Broadcast FAQ

How do I contact Echoes?

E-mail: echoes@echoes.org or telephone: 610.827.7040.
Post: Echoes, P.O. Box 256, Chester Springs, PA 19425

I’d like to hear Echoes on my local station, but they are not airing it. What can I do?

You can write to or call the Program Director at your local public radio station(s). Sometimes, when enough listeners enquire, they might consider it. Being a member (donor) of the station helps, too.

Check out PRI’s Station Locator to find an affiliate near you.

Echoes isn’t carried by my local station, or I can’t listen at the time my station carries it. Can I listen to Echoes on the internet?

Yes! You can subscribe to Echoes On-Line and hear hours and hours of Echoes programs, Living Room Concerts and special features from our archive, any time you want.

In addition, many stations simulcast their signals on the internet, so you can listen to the program via your local public radio station. If you live within the range of a public radio station that airs Echoes, we hope you’ll continue to tune in there for Echoes, and to support your local station.

I would like a copy of the Echoes program I heard. Can I get a tape of the show?

No, because of copyright laws, we cannot sell copies of other peoples’ music by including them on tapes of the show. However, if you would like to listen again to recent Echoes programs, you can subscribe to Echoes On-Line. It’s our online subscription service that offers on-demand listening to recent Echoes programs, special collections of Echoes interview features and Living Room Concerts and more.

Many of the CDs we play are available from Amazon.com and you can buy downloads of individual songs from iTunes. You can find convenient links directly to the CDs by browsing our playlists. 

When you buy from Amazon or iTunes by linking through Echoes, we receive a portion of the sale. All proceeds from these sales go toward the production of the non-commercial Echoes program, allowing us to continue bringing the program to you on public radio and the internet. We rely on these revenues, so whenever possible, please use the links provided on this site, it helps our non-profit organization to survive.

We have collected some of our favorite live performances on CDs called “The Echoes Living Room Concerts”. Each of these CDs is like having an hour of Echoes to enjoy any time. There are several volumes available (early ones have sold-out). Find out more by clicking here.

I would like to order a CD I heard, how can I do that?

The Echodisc playlists have “buy” buttons for most of the CDs we play on the show. These buttons will direct you to the specific CD in the Amazon.com on-line catalog. There you can hear soundclips, read reviews of the CD, and more.

Many of the tracks also have “buy” buttons for iTunes. These buttons will direct you to the specific song in the iTunes music store, where you can hear a sample and buy a download.

All Amazon.com and iTunes sales that result from links from our site pay us a percentage, which in turn support the production of ECHOES for public radio. Thank you in advance for your order!

How do I find out what I heard on Echoes?

Current Echoes playlists can be browsed here>>. Older (2009 and earlier) Echoes playlists are archived on this web site. The playlists are arranged by the way we produce Echoes: a two-hour program each night, Monday through Thursday.

Each two-hour program has an I.D. number consisting of a number and a letter, e.g. 14-10B. So no matter when your station airs Echoes, you can identify the segment you heard. This number is announced several times during the program; your local station may also be able to provide it.

Why aren’t all the CDs you play on Echoes available for purchase through Amazon?

Some of the CDs we play are hard-to-find, some are out-of-print. Sometimes, musicians give us CDs to play on Echoes that are not yet commercially available. We have chosen to let our listeners hear this music, even if it is not for sale.

Sometimes, musicians or smaller labels from overseas cannot easily list their CDs in Amazon.com. CDBaby is a mail-order CD website that carries many of these artists, and by linking to them through the Echoes website, we’ll receive a donation from those sales that will help support Echoes.

Are there sound clips of the CDs so I can make sure this is the CD I like?

There are sound clips for many of the CDs available at Amazon.com and at CDBaby.  We apologize if the CD entry you are interested in does not feature this, we are not sure what determines when sound clips are available and when they are not.

In the iTunes store, when you double click on the song title (not on the “buy song” button), you can hear a free excerpt of the song.

Shop at the iTunes Music Store.

I’m a musician, and I’d like you to consider playing my music on Echoes. How do I get you to listen to it?

Artists and music are the lifeblood of ECHOES and we are always seeking out new material. We welcome your submissions to ECHOES. We request that you follow these guidelines:

  • We prefer material on Compact Disc. We occasionally consider download-only files, but would prefer a hard copy.
  • We encourage musicians to have their CDs available at Amazon.com, CDBaby and iTunes. To reduce confusion, we usually direct listeners only to those sites for on-line purchases.
  • We generally cannot review material that is only downloadable from a website. We are aware that this is increasingly the way artists and labels, large and small, are distributing their music, and we do make some exceptions, but we have so much material to review that it’s often not practical to search all over the internet for your music. We much prefer that you send us a hard copy, even a CDR. If you only have digital files, we prefer full-bandwidth wav files to compressed files such as MP3s.
  • Keep in mind that not all music is appropriate for ECHOES. You may have created a masterpiece, but it may not fit with the ECHOES sound or mission. Don’t take it personally. We receive nearly 3000 submissions each year, and can only play a small percentage of them
  • You may call about the disposition of your material. John takes tracking calls every Thursday, 12 Noon-4pm ET at 610-827-7040. Our daily playlists are available through this website. If your recording doesn’t appear there, chances are it is not being played, for whatever reason. Due to the large number of submissions we receive, we cannot reply to individual submission emails.
  • We generally only provide links to Amazon.com,  CDBaby and iTunes for music we are currently playing, or that have been included on one of our recommended lists.We apologize if this excludes your work, but we cannot possibly include every CD on our site. And we have noticed some alternate links creating listener confusion about who they were ordering from, so we apologize, but we usually cannot direct listeners directly to your own home page, or to alternate on-line retailers.
  • Echoes cannot return any material that is submitted. Send all materials, with contact name, address, phone, and/or e-mail to: ECHOES, P.O. Box 256, Chester Springs, PA 19425.
  • Do not send us soundfiles attached to e-mail messages. We will not listen to these files, and we will be really ticked-off… really… I’m not kidding…  You may include a link that we can follow at our convenience.

But wait! Your schedule says Monday through Thursday, but I hear Echoes on the weekend.

Yes, some stations air Echoes on the weekend. Most of them air our Monday program first, followed by Tuesday, then Wednesday, etc., depending upon how many hours of Echoes they carry each week. If those playlists don’t match up to what you think you heard, contact your local station and ask which days of Echoes they carry.