Ever feel that Last.fm's web/Flash interface and desktop app take up too much memory and screen space? Do you have a fetish for the austere glow of ASCII characters against a dark void? Then lastfm-cli might be for you.

lastfm-cli is an interactive command-line & telnet interface to a last.fm account and last.fm audio streams.

lastfm-cli lets you choose radio stations, play songs, skip songs, "love" them or "ban" them, and control the volume without touching a mouse. Moreover, via telnet, you can share control of a last.fm audio stream (playing through the office or home sound system, for instance) as long as the computer running lastfm-cli is accessible on the local network.

lastfm-cli requires an mp3 stream player. Currently, only iTunes is supported, but support for linux players such as MPG123 is under development.

Warning: This is alpha, so the code is messy and it doesn't always recover gracefully from errors. Plus Last.fm streams are sketchy at times, so please don't expect skipping and switching radio stations to be completely fast or reliable.

author: Daniel Choi, member of the Betahouse web cooperative in Cambridge, MA

Screenshot

Requirements

Currently, lastfm-cli requires OS X Leopard. But I am working to make it work on Linux.

Streaming Last.fm to Airtunes

Since lastfm-cli uses iTunes to play the Last.fm audio stream, you can stream Last.fm via lastfm-cli to an Airport Express. But streaming radio via iTunes to Airport Express isn't the most stable experience and you may experience frequent dropouts. To minimize dropouts, try increasing the streaming buffer size to the maximum in iTunes preferences.

A production-quality product like Airfoil may serve better for this purpose.

Installation

lastfm-cli is a ruby gem hosted on Rubyforge. You can install it with this command:

> sudo gem install lastfm-cli

After a successful installation, you should be able to run lastfm-cli with this command:

> lastfm-cli

Enjoy. Bug reports, comments, and suggestions are welcome.