Arts Professional Story: Paddy Noonan, IMRadio

Official logo of IMRadio.

IMRadio is an Internet radio station based in Chicago that plays more than 50,000 songs from 10,000 musicians and has one full-time employee: that’s me, Paddy Noonan. It's my job to schedule all of these songs on more than 400 streams of music. I also help artists use IMRadio to promote their music, connect with music industry people, and even sell merchandise to a worldwide audience. It’s a job that I really love, and considering my 16-hour workdays, I am lucky that I get to do something I am passionate about.

For the past six years, thousands of local musicians have uploaded their original songs to IMRadio. These are the artists playing in local clubs in Chicago and in cities and towns around the world. We have true “garage bands” uploading music, as well as established acts.  Anyone with an original song can register on the site and upload his or her music. Within days, a rock song by a Chicago artist may be played on the Illinois, Rock, and Illinois/Rock streams. If you go to the site, you can select streams by more than 100 locations (Amsterdam to the Virgin Islands and all 50 states!) or by more than 70 genres (Acoustic to Rock to World Music). The variety of music is very cool.

The Origins of IMRadio

From the early 1980s to 2003, I led a wonderful existence working with a huge insurance company by day while pursuing my indie music career at night. I played in the Chicago band freeDave. Unfortunately, my existence all changed after a merger, an acquisition, and a layoff from my company. I had always dreamed of becoming a working musician, and I wished that I could get a freeDave song on Chicago radio and be discovered. The problem was that even great local Chicago bands have very limited chances of ending up on Q101, XRT, B96, or even smaller stations.

One night, I had a brainstorming session with a fellow ex-employee and aspiring performance poet, MC Rydel. We began designing a Chicago dating site with a virtual nightclub featuring music from local Chicago bands. We searched the Internet and soon realized that these bands had no venue for their music. By four in the morning, the dating site had morphed into Local Music Café—the original name of IMRadio.

MC and I spent the next couple of years working our new day jobs but also working to build the idea of a local music radio station. The prototype radio station opened in 2008 as Radio Free USA. At first, I sent an invitation out to 1000 artists, and surprisingly 500 of them registered artist bios and uploaded songs to Radio Free USA.

The idea began to grow. I always wanted to use the name IMRadio for our station. I liked the idea because of a progression from AM to FM to IM (Analog Modulation, Frequency Modulation, and Internet Modulation). So, when the domain name IMRadio became available, I won a bidding auction for it. After more brainstorming, though, we decided to have IM stand for "Independent Musician" instead of "Internet Modulation." This seemed more appropriate, since IMRadio was created with the local artists and their listeners in mind.

Discovering the Breadth of Music

I have always loved music and continue to love it even more now because of IMRadio. When I first started the station, I could name maybe 15 genres of music. IMRadio is currently hosting 71 separate stations with different genres of music (more than 400 stations in total!). Not only have I become familiar with many new genres of music (crunk, freak folk, trance), but I have only now begun to understand the breadth of music. 

I look forward every day to hearing a new song in a new genre featuring new instruments. I have learned more about the world of truly independent music in the past year than ever before. And the exciting part is that as IMRadio expands deeper and deeper into different areas of the world, I will be exposed to an even greater variety of what I currently understand as music. For instance, we have great Classical and Film Score stations, and we recently have opened Spoken Word/Poetry and Comedy stations.

IMRadio is really the Internet’s first open-source radio station. It gives everyone the chance to upload their work. The computer automatically schedules the song using random shuffle functionality to make sure that everybody has an equal chance of radio airplay.

A Musician-Driven Station

Once the song is on the air, this is where our artists take over. IMRadio musicians contact their fans and let them know when the song will be playing on the station.They can use IMRadio to set up a fan club using their Profile pages and can communicate with their fans. They can advertise their gigs and CD/Singles releases. They become part of the IMRadio online store and sell band merchandise. A great benefit of the station is that it's worldwide. We have heard numerous stories of bands building a base of new fans in countries like Belarus, Greece, or the UK. Some of the bands have begun working on gig swaps where they can help a “crosstown” band get in on their gig and vice versa. In today's DIY musical environment, IMRadio is a great place for the indie artist.

To make this all happen, though, we have faced a number of challenges. IMRadio is built on brand new technology. Artists upload their works, and our programming automatically schedules them for radio airplay. A number of software engineers and web developers have spent thousands of hours making the system work. The other big challenge for me is that I work alone as a small business owner in this economy. I made the leap to self-employment two years ago. It is a scary but fulfilling way to try to make a living.

Fortunately for me, IMRadio has been helped by many local artists, including the power pop band Gidgets Ga Ga, the rock group Tom Fuller Band, and hip-hop artist King Poke. Recently, several independent artists have signed contracts with major promoters in New York and London because of IMRadio exposure. Another artist, CiJay, received a recording contract. “I was discovered on IMRadio and signed by Sirenia Records and Deet Promotions. I even shot my first music video.”  This type of exposure is just the thing that musicians are looking for.

The station’s audience is growing and attracts listeners from more than 150 countries who look for new music from independent bands. I love hearing new songs on the radio, learning more about musicians, and eventually going to see their concerts. That’s why I started IMRadio. I invite all musicians, poets, and comedians in Chicago to check out the site. Why wait to get discovered when you can self-discover on IMRadio?

Paddy Noonan was born in Atlanta, Georgia in May 1958. He spent the next 30 years growing up in Philadelphia and the last 20 years in Chicago, where he raised both his daughters. All through the years, Paddy played guitar, sang, and performed. When the economy changed his life, Paddy became an entrepreneur and took on the mission of giving exposure equally to all artists on the Internet. Paddy enjoys his family, friends, sunny vacations, and especially the amazing talent of independent artists.