Podcast of the Day: Roots Rock Radio

I've been talking a lot about internet radio recently, so I thought it might be nice to switch gears. I think I've mentioned that in the past I haven't been an avid podcast listener, though recently I have gotten into them more because they are great for finding new music. I've been checking out a bunch of different podcasts from the iTunes directory, and the title "Roots Rock Radio" appealed to me so I tuned in. DJ Richard Taylor is a mellow, folksy dude who plays "the best of indie roots rock/pop, alt country/Americana, Blues/Rockabilly, Garage/Punk, and Real Rock & Roll from around the globe."

Apparently, Roots Rock Radio has a pretty healthy listenership from around the world as this map from the homepage shows. I hadn't heard of any of the unsigned artists he plays, which included Archer Avenue, Tim Emmerick, and John Findlay, but they were all pretty high quality and if you like anything roots, rock, or country inspired, this is worth a listen. Between sets of 3 or 4 songs, Taylor reads "This Day in Rock and Roll History" factoids from Billboard.com and talks about stories in the news or his life. He also reads emails from listeners around the world. In the most recent episode, #93, he read an email from Vincent in France that said,

…I mentioned RRRadio.com on my blog with a special note on the show during which you talked to the GI based in Iraq. For us in Europe, US policy in Iraq is very unpopular. For the first time, communicating through RR radio with the soldier posted there listening to the same music, the conflict looked more human.

I thought this letter highlighted one of the great benefits of podcasts in that they are easily accessible to people around the world and they can bring together niche music communities through their ability to transcend time and place. With regular radio, perhaps this kind of connection would never have been made because the soldier might not have been able to tune into the station Vincent listened to. Moreover, traditional radio doesn't have any room for this kind of very specific, noncommercial content. The type of material Taylor is playing on Roots Rock Radio is by no means "mainstream" and I think it's really interesting that he's drawing such an international audience for such Americana based material.
The title of this podcast, Roots Rock Radio, also made me think about a question we have tackled before: does a podcast count as radio? Does the fact that people don't listen at the same time, or in a geographically focused location matter? Or do the properties of radio still exist in a podcast? Perhaps radio's goals are even furthered by podcastings ability to connect such disparate and disconnected audiences as the American GI and Vincent in France through music.