After two years in operation, Radio Free Fedi goes dark in January.
The operator of the Internet radio station that delivered the “sound of the fediverse to the universe” has written — at length — about why RFF is going dark, so I will not go into that here.
Instead, I want to focus on celebrating what RFF stood for and thanking its admin for championing independent musicians throughout the fediverse (Mastodon, etc.) — like myself.
RFF played my music quite a bit — enough for my song “Looking for the Light” to be included in this WeDistribute mixtape (along with fellow New Jerseyan, Jason Didner!) — and it allowed me to discover amazing artists and fedizens that I will continue to enjoy, follow and support as best I can. I mean, I now have fans in Europe buying my music on Bandcamp, and I have to assume that Radio Free Fedi is the No. 1 reason for that. I will forever be grateful to RFF for building up my listener and follower base, as well as for creating a community of fedi artists that supports each other whenever possible.
In its two years of operation, RFF expanded from a single-channel station to a multi-channel platform for music discovery. The RFF Main channel played an amazing, super-diverse mix from many different genres, while mixing in some short fiction pieces and poetry. The Comfy channel provided a bit of a “smoother” experience while still being quite eclectic.
RFF Specialty was a more recent addition to the channel lineup, playing blocks of a particular genre or musical characteristic an hour at a time. Another more recent addition, RFF Word, played podcasts and other longer-form audio programs created and produced by fedizens.
And then there was the livestream channel for special video events like the New Year’s Eve
“parade” a year ago and a special Shannon Curtis performance in October 2024.
Hopefully, someone with the time, resources and the required knowledge/skill will be inspired by Radio Free Fedi to create a similar listening experience. Sadly, I am not that person. For now, I’ve saved some of RFF’s “recently played” playlists this week so I can remember what the station was playing in its final days. Even in RFF’s final weeks, I’ve discovered artists like Rose Alaimo, Fragile Creatures and Matt Young, so I want to be able to explore these last playlists and see what other finds tick my music-listening boxes.
While I may not be able to set up and run an Internet radio station, I’m thinking of finding a decent number of RFF-played songs on Bandcamp and creating a series of BNDCMPR playlists to share on a rotating basis here on my site as a way for and anyone interested to relive what RFF was playing in its final days…as long as that’s OK with the artists. I’ll need to come up with some kind of system to get consent from the artists, in keeping with RFF’s mission of “celebrating agency.”
The coming year is going to be rough, especially here in the United States, where we as a collective have decided it is OK to give an idiot in cognitive decline who is also a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and a twice-impeached U.S. president his old job back — despite being historically awful and corrupt WHILE he had the job the first time.
Not having Radio Free Fedi to help guide me on my journey to musical discovery will also make 2025 difficult to navigate. But I want to use this opportunity to thank RFF’s admin for keeping the station alive for as long as they did and for being a true champion for independent artists across the fediverse.
As Radio Free Fedi heads off into the sunset, I just want to say goodbye and thanks.
Ferocious Designs 
@ferociousdesigns.com this is so sad. I will miss it
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