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Engaged
as totallyradio is, in
expressing the vitality and fluidity of new and exciting music,the
station has never been a fixed set of personalities confined to
discrete imaginations and rigid collective visions.
totallyradio occupies a virtual platform on a global medium, where
shows are broadcast simultaneously from Washington DC, Chicago
and London.
This serves to enhance the freshness that DJs, programmers and contributors
can bring to the station. There is, however, an identifiable history,
geography and core group of personalities without which the station
would not exist.
"I
think totallyradio is kind of unique, because all the DJs
here are similar to myself in that they actually search out
music and are passionate about what they play.
They are covering music that isn't being covered elsewhere."
Everett True (DJ, Careless Talk Costs Lives Show)
As is the case with most credible radio, the
station's roots are of the pirate variety.
After several years spent climbing the antennae masts of tower blocks
in South London, Daniel Nathan, totallyradio's Chairman, started
up Festival Radio in Brighton in the early Nineties.
An instant success, this quickly became the first licensed "pirate"
station playing broadly alternative dance music in the UK and, indeed,
was a role model for what became the one-time proud XFM.
Festival was subsequently involved in the launch and set-up of new
Kiss FM stations in Manchester and Yorkshire and also bid to create
the first alternative music stations in Brighton and London.
The Brighton bid gave shape to Surf 107in 1998, an analogue station
which became Juice 107.2 and still hosts totallywired, alongside
its more mainstream programming.
"totallyradio was an experimental site to begin with. Brighton
is a good place to try things out. It is big enough and small enough
to achieve things on that basis. The station is also easier to run
here because there are so many things happening musically, whether
it be making, producing, promoting or selling.
There is a natural resource of talent and it's not so big that you
can't find these people."
Daniel Nathan Chairman, totallyradio
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How
befitting for Brighton, that sonic citadel by the sea renowned for it's boho beat mash-ups
and sub-pop sensibilities, to host a leftfield station capable of
exporting some part of the musical mix its talented but lazy locals
have long taken for granted.
Here is a town that is home to a plethora of credible labels like
Catskills, Skint, Tru Thoughts, Marine Parade and Puma Strut; that
has spawned the art rock chic of Electrelane and British Sea Power
and led the nu-garage rock charge in the form of Eighties Matchbox
B-Line Disaster and The Mutts; that has razed its dancefloors with
legendary nights like the Jazz Rooms and the
alt.everything of DeTournement, not to mention given birth to big
beat (whatever that was) and more mod revivals than Carnaby Street.
Here is a very talented town indeed, with a PhD in DIY. The pull towards
and pull of
totallyradio was always going to be as natural as gravity. |
"Apart
from turning down a few shows, on the whole once a show is there we
just let it go. So people pretty much have 100 per cent total choice,
total
control over what they do." Claire Kember (presenter
of The Daily Show).
The
voice at the heart of totallyradio is that of The
Daily Show's presenter, Claire Kember. With a self-produced
background in XFM and SBN and a few dabblings in American radio,
she has specialised in running leftfield music shows for six
years and is clear on how and how not to go about making good
radio.
"I know from past experience a lot of
station playlists are based on who the PR is, how influential they
are and whether 'we owe them a favour'. It can get quite sinister,"
she says. "I
have also been at stations where you are forced to play what they
want you to play.
Once I went a year where I got to play four songs of my choice!
In a whole year!
I might as well have been a monkey!"
To know your enemy is half the battle and Brighton has
provided some useful weapons.
Each member of genre-crunching, avant-noise/electronica expounding
FatCat Records has
only a mile to stagger for the label's weekly show, done on rota.
"You won't hear the same show twice," says Alex FatCat.
"They are all reflections of the musical journeys people within
the label are on."
Tru Thought's main man Rob Luis, bagger of the likes of Quantic
and Bonobo, is
half the distance again while Everett True, tastemaker of some 20
years, infamous chronicler of grunge and editor of the raw but cerebral
Careless Talk Costs Lives, happens also to be in the neighbourhood.
Add to the mix kitsch pop maker Boogaloo Stu, nu-jazz supremo Russ
Dewbury, walking
encyclopaedia-cum-promoter of all things cow-punk-swamp-country
Dave Morrison plus numerous downbeat, reggae and art rock boffins
and you can begin to see why Brighton and totallyradio get on so
well.
"The
net has allowed us to really connect with a lot of people. Before,
with this type of music, people would be forced to only read about
it in magazines but now, on a net-based show, they are able to hear
it."
Rob Luis (DJ, Unfold Show)
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As
the station
begins to spread its net wider, with more shows coming from the
USA as well as around the UK, anything and anywhere become increasingly
possible.
From Capitol Resistance, the monthly import from Washington DC courtesy
of hip hop artists Head-Roc and Alien 29, to Virtual Future Music,
the specialist techno/electro show from Sheffield, it's clear the
station's geographical and musical boundaries are shifting more
and more as new shows come on board.
The diversity of music is certainly not restricted to place or time
? it's purely about finding new, vital material. If nothing else,
at least that's something the ever-growing roster of DJs has in
common.
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