I get the impression there are a few Afterworders doing radio shows or have done one in the past. I’d like to hear about your experiences.
I started out with a tea chest of African records I brought back from living and travelling in Africa. It was the World music boom of the mid eighties- Gracelands, WOMAD etc. After being interviewed on Triple R ,the hippest and biggest community radio station in Melbourne.One interview ended up being 3 X 2hours of tales and music afterwhich I was offered a show.
I tried to meld African with reggae, gospel, soul, funk etc – black music basically. After about 8 years I ran out of puff – work, family and the burn out of finding new stuff and researching the music pre internet saw an end to the show.I had no idea how many listeners there were, though years later I heard of bands who listened and of kids passing round tapes of some shows.
Fast forward to 2024 and I am retired living in South Gippsland – the southernmost tip of the Australian mainland and I am back in the saddle. This time on a very small radio station, now housed in a demountable. It has a hundred paid up members (Triple R has 20,000 now) and 175000 people in the total listening area. When I go in there is automated programming running and when I leave there are sometimes kangaroos grazing beside the car. Some programmes read the local newspaper and there is some pretty lame stuff. When they changed the early morning radio from country music a dairy farmer complained that his cows wouldn’t milk without their country and western.
With streaming people can choose their own music or radio station so it will be ongoing tough times. Compounding this is the licence requirement that you can’t play music off a streaming service. Most youngsters don’t have music collections so getting younger presenters is going to get tougher.
I play records and CDs .With only one turntable and a CD player that acts up It is a juggling act. I told the programme manager that I want to play whatever I feel like from my collection and given my experience they agreed. Being 30 years older it is harder working the panel and gathering my thoughts at the same time. I have been on air for about 2 months now and I am yet to have a glitch free show, though I can edit these out for the on demand version. I started off having a couple of beers ,cut that back to one and now think the right number is none, now that I am more relaxed I don’t need it to chill me plus slugging a beer down doesn’t help pronouncing some of those African names.
My show is called “Roots Rock Reggae” with the Marley song as the intro. This time around I am introducing more rock and jazz into the show. Last week had a few Lou Reed, This week included Roxy, Bowie, Glenn Hansard, Grant Lee Buffalo, Mary Gautier ,a Lee Perry bracket and tribute to Rise Kagona of the Bhundu Boys. I like playing cover versions of other people songs ,for example After Station to Station I played Peter Gabriel doing Heroes. Mixing in the Western music is harder but really satisfying if I think it has worked.
Getting back behind the mic keeps the brain active, I am re-exploring the collection – it takes me about 4 hours to plan a 2 hour show and I am now more confident enough to change it up on the fly in the studio if the mood takes me. I hope I am getting some new listeners to some great music but who knows. After the show I drive home staring intently at the road to be ready to avoid a kangaroo or a wombat crossing the road.
If you are interested the on demand links are in the link included here. I was a a bit stiff at first but hopefully I am getting better.The most recent show should be up soon.
What’s your story?
Lodestone of Wrongness says
No story but glad to be one of your loyal listeners. I hadn’t fully realised you can’t use streaming services. 94.5% of the “young” people I know have no record collection – catch Junior while you can!
Junior Wells says
Dunno about elsewhere, but it is a requirement of the community radio licence here. I think you can load your music onto the station’s music files be that cd or digital copy you have purchased but burns or streaming is verboten. Needless to say this is regularly flouted but if someone were to just load up a playlist and play it from their phone they would get chucked off quite quickly- even on this hokey station.
Skirky says
That was very much impressed on us. You can’t play anything that hasn’t been bought and paid for in full.
Vulpes Vulpes says
My own piffling broadcasting experience is extremely limited – I was ‘Motorway Mark’ on BBC Radio Bristol in the late 70s, giving half a dozen live traffic bulletins over an ISDN line from the Automobile Association’s offices during the evening rush hour. Not one single musical note was broadcast, just a rushed, breathy, bang-up-to-date update every 15 minutes.
Your show is in a different galaxy of difficulty; I know how much time and thought I’ve put into the ‘CD Swap’ discs we’ve produced on here from time to time, so I can fully appreciate how being diary bound to a regular two-hour show is a significant effort and commitment!
As I type this, your initial triumvirate of reggae classics has just played out from show number one, and you’ve immediately set the bar very high indeed. Top stuff junes! Really enjoying this.
Skirky says
For a few years I was co-host of Why The Long Face? on Ipswich Community Radio (online and FM). Basically, two long-faced men in conversation for two hours interrupted by some music, on the hour, a short Letter from America- style monologue by one Philip Bryer of this parish called None of Your Business and a weekly soup review by Wadey Wade.
Among our quizzes, one week we invented a fictional Baldwin brother and asked listeners to identify the fake from their resumes, another we asked listeners to identify whether a written passage was by Jane Austen or E.L. James. We got tripped up on that one by an Oxford English graduate who pointed out that Austen never wrote in the first person.
One of our occasional guests was Lucy Hart from Honey and The Bear, who taught me to play Noah and the Whale’s Five Years’ Time on ukulele live on air, something which I totally failed to mention to the band’s bass player when I stage-wrangled him some years later. Probably, ironically, about five years later.
Jaygee says
In the early to mid-80s, l worked in the Middle East and used to review videos (there being no real cinemas as such) on Radio Bahrain. I eventually parlayed my reviews into paying columns in first the Gulf Mirror and then the Gulf Daily News. As the DJ who did the show also promoted gigs, I also got to roadie for De Dannan with first Mary Black and subsequently MB and Dolores Keane during their two visits
A few years later, I ended up writing record reviews for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. This lead to me contributing reviews to the evening drive time show on RTHK’s English Radio Station.. The guy who hosted the show was an former Ac-Tor called Martin Clarke who appeared in the very first episode of (The) Black Adder.
fentonsteve says
Paging Biggles.
After being a regular guest on the fortnightly new releases round table show on local community station Cam105, I’ve been off air since Covid. Gathering elbow-to-elbow around two mics in the broom-cupboard studio was deemed unsafe, and the slot has been taken over by another show.
As it happens, after years of gentle nagging from Minibreakfast of this parish, I did my first guest (“Listener’s Choice”) show on Manchester community station All FM, which was broadcast on Sunday morning.
It took me about 10 hours to produce 55 minutes of music – going through my racks for Chazza buys, pulling them into some kind of theme, recording each track onto my laptop, top & tail them, shuffle them around into some of playlist and then… the horror! To do my total of two minutes of links took hours, editing out the pauses, umms and errs.
I no longer have a problem with public speaking, but I still hate hearing the sound of my recorded voice. I hear “cheer up, you miserable git” but Mini said “”a smooth, assured delivery”. I have no idea of how many listeners All FM get, but social media engagement on the show’s page is heading towards double figures.
Anyhow, it went out at 11am on Sunday and is available to listen again. I will do another if asked, despite my reservations. Perhaps I’ll get a Speak & Spell to do my links.
Junior Wells says
Most people don’t like the sound of their own voice on air. I have boxes of cassettes of my old show and never listened to them for that reason. But you should if you want to get better. You become more aware of your mannerisms and bad habits. Mine was correcting myself on some minutiae about some obscure African band. I was advised “no one has ever heard of them ,stop interrupting yourself”.I still do it but hopefully less so.
fentonsteve says
I had a lovely message from the show producer telling me it was technically the best Listener Choice submission (that’s my fancy-pants Linn turntable and AudioFuse soundcard for you). And my SM58 mic made me sound “authoritative”, according to a chum.
I still think I sound like I’m always taking the piss which, to be fair, I usually am. Even when I’m trying to sound enthusiastic.
biggles says
Thank you @fentonsteve !
Looks/sounds a pretty professional set-up to me, Junior.
For my sins, I am a presenter on a little digital radio station called gnetradio.com . I have done “Musica Mundi” – a 2-hour (ir)regular World Music show, a 60 minute “Biggles In Dub” mix, and my main effort is a weekly 2-hour show on a Thursday at 5:00 p.m. UK time (and thereafter on mixcloud) called “Songs From Under The Floorboards (independently-minded music from the post-punk period and beyond)”.
I put all chosen tracks onto a memory stick, into a laptop, and we use DJ-Pro and “butt” (supported by radio.co) to broadcast. Not a week goes by without some near catastrophe, glitch or faux pas (often due to technical incompetence of this presenter and his “producer”), but we get by…
…In case of interest, a recent programme – 100% cover versions special – is available here:
Plug over!
Mousey says
Is that really true that you can’t use the streaming services on community radio? I’d investigate that…
Anyway, I’ve been hosting One Size Fits All on Eastside Radio 89.7FM since 2013.
http://www.eastsidefm.org
The station just celebrated its 40th birthday and just seems to keep going.
My show, ONE SIZE FITS ALL (https://eastsidefm.org/onesizefitsall/) obviously takes its name from the 1975 Frank Zappa album of the same name, and that’s my starting point for the music I play. Which means I play the following
1. FZ albums that are regularly being re-released with bonus/outtake/live tracks etc. (the most recent example being the 50th anniversary of Apostrophe)
2. Music that encompasses FZ’s aesthetic, eg jazz musicians who are fantastic playing music that’s not jazz, jazz musicians playing jazz where the music is fantastic
3. Music from the 60s/70s (my favourite Zappa period)
4. Anything else I feel like playing, often celebrating albums released “50 years ago this month”
5. Local musicians with an album to promote who I like.
In other words just about anything I want, but I always play a couple of FZ tracks
Fortunately the station management has not yet fired me.
Junior Wells says
@Mousey They quoted tracts of the relevant licensing act in the presenters guide. It may depend on your license but I doubt it.
I periodically remember to tune in to Mousey’s show and it is very good.
https://www.cbaa.org.au/article/sourcing-music-%E2%80%93-legal-and-safe-way
Jaygee says
@Mousey
Given all the FZ content, maybe you could rename the show The Torture Never Stops…
Junior Wells says
I assume One Size Fits All comes from Frankie.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Don’t Give Up – > Seven Seconds – > Song Of The Wind
Possibly the best segue ever committed to the air. F*ck yeah.
Junior Wells says
Was very happy with that one Foxy. Not sure I’ve topped it.
Jim says
Brilliant, wasn’t it!
Really enjoying this Junior. Will work my way through it all. Can I download whole episodes to listen to when I have no network connection?
I’m finding different ways to hear new (to me) music these days. Not nearly as much 6Music now, but Gilles Peterson on is really good, and a lot of recommendations from this site. Who knew You Are The Generation by Johnny Boy was one of the best records ever?
Gatz says
In a previous career I had a monthly slot on BBC Essex to talk about books. I would take in a list of the local top 10 bestsellers for the previous month and a few notes about new books we wanted to plug (or some ideas around a bookish theme as was sometimes suggested by the producer and presenter). I enjoyed being able to rabbit on without the pressure of holding the show together, but I don’t know how much it translated into sales. Even though the mid-morning programme I was on got quarter of a million listeners my voice was very rarely recognised by customers.
mikethep says
I did the same on GLR during one of my between-jobs periods. It was fun while it lasted, and Diana Luke was lovely. The constant arrival of boxes of free books was nice too. Sadly I was let go when, over an open mic, I said, ‘The trouble with this studio is that the fucking monitors hide the fucking clock.’
Junior Wells says
I forgot my prior on air career. I worked for the Stock Exchange and part of my role was to read out share prices at midday and at market close. I would go into a broom cupboard type thing and spin some dial which connected me with the ABC a few streets across.
I had about 10 words for up, ten for down and a few for hasn’t changed.
I got chastised for saying “today” as the reports were sometimes broadcast in following days in remote places ie Papua New Guinea. From then on I would say on Monday etc.
One bloke rang me up once and said “did you read XYZ companies price out twice. I replied “probably, I wasn’t sure whether I had said the price so I said it again just in case”.
That’s a problem actually – have I just said that or was I just preparing to say it? I expect this problem will get worse!
Skirky says
I also did traffic and travel on Radio Suffolk for a couple of weeks as a sort of free audition.
https://skirky.blogspot.com/2012/12/its-all-quiet-especially-on-trains.html
NigelT says
In 2013 a new community station in Exmouth went live on FM as BayFM, and I wrote to the station manager to see if they wanted presenters. A quick chat at the station, a few minutes in the studio explaining how everything worked, and I was on air on Sunday afternoons after a couple of weeks. I spent ages compiling my first play list, and the first show was nerve shredding, but I soon learned to relax and not over think things. It was called ‘The Beat Goes On’ and I basically played stuff I liked. I mixed up the content, mostly avoiding Soul and Country as there were other specialist evening shows covering those genres, and played hits as well as obscurities. There was/is a big station library of well known stuff, and I used to use my own CDs. Sunday afternoons were great as a lot of people were pottering around at home while listening, and I was soon getting messages, some from around the world.
After a few months I also took over the Gig Guide as the youngsters who were doing it were hopeless and were sacked, and the station manager got wind of me going to lots of live music. This was quite different, and I built up a lot of great contacts with venues, promoters and musicians over the years, which has lead to some great interviews and guests.
So all was fine and dandy for years. The station grew and changed names a few times until we are now DevonAir Radio, and we fought off some epic shithousery from the local commercial station who hated us. In recent times, the music policy has changed and the specialist programmes were mostly dropped, as we seem to want to become like the commercial stations. The station manager tried to cancel the Gig Guide, but then realised we had commitments to local music and speach content as part of our licence, so quickly reinstated it. Then he cancelled my Sunday show as it ‘didn’t fit in’ with the new music policy. I kid you not, there was a public outcry and it was really upsetting to hear from loads of listeners who were genuinely upset I was going. Following this, it was reinstated. I had a bit of a showdown with the manager , but he eventually decided again to cancel the show. I nearly walked out of doing the GigGuide, but have stuck it out as I love doing it – he and I haven’t seen each other or spoken for nearly a year.
The playout system is worth mentioning – we now use Myriad, and I can log in at home and load all my content into the station log for my two hour slot, including pre recorded interviews, so no more faffing about with CDs (and occasionally finding I have a case with no CD in it!). I can even voice track the show at home if I can’t get to the studio, so life is much easier. I get along with most of the other presenters, and they were very supportive when they heard what had happened to my show and I get great feedback, but I guess the time will come when it gets a bit much – I will miss it.
If you have got this far then you will have picked up that the politics in radio are something to behold – both within stations and between rivals!
Junior Wells says
Yeah radio politics. Great story esp the listener support. Any idea on the size of the audience ? I could load up all my CDs onto their platform and playlist it but I do query the sound compression. Also most of my reggae blues and African is vinyl so that would be a big limitation.
NigelT says
I do it track by track each week as I need them. I’m no expert, but the signal gets processed and equalised and God knows what between desk and broadcast, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
We have no data about audience size, but it is in the thousands for daytime shows.
Martin Horsfield says
I’ve been a radio nearlyman for 40 years. I first did a couple of shows on Chorley Community Radio, which despite the resepctable-sounding name, was actually a pirate. It operated out of two bedrooms in a rather knackered old house, staffed by a bunch of lentil-stirring hippies. I was only 13 and literally played music I’d taped off other radio shows. At university, I did a number of shows on Stirling’s campus station Radio Airthrey. While none particularly distinguished themselves, I did take advantage of the studio’s phone-taping equipment to record early interviews with Pete Shelley and Richey Manic. In London, I teamed up with a couple of pals on internet radio station Soul 24-7. We also did a couple of mixes for Sean Rowley on BBC London, and I reviewed gigs for a while at said station, with Gideon Coe and Fi Glover. I also had an interview with Chris Hawkins to work behind the scenes at a new station called BBC 6 Music. I didn’t get it, but bumping into Steve Wright on the way out was, it’s fair to say, the high watermark of my radio career. Since then, I’ve done a couple of podcasts, and launched my own monthly Spotify playlist, which is like a radio show, just without my blether. Probably for the best.
Junior Wells says
Broadcasting stuff you have taped off the radio. Nice
Uncle Wheaty says
I had a regular weekly show on Radio Ramair, at Bradford University., from 1983-1987.
My early shows were very much ‘of the time’ in terms of the music I played and it was quite mainstream pop, a bit like the Gary Davies daytime shows on Radio 1. But then I got the 10-12pm slot and could basically play what I wanted. Lots of classic rock, NWOBHM and goth was then played,
I landed the voluntary role as the Record Librarian and for some reason we were on the EMI promo mailing list twice so each week I got a haul of the latest releases that I could keep or give away as prizes on my show, thus listening figures grew! I recall the getting original promo of the EMI release on West End Girls by the then unknown Pet Shop Boys. We played it, didn’t like it and gave it away!
I loved it and thought this could be a future career for me but back then unpaid placements seemed to be the only way into radio and I had debts so of I trotted into a career I had trained 4 years for as a pharmacist.
Junior Wells says
There seemed to be a maxim play what you ant and don’t get paid, play stuff we tell you – maybe get paid.
Barry Blue says
At some point in the mid 90s I used to do a weekly comedy slot on Danny Baker and Danny Kelly’s 5Live football show.
I’d type it up and then pre-record it midweek at the Beeb, usually overseen by an ancient engineer who stank of woodbines.
I’d then go back to work at the EMAP office of Total Sport magazine, a glorious tho’ short-lived publication, edited by the aforementioned D Kelly, who donned a pith helmet a la Lofty of IAHHM whilst we staffers shot each other with BB replica guns. Marvellous days.
Martin Horsfield says
I also did a shift or two at Total Sport. Most were after Danny Kelly’s time, and I did get features printed about the gay Olympics and terrier racing (“Young, dumb and full of Chum”), which I’m sure he would have approved of. I do remember him bringing the office to a standstill with a lengthy anecdote about Smiley Culture.
Barry Blue says
Those days at TS were definitely my favourite times in the world of magazines etc.
Perhaps ironically, I think music mags/weeklies brought out a more competitive/antagonistic aspect in writers, whereas sport elicited joy, enthusiasm and hilarity.
Re DK’s long, long stories: early on during the launch process, when I didn’t know him that well, he’d held court with a protracted spiel about some rock star or other. I waited a beat, and then said ‘It’s all just anecdotes with you, isn’t it?’ We got on famously thereafter.