chriswoodartist

“Ross Revenge” acrylic on canvas board 25cms square copyright Chris N Wood all rights reserved

“EDME” acrylic on canvas board 25cms square copyright Chris N Wood All rights reserved

“Enterprise” acrylic on canvas board 25cms square copyright Chris N Wood All rights reserved

Three very different boats, all tenuously linked by the colour RED !

ROSS REVENGE

As a student in the 60’s and 70’s the music scene was very different – we didn’t have the internet and we had a very limited number of radio stations to listen to. If you wanted to listen to anything alternative you had to go to gigs or perhaps listen to radio Luxembourg, which was good but the signal fluctuated and was never reliable.

In the UK, the BBC had a virtual monopoly, with record companies controlling popular music broadcasting.

Then, like a breath of fresh air in 1964, Ronan O’Rahilly and Allan Crawford, launched pirate radio, Radio Caroline, thus circumventing the grip that the BBC had on the music industry.

Ross Revenge Was hastily bought and converted to broadcast – just off the coast of Suffolk and they quickly became the “go to” music station !

Radio Caroline’s success kick started a wave of Pirate Radio and quickly others’ jumped on the band wagon. By the mid 60’s there were eleven pirate radio stations were broadcasting off the coasts of Northern Europe. Their combined daily audience was a massive 10-15 million listeners by 1967.

Unlike other pirate radio stations, Radio Caroline was never officially ‘shut down’, but on the 14th of August 1967, the UK government passed the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, making it illegal to “support” pirate radio. Advertisers could no longer legally advertise on pirate radio, thus cutting off their primary source of revenue and forcing many ships to close.

This brutal government response to pirate radio lead to the introduction of BBC radio 1 on 30th September 1967. Radio I was the first BBC station to provide solely, rock and pop music.

Meanwhile, Radio Caroline limped on, only officially shutting down on 5th November 1990. In 1991 Ross Revenge was ship wrecked off the coast of Kent, marking the end of the era of offshore pirate radio. Her owners didn’t give up on the project and continued as an Internet and fully licensed community broadcaster.

To further avoid legal troubles they embraced new technologies, becomming a digital station, with live studios on land and streaming via satellite platforms.

Off the back of pirate radio, DJ’s, Whispering Bob Harris and the late John Peel both had late night TV shows, introducing counter culture niche bands and I have fond memories of returning from the pub, switching on the television and soaking up the music !

Another of my favourite broadcasters was Kenny Everett, who also had his own somewhat controversial TV show. In these days of WOKE it would never have been allowed but it was very different in the 70’s  !

I keep revising and adding to this post.  I will now stop fiddling and turn my attention to lunch and my next series of artwork.