Here's a piece I wrote recently looking back on my days on Diversity Radio and looking forward to the new community radio project for the Lancaster and Morecambe area. There's an open mic fundraiser event tonight (Friday the 5th) at the Gregson Centre in Lancaster. Starts 8pm, £3.50 on the door. I'm planning on reading from my "Drum Solos, Bottles & Bands" book and will be selling copies at the special price of £5 with any profits going to Beyond Radio.
When
Diversity FM was closed down by the YMCA last year it meant the end
of a community project which had been running in the Lancaster and
Morecambe area for several years. My involvement started in April
2008 when I applied to become a volunteer, initally to help with the
IT side of things. Part of the induction involved sitting in with one
of the existing presenters and seeing how the studios worked. I sat
in with “Boogie” Bill Roberts on his weekly show and he
encouraged me to start chatting with him about the music he was
playing as a way of getting used to speaking into a microphone. This
wasn't too difficult as he and I shared similar tastes in music and
one fateful week when he couldn't make it in, I was asked if I would
record a show to cover for his absence.
I
can remember sitting in the downstairs studio with my CDs at the
ready and somehow managed to get through recording an hour of blues
and folk music. I then would have had to edit the show to correct any
mistakes, of which I'm sure there must have been a few, but it went
okay and my first show was broadcast on the 18th
of June, 2008. I still have the playlist and see that along with well
known names like Richard Thompson and KT Tunstall I played tracks by
local bands The Low Countries and Turnstone.
Duncan
Moore, who was the Volunteer Co-ordinator, must have thought I did a
good enough job as he asked me if I would be interested in doing my
own show with an emphasis on folk music. I thought this would be much
more fun than working on their web site so a couple of weeks later my
first show, which would be called Off The Beaten Tracks, was
broadcast and that was the start of my four years on Diversity radio.
Not having a huge selection of folk albums in my collection I thought
I would email some bands and ask for CDs. One person I contacted was
Simon Nicol of Fairport Convention and to my delight not only did he
send me a copy of their latest album but also four other discs
including one by The Dylan Project. At that time this Bob Dylan
tribute band featured Simon along with the Fairport rhythm section of
Dave Pegg and Gerry Conway plus PJ Wright and Steve Gibbons.
In
August 2010 I asked a friend of mine, Wes Martin, if he would be
interested in co-hosting the show with me. I was finding that I
wasn't enjoying presenting the show as much as I had been and getting
Wes involved was a good move. I never knew what he was going to say
next and as we were doing live shows, there was the odd occasion when
I struggled to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing into
the mic. But we had some great times in the studio and it was a sad
day when we presented our final edition of the show at the end of
March last year.
For
most of the volunteers that was the end of their radio experience but
a few of us have kept going. Gordon Smith and Philip Cowles have been
involved with Red Rose Recovery Radio in Morecambe, Jomar De Vrind
presented a classical music show on Bailrigg FM at Lancaster
University and in September last year I started doing a weekly folk
music show on the internet radio station Acoustic Spectrum. Others,
including Reza Mills and Murray Hamilton, have been doing occasional
shows on Mixcloud.
But
hopefully community radio will be returning to the Lancaster and
Morecambe area with the station Beyond Radio. Duncan Moore is
involved with this new venture along with ex-Diversity DJ and sound
engineer Chris Brookbanks and they are currently broadcasting over
the internet. The next step is to get a community licence and they
are looking for somewhere to base the station and find sponsors to
cover the running costs.
While
I enjoy recording my shows at home for Acoustic Spectrum, and I'm
still being sent plenty of CDs, it's not the same as going in to a
studio and doing live shows. It would be great if myself and others
from Diversity are able to bring our shows back to the local area on
FM radio with Beyond Radio. Here's hoping!
