Subject: Re: 104.1 pirate
From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) 
Date: Oct 03 1995
Newsgroups: ba.broadcast

In article <44pcbu$rfa@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> bender@oobleck.eng.sun.com writes:

>So, I ask again - what possible "voice of the people" is being quashed by
>the FCC not allowing pirate stations to spring up all over and play rap and
>hip-hop? I would have more respect for pirate stations if they broadcast
>political diatribes 24 hours a day, but it seems all that the local Bay Area
>pirates do is to grab a frequency and play dance music.

You have to understand the dynamic. Pirate radio is a children's game.
It is done by dilletantes (who believe they are god's gift to
broadcasting) who, at that moment, have nothing better to do. Political
activism is the seasoning of justification used to ensure an atmosphere
of importance and necessity. Otherwise, it is just "playing radio"
isn't it?

In any event, this psuedo activism will only sustain itself for so
long. After all, where is the fun in boring political diatribes? And
you will notice how quickly the interest by the public at large waned
over the topic of "freedom of the airwaves". After awhile, it just
degenerates into making noise on the air. In the nineties, it is dance
music. In the sixties and seventies, it was folk and folk rock.

Eventually, the in-fighting, bickering, and the realization that there
is really nothing at stake will cause even the last gasps of a pirate
station to fade back into the noise. A game without stakes, goals, or
rules is not a game worth playing. As I pointed out when this latest
manifestation began, the point is not what is presented, but the
presentation itself--an unlicensed station that defies the great and
mighty FCC. When that topic becomes boring, there is no point to the
station at all. As has been mentioned, it presents nothing that is not to
be found elsewhere.

In my lifetime, pirates have come and gone. None of those previous have
had the net to self-publicize, so only those who actually picked up
the signal or read the blurbs on page 26 of the newspaper had any idea
what was going on.

>I LIKE the music
>that a lot of them play, but I just don't understand how playing the latest
>12: that you just bought at Obscure Records and Head Shoppe is "giving a
>voice to the voiceless"...?

I think that pretty well sums up pirate radio as a phenomenon.

-- 
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