Pirate of the Dance (Music Radio Station)...

So, it’s been a while – having spent the last few weeks churning out cover letter, after cover letter, after cover letter for enterprises varying from the Christian Community Channel to the GayTV Network I just couldn’t bring myself to sit in front of this computer screen and type some more. That was until tonight… when I hosted my first pirate radio show.

Why do a radio show? Well, having spent $15,000 to major in radio at University and then frittering away another six years at Radio Sport and George FM I figured I may as well take a two hour break from Cover Letter Hell and go spin some tunes. It’s also a great way of justifying the $150 I spent on excess baggage bringing the damn records over in the first place.

So I jetted off to Vibe FM in a galaxy far, far away. OK, so it was Zone 5 but that’s still far, far away from where I live. I already had my suspicions that this would be a pirate radio station. After all, Britain’s a totally different radio market to New Zealand. In good ol’ Aotearoa the government fully deregulated radio in the 1988; so any mug with a spare room in their Ponsonby flat could buy a frequency and play their doof-doof music over the airwaves. This resulted in New Zealand now having more radio stations per head of population than any other country in the world. In Britain, on the other hand, radio frequencies are still regulated; only government-run stations or men with the fortune of Richard Branson can afford a frequency. I know all this because I spent $15,000 to major in radio at University. So to get round this large glitch in the local radio laws the entrepreneurial youths of Britain have set up pirate radio stations. Small antennas are stealthily put up on someone’s chimney and they can nervously broadcast on a low powered frequency from their kitchen until the police raid the flat and they have to salvage their antenna and find someone else’s kitchen to broadcast from.

My $15,000 didn’t buy me the kind of hands-on insight in pirate radio that I was about to endure. Firstly, I had to meet Elski, the “station manager” (read: unemployed bum) at a secret rendezvous. From there we walked to the “station” (read: decrepit house). To get there we navigated our way through someone’s carport, squeezing past a skip, down two flights of a fire-exit, and across a dodgy looking industrial courtyard filled with rusting vans. I’m positive I recognise this location from a murder scene in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

We then passed through countless doors with countless locks to the point that I felt like Maxwell Smart (RIP) in the opening scene of Get Smart. Finally we arrived at the station which was actually just the garage of someone’s flat which they’d particle-boarded off to form two studios. Elski’s first instructions (besides the various tricks to working the locks and bolts on the way in) was to “always keep the studio door closed 'cause the music will disturb the elderly couple who’s downstairs garage we’re using”. Second rule: “if anyone asks don’t tell them that that studio next-door is where Freeze FM broadcast from”.

Freeze FM and Vibe FM… what’s with radio stations and their ridiculous names? Not nearly as silly as the names of the various DJs that play on Vibe FM. DJ Krispee and Whizzee are a few that stood out. The music policy of Vibe FM is equally daft: ranging from D’n’B, to bruck, to jungle, to grime, to dub-step, to 2-step… I’m not making any of this up. The guys on before me were called “TLV”. I was too scared to ask what it stood for; I could barely understand a word they said. Two podgy teenagers, who should have been in school, with a record collection that no doubt was purchased with money raised by pawning their mothers’ good china. These two lads were perfect examples of what in Britain is called a Chav. In America you have Rednecks, in New Zealand they’re Bogans, in Britain they’re Chavs. And their on-air announcing wouldn’t have pleased my University lecturer none too much at all: “Yo, yo! Gotta biggie-ups all da massif listening in Watford. Booka! Biggie-ups Fat Bobby down da curry house. Proper, bruv, proper. And biggie-ups Dodgy Dave runnin’ tings down da Watford Pawn Shop. Nuff respec’. Dis choon is well wikkid, innit!?”

With TLV out off the studio I could now get on with my show. And, boy, did I need them out of the studio. Measuring four metres long and a metre and a half wide with no natural light this is the kind of dungeon that would make OSH staff queasy. And it made my stomach turn, too. This tiny studio with no natural light or airflow was rife with the smell of a thousand Chavs big-upping their massif. It was so hot and muggy that I had to wipe the condensation off my records before I played them. There was one small fan that’s only use was to push the stench past my nose and mouth with every oscillation.

The studio phone, I must admit, is pure Chav-genius: Vibe FM shelled out £25 for a Vodafone sim-card so you simply put the sim-card into your own mobile and hey-presto the world can text and phone in their love, admiration and nuff respec’.

The rest of the design is best labelled as “thrifty” (read: shoddy). The turntables were set up on a kitchen bench-top that was either nicked from out the back of the local hardware store or more likely from the elderly couple upstairs. It was a miracle that the two turntables worked because the CD players were of little use to anyone. They were those old front-loading dual-deck Numark ones from back in the day that even George FM have thrown away. The right CD tray didn’t open while the left one was needed for playing the ads.

Or should I say “adds” as Station Manager Elski likes to label them (pet-peeve: “ads” is short of “advertisement” so doesn’t need two d’s… feel free to point out any of my spelling or grammar errors but “adds” really ticks me off). It was, in fact, just one ad, weighing in at a minute and forty-three seconds long. The copywriter needs a bullet. It was an advertisement for some D’n’B party in South West Northlands with a zillion DJs, half a zillion MCs, and one live PA. It featured none other than DJ Daddy-Mack-Daddy and MC Check-2-3-4… whoever they are. Most of the ad was spent advising the boys that there was to be no “trainers, hoodies, or caps. Security will be tight on the night so keep your gear on the down-low. Booka!” Another three sentences where then dedicated to persuading the female clientele to wear as little as possible. Most dance party adverts I know of use the euphemism “Dress to Impress”. There was no such tact with this lot. With the adds played it was back to my sweaty records.

So how does a pirate radio station with one solitary ad finance a fulltime station manager? Well, you have to pay £10 subs for your two hours on air. And Elski being a crafty entrepreneur has devised a money-making penalty scheme for those tardy Chavs who don’t slide their tenner under the door to his “office” (read: toilet). If you don’t pay your subs on the day of your show you’re immediately fined another £10 and then £1 for each day until you pay up. In other words it’ll be a total of £27 by the time your next show rolls round. Biggie-ups Elski is all I have to say.

Anyway, that is the first and last time I’ll be appearing on Vibe FM. And for many valid reasons:

1) It’s a good hour from where I live.
2) The only people listening are the Watford massif and any music savvy pilots who manage to isolate the frequency on their way into neighbouring Heathrow.
3) I can’t afford the £10 subs – let alone any pyramid-styled late-fee scheme.
4) I can’t work the top bolt on the sixth door in.
5) I’ve vomited twice since being locked in that cavernous Chav-sauna.
6) And, finally, they’ve already got a DJ called Scandalous.

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... Oh, and for anyone still wondering Struggle and Strainers = Trainers.

Big-ups yaself for getting the rest right, nuff respec'.