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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Nostalgia 2...

Before Radio 1 and Radio 2 etc...the reason for "Pirate Radio" on the high seas was that due the attitude of the national broadcaster and to some extent the society and the establishment of the day refused to play pop music by the original artists. There was also some kind of restriction on how much music could be played that became known as "Needle time" so it wasn't all the BBC's fault.

I wonder what it would've been like had the Government of the day had allowed the Pirates to come on land and broadcast nationally? Instead of closing them all down. Leaving it to the BBC and then 7 years later launch a network of commercial stations but of course they wanted them regulated and sanitised. That does not necessarily mean that I am a fan of the Pirate radio stations that exist today. And they probably do need watching over.

But whilst everyone probably thinks that all the pirates did was play The Beatles, The Who, Manfred Mann and whoever, even the pirates realised that there was an audience for "Light" music and would play Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Matthis etc...or Instrumental etc...hence Swinging Radio England/Britain Radio(that was the American backed outfit with some programming supplied directly from the States)when it was closed down, it was missed as much as any station. We had our own station doing similar programme Radio 390 and that had an interesting history as it was not broadcasting on a ship but from Red Sands Fort.

Swinging Radio England

I found out too late that Red Sands Radio started broadcasting a short term radio station from the fort on 14th July on AM and also on the net with a streaming service but that ends on the 23rd July.

There are plans what they would like to do with the fort even now but if you see any pictures of it from the outside and inside, it is in such a state and it really is a rust bucket. It's a pity, as even from an historical point of view they should've been saved as part of our history and others that once existed were blown up. These never were.

Red Sands Fort

Anyone wanting to relive Pirate Radio as it was(for perhaps the last time) and its rather ironic but its being carried on BBC local radio in Essex in August so if you live in that area or have broadband access there is a stream(I am envious)

BBC Radio Essex Pirate Event 2007

The point is that here we are in the 21st century being offered more stations, in theory more choice and yet in most cases many stations are chasing after the same audience and ever honing their output at who they think have all the spending money and looking at the "Yoof" market. And ignoring great swathes of music.

Back in the 60's you had difficulty finding pop and rock but easy listening was around now its the opposite situation.

Yet the amount of older or easy listening artists that are still recording new material and being discovered a new or people trying to build up their collections of music on CD or digitally there is still a demand for the material. But the broadcasters would have us believe otherwise. Even if the demand was small I am sure the market could support one station playing "easy" music using a mixture of the back catalogue already recorded and the new artists that are going in the studio to do it again.

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pieces of eight, pieces of eight! - Oh sorry not that type of pirate!

Did you know, as you are talking of pirate radio, in my area just before the launch Radio One, my area had a 'pirate' ship, The Comet. As I am too young to remember all this I cannot tell you much apart from the book I have, they called it 'Radio Scotland' which became the Central Belt's most listened to radio station. Probably like most pirate stations, i.e. Radio Caroline, played the same type of music for the younger generation. It even had it's own magazine, 242, it lasted for over a year.

There's my bit of info for you Gildy, you probably knew about this though but I thought I would add it. :-D.

Ah haar me hearties! Sorry wrong pirate mode again ;-)

Take care
L xxx

22 July 2007 at 08:05  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gildy, with help from your link, here is the info.

http://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/scot.htm

Lxxx

22 July 2007 at 08:40  
Blogger The Great Gildersleeve said...

Thanks for that,

It's worth adding to the information. This proves how vibrant those times were. Once they came on land and under strict regulatory rules it was never the same.

There is a link between Radio Luxembourg and Radio Scotland as you may remember Stuart Henry the DJ who worked for both stations(and Radio 1 too)

Also, Tony Currie of BBC Radio Scotland mentioned that he is presenting an event at the Radio Academy in London(next month)talking to ex Pirates of the time and I think he said he was a DJ on a ship himself. Could've been on Radio Scotland.

22 July 2007 at 09:36  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're welcome :-D

Yes I did note Stuart Henry and that's who I used to listen to (not the pirate but Radio Luxembourg) didn't see Tony Currie's name there though but he might still have been there in the latter stages.

Lxxx

22 July 2007 at 10:26  
Blogger The Great Gildersleeve said...

This subject can just get away from you...put Tony Currie's name into a search engine and you'll find he's behind an internet delivered radio station. His name crops up on many sites with a knowledge of various pirate stations including RNI.

He has some input about Radio Scotland on the site you mentioned and a programme called the "One O'Clock Gang" but as we go on this leads to a presenter on the Scottish Pirate(with picture)called Richard Park. Does that name ring any bells? Well, decades later he was very much involved in commercial radio at stations such as Capital and yes, perhaps to many most well known as that Simon Cowell type judge everyone loves to hate on BBC TV's "Fame Academy"

There are so many paths crossing each other.

22 July 2007 at 13:15  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh Richard Park - the man you love to hate! Actually I quite like him.

Back to Tony Currie - I know who he is now - when STV used to be a good station. When I read that bit of snippet, I knew who exactly you were talking about.

But when you think about it Gildy, Scotland is a relatively small country.

Lxxx

22 July 2007 at 13:32  
Blogger Ed - The Music Man said...

Hey great blog. I miss the days of pirate radio. Had lunch with Johnny Walker the other day at Simpsons - he got away with wearing jeans to the Oldie Lunch - wish I could have - and he talked long into the day about his glory days on pirate radio. I was amazed though he didn't know Jimmy Henney! Ed - the Music Man

25 July 2007 at 15:45  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good Blog Gildy!

Your way of writing and knowledge on this subject make for very interesting reading.

Well done you :-)))

mango xxx

11 August 2007 at 21:05  
Blogger The Great Gildersleeve said...

Hi to you Ed,

Mango thanks for those kind words...glad you enjoyed the remarks(I can sometimes go on a bit ;-)

I appreciate your input...

Good to see you again..

G x

12 August 2007 at 00:02  

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