen on the left is showing Station Playlist. What you see is the main screen for the 2NG computer, however when I go live I run a different computer (same screen) and use another copy of Station Playlist in Live Assist mode. I also use Adobe Audition etc. for production.

So, next time I shall go further behind the scene’s. Any questions, please email me and let me know.

Thanks