Expecting Rain

According to a notice on today's (December 7, 2010) ER news page, Croz's TTRH archives and the private member forums at http://croz.fm/ will "close early next year."

I'm presuming that Karl Erik either received an email or Croz posted a notice in his forums. I'm also presuming it's Croz's decision, and not more evidence of a chilling effect on the part of Mr. D.'s business representatives. In any case, if you haven't taken advantage of the TTRH archives, I'd suggest you do so in the next few weeks.

It's sad to see the archives go. Many thanks to Croz for the great service he provided for us all!

I'll second that emotion - croz has been brilliant, don't think i have any gaps but maybe i'll have to listen to 100 shows to make sure! in the meantime heartfelt thanks, for the live archive too.

Hi Fred and Friends!

The recent, unfortunate "chilling effect" has nothing to do with me taking the TTRH archives down. Fortunately the folks at XM and in the Dylan camp have been looking the other way for three and a half years now! An amazing run and thousands of people have gotten the shows from croz.fm and that makes me happy. I've just decided that I need to move on from maintaining my forums and the TTRH archives have been piggybacking on that (expensive) venture for the last couple of years. It also burns a bit that about 200 people download the archives each month (still) and only one or two contribute to the costs of hosting. So it goes on the web! Thankfully my forum members have been supporting me and the server hamsters but that will end in January when I close up shop.

I did send Karl Erik an email in hopes that he would post it to his front page so that folks who might have missed the TTRH Archive can dig in a get the shows before I get back to my own music and a much, much cheaper hosting plan. That will happen on January 19th next year.

Cheers,
Croz

An amazing effort, Croz. Thanks for all your work, and my best to you.

Thankyou Croz for all that you have done.

I believe that the shows are archived on Dylannl.com but I am slowly putting the joint versions of the shows back up in our A-Z on mediafire rather than the now defunct rapidshare links.

Just seen this. Agreed, many thanks to Croz, (if you're reading this) for all your postings. I missed the notification you were going 'private' in about May, due to vacation, and when I got back I was unable to access the site.

Cheers, and hope to see you next year

Your last chance (for romance and love) to get TTRH shows from Croz's archives is fast approaching. The front page reports that the archives will close on January 6, 2011. Via http://croz.fm ...

Late Update: Unfortunately due to constraints on the hosting side the curtain will be falling earlier than expected! The TTRH Archive will only be up until some time on January 6th. So get while the getting's good! If you miss out—and are willing to be patient—there will be information on this page after the 6th about getting the files through the mail. But beware that I am, like, a year behind on my mailouts (I send them out before asking for blanks and postage and I have been busy/lazy). And if you are enjoying the shows and would consider making a donation to defray some still outstanding bandwidth debt please consider making a small donation. Thank you and enjoy the shows! It's been a true pleasure to be part of the TTRH legacy!

December 2010: As of January 19, 2011, I will be taking the TTRH Archives offline. After three and a half years of hosting the shows here at Croz.fm I have decided to move on with my own musical adventures and the fact is that the costs of hosting such a large, unofficial collection—the storage and bandwidth—combined with a general lack of support from 98% of people who download the shows makes it unrealistic for me to continue. Hopefully by now these very files are available in other venues. As noted in my update from last year, I hope you will consider a small donation to help defray server costs if you decide to download the shows.

A note about TTRH Mailouts: When I originally made the sidebar offer to send the entire archive out to folks on three DVDs I wasn't expecting much demand. Oh, boy, was I wrong! Well over a hundred people have requested the mailout and I got swamped with requests and just sorta blocked it out. Some people have been waiting for a loooong time and I expect they have given up on me. Well, when I wind down Croz.fm (the Forums are taking a lot of time and will be very busy up 'til January) I will get off my ass and get on with the mailouts. I have already burned about 70 full copies and I will make sure that if you still want them that you will get them.

Thanks for updating it here, Fred!

Not quite sure why we got short shrift, probably has to do with my guy in India renting servers in Poland and when the various billing periods roll over. He let me know about a week ago but I forgot to post here and/or send a note to KE and I know it can take some folks a day or two (or more) to get 'em all so I hope lots more folks get 'em and maybe one day when I get a little money in the bank I will be able to share the entire MP3 archive again.

I offered to torrent the entire thing (~8 gigs) to Hunger City but I never heard back fro Sharif, I suppose because of the dreaded MP3 factor. I had kind of hoped that they would make an exception because of the amount of work we all put in, but lossy lossy at the end of the day so I understand.

It has been a great run, and thanks to everyone who has helped defray the hosting costs over the years, and to KE for spreading the word and to Fred and all the other creatives and tapers who have helped to build the legend.

A torrent is a great idea, and I don't see why it should be impossible to find a place to put it.

In fact, here is one: http://btjunkie.org/search?q=theme+time+radio+hour
There is a 28 shows download and a Season 2.

I would love to get it all up as a torrent and I am sure I eventually will, but I really don't want to put it on a public tracker if I can help it. I was really hoping that Shareef at HC would say yes. I think I might have to press the point and prove my goods. Maybe he/she just missed the message. The collective effort here is simply amazing: all 100 shows fully tagged and at a decent bit rate with complete artwork. The fact that I got no reply suggests to me that maybe my message was missed. I have it on good authority that bootleggers regularly miss messages.

tl;dr - I would have Karl Erik make a fund-raising effort from distributing DVDs of the full TTRH before I would put it up on a public tracker. I am surprised our work is not up there yet. Only a matter of time, I'd guess.

Hi,

I managed to download a few episodes of TTRH from Croz's site before it went down. I've been listening to them while doing the dishes and my four year old daughter loves them too...! So a big thank you for all of the effort that it sounds like went into making them available.

I'd be interested in getting a copy of more of the archive in the future and I for one would be happy to make a donation to help defray costs. I'm wondering if someone could, for the benefit of the uninitiated, explain to me slightly more simply what the prospects of this are... one post above mentions more info being posted on "this site" about getting a copy through the mail? As the Croz.fm site is down now where would it be best to watch for this future information?

This forum or the ER main news page are probably the two places most likely to have future information. As Croz noted above, he's way behind in his mailings (I'm still waiting on my copies ) - not surprisingly, as it's a one-person, volunteer, non-profit effort - and I'm not sure he wants to take on any more responsibilities until the initial bunch are taken care of. But watch this space.

As I noted in the thread below, as an alternative there is at least one other complete TTRH archive,

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=55551

Many thanks for the prompt response.

Bummer, I just came back for my occasional TTRH download and CrozFM is gone. I was even one of the 1% of the users who sent him money to keep going. Can someone tell me what the status is? I only downloaded up to show #26. I looked at the bittorrent site mentioned on this thread and it is sort of obscure and patchy..

thanks for whatever you can tell a somewhat out-of-touch but faithful dylan fan..

Jeff C

The status is that Croz.fm is defunct. There's a somewhat erratic push to get all the shows into the "Rare Recordings" section here, but it's strictly a volunteer ad hoc effort. The current best bet is problably dylan.nl

http://www.dylannl.nl/outtakes/5-radio- ... radio-hour

You have to register (and donate?) to Dylan.nl now, but it's well worth the trouble (and expense)

I've of course got all the shows and J's excellent artwork. If anybody here can suggest a safe space to share I will be happy to take the time to prepare and upload the entire run. I wrote to Sharif at HC about sharing the entire collection but, alas, HC tanked. I'm sort of offline these days working on my own tunes and stuff so if you have any ideas please drop me a line at p.l.crosley AT gmail DOT com.

I really miss the buzz for croz.fm all over, for what it was worth. Never had such a good time in my life before.

Have the Theme Time Radio Hour shows become available on any other site? If so, can you supply a link?

Fwiw, as I noted here viewtopic.php?f=11&t=61129 SiriusXM has announced a 24/7 TTRH internet-only channel that will be rebroadcasting (and rebroadcasting and rebroadcasting) the shows beginning in mid-August. Theme Time is also returning to its traditional time slot on satellite radio on Deep Tracks. Apparently Earle Bailey wasn't that much of a draw.

So, maybe someone in the next generation of TTRH listeners will record and preserve the show a la Croz. On the other hand, given that TTRH will always be on in the cloud -- at least for the near-future -- maybe an archive is passe at this point.

XM Sirius is in a local cloud over North America, so the Internet Cloud will still be of use.
They don't broadcast on the Internet, do they?

Hadn't thought of that, KE. So probably only US-only can get their internet channel.

It's still easily available. All episodes. PM me.

I have all the shows mostly in joint form but my cd drive probably needs replacing as I cant burn discs or put them on pc to then post them on mediafire.

Karl Erik also makes the point about higher bit rate I dont know how you do that.

I think having them in joint form is better than archives so if anyone has blindwilly's shows and can put the remaining shows up (and then send me the link to put them in A-Z then please please help me on this venture.

It's important that these shows are preserved as they are part of Bob's history and also they are bloody brilliant!!!!

I play the Christmas special show every year.
Maybe this is what gave Bob the idea for CITH?