Walking the plank of famePirate radio stations can be a dodgy lot, often fronting for drug
dealers who are launching parties to push pills. Some of the old-school
pirates - those who were in it for more idealistic reasons - have long
been finding other ways of reaching the people. After all, it becomes a
pain, climbing around the rooftops with a dodgy transmitter at all
hours, avoiding Department of Trade and Industry inspectors, stomaching
fines, coping with nicked transmitters and court appearances and, at
best, reaching 200 teenagers, unless you have managed to keep going and
built a following. Last year the ever-vigilant DTI closed 900 stations
and prosecuted 51 of them.
But now in the no-rules world of the Internet, something new is stirring
and it is flying the skull and crossbones. A little over a year ago, the
long-serving London pirate DJ Mad Ash, who used to run an illicit
operation called Face FM, linked up with club promoter and online
anarchist Howard Jones. They blagged free software and servers from the
likes of A L Digital and Progressive Networks, got Ash's old decks and
launched an online pirate radio station, broadcasting 24 hours a day
over the Internet using state-of-the-art software. One year down the
line and the station now has up to 80,000 listeners a week all logging
on to www.pirate-radio/interface.co.uk. These listeners are not spotty
college nerds, either.
US military bases in Okinawa, Tuzla and Iceland have been piping
InterFACE's drum'n'bass over their own radio stations. Servicemen with
the online handles Ronnie Rocket and Party Mongrel at the air base in
Okinawa play two hours of the station's output every week. On Christmas
Day, a nuclear sub patrolling off the Florida coast stumbled on
InterFACE and piped it around for the skeleton crew who were stuck on
board for the holiday.
In the autumn, two hackers in a large American corporation fed the
station's output into their company's central Tannoy as well as the
Muzak system of the local shopping mall, which was centrally controlled
by computer. Although the office Tannoy was shut down swiftly, the
shopping mall's security guards took more than six hours to turn off the
London dance music that was scaring the K-Mart shoppers.
All you need to log on is a sound card in your PC. When you first "tune
in" you have to download the software Real Audio 5, which the station
will give you free, then you can listen to it for nothing. True to the
old Free Radio London ethos, the station won't take ads. The DJs all
club together to pay the running costs and web anarchists donate
equipment. Once online, you can also type in the chat room. This is a
little window on screen to which all listeners, as well as station
staff, have read-and-write access: this allows live conversations.
Thinking that the station warranted further investigation, last Monday I
went to the sweaty basement in Clerkenwell, central London, that
InterFACE calls home. From 5pm to 7pm local time, Paul G presents a
garage set; from 7pm to 9pm, Jerry B - an ally from the pirate days -
has a garage and house set; at 9pm, the Rev T takes over with techno and
hard house. That's when I arrive.
"Brushes" is already online and making her presence felt in the chat
room. Brushes is an Oklahoma grandma who has never been more than one
day's drive from her home, but this year she is planning to come over to
London to visit the DJs. When she first logged on, she didn't have a PC
that was able to pick up the station, so they had to send her tapes. Now
she has bought the right PC and she forces her grandchildren to listen
to drum'n'bass, a uniquely British brand of dance music. Today her cow
is sick and she is popping out to give it shots every now and then.
That's a real cow, by the way. Brushes is a farmer.
9.50pm Saddam Hussein checks in to the chat room. He's called Saddam but
he is calling from Germany. "Don't bomb Oklahoma," Brushes says. "I
thought you did that to yourselves anyway," he replies.
10.16pm The Rev T puts on Rubycon Street Knowledge. The world goes
mental. "Aaah, I'm off to the mooooon!" types a Tuzla squaddie. Mofo
checks in. He runs a dance label in a small town in Virginia. He asks if
he can send in some records. Mad Ash types out the address. "The beats
get stronger if they stick together," he adds.
10.33pm Stroudy from Rio drops in and starts arguing with Mad Yank. Mad
Yank wants gabba - a form of house music played at breakneck speed - but
Stroudy likes the techno. This is strange: Rio shouting to Oregon about
the merits of gabba. You start thinking about a world united by music.
Then you catch yourself. After all, they are talking about psychotic
house.
10.45pm The Rev T winds up and the West Coast is growing angry. Some
office workers want drum'n'bass. MarshMello is on next to keep them
happy. Later in the week there is a show from Fatboy Slim's record
company, Skint. Around midnight people are calling each other names:
Lord Asnop wants some Metallica and the world thinks he's a loser.
I decide to leave and in the freezing night outside I'm waiting for my
head to clear . . . Japan, Rio, Oregon, Oklahoma, Germany and New York
plugging into London pirates at the rate of 80,000 a week . . .
Soldiers, grandmothers, young girls and East End roughnecks writing to
each other about music. This station could be the most exciting
phenomenon I've witnessed in years.
Report by Stephen Armstrong
(c) The Times, 1999.