A community radio station was set up in Rhyl last year to cater for the populace of the town & surrounding area. Through the extraordinary efforts of a few hard working people, this brainchild has proved successful in cutting through all the ridiculous red tape that the Broadcasting Authority put potential stations through. SHORE FM RADIO MORFA will be granted their full broadcasting licence on 106.6FM.
The shows, as you would expect from a community radio station race through the entertainment spectrum leaving no stone unturned, ranging from the interesting to the bland, from the good to the downright awful. The hosts again, as you would expect from a community radio station range from semi-professional DJs (some of whom underwent personality by-pass operations to get the job) to enthusiastic amateurs using the station as a platform for bigger & better things.
The Blind Lesbian Dwarf Appreciation Society not being the types to let an easy target get away lightly with self congratulationary back slapping (& that includes the Sons Of Selina) decided to produce a parody website of Shore FM & called it SPANK FM RADIO MORPHINE. Using pseudonyms of the station’s personnel the BLDAS created a station shrouded in a web [sic] of vice & fraud; all done in jest & with hilarious results.
The North Wales press somehow tracked me down & asked what I had to do with it, saying that it smelt of Crud; this is how I got interested. I saw the web pages of Spank FM & being an avid listener of the station, I split my sides with laughter; this was one of the funniest things I had seen on the www in a long time. The site was extensive & the detail & storylines were superb. Two days later the North Wales Evening Leader ran a front page headline
ANGER AT RADIO STATION SLUR
This brought it all flooding back, I used to tip the press off about something outrageous in Crud, they would blow it out of all imaginable proportion, slap a sensationalist headline to it & Bob’s yer firkin!!
If I was a director at Shore FM (& I very nearly was!) I would have been popping the champagne corks; a week before my station was due to go on air for its second trial run and we receive a front page headline. What more publicity could we ask for? An advert like that would’ve cost hundreds of lottery grant funded pounds.
However unfortunately the Shore FM board of directors, most of whom had long ago undergone humour by-pass operations, didn’t quite share the same joviality that I did, had I been amongst them. Reading the quotes from the Chairman of The Bored in the newspaper I had to check to ensure there wasn’t a mistake somewhere;
“This is libelous & we are taking advice to see what can be done. A bit of fun is one thing but this goes beyond a joke. It’s bordering on the crude & obscene & we want it off the Internet.”
Was he talking about someone mocking the death of Princess Diana? Had someone taken a swipe at the poor Queen Mum? Were Romanian orphans being used as the butt of some sick joke?
No, Shore FM community radio station didn’t believe that someone, entitled to their own opinions had dedicated what must’ve hours of their time to create this superb send up.
Phil Brown, the all seeing, all hearing, leading voice and authority on everything at the North Wales Weekly News stepped up to the pulpit for his weekly sermon to condemn the Spank FM authors as ‘cretins.’ How dare anyone slag off Shore FM Community Radio, after all they’re not in it for the money, they’re doing it for the community.
Quite surprisingly Shore FM, or one particular person involved with the station who wasn’t (& I quote) “a mental patient” managed to convince AOL to remove the offending site off the pages. Probably full of self satisfaction that person went back to the Bored of Directors triumphant with the achievement. The BLDAS told me that they did consider phoning Virgin Net to say that their radio station Spank FM, was being parodied as a fourth rate Estonian Talk FM radio station run by fossils and it was bordering on the libelous, but then the dwarfers wouldn’t be able to click onto the copyrighted Shore FM pages & have a good laugh. Of course by having AOL remove the website only sent it underground and if you’re smart enough you’ll find the Spank FM pages in their entirety on the web, & it has also been spammed across the newsgroups where the audience is much bigger & where I’m afraid The Lionheart of the station isn’t able to take his dummy out & cry to mummy.
So why was there an almost hate campaign launched by the station? When the BLDAS realised that it was so easy to wind the station up they soon discovered that The Lionheart was a well balanced man; with a chip on both shoulders. The BLDAS e.mailed the station asking questions as to what the volunteers’ motives were & were they, as they claimed, simply working for the community when a local radio station can be a lucrative business. The BLDAS asked for answers as they were concerned that this may spoil the integrity of the station’s lottery grant.
The next correspondence was relayed by word of mouth & that the case was now in the hands of the solicitors (how are the lawyers being paid?). So that was it, the raw nerve had been hit, Shore FM in sheer paranoia were frightened that all this adverse publicity would somehow affect their lottery funding, publicity fuelled mainly by their own reaction to the newspaper reporter’s questions.
This of course now makes the situation & their reactions (although stupid & naive) a lot clearer, because they have nothing else to hide have they?
Let’s face it, the Manics are the most important band of the decade, but I’m the 5th member of the CrudCrew to attempt a review at this Welsh offering, the previous 4 having all committed suicide; one of whom doused himself in petrol at midnight, ignited himself & jumped off the cliff on the Great Orme in Llandudno singing Everything Must Go.