RENEGADE SOUND WAVES

Not everybody sees the Net as another opportunity to make money. Shaun Marin went to meet the London pirate radio station that just wants to play music to the world

E-commerce, pay-per-view, virtual shops, online services· At first glance, the Net seems to be almost entirely populated by people out to make a quick buck. Whether they're scam merchants chasing a fast profit or big players banking on the long-term success of e-commerce, many organisations see the Net as the trading station of the future. But not interFACE, an online radio station that broadcasts cutting-edge dance music across the world from its basement in Farringdon, London. To these pirates, online at http://www.interface.pirate-radio.co.uk, the Net is about freedom of expression, doing what you want, and getting away with whatever you can. But mostly it's about playing music, lots of music, and doing it for nothing. No adverts, no multi-million dollar corporate investment. Just 60-odd DJs, a couple of record decks, an ISDN link, a group of friendly developers and a couple of listeners with several Megabytes of backbone to donate.

"Our philosophy at interFACE is to do something that's real, something that's not pre-planned," says founding partner 'Mad Ash,' sitting in interFACE's packed, noisy office. "You can't have a new medium like the Internet and just put on the same old crap that they're doing on TV and satellite. It doesn't work that way. We've ended up creating our own little scene here. We've got hold of the underground in London now, and pretty much the whole of the world."

DRUM 'N' BASEMENT
City workers occasionally walk across the pavement above the station, casting shadows into the office below. But the sound of feet on glass tiles can't compete with the drum 'n' bass track blasting out from the studio at the end of the hall - and the station isn't due on air for another two hours. This is one of the most relaxed and laid-back Internet operations you'll ever come across, but you can't deny the success of interFACE, nor its determination to get the job done. By any means necessary - apart from selling out, that is.

Born out of London's pirate FM radio scene, interFACE is a success story that has had at least one major broadcaster scratching its corporate head in wonder. The BBC is so enamoured by interFACE's popularity that, according to Ash, it tried to persuade the station to tell it's secret. "They want our information; how we do it. But we just tell them to bog off," he says, laughing. "If they want to go and find out, then let them go and do it themselves. They've got all the friggin' money in the world, let them go and use it."

Even though Ash isn't prepared to subject himself to interrogation at the Beeb - not for "some sandwiches and the possibility of contracts" - he is open about how the station started and how it manages to survive with minimal financial input.

DIGITAL UNDERGROUD
Apart from the dedication of the interFACE team, its DJs and listeners, the main reason the station can afford to broadcast is thanks to two companies: AL Digital and RealNetworks. "It just happened that the people I met through doing pirate radio were good contacts for doing this. It's just one of those weird things," he says. "It was a guy called Adam from AL Digital who started it. They supply us with our main server in Chiswick. Adam also instigated the RealNetworks connection. "We were the first users of RealAudio 1. The timing was just right. We were the first people to approach them and that's why they gave us what they did. To be honest, it was just one of those destiny-type things, we just kind of hit a gap at the right time." What RealNetworks gave interFACE was unlimited free RealAudio licences - as opposed to the 60 that most other operations get - and the use of its server at London's Telehouse. And as interFACE often gets up to 10,000 listeners connected to its streaming live content at any one time, this is pretty generous. In return, RealNetworks gets an increase in the amount of software downloads, a certain degree of kudos, and any new software it develops tested to hell and back by the interFACE team.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
Apart from the station's corporate backers, several listeners are also involved in supporting the station. It seems that its non-commercial approach encourages the same attitude in its listeners. "Our fourth server came from a guy called Conrad in Seattle. He runs his own station called the Rave Network, but he just hasn't got the time to dedicate to it," Ash explains. "So he stuck us on his backbone. He's actually got another 40Mb of backbone going up soon, which should be pretty cool."

Another listener recently donated 10Mb of backbone just for the station's archives, before which people had trouble accessing them because of the demand for the live broadcasts. "It seems to be that as long as we're not making any money, we'll get the support," says Ash. "I think that when we start to earn wages here then we'll have to start paying for our bandwidth. But hopefully we'll be big enough to handle it by then."

At present, the station only covers staff expenses such as travel and food. The DJs pay £10 a session to play and most of the full-time staff have outside jobs in order to pay the bills. Several of them, such as Ash and Eezee E - who looks after the Web site - are DJs. "There is no more money. Not by the time we pay for our leased line, our phone bills and the upkeep of the studio and the computers. Everyone that works here does so for gratis, often in their spare time."

IN IT FOR THE MUSIC
In fact, interFACE is far more than just a radio station. At times it seems as though it's more of a huge community that just happens to run a radio station as well. The station operates a very popular mailing list - FACEspeak - and its own chat room, which people can visit while listening to the station to request shouts and tunes, and even find out what that last track the DJ played was. "When we first put the chat room up people said it was crap, rubbish," Ash admits. "But I said that's good, it's got character. If anybody new goes in there they just get swamped by niceness and go away thinking WOW." A lot of this friendliness is down to a listener known as Brushes. An American who now looks after the area, and who Ash describes as the mum of the chat room. "She's a proper country girl. Her husband's a peanut farmer, they've got two cows and live on a farm."

Even though Ash claims to like the character of the chat room, he doesn't see that as a reason not to move with the times. Some Canadian friends of the station are currently building a virtual chat room - again in their spare time. "Eventually we're looking to have a virtual studio with a couple of decks, where people can choose tracks and then muck about a little bit. Mix a few tunes."

FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON
The station recently changed its legal status by coming to an agreement with the MCPS, which regulates artists' royalties, to pay for playing music. Because the Net is such a grey area in this matter, and because interFACE doesn't actually make any money, the deal had to be tailor-made for the station.

"If we've got the money I'm well up for giving the artists money," Ash says. "I've got so many coming through here I'd be a mug not to. Just as long as I can afford it really."

And this is the point - being able to afford to do things. At some stage interFACE is going to want to make some money, if only in order for the staff to survive.

"We could turn around in the next few months and probably be millionaires if we really wanted to, and it is frustrating working with the equipment we have down here," Ash says, adding that there's no way the station would suddenly become commercial. "I still believe that over the next six months to a year we'll make our money out of other things. We're going to have an online shop, which will sell vinyl and other stuff from our DJs, including tapes of the sets. We're also doing outside broadcasts that will start to bring in some revenue.

"As far as the station itself is concerned there's no way it will get splattered with any form of advertising along the way. But the bits we are plugging around the site now should bring in money to allow us to expand, but without tainting what interFACE is all about."

For interFACE, remaining true to your origins is what it's all about. Using a new medium to do new things. Ash admits to sometimes getting a bit overwhelmed by it all, but vows that the station will continue to grow in the organic style that has served it well until now, even putting off the start of 24-hour broadcasting until the time is right.

"Sometimes it does get a little bit scary, and you start to fly a little bit. But we keep it restrained, we never let it go. I recently came back from Canada, where a station over there is broadcasting us over the FM, which reaches something like 25,000 listeners. People were coming up to me and saying, 'Wow, Ash, pirate radio, London, wicked,' which was really, really good. Because I came back and thought: now I really do understand where we're heading."

RADIO DAZE
interFACE currently broadcasts between 4pm and 2am Monday to Thursday, and then round the clock from 4pm on a Friday until Sunday evening. Plans to move to 24-hour broadcasts, seven days a week will be implemented soon. The station can be found at http://www.interface.pirate-radio.co.uk, and you'll need a RealAudio player to listen and watch what's going on. There's a link at the site to download the latest version of the player. Broadcasts are currently in mono audio and video, but there are plans to introduce a stereo, audio only stream, possibly utilising RealNetworks new G2 player when the full version is released and the crew at the station are confident of its reliability. There are also plans to move away from just broadcasting music, and the station is looking at working with underground video and film makers

CATCH THE PIRATES
Forthcoming special live broadcasts will be announced by interFACE when and if they see fit - "We just play music, if people find out about it all well and good, if they don't we don't really care. We've got a bad attitude like that" - but these are a selection we managed to persuade them to let us in on.

29 September - Salsa Pa Ti @ Bar Rumba
1 October - Kungfusion (Ninja Tunes) @ 333
10 October - T4 (UK Dance) @ Venue to be confirmed
10 October - Earth Dance @ The Rocket
21st Video thing @ Blue Note

The station is also starting its own monthly club night in October. Called Link Up 98 the regular event will feature DJs from the station as well as live connections with other clubs around the world. Link Up 98 starts on 17 October at the Rocket in North London. Check out the site for more details nearer the time. Other events include more live broadcasts from festivals next year - maybe even interFACE's own festival - and a massive millennium party. See you there.

(c) Paragon Publishing, 1998.