KMB: me and radio
Why and how I came to produce my weekly online radio show
I've always loved radio. As a child we didn't have a television, so I was brought up on (my mum's) diet of pirate radio, mostly radio London, in the 60s. I was vaguely aware of the attempted end of the pirate era with the Marine Offences Act in 1967, but it held no special significance to me. In my defence, I was only 8 years old.
Capital Radio and Roger Scott
1973 saw the birth of commercial radio in the UK with first LBC and then Capital Radio. I quickly became a fan of Capital Radio. In 1974 I had an after-school job working out the back of a fish and chip shop, and I made sure Capital was on every afternoon. This was before Capital moved to the well-known 194m wavelength - back in '73 and '74, they were on 539m.
Capital Radio was amazing back in those days. They had all sorts of local things going on. They'd organise a charity concert; they had the "flat share" line where you say you wanted a flatmate; the travel news was for the London area; they had phone ins when you could speak to the presenter, and so on. Capital built a real local community.
Roger Scott was the DJ on Capital in the afternoon. One jingle urged us to "Grab a little piece of heaven with / Roger Scott from three till seven with / Capital 194". And so I did. I loved Roger: smart, amusing, and very well informed about the music he played. My teenage music world was compered by Roger Scott.
Fast forward to 1980 and I was working fixing computer terminals at customers' premises. That involved a lot of driving, and I did my very best to be far away and finishing the job by 3pm so I could grab a little piece of heaven on my drive back.
And then, in 1989, the news came on the radio that Roger Scott had lost his battle with cancer and died. He was 46 years old, and I didn't even know he was ill. I was unreasonably upset. I didn't know him in the sense of him being a personal friend, but at the same time I felt I did know him. There was no one, in my mind, to replace him. There still isn't. Johnnie Walker and Nicky Horne get close, but they're not Roger.
I still loved radio. I loved the idea that someone could create something magic without it having to be visual. That they could create something I had to hear, that I must listen to. The undoubted master of creative radio was Kenny Everett, again on Capital at that time, and again unmissable. And six years after Roger went to that great radio station in the sky, Kenny joined him.
These days, the BBC have lost their way. The very corporation that started radio in the UK has lost it. Many of the local radio stations have been taken over by big companies. They put out the same music on all stations, mostly automated playlists with no presenter. It's bland. There's no local element, no community, no sense of belonging. No fun. No passion.
A chance
I was a member of the Independent Local Radio group on Facebook, and on 18 August 202 a guy called Ian Francis posted a note there. He was planning to start a new DAB radio station in Cardiff and was looking for people to help him get going. I knew nothing about radio other than as a consumer, but I'm OK with audio, electronics and generally fixing things. Maybe this could be a chance to peep behind the scenes? Cardiff isn't so far away.
No point in thinking about it: just do it. I send Ian this message:
Hi Ian, saw your post on the ILR group. I'd love to be involved. Short version: I have a passion for radio and for fixing things: hopefully one or other would be useful to you! I live just outside Monmouth.
Long story short, Ian at that time was running the VIP Lounge, an online radio station, and was looking to transition that to a DAB station based in Cardiff. In the interim - and to my total amazement - he offered me a position presenting on the VIP Lounge.
And so at 7pm on Friday, 2 October 2020, I presented the "Weekend Warmup" show on the VIP Lounge. I was nervous, but at the same time it just felt right.
Ian continued with his plans for a Cardiff-based DAB radio station. He wanted it to be a not-for-profit that supported the local community. He was calling it "Retro Sound", reflecting both the music (not just contemporary, but older music too) as well as attitude (how local radio used to be). It felt to me as if it could capture some of what Capital had been in early days. After I'd done a few months of VIP Lounge shows, he offered me a couple of shows a week on Retro Sound when it launched. I was very pleased (and excited).
But then things started to fall apart. Another long story short: although Retro Sound did launch for a short time on the internet, it didn't ever transmit on DAB. Some of the presenters became disillusioned and left. A fellow presenter, Terry Hughes, who had been extremely supportive of me when I started, was offered the early morning show on Caroline and so he left. I'd gone from being happy on the VIP Lounge to feeling much less comfortable with it. Terry and I talked, and he suggested I move my shows to Mixcloud.
Keith's Music Box
My first Mixcloud show was on 26 February 2021. Unlike my VIP Lounge shows, I've recorded every one of my Mixcloud shows.
My Mixcloud show is different to my old VIP Lounge shows. For a start, no adverts. More interestingly, there is an online "chat box" with Mixcloud. I can interact with the listeners, ask questions, take requests and so on. More than that, we just have fun - it's a little community of its own.
Over time I've settled the format of the shows. That's not to say it's are cast in stone and will never change again, but this is the current format and it seems to work.
We start at 20:00 with four tracks I've chosen, and I try to give the back story to the third track. From about 20:15 for an hour we have the Listeners' Choice, tracks are chosen by the listeners loosely based around a theme I've given.
At 21:15 we have Six of the Best. This is six tracks I've chosen, again around a common theme but with the theme being a little more obscure.
After that, we're in free flow until the end which, these days, is typically between 22:30 and 23:00. I do have the "wrap" pre-planned - a couple of tracks to wind down with, and a playout track to finish the show.
At first it was a lot of work to put the show together and it took most of the day. I split it up now and pick the opening tracks one day, the Listeners' Choice theme another day, and so on.
Back when I first started doing this I used to script Every. Single. Word. I then came to rely on that but I didn't want to. I fixed that by introducing the Listeners' Choice, so I don't know in advance what will be chosen, and that means I have to ad hoc the links. I do script most of Six of the Best and I have notes for the wrap tracks, but most of the rest I do on the fly.
I listen to my shows in the car, not to feed some ego kick but to hear what works and what doesn't. Sometimes it's embarrassing. Mostly it's OK. Occasionally I think, yes, that link really did work. Listening to the shows helps me improve, and besides the music is usually excellent!
My biggest fear when I first started with the VIP Lounge was that I'd have nothing to say beyond, "That was Hotel California by The Eagles and this is FM by Steely Dan". Hence the scripting - but I needed that in the early days as I was very nervous and the human brain can't think clearly under stress. So by scripting I didn't have to think, but if anything went wrong (it did), I was waaay out of my depth. There was no spare brain capacity to fix the things going wrong. These days I'm much more relaxed. Things still go wrong from time to time but I mostly take them in my stride.
I've had a huge amount of support from others. Pete White has spent a lot of time helping me get the sound right and even now he will occasionally message me during the show and say something like, "Take vox down half a notch" (ie, my voice is loud compared with the music). Susi Thayer spent a huge amount of time helping me plan the format of some early shows (and some that never came to fruition too), as well as discussing the politics of the internet radio station I was involved with. Caroline (and Susi) were there from the first show and it was hugely encouraging to know they were listening. Terry Hughes was one of the other presenters on that same radio station, and Terry was immensely helpful in my very early days of getting started. There's many more people who have helped me and supported me (Scott Hansen, Ian Chambers, more) and I'm grateful for every last one.
The future
And what of the future? I'll keep doing it. I toy with ideas for getting a bigger audience, but the whole of radio is struggling to get an audience these days so maybe I should be grateful for what I've got. I've learnt a huge amount in the last four years, and I feel privileged to do something that I'd wanted to do for years but (oddly for me) had never seriously looked at how I could do it.
Ultimately it's about the audience. If they don't enjoy it (or don't exist!), there really isn't any point.
Finally, thank you Roger Scott. You were, are, and will remain, my inspiration.
