This Is This

I don’t write about work on here, because I don’t want to lose my job, but yesterday I dodged a bullet. Surely some day one of them will have my name on it - especially with a name like Jones.

But today’s good because I’m listening to New Sensation by INXS, which is the first song I ever played on radio. I wanted it to be an ass-kicking pop song and in 1987, pop couldn’t kick much more ass.

For self-indulgent reasons, that’s the first bit of publishing or broadcasting I ever did, so it will always mean sump’n.

Funny story actually, because we shouldn’t have been doing a radio show on account of the technicality of not having a radio licence. It seemed stupid that it was harder getting the rights to send music out of a room than it was to pull fish out of a river, but those were the times.

Anyway, it was 7 am in Surrey, we were there, me and Adam Meiklejohn, music at the ready. We had told our friends what time we were going out and when the hour came around, we hit the switch and the equipment hummed into life and the opening guitar riff stabbed out across the airwaves.

Our transmitter had been put together by a kid in the science class, who encased the whole thing in a biscuit tin because he said the metal would give it a few more bits of boost.

I still don’t know if that’s true, and I’m 35. He was 16 when he built the thing, so it shows how much I know. But then I guess the phrase “bits of boost” kind of gave that away.

When Calling All Nations ended, there was strange noise coming through our headphones.

“What the heck is that?” I said on air.

I would have said “fuck”, but you know, I am a professional.

“Vector nine, Aldershot and Hampshire. BA281 climbing 17453. 17453 climbing.”

Or something.

This carried on for a time, while with other posh voices belonging to men staring down their fourties made confident announcements about things I couldn’t understand.

I looked out the window and every time a plane flew over we would hear a pilot’s voice and broadcast the signal.

What we were doing was certainly illegal, possibly dangerous and none of our friends heard the show.

There was a very small, unsuspecting audience who caught me twittering on about daily rubbish as they made their way somewhere else.

Thank god times have changed.

Also on This Is This
“Two pounds seventy five please,” she says.
I point to the window. “Sign in the window says 99p before 11am.” It’s ten past eight.
Read this post...

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 8:31 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.