I’d never heard of “Free Vermont Radio” until July of this year, when I received the following e-mail:

I have added your music to the site http://www.freevermontradio.org

We play 99% Vermont Music!  If you have anymore please sent to us at..

Free Vermont Radio

attn: Artist Submissions

P.O. Box 28

East St. Johnsbury Vermont, 05838

Also, here are some banners you can put on your sites to send fans over to request your music…

http://www.freevermontradio.or…

Thanks,

Dennis Steele (Founder)

Free Vermont Radio

It was a little strange.  I do sometimes allow some of my music to be on internet radio stations, but usually there is an agreement in place, and usually people ask first.  I have a lot of music that I allow people to download for free, but I’m clear about the use of such files.  From my own web site:

Permission is granted to use parts of the site (such as downloading an mp3 file or an image) for personal and not-for-profit use. Web content may not be published on any other site without permission.

So that, in itself, is a bit of a flag for me.  It, however, gets worse.  Turns out there’s a connection (and a fairly overt one) between Free Vermont Radio and Second Vermont Republic.  

As you might expect, when someone tries to do business that involves me (whether they get my permission or not), I want to know who it is and why.  So I did a simple google search: “Dennis Steele Vermont.”

This was the first link I got.  It’s Dennis Steele speaking before the SVR convention, along with links to Free Vermont Radio.

I also did a little more searching.  I noticed this:

When it comes to buying locally and supporting Vermont made goods and services, fifth generation Vermonter Dennis Steele truly puts his money where his mouth is. The Kirby businessman and Vermont Patriot has just launched a new Internet radio station, Free Vermont Radio, entirely devoted to promoting Vermont musicians and their music worldwide.

The new radio station had hardly been broadcasting a week, when its collection of Vermont based music surpassed one thousand tracks (individual tunes) from dozens of CDs. Dennis often receives as many as 10 or 12 CDs a day from Vermont musicians eager to share their music with the rest of the world.

I have to say, it’s got to be really easy to collect one thousand tracks when you just cull things from peoples’ web sites without their permission.  I have to wonder how many other musicians made it onto this site without their permission.  

The idea looks nice: local Vermonters supporting Vermont music.  And on the surface it seems like a good thing.  But this is not what that site is.  That site supports SVR, a group which willingly organizes with white supremacists secession movements.  Steele’s 2008 speech at the SVR came well after news about their involvement with the League of the South was first widely publicized.

Let me be clear about this: Steele is welcome to use his web site to support any belief or any organizational affiliations he so chooses.  He is welcome to do this.   But I think he’s got an obligation to come clean about where the music on his site comes from, whether or not the people involved gave permission to be affiliated with supporters of White Supremacists and whether or not he actually pays any money out to any of the musicians he uses on his site.  I’m all for freedom, I’m all for music and I’m all for Vermont.  

I just don’t see how “Free Vermont Radio” supports any of these things, unless it just means that Vermont musicians provide material to this “radio” station for free.