Cause and Effect presents:

Cause and Effect: Pirate Radio with DJ Miss Kitty

No, we’re not talking about the Pittsburgh pirates or the swashbuckling sort, today’s Cause & Effect episode takes a look at the Pirate Radio movement.

In 1964, there was nowhere easy for British youth to listen to rock ‘n’ rollers like The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones. Commercial radio wasn’t yet an option, and the guardians of the publicly-owned British Broadcasting Corporation considered such music immoral, antisocial and unfit for public broadcast. Yet just three years later, on Sept. 30, 1967 — the BBC switched on the transmitters of Radio 1, the country’s first dedicated popular music station. What happened to change their minds? The answer to that question — and the story of how pop music came to the FM dial in the U.K. — involves illegal offshore broadcasters AKA PIRATE RADIO.

Drive around some parts of London today and you’re still liable to hear mainstream radio broadcasts drowned out by fleeting bursts of unfamiliar music. Pirate radio stations have been illegally hijacking the FM dial since the 1990s, but while the pirate scene is far smaller than it was in its heyday, the influence of pirate radio has endured and the movement is still thriving on a local scale, and a vibrant array of online-only stations are inspired by the energy and spirit of the pirates.

Carrie Thornbrugh    Cause and Effect    April 29th, 2023

Posted In: Fund Drive, Music, Music Shows

Tags: #wrir #localmusic, Electronic, music, Music show, obscure, variety, WRIR