Planetrock.com

So I work from home quite a lot, sometimes I just want some music on in the background. Personally I'm not really happy with a lot of the current music, re-sampled rubbish basically!! So I needed something to give me a lift, something that my ears could tune to, and I found it, boy did I find it.

♫♪♫ What is it then? ♫♪♫
Planet Rock is one of the best stations I have ever heard in the UK, yes I've heard stations like this while cruisin' round the States, but never at home.
So a quote form the Planet Rock website is called for
"Planet Rock started broadcasting the best classic rock from the 60s, 70s and 80s on 15th November 1999. No pop, no rap, no crap, just the best music of all time 24 hours a day."
So that can't be bad then can it! But is it true

♫♪♫ Go then, How do you get it? ♫♪♫
Planet Rock is broadcast as a digital radio station, so you can pick it up from any DAB Digital radio. You can also pick it up on a Sky digibox, channel 861. Or on cable channel 880 on NTL and channel 924 on Telewest
Or….. you can do it like me listen off of the web, just go to the website http://www.planetrock.com, and click on the link "Listen Live"
As I use the web to access this site, I really cannot comment about the station from a DAB point of view, if anyone does know what it is like, then let me know.
♫♪♫ What's the web site like? ♫♪♫
I found the web site to load extremely fast, one great thing is a display at the top of the page showing the artist and title of the song them are currently playing.

Coming up - This tells you what music you can expect in the next session, at the moment it says Small Faces, U2, Yes and Rod Stewart, this si nice, as it shows black and white photos if the artists.

Concert Box Office
You can call the number listed, to book tickets
What's on
Where you can win things, and show features
Rock Promotions
Where you can win rock memorabillia
Planet Rock on DAB
Information on Digital radio
Rock Bloks
This is where you can take control of Planet Rock, send them you favourite 20 Rock songs, and they will fit them into a 30 minute set sometime.

There is a list of site areas you can access this list is across the top of the home page, the main for me here is Listen Live. You click on this, and it opens up live streaming music, basically the radio show. As with the web site, I found this to load very quickly. The window has an area where adverts are embedded (I'm sure there is a technical name for this!)

♫♪♫ What about the music shows? ♫♪♫
Planet Rock broadcasts 24 hours, with a number of show throughout the day, I generally work from 9(ish) until 6(ish) so this review reflects my listening patterns.
Robbie Birnie (07:00-10:00)
Nicky Horne (10:00 -14:00), features a "classic album weekly, this week it is Led Zeppelin "Physical Graffiti" (reminds me I must dig out my vinyl!)
Steve Fountain (14:00-16:00) He does a decades music feature, one each from 60's 70's 80's and so on.
John Griff (16:00-19:00) does a classic triple-play at 17:00 and classic albums from 18:00
Colin Slade (19:00-22:00) I've not listened to this show
Jay Lucas (22:00-00:00) I've not listened to this show, but it would seem he does a request show.
From Midnight until 07:00 they just stream music with minimal human intervention!
They have different line ups for Saturday and Sunday, but I've not listened to the station over a weekend.
During the day there is an hourly news broadcast, which lasts for about 3 minutes, it seems to be the standard independent radio news broadcast that most stations run.
One thing that seems to happen a lot is what is called "Planet Rocks Double Shots" where they basically play two songs by the same artist back to back, at the moment I've just heard Thin Lizzy "Whiskey in the Jar" followed by "Jailbreak"
So in order to give you an idea of the music, and what this station is like, I'll list everything that happens for an hour, so the hour I've chosen is 17:00 on Tuesday May 10th

It may be a bit of a list, but it'll give you some idea of what the station is all about.

Itchycoo park - The Small Faces
Tin Soldier - The Small Faces
All or Nothing - The Small Faces (These are the classic tripleplay for the day)
Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2
Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top
After this track, the DJ then gave some information about some things that were happening on the station
Back to the music
Dangerous Type - Cars
It's only Rock and Roll - Rolling Stones
After this track there were a couple of adverts, so 30 minutes of advert free music can't be bad
Back to the music then
Communication Breakdown - Led Zeppelin
Take the Long Way Home - Supertramp
Hotel California - Eagles
Feel Like Makin' Love - Bad Company
Rocket - Def Leppard
My Sharona - The Knack

So there you go an hour in the life of a great music station.

As I mentioned I listened on the web, and yes the quality of web casts is not as crystal clear as DAB, but I found this to be really good, I had no loss of signal (dropping IP packets for the technical minded) great quality sound and generally reliving my past !!

♫♪♫ Contact Them ♫♪♫

Planet Rock can be contacted either by phone or fax directly to the studio Call the studio on 0845 000 7625, or fax us on 0870 000 7625 any time of the day or night.
Of course you could always do the old fashioned thing and write!!

Planet Rock
PO Box 2269
London
W1A 5QU

Thanks for reading this, and if you really like great music then this is the site for you, I find a station that I can just leave on in the background, OK I have broadband, so that does make a difference. Go on give it a listen to, you'll love it.

And yes the quote from the station about the music is true, it is the best.

Larry