And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

As of 12 midnight the internet radio Day of Silence mercifully came to a close and BAGeL Radio switched back to regularly scheduled programming. That means that Beedub's Spacerock Continuum returns to melt your brain at noon today.

Thanks for suffering throught the Day of Silence with us -- although painful, it was a huge success. Capwiz, the company that supplied the online petitions we've been asking you to sign, was brought to it's knees. The company says they've never had that much single-issue activity in one day, and that includes issues like The Iraq Fiasco, Alberto "The Torturer" Gonzalez, Paris Hilton...

Thanks to the folks at RAIN, Pandora, and SomaFM for spearheading this event getting so many diverse webcasters onboard. According to Bridge Ratings, 21% of those polled listen to internet radio weekly, and of those that said yes, 55% reported they did not listen yesterday -- thanks to all webcasters who participated, and to those who sought to capitalize on the event by continuing to stream music -- fuck you.

Besides directly spurring political action, the Day of Silence also generated mondo press for our protest of the devasting royalty rate hikes sought by SoundExchange and granted by the Copyright Royalty board. Speaking of press, check out the SF Weekly that came out today for an in-depth look at the subject (including photos of me!), and if you missed the round table discussion hosted by KRCW, you can stream or download it from here.

The issue is now clearly out in the open thanks to all of the print, radio, TV, and online press coverage, but we still need to put more pressure on Congress and SoundExchange as the July 15th deadline approaches. Please feel free to write a letter to the editor of your favorite media outlets explaining that this attempt by the major labels to smash the growing underground is not in the best interests of artists or music lovers and that internet radio is a vital medium for discovering new music in diverse genres. Also, if you have not yet tried or could not get through to your representatives (because we crashed their machines yesterday!), please do so now via Capwiz or VoteSmart.org. Or tomorrow. Or whenever you read this.

For those of you in the Bay Area who are 21 and over, please come out to our SaveNetRadio event this Sunday, July 1st at 6pm at Bottom of the Hill. There will be music and raffles and auctions and chili and a bake sale and DJs and drink specials and...well, what more do you need, really? View event details here, buy advance tickets here.

Thank you for your continued support.