I
had two stints in community radio, the first, whilst I was Tamworth,
lasted from 1991 to 1998, and the second was in Gosford, for about
eight or nine months during 1999 and 2000. Both of these stints, I must
say, did drive me quite insane, seeing the amount of egotistical,
backstabbing bastards I had to deal with during my time at both
stations. In my life, I had never met people with such inflated egos,
and it was amazing just how much people changed when they were given a
little taste of power. My one regret in both circumstances, was that I
should never have gotten involved. I should have never taken sides, nor
join any governing board, which I had done when I was at Tamworth. Had
I'd just been a humble announcer, then I would still be doing community
radio today and probably enjoying it too.
I can't
remember how many shows I broadcasted off the top of my head, 500,
maybe 600 programs, somewhere in the vicinity of 1500 hours of
broadcast time. At Tamworth, I organised the library and managed the
office for a couple of days a week, and did a variety of shows, ranging
from foreign languages programs to heavy metal specials. I even did
breakfast radio for a year or so, but only for one morning a week. The
first song I ever played on air was The Breakfast Club's Right on track, the last Graham Bonnet's It's all over now baby blue. I still have a few of my shows recorded on tape, including the first part of the last show I ever did.
At Gosford I stayed off air, but helped out in the office, doing typing, filing, sorting materials out in the library and later, the scheduling for all the advertisements and community announcements. There were one or two nice people there, including the office manager (who only had one leg) but unfortunately I got on the wrong side of some of the hierarchy and announcers, and in the end it was just not worth going in any more. I was asked to come back (seeing I was one of the few people who knew how to do scheduling), but said I'd only do it if I received an apology from certain members of the station. It never came, so I never returned. A pity, because I had intended to get involved in the sports department. A few years later, the station gets the rights to broadcast all the Central Coast Mariner matches.
Bugger.
There were plenty of good times though. On Saturday nights in Tamworth (for a couple of years or so), members from the wargames club
used to come in and sit in on the shows. They were great nights, which
would result in plenty requests from the listening audience, and lots
of fantastic music being played. For a time I had even managed to
acquire a cult following.
And on occasions there were privileges. I managed to get in to see a few shows (gratis) and sit in on a few interviews. The most memorable one was with Mental as Anything back stage at the West Tamworth Leagues club around 1994, where at 2am in the morning, after finishing a gig, Greedy Smith (keyboardist and one of the vocalists of the band) quite cheerfully gave us an interview. I got a poster signed by three members of the band, and still have a promo that Greedy personally recorded for me.