The Little Lighthouse is a free form rock’n’roll show loosely based on connecting dots between roots, branches, history and future of rock’n’roll. It was created by me, Stanislav Zabic in 2001 on Louisiana State University college radio KLSU. The show was on KLSU until I graduated in summer 2005. In February 2006 the show continued its life every Monday from 8 to 10pm on college radio station K-UTE in Salt Lake City. Then I relocated to Cleveland OH in December 2006. Currently, The Little Lighthouse is an (extra)ordinary podcast. In 2008 The Little Lighthouse started coming out in “Flashlite” edition form as a podcast on Littlelighthouse.net. The same edition is syndicated on two radio stations from former Yugoslavia. Since 2008 the show have been broadcasted on the Internet radio station Radio SC, now defunct college radio station owned by Studentski Centar in Zagreb, Croatia, since 2011 the show has been syndicated on Radio Kragujevac (while it was a public radio, before it got privatized), and on Radio Centar in Kragujevac (now also defunct). The show has also been a part of RockXS network in Athens Greece and portal Prvi Prvi na Skali from Kragujevac.
Info for bands:
I will be more than happy to hear your music and see you live. Please contact me through social media>.
Mission Statement:
* The Little Lighthouse supports
1: Bands and artists who are not afraid to experiment, mix genres, keep the music alive and dynamic.
2: Bands and artists who pay attention to traditions of rock’n’roll and fine songwriting
3: Music that comes directly from heart
4: Local and unsigned artists (please contact me, I will give a careful listen to any new band)
* The Little Lighthouse pays special attention to the mildly forgotten moments in rock history and explores rare and unexploited records, songs, and artists.
* The Little Lighthouse won’t repeat songs unless there is a very good reason for it (I sometimes like to break this rule, especially in case of requested songs).
Written on the occasion of our 25th anniversary:
Little Lighthouse has been produced for twenty five years now, with more or less weekly shows other than the longer breaks when I was moving between towns. The first show was the only one that wasn’t also a podcast. Podcasting was invented a week later by yours truly. I should have patented it. But also, it feels like podcasting has lead to the decline in the rock’n’roll scene. A few days before the first show aired I walked inside of 91.1 KLSU FM studio and recorded with the opening credit theme. It was mixed live on radio cart tape with the help of the station manager. I went into the studio on January 14th 2001 without training. I kind of figured it out as I went by. The second show on January 21st was already sounding good enough to be saved. Story continues next week. I wrote this note after the first show. A friend asked how I’m going to celebrate the anniversary. Just by keeping the show going for a few years more at least.
All recorded Little Lighthouse archives over the 25 years of existence from 2001 till today amount to over 1600 hours of music. That’s 67 days. If you want to hear some hear from the past, contact me. All shows were archived except the first one.
Starting with my second show, exactly 25 years ago, I had this idea to record my live shows as MP3s, write a little blurb about them in a blog-style format, and post everything on the math department website at LSU, where I was a student at the time. Bandwidth and disk space were scarce. The math department webmaster (who was also a professor) was really upset with me the next day. I had to take it all down and find some new solutions. Which I did, and the website was quickly back up and running.
In essence, I made a podcast a full three years before the term was first coined by some really smart and hip Guardian journalist in 2004. It was the era of dial-up internet. Not all families even had a computer at home yet, let alone a streaming device. There was no youtube. MP3 reproduction technology wasn’t on any pocket devices. My intention was simply to make my show available to friends overseas. You could say The Little Lighthouse is the first and the longest-running podcast ever.
However, I don’t believe internet broadcasting or posting is charming at all. Maybe it was in 2001. There’s real value in running away from the hyperactivity of the internet, the noise of social networks and AI, and going back to the airwaves and print to find your news and entertainment.
I put zero effort into pushing my show onto unsuspecting listeners. You won’t see the oldest podcast in the world on podcast clients. Those who want it know how to get it.