Thank you Tripple J

A co-worker turned me on to this radio station and I haven't looked back. They're a public station, but very professionally run, and often the first to play tracks from new artists, with a preference for local artists. IMO they have done a lot for building local talent across Australia and I wish every country had such a station.

Some of the really cool stuff they do:
Unearthed - A service and competition they have for unsigned artists. You can upload a single or two to their website where anyone can go to download and have a listen. Their presenters are often scouring the Unearthed archive and several of these songs get air-time.

Unearthed High - Every year they hold a competition for high-school bands across Australia where the best of each state are voted on. The winner gets to do a concert at their school along with another professional Australian band, and gets their entry (or maybe an EP) professionally recorded and mixed. It is absolutely amasing the talent that is uncovered in this program.

Like a Version - A favorite of mine. As world-wide artists are travelling around Australia they are invited to the Tripple J studio to perform on air one of their singles, anda cover of some other artist of their choice. It's refreshing to hear which artists truly have talent, vs. which rely too heavily on the capabilities of their mixer. Case in point, today the Klaxons performed one of their recent singles, "Echos" and they sounded terrible, as if they got two fans in to Karaoke as they played. On the other hand, Angus & Julia Stone had come in last week and played a cover of "Say it Right" by Nelly Furtado that was *by far* better than the original. Mind you, A&J Stone are primarily an acoustic band so they don't rely as heavily on technology, but it definitely shows. Tripple J releases a CD set each year of the Like a Version recordings.

Promoting concerts, gigs, and festivals - If the Australian music scene has too much of anything, it's festivals. There are music festivals year-round with them held back to back through the summer. Tripple J actively promotes many of these, and is a good place to listen to find out who's playing where.

All together, Tripple J is a fantastic station. Best of all, you can listen all day and not hear a single track from "Lady Gaga" or any other cookie-cutter "performer".  Though they do tend to play a bit too much "Muse". I never understood that considering they're not even Australian.