[Boatanchors] Movie: Pirate Radio

[Radios R. Me]

It's a good movie, but doesn't tell the real story very well.

I was there, listening daily to these stations in the 1960s and there were a great many of them.
Usually at any given time you could find 5 or 6 active stations on the AM dial.
Not all were on ships. Some operated in old WW2  off-shore fortifications, in the river estuaries
and around the coast of Britain that were abandoned by the government after being used 
as defensive forts against invaders.

Yes, the bigger stations like Radio Caroline, Radio London ("BIG L") etc. employed a few American DJs.

 We loved them all. They were very popular. I encourage ANYONE interested in this subject to download 
some of the many MP3 files available on the web from these stations. Of particular interest is the LAST DAY of broadcast of Radio Caroline, which became the longest surviving ship-board station and pretty much described in this movie.

What they leave out is so much of the amazing background about how that station started, and in partcular 
the role of a national HERO known as "Screaming Lord Sutch."

Sutch ran for Prime Minister every year - I think it was "The Teenage Party" or something like that.
He had a number of hit records including "Jack The Ripper" in the 1960s.

When his band played at the largest venue in Cambridge around 1964 or so, my brother's band was the opening act 
and I got to help set up the P.A. gear. Sutch was about 8 or 10 years ahead of Alice Cooper and even then they
did more outrageous things than him. I remember seeing band members "dis-membered" on stage and fake 
body parts pulled out and thrown into the audience. He he...

Ah yes, Radio Caroline, Radio London, Radio City, Radio North Sea International, Radio Atlanta, Radio Caroline North, 
Radio 390, Radio Invicta, and many more that popped up for periods of time. The main stations were on the air 
all day playing rock and pop music that the BBC refused to broadcast. There would have been NO "British invasion"
of music in the 1960s if it had not been for Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres in the early 1960s and then the Pirate stations

You wouldn't believe how many millions of transistor radios were sold in the UK during that period!
Almost all of the WW2 surplus electronics dealers along Tottenham Court Road in London started to sell 
transistor radios and other Japanese goods in those days. Within a few years that was ALL they sold.

The British Pirate Radio movement dovetailed perfectly with my love for radio. electronics and music!
Very FOND MEMORIES for me!

Many of the mp3 files were posted over the past 12 years on the Usenet Binary Newsgroups, and I think 
I have some of them from there if anyone is interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio_in_Europe#United_Kingdom

http://www.imeem.com/people/TvWceus/music/W42iXUaE/norman-st-john-radio-caroline-south-121265/

http://www.offshore-radio.de/sounds.htm

73 - Brian "Bry" Carling, AF4K

= = =
Please use my main e-mail address:  af4k at hotmail.com



________________________________
From: Dave Merrill <r390a.urr at GMAIL.COM>
To: BOATANCHORS at LISTS.TEMPE.GOV
Sent: Tue, November 24, 2009 5:20:42 AM
Subject: Re: Movie: Pirate Radio

Could not agree more!  And you might catch a glimpse of a Racal RA17, I believe.

/dave
N9ZC

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:31 PM, Mark <mroldradios at optonline.net> wrote:
> I haven't seen a post on this so forgive me if I've missed it.
>
> Check out this movie which is now in theatres.  It's a lot of fun for a ton of great rock and roll music, as well as many shots of classic mics and studio consoles circa 1965.
>
> 73 de N1MG

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