Radio Utopia

People remember the Sixties pirate radio heyday, when the pirates were literally boats at sea.... and they remember the Eighties terrestial tower-block resurgence of reggae and soul and jazz and funk and early rap stations.... and of course they remember the Nineties onwards rave hardcore jungle UK garage grime etc explosion of piracy...

But what about the in-between bits? 

Even after the Labour government (Tony Benn specifically) squashed the pop-crazed offshore pirates in '67, and the big buccaneers accepted "pardons" and joined Radio One as its first roster of deejays.... some people carried on broadcasting outside the law. Via pirate radio scholar Rob Chapman, here's a roundup from May 1971, from an enthusiast's zine called Newsbeat Newsletter. 

Love the fact that a bunch of these are broadcasting from the Home Counties - Hertfordshire, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire (where the intriguingly named Radio Utopia transmits from, or at least can be picked up in)

(Echo here of my repeated and enormous delight in the fact that Herts was something of a bastion for the Hardcore Continuum. Indeed there was a jungle pirate out of Luton  - Perception FM. Gappa G and Hypa Hypa were involved)

Radio Free Rhubarb feels more like a Home Counties type name than Radio Utopia... I'd like to imagine it was some kind of renegade counterpart to Gardeners Question Time, eccentric views on herbaceous borders and composting, the kind of horticultural heresy that Radio 4 wouldn't allow on the airwaves... but I imagine the name is goofy, perhaps a little Goonsy or Pythonesque. Or just the old slang meaning...

Also intriguing - The Voice of Freedom. A rare example of the political pirate in Britain? I believe there was some kind of right-wing pirate, opposed to the unions - I think this comes up in the Andy Beckett book. And then there were a few short-lived pirates from the other side of the struggle, started during strikes... This is all hazy memory, though. 

Check out Rob Chapman's pirate radio archive - he has recordings of 1960s pirates but also some prime 90s hardcore rave junglism action via a Manchester radio station (not actually a pirate, I'm repeatedly told by someone - it was somehow legal). 

A whole thesis - beautifully illustrated and designed, more like a book - on London Pirate Radio of the Nummy Nuum Nuum era, by Frederik Birket-Smith. Although as this blog post shows, the title should really be Not Just 4 U London.... 

Pirate radio zines and newsletters via Offshore Radio Museum

rewind revival

Michaelangelo Matos reports on the resurgence of D+B for the Rinsin' Stone

 "Some of this is due to TikTok, where artists like the young British vocalist PinkPantheress — who sampled Adam F’s drum-and-bass classic “Circles” for her viral hit “Break It Off” — and piri, whose sprightly, slinky liquid D&B single “soft spot” has now passed 12 million Spotify plays, got their first boosts."

But DJs are playing it out in the clubs too apparently. 

"The surge is worldwide — from Indonesia to Australia — but the U.S. has been particularly voracious for drum and bass." 

Fun quote from Goldie:

 “I’ve just been on a film shoot, and somebody said, ‘My dad played me this music", proving, sez Mr Rufige, that that D+B is now “the new Motown.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Meanwhile Rob Chapman drops another full-phat slab of back-in-the-day pirate thunder 'n' joy from the Manchester area - Sting FM's Bushman & Shadrac (probably) from June '94, 2 hours of rufftuff mix madness

Stop press: and here's another superphat slab from Mr Chapman dropped today - from July 1994, the Love Energy Revolution Crew deejays, including DJ Direct plus a Spin Inn Jungle top 10   - "better believe"

Energy Flash blogg - where it's always '94 (and '92, and '93, and sometimes '91 and '90, and occasionally '95, '96, or '88 / 89) - no reviving here, it's never stopped rotating 

Love Energy

 More Manchester jungalistic pirate action from June '94 via Rob Chapman - DJ Direct and the Revolution Crew on Love Energy FM. First  side o' original tape includes "a Spin Inn Jungle Top 10" - the other side mixes ambient-j and ragga-y vibes. 

What's the first couple of tunes played in this? 

Check out the rest of his fab gear at Mixcloud

stop press Friday May 27: Rob just added another great tape with a bunch of different sets from July and August 1994, mostly DJ Direct but some other Revolution Crew deejays too

Manchester pirates ahoy!

The writer and music historian Rob Chapman has been putting up some tasty pirate radio sets from Manchester in the early '90s. Like this one - the Revolution Crew on the station Love Energy from April 1994.

Rob is also an expert on the original pirate radio of the 1960s. Indeed he wrote a whole book on the subject, Selling the Sixties. So alongside the vintage jungalistic techno, he is also depositing some very rare slices of broadcast buccaneering from the '60s. Like all five and a half hours of John Peel's last piratical transmission, the farewell finale of his Perfumed Garden show on Radio London, August 14th 1967. 

Check the full and growing Mixcloud motherlode here.