April, 2004

Dear Friends,

I don't have to tell you that carving out a place for quality music on a corporate-controlled radio dial is a difficult task. We have been blessed to have been able to carve out a niche, albeit a small one, for such music on Live Live for the past two-odd years. Sadly, though, our small project to give independent, noncommercial, and local artists a voice in the media and a place on the radio dial is about to end. After over two years of bringing you the best in live music in Boston and beyond, we at Live Live have decided to hang up our headphones and shut off our mics. Our last radio broadcast is scheduled for April 27, 2004.

We are indeed sad that our tenure at Allston-Brighton Free Radio is ending, but we feel that this is a good time to wrap things up and do so without too many regrets. There are several reasons why we arrived at this decision. The first is that our station, Allston-Brighton Free Radio, has recently run out of savings and is adopting a subsistence level financial plan. We did not feel that our project could be adequately supported if the viability of our radio station was in question every month, and were no longer willing to sink money and time into a ship that has more holes to repair than crew to repair them. Secondly, we have grown very busy in other realms of our lives and unfortunately can no longer give Live Live the time and effort it needs in order to flourish. The project was a big one; given our volunteer staff's time and resources, it could only grow so much and survive so long. All things considered, I would say that Live Live exceeded all of our initial expectations. There are other reasons as well, but it is less important to go into lengthy explanations now. Instead, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to Live Live over the past two and a half years and has added quality content to our programming. The musicians who gave a little time and thought to our radio program made this endeavour worth every minute of work.

Live Live is not disappearing entirely. Our website will remain active, and all the archived interviews and performances will continue to be available for listening and download. We encourage you to keep visiting us and listening to our original, in-depth content available nowhere else. We also have some new ideas in the works as to how Live Live can continue to support the live music community in Boston, and we will be piloting some of these ideas in partnership with Matt Murphy's (www.mattmurphyspub.com) in the coming weeks and months. And who knows, maybe one day we'll start up at another radio station some time in the future...

As always, please feel free to email us with comments and questions. Again, a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in our radio program over the past two and a half years and contributed something of yourselves to Live Live. You are appreciated; you are not forgotten. The community that exists around live music continues to be an inspiration to all of us. We'll be seeing you down the road.

-David (for Live Live)