Is this purely a UK thing, I wonder, with pirate radio a real nostalgia trip for anyone of a specific vintage? (Yup, I do mean old. Boomer.) I remember pirate radio, even if I don’t clearly recall the stagnant status quo that begat it into being and necessity. As a child of the late 50’s, I had a elder sister, a deeply entrenched denizen of the swinging 60’s, a dolly bird with ironed hair, Mary Quant panda eyes and micro skirts. She made damn sure I was up to speed with the hit parade of the day, and it wasn’t courtesy Auntie Beeb. (In truth, looking back, I wonder just quite how much she was responsible for my enduring obsession with music, a blessing I have been cursed with as long as I recall.)
The British Broadcasting Corporation was a bit blindsided by pop music. With, in the 1960’s, two radio stations available, the Home Service and the Light Programme. The Home Service was all the serious stuff: news and current affairs, whereas the Light Programme catered for everything else, thus encompassing comedy, soaps, quiz shows and music, of any and every genre. Which, reluctantly and, whenever the schedule would allow it, pop music, surely a passing fad and one, if studiously ignored, might go away. It was to the huge swell of young people, a relatively new invention, that the pirate’s addressed themselves, as the mainstream certainly was in no hurry.
Radio Luxembourg was the one I was first most familiar with, which, in Luxembourg, was an entirely legit organisation. So what was it doing broadcasting English language programming, not an official language in the state? Answer: trying to get around the loopholes the UK put in place around broadcasting. And, whilst legal and with an official licence, their practice was deemed infra dig by the stiff upper lips of the establishment. We used to listen to Lux under the bedsheets at school, after “lights out”, but it was always a tad soul destroying, courtesy the dreadful signal and the (deliberate?) interference.
Far better was Radio Caroline, a fully illicit operation, broadcasting into the UK from outside maritime borders. From boats. OK, big boats, if not necessarily all that sea-worthy.This was wall to wall pop music, with trendy, hip DJs, who would eventually take on board the widening references of the then nascent music scene, embracing non chart music and the “album” market: underground music, it was called, perhaps equating to, or heralding, FM radio, and the birth of AOR- adult oriented rock, in the US. Caroline were huge and presented a huge threat to the constitution. In 1967 came an Act of Parliament to constrain their activities. At much the same time, arguably not unrelatedly, the BBC rejigged their formula, with the initiation of Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4. The Home Service, broadly, became R4, although a lot of light entertainment went there too, comedy, drama and the like. R3 became the domain of “proper” music, the classics, and R2 of inoffensive bland fare for the intellectually ininquisitive. R1 was the new station for young people, and quickly signed up the seasick jocks from Caroline and the other pirates.
As the years have passed the boundaries and channels have blurred and expanded. I am now core R2 demographic, maybe not daytime, but enjoying their evening shows for lovers of specific sub- genres: blues, folk, all of that. Indeed, as clearly no longer a young person, R1 is far too strident and brash for my refined ears, however much I might baulk about being subsumed into the cloth eared original prime audience.
The pirates are still there, largely niche now, but there are the new opportunities opened by web radio, and there are many a tiny operation, blasting ultra specialist grooves out of tower blocks, UK wide. Occupying, perhaps, the role Radio Caroline had in the 60’s, for those with a yearning for the myriad emerging genres that have yet to become mainstream. Taking advantage of that, so too have many an opinionated mouthpiece taken it upon themselves to broadcast to audiences numbered in dozens. Given half the chance, know what I’m saying?
Final point might be to catch the Richard Curtis film, The Boat That Rocked, set on one such floating pirate radio station. Critics didn't think it his best. I loved it, especially the late night jock, with whom I could strongly identify. (And I am still open to offers!!)
Boat That Rocked, here.
