About RADIO FREE EARTH

Like a pirate radio station in the sky, Radio Free Earth ignores boundaries to play the good stuff you don't ordinarily get the chance to hear.

Radio Free Earth is a band that's many things — acoustic and electric, rootsy and innovative, funny and serious, political and spiritual.  Most of all, however, Radio Free Earth makes good music of every kind.  They call it "crossover music."

In 1998 RFE began searching through the dustbins of the Twentieth Century looking for good unused songs.  Epitomal songs from every genre that show where we've been and where we're bound.  Songs you've forgotten and songs you've never heard before.  Songs for every situation and circumstance.

Radio Free Earth keeps this music alive by keeping it moving, doing it new and making it fresh.  You never can tell what you are going to hear when you catch RFE.  The repertoire changes from night to night.  They might perform a doo wop song with Tuvan throat singing thrown in, or bluegrass Natty Dread style.

And where RFE can't find a song to fill the bill and paint the picture, Josh Wachtel and the band's resident song scout, Alexei "The Old Space Ranger" Panshin, write a new one like "Night Dream Blues" or "Times Right Now."  "Brother Ben" Wachtel, who sometimes sits in on keyboards, writes too.

The driving force behind Radio Free Earth has been founder Josh Wachtel's deep songbag, his vocal phrasing and his eclectic guitar playing.  But RFE has kicked into overdrive since Josh's wife Kim joined the band in 2002.  Kim sings her heart out, lays down tasty backing vocals and blows a mean kazoo.

Radio Free Earth, which goes where Josh and Kim go, has performed on both coasts and at the birthplace of Dracula in Romania.  RFE has recently landed in the hills of Western Massachusetts.  You can hear them singing and playing there regularly, as an acoustic duo and as a band.

Radio Free Earth has released four 16-song CDs on Handknit Records: Crossover (2003) and Fortune and Death (2005) (acoustic) and And Don't Forget It! and Available Light (6-piece electric band). A fifth CD, Freehand, is in production.

For bookings and information contact Josh Wachtel at josh@radiofreeearth.com or phone 413-634-5005.