But the main thing I feel about 20 years of doing this is how thankful I am that the local music scene has always been supportive of BlowUpRadio . com . I say this a lot but it bears repeating , I wouldn ’ t be able to do this station without the wonderful and diverse local music scene like New Jersey has . Every week I am able to do an hour of new music solely from the Garden State , that is a true testament to the talent in our local music scene .
You were such a fan of local artists that you created an online radio station built around NJ artists . Do you remember the initial reaction of local musicians and music fans when the station was first introduced ? Were people surprised you had that much local music to play ? The first thing I remember when I started BlowUpRadio . com was contacting Al Muzer , who had a weekly local music column in the Aquarian , to see if he could mention the internet station . I ’ ve long since lost the e-mail , so I am paraphrasing here , but his response was something like , “ It is amazing no one has thought of doing this before !” He wrote a nice column about the station , and word of mouth quickly spread . I was happily surprised at just how quickly it spread , and that within a month or two I was getting multiple album submissions a week . As for the amount of local music I had to play at the beginning , I was lucky that when I started BlowUpRadio . com I already had a large collection of NJ indie bands I had amassed from doing a local music radio show at WMCX ( Monmouth University ) before working at a commercial radio station , and from buying albums when I went to local shows . So when the station began I already had about a hundred acts to play .