I've got a lovely memory of ambient listening to Saturday Night the National Radio Saturday Evening request programme. We were living in Christchurch from 1995 to 2000 and had wonderful elderly neighbours. Our house was set in nice gardens and we shared a long driveway with our neighbours whose house, also set in nice gardens had been subdivided off our one some time before we bought. As a consequence we both had a private and peaceful setting to live in.
We never heard much from the neighbours but we did have a lot to do with them. Wes, in his mid 80s used to tend our vegetable garden and his wife Mary, in her late 70's would invite us in for tea and cakes. They were very quiet and the only sounds we heard from their house was on Saturday evenings.
After dinner they used to play the radio with the National Programme's Saturday Night playing - loud enough for us to hear from next door. They looked forward to this all week and would sometimes put in their requests. A couple of times we saw them dancing to a favourite tune. Magic.
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| Peter Fry |
It wasn't a programme for me and The Old Girl though as most of the music was quite a bit before our time. We did appreciate that it was available though and Peter Fry's selections and the listeners requests were a kind of welcome relief to the awful crap that was played on commercial stations.
Fry retired in 2014 and Saturday Night has been taken over by Phil O'Brien. Now I don't have anything against Phil, he was a Marist Brothers and St Patricks College classmate for years after all and he has extensive radio DJ experience. His encyclopaedic knowledge of music from the 1960s to present day is impressive.
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| Phil O'Brien |
I also respect that, twenty plus years after the music we overheard in 1995 needs to be updated, at least by the same couple of decades. Old buggers like me will soon be listening to Saturday Night if they aren't already and so the music should be from the 1940s through to say the 1970s to keep pace with their ages and wants.
On Saturday last I listened to O'Brien's programme and was very disappointed. He had some great selections that resonated with me from my youth to my 20s but unfortunately a lot of requests were for much, much more recent music.
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| David Gray for god's sake |
It occurred to me that the generation after that of my elderly neighbours, and the one just before my generation, are being cheated. This wonderful programme - long may it last- is being bastardised and will probably result in a loss of listeners in the ideal age bracket. Once this happens it's a short road to programmers axing the programme due to low ratings. On the night that I listened many of the requests were from the 90s and 2000s. Surely there's plenty of outlets for this on other radio stations. I suspected that a lot of listenership came from those who listen to O'Brien's and Simon Morris's Matinee Idle which was quite good when it first started up 10 years or so ago but has since become tiresome.
11 comments:
Yes, the gap is filled by the generation older than us but not as old as our parents - a kind of sub-generation or even older baby-boomers.
Have we created a grammar Nazi?
4 is good.
Is that out of 4 or out of 5?
No gods or holy seagulls were harmed in this post you will notice.
I think that Phil O'Brien was in Richard's class at St Pats but I could be wrong.
He was definitely the same year as us and I went to Marist Brothers Newtown with him.
I said that no gods were harmed in the post itself but I didn't say that the comments were going to be free of religious vitriol .....
what do you mean you tried to read it with an open mind?
Open mindedness and Christianity is an oxymoron. Surely?
No.
She resides in Auckland during the week.
We only see each other on the weekend unless I'm in Auckland as well.
I have free reign to my diatribes, rants and ravings during the week.
Sorry.
Dinner to cook.
Meatloaf, roast potatoes and broccoli to look after with maybe an Esk Valley Chardonnay.
An oxymoron is a rather thick person who has a bullish demeanour.
Ask your brother Richard. He'll know.
On second thoughts don't. He's afraid of cows.
I leave you two alone for about a bloody hour! Look, you two children, listen to the Andrews Sisters, restrict your intake of alcohol, think about string instruments and stay off your bloody blogs! Richard's Bass Bag* actually has a reputation to uphold.
People, who frequent my blog, are talking about these lesser blogs that I link to. Pull your socks up, for Christ's (first name Jesus) sake!
* the original bass bagging site
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