A.Different.
Music.Mix.

In the 1980s, Jeff Cooper started-up and ran LBC Music Radio, an Italian 'border blaster' station overlooking the Swiss city of Lugano: the picture above is of the transmitting mast. He was even the subject of a series of features in the UK newspaper, The Guardian, here and here. Later, he created the radio shows 'XS' and '2XS', and then launched this station back in 2002 with the help of several other experienced broadcasters and committed music fans. Jeff has been involved in promoting New Music and non-mainstream albums for decades on many radio stations - he may well be the longest-running continuous broadcaster of New Music in the country. Here, we all believe in the music we play - and we reckon it's a better reflection of the past 70 Years Of Rock & Roll than you will hear elsewhere. Meet the whole 2XS team here.

By 2002, British radio had virtually abandoned all non-chart and unsigned music, so we launched 2XS Radio. It was actually named 'radio2XS' back then, but the BBC threatened to sue us because "we might be confused with BBC Radio 2" - don't laugh!

Despite their idiocy, we had already become the only on-line station to record our own full live sessions. 'The Barn Sessions' were killed by the covid wars, but hopefully they'll return at some point. We also promise new bands that, if we like what you do, you don't get confined to a niche show: you get aired throughout our programming, right alongside the big names.

We're more of a 'rock & roll' than a 'rock' station, but guitar-based music still accounts for around 85% of what we play. The remainder comes from heritage genres which rock & roll has absorbed. So you'll hear some country-rock, but not country & western; you'll hear some soul and r&b from the 60s and 70s, but not today's 'urban' versions; you'll hear occasional ska, bluebeat and reggae but not dancehall; you'll hear pioneer rappers and poets like Grandmaster Flash, Linton Kwesi-Johnson and Gil Scott-Heron, but no gangsta. In the past couple of years, we've also started including some 'leftfield' dance now that genre has been matured by the likes of Robin Schulz, Cozy Sky and Filip Belikov (aka Feel). (Kudos to 'Leftfield' themselves, who were doing that in 1993!)

It's simply because we are not playing the 'numbers game', in terms of either listeners or web visits. For this reason, and to stop Google owning our statistics, our pages cannot effectively be crawled by their bots. Google assumes it's an error, so the cheeky sods frequently email us to point this out. But it's not an error. 2XS exists solely to be enjoyed (and is funded, thank you!) by listeners who like what we do. We love those people and we're not really interested in anyone who doesn't listen, or doesn't like what we play. That's fine by us; there are plenty of other choices out there. It's been a struggle to keep going, mainly because of the intransigence and backward-thinking of the two principal 'protection organisations' (rackets, would be a better description), PPL and PRS. They operate an absurd regime for online stations, charging many multiples of what over-the-air stations pay for a similar audience.

The debate about whether someone who spent a couple of hours in a studio decades ago should still get paid for that effort is a good one for a pub night - no creators of the nation's wealth in other sectors of work get such a generous deal. More importantly, neither of those organisations makes any effort to use the easily-obtainable information about our music output to direct our payments towards the artists we play: it all goes into a pot to be paid to artists like Taylor Swift, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter, etc, etc (yawn!) - none of whom we have ever played.

Anyway, we've been going ever since, running on our love for the music and funding by our listeners, so - thank you again. And although we don't have to, we display an Ofcom-style 'Public File' as a gesture of goodwill. It's here.

Grateful thanks also go to the team who have contibuted finance, technical expertise, unpaid work, and encourgement since 2002. Without you, it would never have got off the ground:

Guy Morris
Collette Saxton
Mark Meadowcroft
Terry Butterworth (decd.)
Steve Bone
Steven Cooper
Trisha Roberts
Caroline Woodruff
John Peters (decd.)

There's also the necessary legal guff here, should you be interested.

From the day we started, we have been enthusiastic about New Music, especially music produced by unsigned artists. We are always keen to hear new material and we do guarantee to audition everything we are sent (provided it's easily accessible, as per below).

All the music we play is supplied to us by the artists, their record labels, promotion agents or management companies: we do not search for material - nor do we 'steal' it. Details of how to contact us are here.

We get dozens of music emails every week and being a small team we have to streamline how we deal with them.

To make sure you get your music to us effectively, please download this short guide (right-click, choose 'Save link as') and read the included 'Conditions for Music Submissions'. By sending us music or any other materials, you are expressly agreeing to the Terms it contains - none of which affect the ownership of your music).

And please don't forget to click here to get the Playlist mailed to you each time it's updated, and follow us on X/Twitter here.

We are located in Chesterfield, a market town on the edge of the Peak District National Park in central England. Microphones are Shure SM7Bs, mixer is from Netherlands manufacturer D&R. Music and programming is produced and scheduled here and then uploaded to our data centre. Like most stations, we use a combination of audio mixers and software editors to compile and edit the music and spots, which is all played out by a highly-recommended New Zealand software programme called Station Playlist. The final mix is sent from our playout server through a broadcast processor to our streaming server in the Netherlands. The pictures above and below show how our studios look now. Unlike our earlier station, LBC Music Radio (see below), there are no transmitters any more. Until a few years ago, we even had a dedicated live recording studio, equipped by our chum and long-time collaborator, Guy Morris. Sadly, the Covid Wars put paid to that, but we'd like to think it could be revived in the future. Here's what it looked like... In common with other media operations, our equipment has changed over the years from racks of bulky hardware to a largely computer-based set-up. Below is how it all looked when 2XS was launched from The Workstation in Sheffield in 2002...

Next is a photo of the 1980s studios of our predecessor, the mountain-top Swiss/Italian 'border-blaster' station, LBC Music Radio 95.7. Not a computer in sight!

Thanks for all your support that got us through 2025, but please continue to help in our 24th year - all 2026's royalties were due in advance, and have now been paid, but we still need to cover ongoing servers and streaming costs.

Just in case you didn't know, 2XS has been Listener Funded by hundreds of our 'Heroes Of Rock' since we started on 2 December 2002. It's meant that we have been able to remain ad-free - which is awesome. If you do hear any ads, then you are listening via a third-party app or website, so please tell us if this happens (we came off TuneIn during 2024 for that reason). We don't want ads, and we know you don't!

We spend a lot of time and money keeping the station running and it's only been possible because of your contributions, so a big "thank you" to all who have helped so far. If you haven't already, maybe you could keep us going with a one-off or recurring donation?

All income is spent on royalty payments, servers, streaming, studio maintenance, and software upgrades: we only get paid in coffee! £20/$205/€20 supports the musicians; £10/$10/€10 helps towards server costs - and £5/$5/€5 will buy a coffee and keep the lights on!

We now also accept Stripe, which is good for the (many) people who dislike Paypal.

To email us click here.

You can also help our exposure by following us on:
X / Twitter
Facebook.
Follow our WhatsApp channel here. Send us a VoiceMail here.

We hope you find the materials provided on the 2XS Radio website informative and entertaining. The content does not necessarily constitute accurate information and is provided for general information purposes. We give no warranty of any kind, either express or implied and with no suggestion that any representations are factually correct. If you feel that any material is libellous or in any other way offensive, or that anything should require correction, you are asked to inform us immediately. Any necessary correction or removal will then be made without delay. Failure to do this will be deemed as acceptance that such material is acceptable to you.

The words '2XS Radio' and 'radio2XS' in the context of radio broadcasting, webcasting and programme making, are our intellectual property: we will protect them should anyone attempt to use them as private, business, trading or web names.

We shall not be liable for any technical, editorial or typographical or other errors or omissions within the information accessible through this website, nor shall we be responsible for the content of any external web images and sites to which we provide links.

The copyright in all materials on this website is owned by us, except where indicated to the contrary. Any pages contained within this website may be downloaded or printed for your personal use provided that no alterations to any of the pages are made and that you do not use any of the pages in any other work or publication in whatever medium. Anything downloaded and stored by a third party shall be deemed to exist 'without prejudice'. None of the pages may be distributed, copied or re-used for any commercial purpose without permission.