Wireless imagination

LCC mini pirate radio

To create the pirate radio station; we first set up microphones, which were then wired to a computer with a DAW (via a Focusrite Scarlett input), as well as a mixing desk, finally to a FM transmitter. Once all the equipment was set up, we used various radios to tune into the FM transmitter, the range meant that we could move within about 100 meter radius of the transmitter before losing signal. We broadcasted freely and had no limitations, with some members of the class reading an audio play and others broadcasting a satirical show called “Depression FM” (my personal favourite, attached below.).

Since this lecture, I can’t stop thinking about the impact pirate radios historically have had, and the right to broadcast freely. This makes me consider the censorship in place when frequencies can simply be owned by anyone with enough money.

Radio Caroline – the original pirate radio?

[Radio Caroline]“ Was a self-contained, self-generating and yet transient community, relying on its own internal nervous energies for its output and creative momentum. Schemes could be indulged on a whim, without a care for their viability or their future. It is precisely within such affluent hedonism that the origins of Radio Caroline can be located. And because the packaging and selling of the Swinging Sixties really begins here then Caroline has to be viewed as an integral part of that process in all its splendour and all its failings.” (pg.166)

Carolines attitude towards creative experimentation is what I find most interesting here, allowing artists/ musicians/ DJs/ musical curators creative freedom to express themselves.

“Schemes could be indulged on a whim, without a care for their viability or their future.”, although I understand that radio stations need consistency and guaranteed quality there is something charming about radio without pressure.

I feel very fortunate to work with Wired Radio in my spare time, an underfunded student radio in South London. Due to this, the pressure to have shows meet a perfect standard is removed, making space for a variety of people to broadcast at their pleasure. 

“Affluent hedonism” – An abundance of pleasure.  

Philosophically, hedonism represents the theory that pleasure is the true aim of human life, I would argue that consuming various forms of art both familiar and unfamiliar to you is one way of doing this and that is exactly what Caroline did. 

This may reflect the genre choices Radio Caroline played in their early days of broadcast, such as rock and roll in comparison to the sounds of national radio. As well as bringing a variety of international sounds to the UK.

A radio station with content appealing to the taste of a wider audience than what was considered by national radio at the time, making new art accessible to those who would not have otherwise come across it has had a larger impact on today’s sonic landscape than I realised.

Refferences: Popular Music , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , May 1990 , pp. 165 – 178 Robert Chapman