Monthly Archives: March 2024

60s Hits — and The History of Offshore Radio

March 30, 2024   Programming

60 years ago, on East­er Sat­ur­day 1964, Radio Car­o­line began reg­u­lar broad­casts at noon on 1520kHz, “199 metres”, from the MV Car­o­line (for­mer­ly the Fred­eri­cia), anchored off Felixs­towe, Suf­folk, from where it had begun test trans­mis­sions the pre­vi­ous day. The first pro­gramme was host­ed by Chris Moore. Radio Car­o­line’s first musi­cal theme was Jim­my McGrif­f’s “Round Mid­night”, a jazz stan­dard co-com­posed by Thelo­nious Monk. In March 1964, The For­tunes record­ed Car­o­line, which became the sta­tion’s theme. The sta­tion’s slo­gan was “Your all-day music sta­tion”. It was the start of a three and a half years that changed the face of British broadcasting.

In mem­o­ry of the immense changes and ben­e­fits the off­shore sta­tions brought to music radio and to lis­ten­ers in search of pop­u­lar music on the air around the coasts of Britain and Europe, we are com­mem­o­rat­ing the event today with a spe­cial pro­gramme of music from the 1960s, as you might have heard on the off­shore sta­tions, plus a spe­cial broad­cast of a 1970 radio doc­u­men­tary by Paul Har­ris, “The His­to­ry of Off­shore Radio”. The doc­u­men­tary cov­ers the peri­od 1958 to 1970 and includes the ear­li­est Scan­di­na­vian sta­tions such as Radio Mer­cur and Radio Nord, as well as more famil­iar sta­tions like Radio Lon­don, Radio Car­o­line* and Radio Veron­i­ca. The peri­od is illus­trat­ed by many airchecks from the major­i­ty of the sta­tions oper­at­ing in this peri­od in addi­tion to a com­men­tary which tells the sto­ry, from ear­ly begin­nings, to years of suc­cess and some­times dark deeds. The pro­gramme is par­tic­u­lar­ly notable in that it was made in 1970 — soon after the events it depicts occurred,

Tune in for this spe­cial pro­gramme at 2pm Pacific/SLT.

We’ll also be broad­cast­ing episodes of “Where Have You Been?”  at the usu­al time of 12 noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT, and “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, every 240 min­utes from 4am Pacific.

*Radio Car­o­line is now a licensed com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion based in SE Eng­land. You can vis­it them here.

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Woodwinds

March 27, 2024   Programming

Today’s pro­gramme fea­tures mem­bers of the wood­wind fam­i­ly — oboe, clar­inet, flute, bas­soon, recorder and more, includ­ing the gamut of Ear­ly Music wood­winds like the shawn (the pre­de­ces­sor of the oboe), cur­tal (a pro­­to-bas­­soon) and crumhorn.

Of course, the major­i­ty of orches­tral music includes a wood­wind sec­tion, so the cri­te­ri­on for inclu­sion in today’s show was that a mem­ber of the wood­wind fam­i­ly is the lead instru­ment — a “wind band” is not suf­fi­cient (and they’re gen­er­al­ly usu­al­ly brass-heavy any­way), but a con­cer­to for bas­soon (yes there is at least one) counts.

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Jack Flanders in Steam Dreamers of Inverness — Series 4

March 22, 2024   Programming

Tune in on Fri­day for the next episode of anoth­er excit­ing radio ser­i­al from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion: “Steam Dream­ers of Inver­ness — Series Four” - in which Jack Flan­ders and his friends con­tin­ue their excit­ing Steam­punk adventure!

The com­plete adven­ture con­sists of 16 half-hour episodes, in four series of four episodes each, broad­cast at noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT on Fri­days.

Cur­rent­ly we are broad­cast­ing the four episodes of the fourth and final series.

Now read on…

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Tarot @ Teatime Episode 39: Tarot Storytelling

March 4, 2024   Programming

Tune in for the final episode of the cur­rent sea­son of our orig­i­nal series, “Tarot @ Teatime” as we dis­cuss Tarot Storytelling.

Episode 39: Tarot Storytelling
In this episode we talk about Tarot sto­ry­telling, and why this is so impor­tant to both devel­op­ing as a read­er as well as to pro­vid­ing quer­ents with a real­ly pow­er­ful, com­pelling narrative.

Nar­ra­tive – sto­ry­telling – is an impor­tant part of a Tarot reader’s tool­box, and in fact, Tarot read­ers have tra­di­tion­al­ly been sto­ry­tellers, tellers of tales that they see in their cards.

We talk about how Tarot read­ers can devel­op this skill, and how they can use their cards to begin devel­op­ing a nar­ra­tive — a sto­ry that is unique and ger­mane to their querent.

“Tarot @ Teatime” is broad­cast on Thurs­days and Sun­days at noon and 4pm SLT/Pacific Time.

This is the final episode of the cur­rent series of Tarot @ Teatime. You can find the exist­ing shows in the series on Mix­cloud.

A new series begins on Sun­day, April 14th. In each episode, Hon­ey Heart will dis­cuss one card from the pop­u­lar Rid­er Waite Smith deck, cov­er­ing sev­er­al dif­fer­ent aspects of the card and includ­ing a sam­ple 3‑card read­ing fea­tur­ing the card in the key posi­tion in the lay­out. Watch this space for more information.

#tarot #tarot­cards #tarotread­ing

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March 3: Celebrate the Music of Mardi Gras & Carnivale!

March 2, 2024   Programming

Does the win­ter lull before the true arrival of spring have you melancholy?

Dress up in some­thing bright and join us in the beau­ti­ful, exot­ic Wil­low Grove Ball­room — or live on the air — on March 3rd, from 1:30–3:00pm SLT/Pacific as we cel­e­brate… cel­e­brat­ing!

VCRa­dio DJs Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er and Elrik Mer­lin will be fea­tur­ing the music of Mar­di Gras and Car­ni­vale from around the world.

Let your spir­it rejoice to the sounds of New Orleans Jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, Zyde­co, and oth­er world music. Dress: For­mal or Carnivale.

Your car­riage awaits!

This is one of a series of for­mal events VCRa­dio is pre­sent­ing month­ly dur­ing the course of this year. Stay Tuned!

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