Whilst watching last weekend's Eurovision Song Contest - nil poi - I was reminded by this dubious annual spectacle of just how popular it was with a certain Steve Midnight, formally the man behind Radio Confusion and latterly Subterranean Sounds.
When the respective juries had concluded their 'and 12 points go to...' voting critique on what we had by then suffered through for at least 3 and a half hours, Subterranean Sounds would usually be found on 3 MHz around the witching hour with Mr. Midnight's own brand of post-contest fallout; this in itself would be as synonymous with the evening as the once-a-year cacophony staged in the name of European unity and friendship.
Any interest or otherwise I had in Eurovision was though coincidental, and not influenced by Subterranean Sounds' homage to a contest that now seems to exist to simply defy its detractors. Its inadvertent link to one of the UK's finest free radio stations from the 1990s might otherwise be tenuous, but it got me thinking as to how my interest in the shortwave pirate scene influenced musical tastes which have stayed with me to this day.
It is with this in mind I ask myself which came first? Was my interest already set upon the various musical genres that I was glad to hear that were seemingly shared by several free radio operators, or were the tastes I subsequently developed shaped by hearing music on shortwave free radio that would otherwise be shunned by legal, maintream FM stations - the only other outlets at the time for listening to contemporary and older tracks?
The answer undoubtedly straddles both outcomes. I was always pleased to hear, on for example Bill Lewis' Live Wire Radio, the latest releases that appealed to me but somehow, sounded better on shortwave. Three examples spring to mind: Maxx - Get-A-Way, Snap's Rhythm is a Dancer, and Shake Your Head by Was(Not Was) featuring Kim Basinger and Ozzy Osbourne may not have aged particularly well, but were favourites at the time, and still find their way into my playlist.
It is though the music which I was introduced to by free radio operators that has stayed with me for the best part of 30 years of which I the most grateful, with a varied diet that discursively segued from one extreme to another without the need for explanation or apology, something that set shortwave pirates apart from the heavily restricted playlists foisted upon resentful presenters of legit operations.
It is once more to Live Wire that I look to for piquing my interest in L7 and in particular Metallica, on whom I have since become something of an expert. Belting out 'And Nothing Else Matters' after the Prodigy's No Good(Start the Dance) but before the refrains of Ofra Haza and Scarlet Fantastic detail in miniature just what set Live Wire apart, notwithstanding the outstanding attention to technical detail that usually delivered a signal and audio clarity that many envied, but few if any could emulate.
Subterranean Sounds did also introduce me to individual tracks I was unlikely to hear elsewhere, especially in my rather unenlightened backwater of the time. The likes of Air and Dubstar became relatively well-known for a time, but my introduction to their respective bodies of work was through the exquisite taste of Mr. Midnight, and not BBC Radio 1's Top 40 or my local Independent Local Radio(ILR) stations. FM pirate stations broadcasting not a million miles away from Subterranean Towers would have enabled Mr. Midnight to hear a greater variety of then modern music, and his subsequent airing of Jungle/Drum 'n' Bass tracks was I am sure a first for shortwave free radio, and instigated my admittedly ephemeral interest in this style of musical expression.
As far and away as different as you can get from indie-dance, Metallica-type metal, and offshoots of rave and urban culture, American rock giants The Eagles became a firm favourite of mine thanks to Weekend Music Radio's(WMR) Jack Russel being such a devotee, something that was often betrayed in his track selection that would also include the solo work of former band member Joe Walsh. And then there was Fancy Pants - Acker Bilk's clarinet classic which always bookended WMR's programmes.
Elsewhere, tracks such as Kim Appleby's Don't Worry, invariably heard on Paul Stuart's Station Sierra Sierra, Magic Fly by Space that would usually mark the end of WNKR's(West and North Kent Radio) transmissions, and Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall, played each week on 6280 kHz by Ozone Radio's Prince Terry helped broaden my musical appetite through these subtle, deeply contrasting, but worthy yardsticks of their respective genres.
It is undoubtedly true that I favour the music I do so today because of the countless, often nocturnal hours, spent listening to the likes of Live Wire, Radio Confusion/Subterranean Sounds, Radio Orion, the Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC), WMR, Station Sierra Sierra and others.
As a 5-year old I was apparently obsessed with Blancmange's synth classic Living on the Ceiling, a track I reawakened to 19 years later after hearing it on a certain UK-based powerhouse free radio station. To this day it remains one of my favourite tracks of all time and one of the best, if not the finest of its type - Blue Monday included. It was the musical policy that actually wasn't an organised policy at all, that brought this and the aforementioned tunes, as well as many others to my attention and that have endured in my affections ever since.
In an attempt to seek meaning in free radio, and the whys and wherefores of the motivations attached to each operator's desire to broadcast on shortwave, it is easy to over think what made the UK shortwave scene so appealing during the 1990s. It of course meant different things to individual listeners at contrasting stages of their lives, but music has always been a unifying force between often very dissimilar people that share perhaps just one common taste.
Where legal stations seem to want their listeners to think that Guns N' Roses only sang Sweet Child O' Mine or that music began no longer ago than when Taylor Swift first shook it off, it was the unrestricted playlists of free radio that opened up a whole new world of listening possibilities to a young teenager that have endured ever since. In the relative excitement of hearing stations that were in effect illegal, it has been overlooked by me until only very recently just what part the musical selection played in the overall aural attractiveness of much of what I heard.
Perhaps I have more to thank free radio for than I realised.
