Thursday 22 March 2007
Radio with personality
I realized the other day why I don’t listen to web-radio, at least for music. I miss the personalities.
Wall-to-wall music with no interruptions is all very good if you want texture, some colour for your mental environment, but if I want texture I usually resort to music that’s already familiar to me. If I’m listening to something new, I want to be able to give it the attention it’s due. I want to know about the music and who created it. (Now, some channels do give you ways of checking what it is you’re listening to, but they involve flipping between listening and reading.) As well, most specialty stations stick to a particular genre or era, and I like to be surprised.
You know who I miss? John Peel. And David Wisdom’s Nightlines. Both of them played a crazy range of music - in an hour of Peel’s show you might hear punk, happy hardcore, indie rock, grime, ‘60s psychedelia… all intermingled with tracks from his trademark Peel Sessions, recorded by some up-and-coming (or established) band. Nightlines had a gentler flow to it: Canadian indie early on, ranging into electronica, jazz, comedy, and more far-out stuff after midnight. In either case, you never knew quite what you were in for.
But what held it all together was the personalities of the hosts. Peel, who usually hosted the broadcasts from his home, was hilariously witty, self-deprecating, often slightly befuddled by technology - especially when he had to work out of the BBC studios. He was legendary for accidentally playing vinyl at the wrong speed and correcting the matter a minute or two into a song. Bemused by a record label’s championing of “intelligent drum and bass”, he remarked, “Personally I think I should prefer stupid drum and bass.”
David Wisdom was warm, knowledgeable, a keen supporter of Canadian music, prone to giving out CBC Vancouver’s mailing address using a different spelling alphabet every time (“V as in vehement - six - B as in barnacle…”) Over the course of Nightlines’ run he worked his way through his collection of 45s playing one single by each artist, ten per weekend, in alphabetical order (it took nearly a decade).
And he involved the audience: he regularly played theme tunes for the show recorded and sent in by fans. He took requests via an answering machine, but always asked an offbeat “skill-testing question”. Over time, he built up a contingent of regular listeners, until it felt like you were part of a community just by listening. Some even made the leap to programming an “Hour of Power”, an hour of music and words selected by a listener - and sometimes co-hosted by that listener, if they were in the area. “Co-creation”? “User-generated content”? David was there twenty years ago.
Interesting to compare Brave New Waves, the other late-night Radio 2 music show - which has now been cancelled as well, sadly. Patti Schmidt, and Brent Bambury before her, were cool… maybe a little too cool. They wouldn’t go two songs without coming on and telling you all about the band and the label - which I loved, especially in the pre-Internet era. But BNW always felt like such a serious show, a newsmagazine more than a comfy night in someone’s living room listening to tunes.
Peel died in 2004, leaving behind a great musical legacy. David Wisdom is very much alive and currently hosts something called Pearls of Wisdom, which is fun but far too short, with much more of a light Radio Two format…
Every once in a while I stumble across a radio show with a DJ who shows the same sort of love for the music, who gets into it and tells you all about this artist or that album… but usually they’re genre shows: the best blues, the best jazz, world music, classic rock. I want something that will expose me to crazy new music, unclassifiable music, music that time has forgotten. And I want the warmth of real human voices, connecting me to a community of listeners, reminding me that I’m not just listening to a playlist cooked up by a machine… that these songs matter.
In this crazy cross-connected Internet age, I’m sure there’s something out there. Know any good ones?