Industrial Strength Nightmares online radio - It's very easy to bite off more than you can chew.

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25 Aug, 2008

Based in Toronto, Canada, Industrial Strength Nightmares aka ISN is an hour-long radio show devoted to industrial, EBM, electro, noise, gothic, and other forms of what they call "underappreciated music", with new episodes every Sunday. Host of the show is Edwin Somnambulist, a veteran of club and radio DJ'ing from across Canada since 1998. Focusing on new and underground material, including work by local and independent artists, the radio show is getting quite some recognition from listeners and labels providing promo material. We talked with Edwin. (By Bernard Van Isacker - Photo by Lee Henderson)

SL. What is your background in the scene?

E. I started DJ'ing back in 1998. At the time, I was living in Calgary, and there was a bit of a lapse in the scene there. I turned on the radio one day, realized there was absolutely nothing on any station that I could stomach, and made up my mind that I should do something about it. I went over to the university radio station and applied to do a show. Industrial Strength Nightmares debuted a few weeks later; they expedited my training because they were eager to get an industrial show into their programming. Within a couple of months I was DJ'ing at the city's clubs as well, fitting in nights wherever I
could. I've moved around a lot since then, but I've almost always been DJ'ing in one respect or another.

SL. How did the radio station start?

E. When I moved to Toronto, I wanted to start producing my radio show again, but I was really intrigued by the possibilities offered by digital broadcasting. It's an interesting time for media, as the equipment required to produce professional quality broadcasts has become cheap and commonplace, and technology to provide on-demand digital media to audiences is available to a great portion of the world.

I'd been providing digital versions of the show to listeners through my website ever since 1998. Back then, I'd produce the show on university radio, tape it, and digitize the tape to mp3. Converting the entire process to digital cut the amount of time producing a show took to about a third of what it was previously.

And the asynchronous aspect was really attractive as well. The radio stations I've been on over the years are really unforgiving in their assignment of time slots to underground shows, probably because they assume the audience are a nocturnal lot. When I was on radio, I'd have to produce the show live at some horrible time in the morning, which meant my audience would have to be awake at that hour as well. I can produce my show at any time now, and anyone who wants to listen can download it whenever they'd like; I constantly get people who are downloading episodes that I produced over a year ago.

Also, the global reach of a show based on the internet is a huge bonus. With a traditional broadcast, any city will only have so many listeners, and you can only reach so many of them at any given time. In my current format, I have listeners from all over the world. Sometimes the places I get email from are a little surprising, but I'm still waiting for the show to catch on in Antarctica.

SL. How would you describe the music mix you play?

E. The show has changed style a lot over the years, depending on the listenership, the scene at the time, what music I had available to me, and a number of other factors. Currently the show focuses on a number of electronic genres including EBM, aggrotech, coldwave, futurepop, and techno-industrial. But really, I don't like to limit myself. I often describe the style of what I play on the show as "anything I like, though that isn't very descriptive definition." I've always tried to place a big focus on new and emerging bands and music, and love local and underground stuff. Everything has to start somewhere, and there are always bands playing in their hometown clubs who could be huge with the right exposure.

SL. Are you serviced by labels? I guess in the early days all had to be self funded?

E. I am actually serviced by a number of labels and independent bands, which is a huge help and I'm very grateful for it. These days I accept both digital or concrete servicing, and if anyone is interested in having their material considered for the show, they can get in touch via servicing@isnradio.com so that we can set something up.

SL. What is there to know when one wants to start up an online radio station, what are the pits one should try to avoid?

E. I'd say the main pitfall is overextending yourself, because it's very easy to bite off more than you can chew. If you're doing a show, then you're probably doing everything yourself, including researching new music, contacting bands, promoting yourself, building and maintaining your website, doing all your sound production, and a number of other tasks. It can be pretty easy to run yourself ragged, depending on how sophisticated you want to be with all that work.

Figure out how long you want your episodes to be, and how frequently you can broadcast them. Sticking to a schedule is crucial; the last thing you want is to get inconsistent with your broadcasts because it'll make it harder for listeners to follow your show. It's better to produce a shorter show on a consistent basis than to try to produce longer episodes whenever you're able.

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SL. How popular could we say your station is?

E. Industrial Strength Nightmares is currently the most popular independent industrial podcast in Canada, and in the top 10 in the world, I believe. On average, we have thousands of listeners every week. The audience is quite interactive as well, through email, Facebook, and Myspace, so I get a lot of great feedback on the show all the time.

SL. What actions do you take to promote your station?

E. Mainly I send playlists out. I post them to newsgroups and forums, and send them to whoever asks for them. My philosophy has always been that if you're not keeping a record of what you're doing, then whatever work you do isn't going to last.

SL. How do you try to stick out from the rest?

E. Echo and I try to bring a touch of humour to the show. The music can get a bit heavy at times, with so much of it laden with political messages or personal stories, so we try to juxtapose that with a light interplay between us.

SL. What the constraints to start up an online radio station?

E. There is really very little in the way of constraints. The startup cost is minimal and the technical skills required are pretty low level. I would suggest to anyone who would like to start something that they set out their goals and what styles of music they want to spin before they start, to keep their direction coherent.

SL. With the new rules imposed by the riaa, how do you handle this?

E. Being from Canada, I don't have to worry very much about the direction the RIAA wind is blowing, thankfully. Canada's laws are geared more towards protecting art than big business.

SL. How do make this project profitable or do you do it like most of for the love of music without loosing too much money on things?

E. I don't expect to ever turn a profit on Industrial Strength Nightmares. I've always said it's a show where I bring good music to good people. The payoff for me is whenever I get a listener emailing me to tell me that they found a new favourite band because of my show, or a band writing me to tell me that they've just accomplished something because of my help.

SL. How would you describe the entire industrial music radio scene these days?

E. Well, I'd have to say that the online aspect is still a very emergent one. There are maybe a dozen big industrial shows out there that are hosted by DJ's, and a half dozen stations of randomized streaming music without hosts. What I find truly cool is that all those shows are focusing on new music, which to me indicates that the online industrial scene is very progressive, which is incredibly important.

As for traditional radio, I have to admit that I don't listen to it anymore. I'm afraid that I don't even own a working radio, so I really can't speak about that aspect of things with any authority. That was always a very regionalized scene anyway, whereas internet shows are tapped more into the global scene.

SL. What is your goal with this project?

E. I have a number of goals. Most importantly, I want to push new artists and new music. There's a lot of great things happening in music right now, with new sounds emerging, and I think that's very cool. Any scene has to stay progressive and dynamic, or else it just dies off.

There's also a huge local aspect to what I do. Toronto has an incredible scene going on right now, between events like Revolution vs Machine, Subspace, and the Tokyo CyberMonster Party, there's a lot of new music and ideas being pushed forward. Many of the bands coming out of the city have a huge international following, such as Decoded Feedback, Ayria, DYM, Holocaust 427, and Soundgazer, to name just a few. You put talent like that in an environment where people are open to new music, and you have a DJ's dream environment. Working together with people in order to nurture, preserve, and grow that environment is a key goal of mine.

SL. Where do you see the station in the next 5 years?

E. I'd like to see Industrial Strength Nightmares working more closely with bands and promoters to bring people as much information as possible on upcoming releases and gigs. Beyond that, it's hard to say. With things changing as much as they do from year to year, in terms of bands, sounds, and technology, who knows? I'm hoping we'll be able to broadcast our show directly into people's brains by then.

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Posted by: chromesj on Aug 26, 08 | 12:11 am

Hell yeah! Great interview, Edwin! Good to see you get the recognition that you deserve.

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