Diversity With Intolerance

Warning- words of a dubious nature appear in this piece! If you are offended by bad language- don’t read past this point. 1

DIVERSITY WITH INTOLERANCE 2

Community Radio station 4TTT in Townsville, Queensland is very possibly the most boring radio station in Australia. It was created by a bunch of farts in 1982 who had you screaming, “Nerd Alert!” The station has completed a full circle returning to its original vision of its anally retentive founders. But for a time there in the mid eighties there was a schism in the ranks of monumental proportions when the lunatics took over the asylum. 3

A friend of mine, Scott had the graveyard shift at one of the commercial stations where he played Human League, Ultravox and Culture Club to the good folk of Townsville while blasting through the studio speakers George Thorogood’s version of ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer.” He would sing away at the top of his lungs while he cued the next ‘bit of crap’ and then with a flick of a switch, in dulcet tones of his radio trained voice,4

“And that was the fabulous Thompson Twins…” flicking over to an ad break while he threw the single across the room like a Frisbee, 5

“Fucking rat music!” 6

One day Scott casually suggested to me, 7

“Why don’t you go down to 4TTT, they are running announcer courses. You might be able to get their listenership up over 1% of those who aren’t strapped in a chair unable to change the station.” 8

4TTT, 103.9 FM was run out of the back of the Arts Centre on the corner of Walker and Stuart Street. The main studio was in a dark old vault with very solid walls and a thick metal door. When the next massive cyclone hits Townville that is where I’d be heading. The course took all of one night to explain how the turntable works, as this was before CD’s and how to cue records carefully. They should have seen how Scott cued a record they would have passed out. What all the buttons and switches were for and what was expected from an on air presenter. By what I had heard on air so far, the real answer was, ‘not much.’ After a bit of practice the new on air presenters had to do a half hour show in a jazz type format. Community radio is a little like car racing because sooner or later there is going to be a major bingle. My first half hour on air was just plain embarrassing. A half-hour of jazz unfortunately didn’t mean a whole side of the Monterey Jazz Festival where I could announce once and relax a little. No tracks were to be longer than three minutes and there had to be a pre-recorded ad followed by a community announcement after each track. I sat down in the chair, trying not to pass out with nerves while the other announcer finished up his show. I started cuing up “La Vie En Rose.” by Marlene Dietrich and couldn’t get the needle onto the right track without it bumping and jumping and skidding across the vinyl as my hand shook like it had terminal Parkinson’s. Trying to take deep breaths, I heard the other record slowly play down as I practiced in my mind. I flicked the microphone on and wanted to say in the ten-testicle voice of James Earl Jones,9

“I’m David, welcome to a half hour of Jazz.” What actually went to air sounded more like stuttering Mickey Mouse on speed. 10

“Hi!” I squeaked, “I’m D…D…D…D…v…vvv…d, wwel…wel …wel…jesus!” and on came Marlene who no sooner started became stuck on a stray bit of snot or something, before I even had the next record out of its jacket. In a blind panic I shouted,11

“Oh good God.!” which was the only thing I didn’t stutter over and it was about then I realised perhaps the microphone should be off. I tried giving the needle a gentle nudge and Marlene shot from the roses, the record bounced off the shithouse and the song eventually settled with the “Boys in the Back Room” If there were a worse debut I’d hate to hear it. I kept thinking, ‘Who could possibly be listening to this crap?’ It was only the next day when I think I may have bumped into every one of the 1% of listening audience who said, 12

“Heard you last night.” They should have said, “What the hell was that?” as I stumbled from one disaster to another. 13

“This Thur…Thur…Th…Th…day after Wednesday night here at the Arts Centre a…a …a… special nigh…nigh…niiiiiii…evening of crochet and fun. Everybody’s wel… wel…with Gladys Jones who brings 70 years of crocheting experience to this informmm… mmm …mm…mmmmm….ative night” 14

Gee, that went well! I think I will go see Gladys Jones and stab myself to death with a crochet needle! Amazingly enough I wasn’t the only babbling idiot in the roster of 4TTT’s announcers. The line up was chock a block with the verbally impaired from lisps and Elma Fudd to the mumbling and dyslexic. Also their ranks swelled with the plain boring who just loved the sound of their own voice as they drone on and on with a bad case of humourless verbal diarrhea. For the most part, 4TTT’s one success was curing insomnia in Townsville. Its big thing was ‘diversity with tolerance’. It was diverse in the same sense as beige is diverse from cream. The programming was a cracker with shows like “Old Time Melodies” presented by the near dead to entertain the barely breathing. My favourite presenter was Red Dundas Taylor who could mutilate a community announcement like no other. He was a master of mispronunciations with no peer. In one classic moment out of many, while reading the liner notes for a Louis Armstrong record he referred to the great trumpeter as “Sak-a-mo.”  He was often given announcements with five syllable aboriginal names simply as a matter of sport. But in the 1984, their catch cry of diversity with tolerance came back to bite the founders of the station. 15

The soothing sounds of Percy Faith and sing along with Mitch Miller found themselves giving way to The Clash, The Jam, Buzzcocks, The Smiths and Siouxsee and the Banshees. The Slits were derailing Doris Day and the suicidal tones Joy Division replaced Perry Como. Born free to dead soon! What started as a trickle in a show here and there was soon turning to torrent and the farts wanted their station back. But unfortunately for them, two significant things happened. Programming changes were put to the board for their consideration to see just how diverse with tolerance they wanted to be. The answer was abundantly obvious; they weren’t. In the minds of their President Colin Johnson or Treasurer Ray Hurle, they may have thought they were both open minded but real tolerance of this new diversity was quickly withering under the onslaught of Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols screaming, 16

“I’m so pretty, you’re so pretty vayyyy…cunt and I don’t care.”  17

Johnny may not have cared but this very conservative board cared greatly and tried turning off the tap to this new found programming freedom. I remember the first time I played it to a conservative friend of mine, ‘Anarchy in the UK.’ I am sure the 4TTT board was thinking the same thing as what he said about punk music, 18

“Not really your Song Sung Blue is it?” 19

The second significant thing the board inadvertently did, was appoint a full time station manager in Peter Tozer who turned out to be a Trojan horse for the dark side. Whilst appearing to accept the board’s diversity with beige attitude it became obvious the station was starting to shift off its axis. More and more young announcers applied putting pressure on less and less dinosaur music to be played. Henry Griggs was a big, funny, interesting Bacchus like character who loved science fiction and an avid comic collector. And he loved his music, as he personally owned an enormous collection of real diversity beyond imagining, or certainly beyond the board’s imagining.  And in the wee small hours of the morning, in the mid eighties, Henry had musically the most interesting radio show in Australia. What Colin Johnson and the board failed to see beyond this very affable oversized man was that Henry wanted a few changes beyond the token moment. What 4TTT needed was a new head and Henry was about to lop Colin Johnson’s head clean off in an acrimonious coup d’tat at the next general meeting of the station’s subscribers in late October of 1984. By running a very quiet, very clever campaign with the full support of a supposedly neutral station manager, the new guard had gathered more proxy votes than a Enron general meeting. They of course denied it but we all love politics. The meeting itself was an all in shit fight where no one really came out looking like roses, except perhaps Henry Griggs. Colin Johnson’s behaviour was bordering on demented when it dawned on him that this army of, as he described them, unemployable, lamentably behaved rock fans were not there just to watch. As the outcome of the voting became apparent, despite every committee trick and duck shove, it was obvious a good outcome for those who really liked music with a bit of soul rather than listening to the musical equivalent of wallpaper.  Dummies were spitting long and loud after the meeting where Colin Johnson became increasingly rattled by being taunted with loud shouts of “DICKHEAD!” from the mob. 20

The station for a short, shining period of time really was diversity with tolerance but like Robin Williams in ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ slowly but surely the farts got their station back. It converted back to James Last, Pat Boone and some real cracker polkas until today, 1984 is like a lost memento buried in a bottle. 4TTT continues to churn out some of the most tedious programs in Australia. The plus side is Townsville’s insomniacs continue to get a good night’s sleep.21

“Yet I believe everything has a moral in it if only you can find it.” Said the King to Alice in Wonderland and that is certainly true.22

By David Peter Robertson23