#DanceDanceDanceDanceToTheRadio? - A Sad Day For Music Broadcasting
🎶Hey, I can't find nothing on the radio! Yo! turn to that station🎶 (R.E.M.)
Today, October 26th 2016, represents a sad day for music broadcasting everywhere and not just around the 53rd parallel in the little rocky North Western Europe island that is Ireland. With the demise of TXFM Dublin what we face is truly the loss of one of the most iconic radio stations anywhere on the planet. 📻😭
Many tributes have been paid in recent months as to how TXFM with it’s constantly inspired and eclectic musical selections helped people get through the pain of commuting and the monotony of tedious jobs, as well as pointing listeners in the direction of music they just wouldn’t have heard elsewhere. I was one of those listeners - could I ever forget when I first heard Kelly-Anne Byrne playing the strange sounds of Ezra Furman and being so taken with it that I had to stop the car and call a music buddy to urge him to listen in. It's been a long long time since I'd experienced such car stopping moments, not since the days that Cathal Funge honoured in his prize winning TXFM "Left of the Dial" tribute to the golden period of Irish radio - well I would argue that recent years in the company of TXFM have once again been great days for those of us lucky enough to have been ale to hear the likes of KellyAnne, Cathal, Joe, Nadine, John, Paul, Nialler, Tara and Claire. This was rock n roll radio using the type of "aural ammunition" envisaged by Joe Strummer on Radio Clash, and were he alive today no doubt Joe would have been a fan of TXFM and would be dismayed by their closure.
No matter where I found myself in the world in recent years I always listened to the TXFM broadcasts coming from Dublin through the magic of technology. It is unbelievably hard to find comparable radio stations even in the likes of a city such steeped in musical history such as San Francisco. As a long time music lover, rarely in my travels had I come across a station evidently full of such good humoured music obsessed broadcasters who invariably made the listeners feel as if they were part of an extended family who just happened to be listening in to brothers or sisters playing sounds in an adjoining room. For sure they "turned me on when they got me on that wavelenth baby" and listening to TXFM I didn't need any encouragement to " turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher, radio, turn it up, that's enough, so you know it's got soul!" as Van The Man pleaded.
If things were still as they were 'back in the day', many would now be out marching to protest at the demise of 105.2 just as some of us took to the streets to support the 'pirates' in the days before some TXFM listeners (& DJs!) were even born. Now in this X-Factor dominated 2016 world it seems that few care about the aural garbage which is being tossed at us across the dial on a daily basis. Unfortunately the potential musical education of today's children will be that bit more dimmed by the extinguishing of the light that is TXFM.
Sadly from tomorrow we're facing the appalling situation in the Dublin of 2016 where any self respecting music fan will be left with the choice of a few specialised shows and a handful of credible music broadcasters at marginal time slots across just one or two other stations on the Irish airwaves.
And so the Irish airwaves will be given over to even more inane banter and music with no artistic content, and there will be even less opportunity for new (e.g. Fangclub) and long neglected (e.g. Rollerskate Skinny) Irish artists to be heard.
Yes, October 26th 2016 will come to be remembered as a truly sad day by those of us who love music and broadcasting. From October 27th a shocking vista indeed awaits us. All in all TX's demise is just another brick in the wall of the annus horribilus that 2016 is turning out to be.
One wonders if whether from now on we will be singing "This Is Radio Nowhere, Is there anybody alive out there" as Bruce suggested? Or, as Elvis Costello sang "the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools, tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel"
Time to switch off that dial and go back to seeking refuge in our own playlists from now on where we’ll know how it feels to be on our own again ('how does it feel'?!?) but in the comfort of our own musical “light which never goes out”. Yes, some of us may be older now and “clever swines” as The Smiths suggested, but we don’t forget the “songs which made you cry” and the “songs which saved your life” and we’ll always remeber the “only ones who ever stood by you” like TXFM did to relieve the dull monotony of a damp Monday commute.
So now that the music's over, I'm with Jim Morrison in wanting to "turn out the lights" and "cancel my subscription to the resurrection" baby.
A final farewell and thanks to TXFM for all those terrific memories they've left us with and especially to Joe, Kelly Anne, Cathal and Nadine, we were blessed to have known you!! May you stay forever young! 👏📻👏
PlaylistGuy Dublin, October 2016
🎶Well I could call out when the going gets tough The things that we've learnt are no longer enough No language, just sound, that's all we need know To synchronise love to the beat of the show, And we could dance Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio, Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio🎶 (Joy Division)