Make Contact! - UPDATED AGAIN
Our theme for Radiothon 2010 is Make Contact and it's coming very soon, August 13-22.
Given the theme we'd love to receive stories from you, our beloved listeners, of how the station first made contact with you and/or how you first made contact with the station. Maybe it's from when you first heard RRR and something grabbed you, or maybe it's when, after years of listening, something finally spurred you on to become a subscriber - tell us about that something so that we might share your story with other listeners.
If you've got a Triple R story you'd like to share please drop us an email at makecontact@rrr.org.au
Someone has also started a similar thread in the forum called, "How did you discover RRR?" in the Lounge.
Thanks for your support at this important time of year!
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LISTENER ANNA
My first encounter with RRR involved a shower with Tony Wilson in the depths of a Melbourne winter. I was showering one dreary morning before work listening to the radio. I'd just returned from a backpacking adventure around the world & was settling back into Melbourne life, in a sharehouse in Northcote at the beginning of John Howard's reign, when I flicked over to 102.7.... Tony was ranting & raving about what a prick John Howard was during his news reading segment on the Breakfasters. I immediately fell for Tony's honesty & passion, imagine raving on with such gusto at 6am!?
I then commenced a passionate love affair with RRR, we were together in the car, at home, at work, in the shower, we were all over each other. Now I'm a little older & busy running my own business with my new partner Pete.. I only get the opportunity to get together with RRR on the odd weekend & we briefly catch up during the week... I love hearing about what RRR's been up to when I receive an email & the Trip every now & again.... I know we'll get back together sometime with renewed passion when the time is right.... I just adore RRR's lust for life & the new & wonderful tunes RRR throws my way. Thanks RRR for brightening up my life & for being so free & passionate & real!
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LISTENER JOHN
Hey RRRsters,
RRR first infected me when I was at the RMIT in the late 70’s. Early Days, but for some reason It caught my ear.
Until I understood that a wide spectrum of music and news and views that was available, I used to think, a lot of this is weird-arse shit, but enough was interesting to keep me coming back. I was pretty intermittent until Punter to Punter pulled me back, and I seemed to appreciate RRR more again. Matured to it I guess.
Career, travelling and wasteful indulgence distracted me for a number of years, but I always listened in occasionally, like calling in on a favourite aunty a couple of times a year. I switched back completely when I was with a friend who had a RRR sticker on his Harley’s oil tank, we got talking. He was a paid up member, and had his own tastes and favourites. That day when we got back from our ride, I tuned in and have not tuned out since. I am now a paid up member and will always be now.
It is a great thing that you guys do, beholden to nobody, irreverent, rebellious, different, inquisitive and able to indulge your individual passions. I have a number of friends who I spout the RRR message to, and now with streaming from the web, they are tuning in also. I tell them “ RRR is like Melbourne’s weather. If you don’t like it at the moment, just wait a little and you will get what you want”. RRR is the Espy of the airwaves. Maybe you should have a drive to get all of your listeners to coerce 5 of their friend to listen and spread the word to their friends ?
The final word, I had RRR on at work once , and a geek I worked with came in and said “ What’s that shit ? “ I told him , started to tell him to have a listen, and he stopped me short and said “ RRR ?? what is that ? Rabid Ratbag Radio ? “ Each to their own.
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JONATHAN ALLEY - PRESENTER, UNDER THE SUN
Like many an ex-pat blow in, Triple R was my key to the door of Melbourne. Melbourne's full of immigres from inter-state and OS; it's a massive part of its character. Melbourne, simply, is a place people come to do things. Few that do have any understanding of innate peculiarities, idiosyncrasies and traditions that its natives simply know as as second nature. In its urban sprawl and village patch work, Melbourne on first glimpse can also seem a little impersonal. A radio station that can explain all that (without setting out to do so) by simply BEING was a godsend to a green 22 year old shacked up in a Carlton share house trying to eeak out a crust. One of the first places I visited on my very first day in Melbourne was the old Fitzroy premises: it seemed so familiar (after four years at another station in New Zealand) but also so very strange. I was doing graveyards within a month , and even had a show on the grid after a few more; but it all still felt distinctly new; it's culture – on air and off – was so vastly different to anything else I'd ever experienced. Each morning I cycle up a freezing Royal Parade to a dead-end job delivering the internal mail around a building. The plus? I could keep moving: deliver, smile, move on. Move between floors. Sneak as much RRR in between mail drops as humanly possible. Claire Hedger and Leaping Larry L kept me company over lunch. The Ghost would writhe into his machine on Wednesday midday and parlay the spoken word, and Karen Leng would blow new horizons open on Friday mornings with the still missed Station to Station. I will forever associate the long winter of 1993 with listening to the RRR lifeline and then being able to go in there once a week to play records. Eventually I was able to reconcile the RRR in there (where I went ) and the RRR out here (that I heard) as one. My introduction to RRR was all encompassing: it became something I did at the same time as it became something I heard; and it was funny, and real, and as idiosyncratic as any Melbourne institution tends to be. I was glad it was there there, and in the intervening years, that hasn't changed. And, it never will.
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LISTENER DANNY
In 1991 I was living with my brother Pete in Northcote. I had been a recent convert from Triple M to Triple J. My brother kept tuning the radio to Triple R, I kept tuning it back to Triple J. Back and forth it would go. Then I just stopped changing the stations.
I have always enjoyed the Breakfasters. I absolutely adore The Skull Cave. I mourn the passing of Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em. I have no personal interest in marine biology, but I just dig Radio Marinara. I love Far & Wide, Kinky Afro, All Over The Shop, Radio Therapy and Einstein Au-Go-Go.
I could never do without Triple R. Thanks Pete, and thanks Triple J for being the bridge from commercial radio to essential radio.
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LISTENER LINETTE
Early in the 1980's, while I was living in Alice Springs, I saw Paul Kelly on Countdown sing this strange song about a heroic figure called Billy Baxter. I couldn't get the song out of my head, so imagine my delight when I found the album in the throwout bin for $2 out the front of the only record shop in town, took it home and flogged it to death.
I came to live in Melbourne in 1983 to study at Uni and, one Wednesday morning, stumbled across a show hosted by this guy called Billy Baxter. He was playing the same song over and over... knights in white satin... a million versions of the same song. I laughed myself silly. Musical magic. I managed to tune in the next week when he did a show called "For the Birds..." songs with birds in them: like Tennesee Birdwalk and Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep...Hilarious!
In the early 90's I got to be a regular guest on Kealy's Midweek Crisis show when I was working at Friends of the Earth Bookshop.
I have been a fan of the station ever since... Off the Record, Film Buffs Forecast, the Architects, Jess Maguire, Anthony Carew, the Breakfasters, Twang, JVG and Radio Therapy have been/are among my favorite shows.
Thanks for the memories.
PS - Hey Dave,I just read all the stories on the website and they are the loveliest thing.They create a lovely sense of community and connection.
I realised with horror that I forgot to mention Radiotherapy and The Spin as my all time favorite shows.
would it be bizarre to ask you to add those two to my list?
I always want to give credit to the things that make positive difference to my life.
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LISTENER DAN
Before I moved to melbourne, and heard of RRR I was living in far north QLD listening to a different national radio station quite happily.
Then my flat mate's melbourne friends came up for a visit with their young 9 or 10 year old son who happened to be wearing a RRR shirt.
Once they knew I was moving down, they told me about your station to which I said, 'yeah yeah okay, but I dig triple something or other' to which the son got up in my face and yelled 'GET YOUR RRR'S!!!'
im now a very happy subscriber :)
THANKS EVERYPERSON!
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LISTENER SHANE
The first time I heard Triple R was a very happy accident. I hadn’t long been in Melbourne and was driving in the car on a typically cold grey Melbourne July day (My first winter in Melb.) and just happened to just scan the radio onto RRR in time for the presenter to play Roland S Howards ‘Breakdown and then……’I had never heard anything like it and immediately went out and bought the CD the next day.
After this I stalked the station for a while listening but not subscribing, I guess for me the idea of paying to hear a Radio station was actually still a foreign thing to do having not been around it until I moved to Melbourne. I started to hear so much goodness in local national and international music, information and personality I was hooked and RRR started to be the only station on the radio (still is).
I eventually stopped stalking the station (can you stalk a radio station?) and finally subscribed during the radiothon and have done without hesitation ever since.
Triple R is such an amazing melting pot of local, national and international music and current affairs and info, especially When you get inundated with so much repetitive mainstream national news and info verbatim, it’s so refreshing to hear local identities passionate about national issues and issues close to home on a local level. As a collective it covers all the food groups your brain, heart and soul needs.
Still forever in debt for the wonderful music and gigs that RRR presenters have introduced me to (especially Fee B2 for helping start the day at the top of the morning)
Cheers Triple R
P.S I’m still too scared to call Biggsy tho……………..
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LISTENER GRAEME
My first contact with this radio station was when it was called something else. I remember hearing Jonathon Richmond for the first time and a whole lot of other music that simply blew me away. Bands like Talking Heads, Television and all the British punk bands. I heard the Go Betweens and Radio Birdman here for the first time and I probably never would have got the chance to hear the Sex Pistols and the Ramones except for RRR. Later on I remember taking my then two year old son to hear the Models in the car park at the back of Readings in Carlton, sponsored by RRR, and he danced away in his wet nappy at the base of the stage. He’s now a musician in his own right and I won’t embarrass him here by identifying him. RRR has helped shape Melbourne’s Art’s scene and it has been crucial in keeping interesting and creative music alive and thriving in Melbourne and Australia. Thirty odd years on I still listen every day because it still shits on the rest. Graeme (subscriber)
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BRIAN NANKERVIS (RocKwiz):
The moment Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust For Life’ burst from our radio in our freezing communal house in Camberwell sometime in 1977, I was hooked on Triple R and have been ever since. My friends and I couldn't believe it. We liked guitars and great songs and punk rock and blues and we loved Talking Heads, Jonathan Richman and The Clash and here was a station that played all our favourite records and others we'd never heard of. Great music and great talk ... intelligent and irreverent conversations about films and politics and art and sport and a whole lot of stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.
In 1979 I rang the station and asked if I could do a show. I did three training sessions and a couple of weeks later began a six month stint of Sunday morning shows (6 am - 9 am). I was a Primary School teacher in Glen Waverley all week and a junior footy coach each Saturday, but every Sunday morning in the half light of dawn, I'd drive to Carlton, giddy with excitement. Climb the rickety stairs of a terrace house in Cardigan Street, put on my intro music (The Third Man Theme) and open the show with some obscure Bob Dylan ... or maybe Graham Parker ... or The Saints or Ella Fitzgerald or Muddy Waters or Gram Parsons or ‘I'll Be A Dag For You, Baby’ by The Fabulous Nudes … or anything, absolutely anything my heart desired. I continued doing this, in various timeslots, on and off for the next sixteen years, finishing with four years on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons with the great, late, loud and luscious Lynda Gibson.
In January 2004 we were driving up Punt Road, heading to Fairfield for Lynda's funeral. We were running late, the baby was crying, the weather and the traffic was ridiculous and we were overwhelmed. Cranky. Heartbroken. I turned on Triple R to hear the final moments of ‘Tears Of Rage’ by The Band which led perfectly into ‘I Shall Be Released’ by Dylan, ‘Torn and Frayed’ by The Stones and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ by Nina Simone. Tim Thorpe was filling in on The Galactic Zoo’ and I wondered if he was doing this for Lynda, but he didn’t mention it. ‘Sleeps With Angels’ by Neil Young begins as we turn into Heidelberg Road and suddenly we're getting out of the car in brilliant sunshine, walking down to the river to celebrate an independent, brave, unpredictable, honest, exciting life. Thank you Tim, thank you Triple R, thank you Lynda.
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LISTENER ANDREW
In the late 70’s as a pre pubescent burgeoning music lover I asked my mother if ‘they’ would ever run out of songs one day. I turned around and walked back to my bedroom with the sounds of dear young mum’s laughter and giggling as the walk out score. Not having the lexicon to explain what I meant was frustrating but not as frustrating as sitting in my bedroom listening to a mono tape deck tuner with Casey Kasem’s American top 40. This music was shite and everything else the bumper stickers advised me on was boring too. The pursuit for change began. I remember the horse girls from the old apple orchid speaking about a band from England called the Sex Pistols. They had foul language in their songs. Exciting for a young lad from the far outer suburbs of Melbourne’s east where Barnsey & Co ruled the hifi. There was nothing cool about bogans back then. They definitely didn’t think I was cool. So stumbling through the dial one night I heard a song by the Sex Pistols. I remember it being introduced but forget the actual song. 3RRR FM. Triple R. This station was so bad it has a Triple R rating. My little brother and I agreed. This sounded like the oasis in the desert.
Andrew
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LISTENER DAVID
In June 2000 I was attacked by a virus that caused my heart, lungs and kidneys to shut down. I was placed on life support in an induced coma for 14 days before being woken up to commence a very long convalescence and a slow recovery.
I became a virtual recluse in my own home.
From somewhere a spark appeared out of the fog of boredom and frustration. I recalled tuning in to "Punter to Punter" years ago on RRR and more or less by chance I tuned in again. Well that happened to be one friday morning and Tony Biggs was really "On the Blower".The prgram was amusing and amazing but most of all it was INTERESTING.
Of course I became a fan of many other shows
- The Breakfasters
- Chicken Mary
- All Over the Shop
- Skull cave
- Vital bits (thanks Tim)
- Off the Record
- and I have been a subscriber for many years.
Musically I became reaquainted with Nick cave, The Triffids and NEIL YOUNG. and have been introduced to the stunning Martha Wainwright,The Felice Brothers and amongst others the Drive by Truckers.
So thanks RRR and Biggsy for helping to revitalise a now 58 year old.
David
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LISTENER BOOK
My RRR experience started back in the late 80’s as a teenager at a Catholic school. There was a particularly nice priest (aren’t they all?) who played guitar and listed to Bob Dylan. In one class we had to analyse and interpret The Times They are A- Changin’. It was the starting point for developing an inquiring mind that delved into the back catalog of Dylan. Nobody I knew listened to Dylan and I felt isolated in my musical tastes except for a bunch of urban mates that got fanatically into TISM circa Trucking Songs. One day in my early Uni years driving along on a Satdy morning I was scanning the dial on the car radio (they still had them then) and stumbled onto Dylan’s Boots of Spanish Leather. Who’s playing this? Is there somebody in this world I can relate to musically? Surely not. Brian Wise from Off the Record back-announced the track and starting talking about music. not giddy with mindless glee like other FM jocks but considered, passionate and really took the time to explore the angles- who played on the albums, other work the artists had referenced, up and coming gigs etc etc. Suddenly I was home. My solitary and lonely musical existence opened up through the stereo of a Mitsubishi Colt! I kept listening to Off the Record buzzing about on Saturday mornings and over time tuned in to other shows and found other presenters also passionate about music and if they weren’t playing music they were passionate about their chosen field. Over time through RRR I fell into a myriad of other artists like six degrees of separation.
I started playing guitar in high school and still do purely for personal enjoyment. I subscribe to Community Radio and listen regularly. When I start talking to colleagues , friends or family about the malaise of Commercial Radio ( I’m on commercial Radio!- sorry too many TISM references) the penny doesn’t drop. I’ve stopped trying. To this day I still don’t have family or friends that I can share my musical joys and pleasures with. My wife understands. I attend gigs on my own. A concept that I guess is only odd to only non-subscribers, but I’m not lonely in a musical sense. All of this great music exists in my head, through my ears connected through the wonderful community of radio.
Post script: The trusty old Colt ran a tape deck and I remember buying a holder for 20 cassettes, I couldn’t ever imagine needing more. Now my media player is full up with 30 gig and I’m still complaining.
Cheers
Book
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CAROLYN COURT - FORMER PRESENTER, WATCHING BRIEF
I first heard of RRR when I was working for Perth community broadcaster 6UVSFM (now RTRFM) in the 80s, where former RRR station manager Kath Letch earnt her community broadcasting stripes. One of the other 6UVS announcers had visited RRR and came back with stickers and news of the cool people over there ‘in the east’. I eventually moved to Melbourne and was lucky enough to become a RRR broadcaster for a few years on the enviro program Watching Brief. It was common for me and my colleagues to be leaving the old RRR station exit at all hours of the night after working hard editing programs. It didn’t make me rich but I met amazing people and got to be a conduit for other people to hear what activists and scientists had to say about environmental issues.
I still love RRR for its fantastic music and information broadcasting and I’ve discovered alot of my favourite music through hearing tracks on ‘The Skull Cave’ or the other great music progs on the station. I rely on RRR to hear about events, films and information important to alternative culture and activism.....oh and for unpretentious broadcasting and a laugh.
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DAVE GRANEY - PRESENTER, BANANA LOUNGE BROADCASTING
I came to Melbourne at the dawn of the 1980s. From Adelaide where I'd been living for a couple of years. FM community radio had just started there and I tuned into RRR when I arrived. It was a natural fit if you were into occult or underground music. We were all into import records and they were expensive so radio was a good way to hear things. RRR also had film and sport related comedy stuff which was pretty immediate with me. I loved to listen to the mellifluous tones of John Flaus talking about film. He could range on so many subjects so effortlessly. His young and eager offsider, Paul Harris, was always snapping at his heels trying to keep him on track and the show within the two or three hour format. I could have happily listened all day.
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LISTENER L
I remember everything about the first time I heard RRR. I was 15, miserable, living with my older sister in the depths of Wantirna and flailing around trying to work out where I fitted in. My pet guinea pig, Muffin, lived in my room and I had a lurid Ken Done doona cover. I rarely opened the windows or curtains and, strangely enough, the room stank! I had left a violent home and a sociopath of a mother a few months earlier and I was blah……BUT…
I’d just had my first musical epiphany. We had headed off at the age of 15 to see Icehouse at the Venue in St Kilda, two girlfriends and I, dressed in white satin shirts and pale blue denim skirts – all three of us! The Church and Boom Crash Opera supported (this was 1986) and at the end of the night whilst my girlfriends were cooing about what a spunk Iva Davies was I was already dreaming of paisley shirts and more of the that jingly jangly and wall of sound guitar stuff. Total transformation.
Having not been allowed to listen to any contemporary music whilst living at home I was now sucking up music, any music, and clearly it was only a matter of time that when left to my own devices I would stumble across what I liked, which turned out to be RRR, on my crappy tape deck/radio, in all its staticy 1986 glory.
Being a free 15 year old, unrestrained by parental control, meant I could basically do anything I wanted to do, as long as I kept working at Kmart Boronia and had money to see live music, buy LPs and cassettes, head off to nightclubs and, in 1987, buy my first RRR subscription, the membership card of which I still have. Being underage did not keep me from seeing live music and, guided by RRR, the next couple of years was just work and music, a goth phase, a skater phase, then equilibrium. Bored and God at Rocking the Ramps, the Ramones at Festival Hall, Lubricated Goat and No in a West Melbourne warehouse, the Jesus and Mary Chain at the Metro, the Beasts of Bourbon at the Punters Club, Wednesday nights at Chasers Hard and Fast, Friday nights at some place downstairs opposite RMIT and Saturday nights at Thrash on Bridge Road, the Cruel Sea’s first show, supported by Kim Salmon somewhere in South Melbourne, and so on and so on and so on. And, my first RRR giveaway – tickets to Guns and Roses at the now defunct Sports and Entertainment Centre, supported by Kings of the Sun, hee hee.
RRR has had a special significance in my life because it dragged me out of a bad place at the right time, an adolescent malaise in the suburbs that I could have easily stayed in as many of my childhood friends have. RRR took me to ‘the city’, a share house in Brunswick, a whole new world of music, art, literature and to friendships that were formed on dance floors, in the mosh pit, over beer and over music – friendships that continue still and are a positive link to a past that didn’t have much positivity prior to that. RRR is still there, live music is still there but there definitely isn’t enough beer in my life anymore. Pesky children. Who listen to RRR, ask why Biggsy is angry and why is he allowed to say ‘fuck’ and who have the freedom to say “I like that song” or “turn that off, I don’t like it!” All good.
Cheers, L
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LISTENER BRETT
The first time i came in contact with the r's was in 1990 flicking station's and came across the ghost thinking who's this bloke?. Then followed up with another listen and got station to station Karen leng and i was hooked.
Took me 7 years to finally subscribe can remember it clearly because i was on my way home from the birth of my first child kyle , that was 12 years ago.We have left everything behind in Melbourne town for this year
and are traveling around Australia with two kids and of course my wife.After being on the road for 5 months we have seen some amazing places and people ,But the one thing i miss is this station after trying the commercial stuff and with next to no service in the places we are, streaming is not an option. I won't be taking it for granted i am a sub and will renew even if i'm not there and can not stream.I think of all the new music i'm missing out on
Thank's who ever for the ipod BRILLIANT!!!
Cheers Brett
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NICOLE TADPOLE - PRESENTER, RESPECT THE ROCK
A fond memory I have of one of my first actual contacts with RRR was in year 12 - me and a couple of mates were passionate listeners & subscribers (especially to Fast Fictions....budweigal!), so we would con our English teacher, Mrs Baker, into letting us use the office phone during class to ring in for the film giveaways on a Tuesday morning I think it was? I scored passes to see Natural Born Killers, and the Jon K (Ren & Stimpy) doco at the (then) Valhalla in Northcote, to name a couple.
Love TadPole xx
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LISTENER JANE
Hello :)
I first made contact with RRR when the Breakfasters had their regular Thu morning session of playing Burt Reynold's autobiography. Every week on the way to work, my husband would change the station from the commercial to RRR and we would have a giggle over the Burt's cat mouth. Each time, we'd leave it on longer afterwards until we never went back. RRR is such a relief to listen to after you've had the annoying adverts and repeats of top 40 hits.
Since then, our favourite shows apart from the Breakfasters are the Ghost and Dirty Deeds.
thanks,
Jane & Darren
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FEE B-SQUARED - PRESENTER, BREAKFASTERS
I went to a semi rural high school where, like most schools, commercial radio was de rigueur. When I say de riguer, I guess I mean if you listened to something different you wouldn't own up to it for fear of being ostracised somehow. I remember an older kid listening to the radio from his boom box on the school bus and when I asked which station he kind of rolled his eyeballs and said "Triple R." It was the early 80's and I can't remember which track was playing, I just remember wanting to make further contact with RRR as soon as I got home. I tuned in here and there for a quite a while and once I could afford it, I subscribed and felt rewarded immediately. The music was incredibly diverse, nothing was playlisted, the chat was interesting and it just felt 'real'. I would have to say that Karen Leng's 'Station to Station' program was the show I connected with most. Not only did Karen seem to love everything I loved, but she was a woman in charge of her own music program, which meant she chose all the music, she interviewed all of the guests and she was the one who introduced me to my new favourite band every week. I was absolutely inspired. I still catch Karen's current show whenever possible. I can still hear her enthusiasm for RRR and her passion for bringing new music to the listeners in her voice.
The first time I made contact with the station in a physical sense was when I went in to the Fitzroy studios to purchase my first RRR t-shirt. I had a vague look around at the posters on the wall and just wished I could work somewhere so cool. I became a regular Radiothon volunteer after hearing a call out for volunteers. It was exciting doing various shifts answering phones for some of my favourite broadcasters, all while watching the magic of radio happen in front of me. Volunteering filled me with a further appreciation for the passion and hard work shown by the volunteer broadcasters and staff, and I offered to help them out whenever I could. The following year I followed up by helping with the entry of subscriber data and this eventually flowed on to a job as volunteer receptionist. I soon applied for and got a paid position as the RRR receptionist. So, from being a listener, to behind the scenes volunteering, to a visible role at the front desk meeting a wide variety of guests and subscribers, I was completely hooked.
While working on reception, the program manager made contact with me, asking why I hadn't put in a program submission. Hilarious….me? On RRR? Not long after, I submitted an idea for a program with a friend and, what do you know, I got a show. I couldn't believe it. I started my broadcasting career on a program called VPL (Visible Panty Lines) which lasted for a year. I then moved into a program called Tigerbeat, which I had to give up when I was approached to do The Breakfasters. After years of listening to the station I loved, I was actually going to start co-hosting the show I had grown up listening to!
I am glad I made contact with RRR all those years ago and thank Stephen Black, that kid on the school bus with the boom box, for kick starting me on a journey that has taken me far beyond my bus stop, to a place I feel so fortunate to be.
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LISTENER TARYN
Hi there,
Just wanted to share my little story with you.
I'd been an occasional listener for a couple of years, but I got a job at the Tote last year, and then my craving for quality music with a local perspective meant I began tuning in quite frequently. After it was announced the Tote was closing, the support from the RRR community was huge, and I made the decision to use what I thought would be my last pay to buy a subscription to RRR. Now that I have my old job back, and am a paid-up subscriber, I couldn't be happier!
Taryn
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LISTENER MARK
Dear 3RRR,
Here I am now, member 154552. But it has been a long journey with many highlights.
I am indebted to the station because they allowed me to come in and talk about Marc Bolan and Trex. It must have been around 1976/77 when I was a student at RMIT and it was morphing from a student radio station to a greater entity. The presenter allowed me to bring in my vinyl albums and he sorted them out and cued them up. I prepared pages of text and selected lots of tracks. All up, I was probably in there for a couple of hours. No rehearsal and straight into it. The presenter made it very easy for me and I really enjoyed it. (He may have a different view). One of the highlights of my life!
I am still a huge fan of Marc Bolan and somewhere I still have the cassette tapes where a friend recorded my “session”. So Triple R and I go back a long way.
The other fond memories are the first time I heard Rebecca Barnard (Rebecca’s Empire) and Lucinda Williams. They were moments when I stayed in the car to hear the full track and then find out who the singers were. That point was the genesis of many years of following those artists.
Regards
Mark
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LISTENER ANDREW
I first heard RRR in 1978 and I remember the moment perfectly. I grew up in Ararat, far beyond the reach of RRR’s signal. I was forced to rely on Countdown and a handful of country radio stations in order to hear any new music. A sadly inadequate situation.
But I had heard of Triple R. I was in year 10 at the time. One of my brother’s mates had an older brother who was at uni in Melbourne and I scavenged second-hand tidbits of musical enlightenment via overheard conversations. One of these tidbits was a glowing description of a community radio station called Triple R.
I found out the frequency and committed it to memory but of course, was never able to tune in. Still, I dreamed of the day when I could, and never forgot that crucial number.
Then, as often happens, a completely unrelated set of circumstances conspired to make my dream a reality. In 1978, the town of Ararat was doing it tough. So tough in fact, that when I set about organising my work experience, I could find nowhere that would take me. I had to look further afield. As it happened, I had a brother-in-law in Melbourne who needed a worker for a couple of weeks. Bingo! This was the chance I was waiting for.
So, I packed my bag and headed off with Mum and Dad to my sister’s place. In my room was a bed and a clock radio. I dumped the bag on the bed, switched on the clock radio and, for the very first time, tuned into Three Triple R.
I heard the voice of a young woman. Natural and unpretentious. This was a revelation to me! She talked for a few moments about the previous track. Then she played XTC’s Making Plans For Nigel. Another revelation! I was intoxicated by the moment, and knew that this was exactly what I was looking for.
I have been a fan of RRR (and XTC!) ever since. I first subscribed in 1989 and, apart from one year when I was living over seas, have continued to do so, even when I have lived beyond the radio signal. I can’t even begin to calculate the influence that Triple R has had on my musical and cultural development. A beacon in the dark. A safe harbor from the cyclonic bullshit that is commercial radio. The jewel in the junk-heap.
Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story.
Andrew
