image: Steve Chapman Photography

Today BAGeL Radio turns 12. On February 1st, 2003, the stream was launched with 2 goals: to stream my music collection to myself at work, and to give myself a project to distract me from the illegal, unjustified (and by that time maddeningly inevitable) invasion my country was about to launch.

I had a base library of about 300 music files, mostly artists whose names began with the letters A, B, C, and D, because those were the CDs I had digitized to date. There was a high percentage of Cure and Clash songs in rotation back then!

In late 2003 I discovered that people were tuning in from over 100 countries and over 150 U.S. municipalities -- yet still only about half of my collection (A-M) had been digitized. That's when I started devoting more time to the station, including live-hosting to provide commentary from time to time.

By mid-2004 I'd started a 5-hour weekly live-hosted show on Fridays and also began hosting live gigs in San Francisco featuring Bay Area and touring bands. When the volume of new submissions required more live-hosting, the Friday show expanded to 8 hours.

It's hard to believe that 12 years have passed since this little adventure began.

Thanks: to our friends and families for their support and encouragement; to the DJs who have contributed their time, knowledge, taste, and passion; to the artists for continuing to put out music that delights and puts us more in touch with our humanity; to the networks who have delivered our stream; and to the listeners who make the effort worthwhile.

Thanks for helping us get to a dozen.