The Red Bull Music Academy Pirate Popular Soundclash sails into the harbour of Portuguese capital Lisbon this weekend to showcase more great sounds – in celebration, we tuned into a few pirate frequencies of our own…
1890...
Pirate radio has been around almost as long as radio itself, with ships’ captains in the 1890s complaining that interference on their airwaves was hindering navigation. Even in 1912, as the RMS Titanic sank after striking an iceberg, rescuers were hampered by unscrupulous radio transmissions, which led to new laws to restrict amateurs. Trouble is that it’s hard to know where pirate radio is being broadcast from. Ever tried to listen to your favourite show on the radio only to have it interrupted by someone shouting over some really crap music instead? Exactly. At least Pirate Popular Soundclash is something you want to hear…
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Music from 20 top acts will be played at the Pirate Popular Soundclash. Music from M-PeX, Orelha Negra, Lisboa Sport Clube de Funk, Soulbizness, Discotexas, Mega Bass Club, DJ GI Joe + Tribruto Showcase, Sistema Sonoro Fazuma, and the brilliantly-named Bob da Rage Sense will be among the tunes hitting the airwaves.
99.0...
As well as broadcasting to a cheering crowd in the harbour, for one night only, Popular Pirate Soundclash will occupy the 99.0 FM frequency in Portugal’s capital city, but those not in Lisbon needn’t panic. The whole show is also being streamed online at redbullmusicacademy.com, and there will also be some transmissions via Portugal’s Antena 3
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Red Bull Popular Pirate Soundclash hosts the Ginga Beat crew, aka Violet, DJ Mpula and Rui Miguel Abreu, have already reached Vol 68 of their regular Ginga Beat show. A typical 60-minute broadcast begins with 30 minutes of the hottest international music, care of Abreu, with DJ Mpula and Violet taking turns as hosts of the second half-hour’s more Lisbon-oriented content. DJ Ride and Gustavo Rodrigues are on-hand to help with recording and editing.
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Red Bull Pirate Popular Soundclash is a marathon, not a sprint. This year’s will last a whole nine hours, from 6pm–3am. Last year’s event was 10 hours long. That’s a lot of music and a late night, so grab a can of Red Bull before you plug your headphones in and settle down for the evening!
1964
One of the original and most famous pirate radio stations to play music that kids actually wanted to hear was Radio Caroline (named after the daughter of assassinated US President John F Kennedy), initially afloat in the North Sea off Suffolk, UK. After its launch in 1964, the UK authorities did all they could to make Caroline and a number of other copycat stations illegal in 1967, but despite interruptions, sinkings and new ships in different locations, they only partially succeeded. The real winners, apart from the listeners, both in the UK and Continental Europe, who got the music they wanted, were some of the DJs who went on to become household names on conventional radio stations back on land.
172,400,000
Of course, sometimes pirate radio suits the authorities’ own political ends. Organisations such as ‘Voice of America’, which has an estimated annual budget of US$172.4m to produce pro-US radio content around the world, have been sending their message over the airwaves to ‘hostile’ territories, such as Cuba and China, for decades. Kol HaShalom (‘Voice of Peace’) was a station broadcasting for 20 years from the Mediterranean coast near Tel Aviv, Israel, as a beacon of hope that Middle East peace would be achieved, with the late Beatle John Lennon as an early advocate. The ship was deliberately and symbolically sunk after the Oslo Peace Accords were signed in 1993.
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If FM radio weren’t hard enough to monitor, two-way radio still winds up the authorities around the world today, with many a smalltime enthusiast ending up talking to people they shouldn’t on aircraft, ships and during police chases. The exception is short-distance 27 MHz radio – aka ‘Citizen’s Band’ or CB Radio – which was especially popular in the 1980s. In the US TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, it was practically compulsory, and hit movie Smokey and the Bandit made it cool to spout utter bullshit across the airwaves while driving erratically (not recommended, but see what we mean below).
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