This week’s addition to my collection of favorite radio stations around the world …

I’ve alluded in the past to the idea of the “culture” of prog rock, or possibly “cult” is more apropos, and I’m saying this from the inside, not as a critic. Back in the “late 1900s” I was all about alt.music.prog, the Yesoteric collection, the Progressive Archive site, because prog isn’t about simply liking a song. Prog is an immersive lifestyle with passionate fans, most of whom are highly intellectual and/or creative, not content to merely listen to music; they must collect, explain, analyze, footnote, point out obscure musical and literary references, compare early demo versions of the song, and generally study it at an atomic level. We’re like Trekkies, only slightly nerdier. (Yeah, I’m a Trekkie too…)

Because the average prog song is … longer … than what radio generally likes to play, and fans prefer it that way, it’s mostly relegated to festivals, cruises, Internet archives, and of course, streaming stations. Which brings me to Epic Rock Radio. I found it in a “stations near here” listing while scanning something nearby, and honestly only clicked on it because I was thinking, “Oh, YOU have an epic radio station that plays rock? Let’s see how epic your station really is,” expecting the same eyeroll I got when “Maximum Radio” turned out to be the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge.”

Instead, I popped in right in the middle of one of my favorite Jordan Rudess keyboard solos. Oh, they meant a radio station that plays “Epic Rock,” now that is an important distinction I can get behind. Sign me up!

No, literally, sign me up, because, as I pointed out, prog fans participate. Of course, this station has a live chat running on the main page where fans keep a running commentary on what’s currently playing 24/7, make requests and recommendations, and generally be prog nerds. Of course, it has a Discord channel for tangent discussions. These are prog people.

Foudned by Jarrod Kailef, a self-proclaimed “guy with too many hobbies” (know the type?) and based out of the SoCal/Coachella area since 2004, Epic Rock Radio is another one of those examples of people who create the content they want, but aren’t getting from the mainstream sources and trusting the like-minding fans will find them simpply because they threw it out there into the void.

… which is a really epic, “prog” thing to do.