Radio Radio

Back in the early 70s, one-hit-wonder Jon Miles sang about Music - an overblown three or four part song that in some respects was a poor man's Bohemian Rhapsody.  It started:

                                             Music was first love and it will be my last,
                                             Music of the future and music of the past.

I can understand that: music has been (and continues to be) an important part of my life too.  Calling it my first and last loves is a bit strong, but still - I do love a good tune.

Before downloads, we listened to music on CDs.  Before that it was cassettes and 8-track tapes, or maybe reel-to-reel tapes (if we were really flash).  Before that vinyl, 8" singles or 12" albums.  If I wanted to go back further there were acrylic discs, the same size as albums but with only one track per side rather than several, and playing at a different speed, and further back still acrylic cylinders - but both those formats pre-date even me.  Through all of those eras - except the cylinders - there was (is....) Marconi's world changing invention, the radio.

In my childhood, we had a big old plywood radio that was coated with something tacky that made it look like teak and hence more vaulable that it actually was.  It had valves and a kind of beige woolly grille through which came the sound (mono of course, only one speaker) and a backlit display that told you what station you were listening to.  There were three wave lengths: medium, long and short.  Way too technical for my family. we listened pretty much exclusively to the medium wave programming, that held all the popular BBC stations (all three of them: The Light Programme, The Third Programme and The Home Service), even though elsewhere there were many more exotic and mysterious stations available, often in different languages.  Not that they came through particularly clearly - all crackles and static, except for pop station Radio Luxembourg.  We used to listen a lot, especially Sunday mornings for the Children's Hour request show followed by Two (and sometimes Three) Way Family Favourites that linked our service personnel posted abroad with family back home.  It seemed to be the same music every week, but no matter.  Eventually we got a television, and that ultimately replaced radio as the main family entertainment (at least from about 5 in the afternoon, when I got home from school).

When I was 11 or 12, for my birthday (or maybe Christmas) I got a transistor radio from my mum and dad.  Medium wave only and battery powered, it was about the size of two cigarette packets or a small book and fitted snugly in my growing hands and school blazer pocket.  There were no headsets then, so I used to walk around with it clamped to my ear in one hand, my school bag in the other and the sound set to a level that seemed ok to me but was probably too high because I think my hearing is not what it should be and I have mild tinnitus (but that could simply be age).  But I loved it.

I could listen to it at home too, while I was in my room doing homework, or reading my latest Biggles book, football magazine or War comic.  During the day I would listen to either a pirate station like Radio Caroline or Radio London (broadcasting from rusty old hulks bobbing about in the Thames Estuary) or the official BBC pop station Radio One.  That had been launched as direct competition to the pirates, who were deemed illegal, and the DJs were all hired from the pirates so the music wasn't too different - that is to say the pop charts.  But somehow they weren't as good - for a start the anarchic humour the pirates could get away with was missing as the BBC decided, in its infinite wisdom, that it was "not the right sort of thing for a public broadcaster".  They were probably right at the time, but eventually it all changed, especially when commercial stations were licenced as legal competition to the BBC and the pirates were finally forced off the air.  But my little pocket Phillips was the soundtrack to my childhood.

Later, in my teens, I graduated to bigger radios, still mono and still small, until at about 16 or 17 I finally go a stereo.  Black, oval with a flat base, and a tinny speaker at each end, it also played cassettes - indeed, it had two decks so you could copy your mate's tapes or record your favourite radio show.  Then I got a bigger one, the size of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, that had a carry handle and better speakers and was really LOUD.......cool, but bloody heavy to lug around.  Thank God for the invention of the Walkman.

Finally, in the late 70s and with marriage beckoning, I finally got a proper music centre (actually as a wedding present) that played and recorded cassettes and vinyi records, and had a radio that played both AM and FM stations and had proper separate speakers and a mixer.  I set it up in the living room of our little 2 bedroom terraced wreck and ignored the 12" black-and-white telly in favour of the music.

Despite the changing times (and sound-systems as I moved from house to house and country to country) I've always frankly preferred listening to the radio than watching telly (certain programmes like Match of the Day, EastEnders, the 9 o'Clock News and anything by Richard Attenborough excepted).  Listening to vinyl, cassettes and, latterly, CDs is fine from time to time, especially with the advent of multiple CD trays, but it can be a pain getting up every twenty minutes or whatever to change the music.

This is what I like about radio - someone else gets to do that.  I know the argument about it being their choice of music not mine, but that's fine - the presenters are paid a significant amount of dosh (the best of them in any case) to curate the music, and they have a much bigger choice than I do.  Let 'em do it.  In any case, it's a good way to get an introduction to something new and different - avoid the chart shows that stick to a rigid playlist, especally in the evenings, and you get to discover some absolute gems.  The internet and download does the rest if you want to.  Brilliant.

So what do I listen to?  Well, never the charts for a start.  Popular music, top 30 stuff, ceased to interest me nearly 30 years ago, when it all began to sound the same and the "artists", " bands" or whatever you want to call them were all manufactured and singing someone else's (generally puerile) songs.  Or were all rapping or (I thinks it's called) MC'ing - that seems to involve stringing words together and shouting them very fast and indistinctly.  Whatever happened to talent?

I've always preferred album music anyway, so back in the good old days I would be listening to John Peel, Tommy Vance, Alan Freeman - they played the kind of prog-rock and metal that I loved (and still do): innovators like Hendrix, like Cream, like Genesis, Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer, not to mention the Stones, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Springsteen.....the list is near endless.  Bob Harris, the ole whisperer, does a decent country show for a bit of variety, and Mark Radcliffe a similar service to folk music.  Peel, Vance and Freeman are all dead now, but their shows (or the memory of them) live on for me.  And they were (or still are) mainstays on BBC Radio Two.

It's the only BBC national station I listen to nowadays, via internet, and frankly it is not as good as it was even two years ago.  So I use the web to get at other stations for my UK radio fix, and I can do that from anywhere with the right tools.  Sometimes I listen to my old local station Radio Kent, when my team are playing and there is live commentary (but generally when I do so they lose...).  I listen to Virgin quite a bit - a good music mix but I wish they would stop plugging the Chris Evans Breakfast Show every ad break.  It's an ok show but the same format as he's been pumping out the last 20 or 30 years and to me it's a bit stale now.  The music is ok, especially later in the day, so the station is fine.  For my prog and rock stuff, there is a single choice: Absolute Classic Rock.  I love it - it's like Peel and Freeman and Vance have never gone away.  The other day somebody played Crossroads (Cream), immediately followed by Hotel California (Eagles), Highway to Hell (AC/DC) and Nevermind (Nirvana) successively.  All on my All Time Favourites list and I was in Seventh Heaven.

For chilling out - Classic fm or Scala.  They both play a great mix of classical music (something over the last few years, as I've grown older, I've come to love). but Scala is a little lighter: it's an entertainment station with news and guests and interviews and quizzes but mixed in with Wagner and Verdi, Beethoven and Brahms.  Oh, and it has a good hour on a Saturday afternoon that showcases music from video gaming, some of which is terrific.  Now who would have thought that?

In the car there are three stations to tune to in and around Warsaw - Eska Rock, Rock Radio (similar, and as close as I can find to Absolute Classic Rock) and RMF fm, which is like Radio2 or Virgin with its mix of music (Polish, British and American) and news.  If I get out of range - like on the way to the coast or somewhere - it's whatever I can find in clear, or Bluetooth the phone and hit my Library and playlists, or maybe a CD.  But I haven't yet found a Polish version of Classic fm - which is a shame.