Welcome to The Human Recommendation
Change is the essence of life and after 25 years, I found myself closing a long chapter on my working career in corporate I.T. COVID-19 caused a major reset for everyone, about their life balance and work, including me. Unfortunately the corporate office and atmosphere just hasn’t been the same. “The seasons go so fast” as Adrianne Lenker sang in one of her songs “Sadness As A Gift” from her 2024 album ‘Bright Future’.
To put that amount of time into a sports perspective, that is longer than when coach Bill Belichick was in charge at the New England Patriots, which for long suffering opposing NFL team fan bases felt like an eternity.( Me, I’m a Green Bay Packers fan #GoPackGo)
Music is something I have always been passionate about and I’ve been blogging inconsistently over the last 10 years on a whole range of music related subjects over on my blog pages at Medium.com. Something I always wanted to do was to try my hand at hosting a radio show, in the past I never had the time or conviction to go do it. It was only after watching my daughter’s experience at my local college community radio Flirt FM and how much she enjoys hosting a Doctor Who podcast (called The Tardis Tapes, and it’s very good) that I finally decided to give it a go while I’m now taking a career break or what my wife calls semi-retirement!
After completing desk side training at the studio from the very helpful team from FlirtFM, I recorded a demo that would become the Human Recommendation show. The name was because of the most common theme in my blog posts was music discovery by humans and it is even more topical now in 2024 with the increased influence of computer algorithms and A.I DJ’s.
Have music streaming services killed the joy of music discovery?
I think so and it’s another part of the inspiration for the show. There is also a vibrant wave of emerging Irish artists from a bunch of genres and different pockets of the country, that just don’t get surfaced by algorithms.In these modern times of continued disruption from the internet, I still believe when radio shows are done well that they can connect with people, especially when folks are listening on headphones. It can provide real company to people traveling on long journeys or their daily commute. Many commercial radio stations have lost that human sense of curation and rely on a “flat” play listing model.
In 'Nine creative meditations', by Yancey Strickler the former CEO of Kick-starter, he spoke about his creative experiences in a series of reflections which contained lots of salient points which intrigued me. It is available for download as both a video and a PDF essay through a collectible release from Meta-label, which is also a very cool creation and concept. But one of his points that resonated with me was his “You are your audience”, the best results come from when this is the case.
With that in mind, I go about curating music for the show tailored around my own listening favourites, searching for the best indie and alternative music from Ireland and around the globe, for the creation of show I would want to listen to. I agonize over song selection and sequencing, mixing it up between old nuggets and contemporary indie but it is great fun to do as it reminds me of making mix tapes in a by-gone era. I try to share anecdotes about the music selections, gathered from over forty years of listening and buying music. Hopefully, it will connect with some listeners.
There is a companion Instagram page for the show, to try connect in other wider social circles where people love to share what they are listening to. I try to keep the page en pointe, and I post about upcoming music acts and songs that will feature on the show.
The show is prerecorded currently, but the plan is to record it live in the new year. Show duration is 60 mins, airing on a biweekly schedule, every second Monday at 8pm GMT and it also streams on the stations website. You can find the show and station from internet radio apps including Radio Garden which lets you explore live radio stations from around the world. The show playback is also available via The Human Recommendation Mixcloud page
In a side project, I also started a Human Recommendation podcast where I interview musicians, sound artists, record label owners and others in the music industry. The first interview is with composer, sound artist and researcher Kat Austen and we talked about music, sound and ecology. It is also available to listen to via Mixcloud.
If you listened to the show and have discovered a band you liked, reach out and say hello!
#TeamHuman