Radio Goethe

Radio Goethe is an hour long broadcast on KUSF and many other college radio stations about North America. It focuses on German culture, specifically German music. The programme, which is hosted by Arndt Peltner, is funded through the German General Consulate and the Goethe Institut Inter-Nationes. Additionally artists donate songs regularly for inclusion on the "Radio Goethe presents German Bands" compilation CDs, the third of which was released in 2004.

Here is a list of the stations listed by the website as carrying Radio Goethe:

PRX Public Radio Exchange
KUSF San Francisco
CHSR Fredericton
CFUV Victoria
CKLU Sudbury
CFXU Antigonish
KMSM Butte
CHMR St. John's
WCLH Wilkes Barre
KAMP Tucson
KRNL Mount Vernon
WRRG River Grove
WSUM Madison
KPSU Portland
KBVR Corvallis
WRHO New York
WUTS Sewanee
WCMO Marietta

The programmes are also available for download in MP3 or Real Audio format via the website (which is bilingual English/German) at http://www.radio-goethe.de

The downloaded file will be the USA/Canada programme, which is different to the one broadcast on KUSF. They both have the same collection of music, and are produced by Arndt, but the KUSF programme is live, and people in the bay area can phone in and ask questions about the music they are listening to. These conversations are not broadcast.

The actual version that is downloaded via the site is the one broadcast on WCLH (Wilkes-Barre Scranton), as this station chooses to download the broadcast from the internet, instead of recieve it via CD.

The site also has an excellent collection of reviews of CDs (Plattentipps), unfortunately a large section of these have not yet been translated into English, so this resource is more useful for German speakers. These reviews are written with conviction and an obvious love for music, which coupled with the inherent errors of such systems, makes it unsuitable for online translators (unless you have a vivid imagination of what the author could have meant).

There is a large selection of interviews with German bands, some with the actual audio files of the interview, but all with transcriptions. All but the newest of these have been translated.

Finally, the music itself, Arndt broadcasts a large selection, from Medieval Rock (e.g. Tanzwut, Corvus Corax, In Extremo, etc), to Electronica (e.g. Yellow, Merlons, Haggard, etc) and more mainstream german rock (Subway to Sally, Megaherz, Rammstein) and mainstream German music (Herbert Groenemeyer, Rosenstolz). If you send in an email with a request, it will very likely be played (remember to say if you're listening to the version online or on KUSF). Playlists for the next few programmes, and dating back as far as 2002 are available.