Piraten radio (part 1)
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Dirk Koorn gave me some 45’s made by Dutch radio pirate stations.
He left the records in the bag of my wifes bike, where they they had to survive a few weeks of rain before i discovered them. Fortunately i already had them all.
In the mid eighties there were thousands of pirate radio stations operative in Holland. They were playing Dutch records that the mainstream radio stations refused to play. Braodcasting was illegal and the Radio Controle Dienst did a lot of effort to find and fine these stations. Of course, the word station is too much honour for what most of these radio/pirates were± a few hundred 45´s, one or two records players, a microphone and a cheap transmitter with a reach of a few kilometers.
I listened a lot to these stations whenever i had the opportunity. Especially in a car you hear mindboggling examples of the worst radio shows you can possibly imagine.
Many of these pirate radio stations made at least one record, that in most cases was never played anywhere else than on their own station and in the homes of their handful of listeners. I have always bought any pirate radio station record that i encouneterd, so i now have a pretty impressive collection. Unfortunately i have never met anybody that shared my interest in these audio oddities.
Basically these 45´s all have the same ingredients: a hoempa sound, bad lyrics, lousy singing, ugly sleeves and an instrumental B-side. But of course there are a few records that stand out. Like the one that Dick Tames made:
Here is Dick Tames with a song that says it all, if you can understand Dutch, of course:
Sure to be continued!