After 2 grueling months of fighting with various music streaming platforms, auto DJ software, testing sound quality and reliability, feature availability, licensing, and a million other issues, the station and it’s webpage is coming to life.

This is a test of the news / updates section of the website I’m building here, but it’s also a record of what has taken place so far.

4 Months ago I dipped my feet in the water to see what internet radio had become since I quit the music scene back in 2013 after 12 years of living the dream with a giant Electronic Rock Station (99.9 The Electric Front) getting published on Sony, Warner Brothers, Metropolis and so many others in various genres in Movies, TV Shows, CD Single Remixes, Video Games, being the entire band and production team and more.

The Electric Front and my old YouTube with millions of followers went off the air when my old server Live365 (the biggest in the world at the time) closed it’s doors due to unfair implementation of the Digital Millennium Act, which was meant to stop peer-to-peer file swapping but somehow got applied in a tyrannical fashion against online radio.

Most of the radio stations in North America are owned by 1 of 4 companies, and many speculate application of the DMA was arranged by them to take down the variety that was online. I am not sure, but after years of making money for myself and the bands that I played, it became a profitless promotional tool I continued for a few years after the change, just to land more studio gigs, promote touring and various music projects.

Strangely I didn’t see my share of the royalties coming in from various CDs I performed on and was spinning on big labels. Sadly at the same time, the only reason I was able to keep the station going without PAYING to play the music that I was on, and record companies were sending me in the mail every day, was that smaller broadcasters with smaller listeners were keeping stations like mine ( #1 in the world for Electronic Rock 11 years in a row) going.

As people started getting sick of paying to play while making money for the bands, channels began disappearing and the amount of money to prop up big stations in various genres became scarce. I was paying to play now, and with a gigantic audience I had to stop. It was too expensive, unfair and appeals went unnoticed. I even had so many big acts in the scene ask them to make their music exempt from this system to no avail. Now all I have are hundreds of tags from famous electronic rock, industrial, synthpop and related musicians who called The Electric Front home. Very Sad.

At the same time my big YouTube Channel was having a hard time with registering my work, and bands that wanted me to post and promote them. This was before the auto-copywrite system they have now. So many of my videos were taken down, most that I played on, that I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Long story short, with no way to solve anything back then, I closed the doors to The Electric Front Radio and my old YouTube. It was a wonderful chapter in my life.

But after years of working hard in a couple other fields I’m returning to music, but this venture you are part of he represents my eclectic taste in music and my lifelong love for the incredible act, America’s Band; The Beach Boys!

After uploading to YouTube my mono to stereo remasters I had done for myself and my father back in 2012, I started making more, taking requests, making music videos, remastering songs, fixing rarities, making new remixes, movies, colorizing old concerts, remastering related movies, editorials, upscaling and repairing footage, old commercials and so much more, as many of my friends on YouTube already know.

That eventually lead to me starting The Beach Boys Hangout on Facebook on Christmas Day that just went by. It has grown like crazy and I’ve been honored to meet and become friends with many who were in the touring band, or close with The Beach Boys and various people who have done some very impressive work either in production, directing, mastering or performing covers. This last year has been pretty fantastic for me as a Beach Boys fanatic, and hopefully to all of you who I try to spread the love to.

The YouTube channel is my attempt to give things that spread the love for The Beach Boys, but also provide new material you won’t find elsewhere, whether it be mixes, remasters and more.

After a year of that, I tested my feet as mentioned above, in the radio waters 4 months ago with a station temporarily called The Electric Front. However there was very little in terms of features, I had no website, the sound quality was limited to 128 kbps and a cap on listeners of 100 people. It did however allow me to setup my studio for professional radio broadcasting live and offair programming if I could figure out how to do it.

I spent a month doing Wednesdays and Saturdays testing how things worked, sounded and learning how things have changed. I now had the bug again! Time to figure this out.

I pulled the plug after a month since the station was on a small server, didn’t have room to grow, or show just how great the music could sound on the listeners end. It’s been learning and fighting with companies ever since then.

I must have dealt with at least 30 different streaming companies over the last 5 weeks, trying to get a server that would give me a great deal on UNLIMITED bandwidth, UNLIMITED listeners and at full 320 kbps sound quality so people can hear the full sound. And let me tell you, the sound quality you will get is CD quality but with width and depth and characteristics of a big city professional music station.

The music is running through professional FM processing with my months of tweaking to reach the listener as great as it sounds in The Electric Front studio. All music should have album art, and on rare tracks a placeholder cover.

I will be on the air live often with the most professional sounding DJ MCing that I can muster up, the intent to have many amazing guests on the show both from the band, the touring band, producers, friends in the online community, those with other great YouTube live shows and so much more, hopefully including some simulcasts.

I’ve been testing different radio hosting servers for 5 weeks and it’s been a nightmare, waiting days for tech support replies, technical issues with a paid shoutcast license not working properly, the software on their end for my off air programming not doing what it said, tricky wording in pricing, sound quality issues, locations of servers, features I want to give my listeners that didn’t work well and so much more.

After that ordeal began the hunt for the perfect web host with the right price, location and options. That took another week of research, but I finally found a great home for it. Then I asked people’s opinions and they agreed with me that the best sounding name for the station would be Endless Summer Radio.

I tried to get Endless Summer Radio dot com, but it was taken by a small broadcaster who just plays random surf and punk music with no evidence of Beach Boys. I may ask him if he wants to sell it down the road when this station grows. But that is why the URL for now is Radio Endless Summer dot com. I also tried to purchase ESR dot com, but they wanted 14 thousand dollars, because it has potential. What a scam ripoff. So for now, that is off the table unless this station goes big time.

While I’m at it I also want to thank my friend Goretti Adebanjo, also the moderator of The Beach Boys Hangout on Facebook, for the countless hour testing the station with me and researching and also talking to tech support trying to help in any way she could. Your love for The Beach Boys and desire to make this station become a reality is greatly appreciated by me, and in turn I’m sure by tons of listeners to the station.

I also had to deal with figuring out how to make this a fully licensed station so that it helps make money for The Beach Boys and other acts being played. I thought it would be a nightmare, but relatively speaking that was one of the easiest parts once I pitched them my idea and met 2 great contacts for licensing!

Then I had to find out how to get Android / Apple / RokuTV and other apps built, and how to get an account with Apple to post in their store along with Google and others. The intent is to take this station to the top, and spread The Beach Boys and related acts to all generations as long as possible.

For now there are no paid commercials, but we will set up a donation page to help with the numerous expenses of setting up and running the station, however there is no charge to listen to the channel at all!

As the station grows, I plan on converting it to a professional account with the ability for advertising to help it grow in so many ways and perhaps approach Sirius XM to allow the station to simulcast through them since Good Vibrations Beach Boys channel is only a 2 month station once every 3 or 4 years or so.

There is so much in store, and so many great people in support of this behind the scenes including 2 members of the touring band, apparently a member of the band, a big promoter of The Beach Boys, a producer and the incredible online community I’ve come to know and love over the last year.

It was an honor a year ago to see Al Jardine post my full Live Aid remaster with the entire set and bonus features posted on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I had no way to thank him for his kind words to me since I don’t have a Facebook account under the name DJ L33 as he saw my work on Vimeo and YouTube. I hope one day soon I can and show him some other projects.

But this station’s giving me those “excitations” I got when I saw Al post my video. Good, good, good, good vibrations!

Well back to the grind setting up this website, and I hope to see you all soon!

Love and Have Mercy

-DJ L33