OCCUPIED COUNTRY

All I Hear is Radio Ga-Ga

It's an incredible beast music. Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Zydeco, Folk, Pop. Light Opera, Dark Opera, Uptempo, errr, Downtempo, Hot, Cold, Hip, Square, Refined, Amateurish, Raw, Smooth and, best of all, amalgamated. Like Folk-Pop, Zydeco-Light-Opera and Amateurish Blues.

I do, of course, draw the line at most (not all) Rap and modern R&B. Sorry - just don't *get* it. Never did and I'm probably too old now to start. Ah well. What I've never had I'll never miss. C'est la vie.

'Old Fart' I can hear you cry and, yes, well maybe. But, frankly I couldn't give a shit. There's more than enough ear nectar from the past to keep me occupied until my dying day without having to make the effort to listen to misguided youth bragging about its ability to fuck and kill with impunity.

To be fair there's also much modern music that deserves respect. Sadly there is really no place to hear it on today's popular radio.

Radio One should be the flagship for today's youth. More of 'em should be listening to this 'shadow-of-its-former-self'. Why don't they? It can't be the DJs (or whatever they call 'em these days). I know they're crap, but they were crap in my day too. Tony Blackburn? Noel Edmonds? Ed Stewart? Jimmy Young for Christ's sake??? Need I elaborate?

Listening to it the other day and all I heard was constant, inane references to *it*. It's like having that kid who knew all there was to know about doing *it* when you were at school having free reign to turn everything into innuendo. I can't remember Ollie and Fred even obliquely, tangentially or otherwise, dropping sexual references into their jolly banter during 12-0-clock club (or whatever it was called) way back in the 'permissive' 60s.

Radio 2 is the most successful station in the UK today. But, even so, it's no place for young bucks or buckettes. The station these days, is for non-threatening fare such as Coldplay and Travis. Occasionally they still pay lip service to the Rat Pack and Sing Something Simple-type stuff, but it's usually tucked away at the arse-end of the schedule. It's certainly NOT the place you're gonna hear a 21st century Nirvana, Hendrix or Van Der Graaf Generator.

Which leaves what? Radio 3? Well yes it does give time over to some pretty esoteric, in-your-face stuff these days but, well, who the hell listens to the station? Stop pissing about with it and give it back in its entirety to Gluch, Beethoven, Holst, Mozart and the rest.

And that's it. All three NATIONAL music stations given over to what? The highbrow, the bland and the murderous.

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Talking of music - good, bad or otherwise. A mate of mine has had an LP (remember them? Ask yer Dad; they're at least two formats down the line these days) transferred to CD-r by some guy he knows at work. Audience - The House on the Hill. He was of the opinion that nobody anywhere would have ever heard of this album and he has gone to great lengths to get the transfer done. Impossible to find the disk anywhere, in the World. Ever.

He came round today to ask if I could do some copies of the CD-r for me and anyone else who wanted it. I stuck it in the CD player and all the jumps and pops crackling out of the speakers reminded me of what we used to put up with when listening in days gone by. All this talk of vinyl sounding 'warmer' is surely bollocks when compared with the once unheard of pleasure of listening with no aural distractions whatsoever.

Let's raise a glass to new technology. For a start off it found remastered copies of the 'no-chance-of-finding' CD within seconds on Amazon's UK website. Secondly it's allowed me to rediscover Audience and, in particular, Howard Werth's voice, songs and nylon-strung guitar. Keith Gemmell's woodwinds and the extraneous noise that used to accompany every piece of music we ever used to beg, borrow or steal.

Incidentally, I should have begged, borrowed or stolen this Long Player many years ago. A classic.