Chris Kennett
Presents The Pinch
How did you first connect with Triple R?
In 1995, straight out of high school, I started coming in to do graveyard shifts - under protest - with a friend who saw Triple R as the ideal route to his true calling - commercial radio. After the better part of three years in graveyards, then Program Manager James ‘Hound Dog' Young relented and put us on the grid. Within two weeks of our promotion my ambitious friend got a job in rural Victoria, and I was left holding the grotesque, misshapen baby known as...
What/when was your first show?
Unexplained Phenomena (1997 - 2002). This ‘cult' show (read: five listeners) haunted Triple R's Monday midnight slot for nearly five years with an extraordinarily amateur attempt to cover the paranormal. The program's major raison d'etre was taking brain-melting phone calls from paranoid insomniacs who insisted on the existence of UFOs, ghosts, and secret phrases that could get you a free small chips at KFC. We burned out more than half a dozen co-presenters and Declan Fay was the last man standing.
What's your favourite Triple R story?
Too many to choose ... Making an urban myth come true. Hearing that two fans of our show met and got married. Being promoted by Tracee Hutchison and told "don't fuck it up". Watching Tripod perform an a capella version of ‘Paranoid Android' at our first ever outside broadcast. Interviewing the Violent Femmes, Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age without any discernable justification. But if I had to pick just one, it would be re-enacting the Olympic torch relay by sending a man in an alien mask running down the middle of Brunswick Street holding aloft a flaming hot dog.
Your favourite other Triple R program and why?
Local and/or General, for two reasons. One, Jacinta Parsons is the consummate presenter, lovingly and knowledgably plugging the Melbourne scene into our collective consciousnesses. Two, she comes on straight after us and has never once complained about us running over due to a discussion on urine stains.
What does Triple R mean to you?
The gap between what is and what might be. And waiting and waiting and waiting for Woody to open the damn door.
The studio door has accidentally jammed shut with you stuck inside. If there was only one CD in there with you what would you want it to be and why?
Hang on, what? Why is there only one CD in the studio? And the door "accidentally" jammed shut? This whole situation seems pretty unlikely. Almost as if it were contrived to elicit a humorous response.
In the things, but which kind for? When haven't is better over each experience, and if so, who?
This is the question I get asked more than any other. Please stop, I don't understand it.
