Mulct

Vacationer - Gone

SUMMER! The sun came out today. I drove home with the window wound down, although I did it back up when I was on the motorway because it got too windy and when the wind goes through my hair it makes it dry and unruly.

I had a moment with a guy driving a van. We were in York, adjacent at lights. He had his window down, as did I. He had his music on, as did I. He was hammering the steering wheel with his drumstick fists. I was reaching for a high note, my neck stretched out, my eyes mostly-closed in effort. I didn’t quite make that note. We saw each other but we carried on. 

When I pulled up towards the end of my road, where it is sealed off with 10ft of brick wall, I watched a food delivery man come down between the lines of parked cars at a pace. He got beyond me, almost to the end, then realised that his escape route was a mirage, that there was a brick wall between him and home, that there was no way back other than backwards. He had to reverse all the way out in his van, an inch either side to the stationary wing mirrors. And as he passed me? He gave a smile and a shrug. Sun was shining, that’s why.

Ever get caught doing something that you wish you hadn’t been caught doing? I’m not talking about hugely embarrassing or shameful acts, just those times when you get caught with your guard down, truly being yourself. It happens to me all the time. Usually in the car, that famous cell of invisibility. In the car you can sing, dance and pick your nose and no one can possibly see you. Wrong. Anyone passing can see you. It’s a joyful sight, when you catch someone else singing their hearts out and pumping the steering wheel with their tightly clenched fist. 

This morning I caught the cat looking at himself in the mirror. I walked away pretending I hadn’t seen, in order to preserve his dignity. Later, I was sat thinking about what could possibly be going through an animal’s mind as it stared into the mirror. Surely its tiny brain couldn’t understand the concept of a mirror? Having said that, I don’t either, although whenever I become confused about anything I can always just ask a fellow person with my human voice. A cat can’t do that. So I was thinking about this, when in walked my girlfriend. “Are you listening to Calvin Harris?” she asked. I was, and it was too loud to be “just on in the background”. It was like she had caught me with my pants down. Again.

I’m mentioning this because sometimes I get really self-concious when I’m listening to music, especially in the car. When on the motorway, you can have whatever you want on, at whatever volume, and it doesn’t matter, no one can hear. But when you slow down you need to be careful. I like a bit of hip hop, but I don’t think I’m the sort of person who can carry off listening to the Notorious BIG loudly in a public sphere. You might deduce that I say this solely because I’m not black. There’s more to it than that. I’m just not urban. 

Some people will claim that they don’t care what other people think. But they are either lying to the world or lying to themselves. If no one cared what other people thought, society would crumble. For a start, I would start parking outside my neighbour’s house, even though I know it really upsets him when I do this. Things would probably spiral out of control from there. 

It might just be my hang up, I’m not sure, but I think we could all loosen up a little bit. Let’s be honest with ourselves. I’m going set the ball rolling right here - I am  big and brave enough to say, proudly, and on the record… I like Calvin Harris. 

That feels better.

Time to touch that dial.

Turn on your FM radio now. If you have a DAB, then turn that on. Try three music stations. I bet they are all shit. Music radio in the UK is unequivocally shit.

The problem is that if you don’t want to listen to the same five terrible chart hits played in a continuous circle interspersed only with adverts for local carpet shops, you are forced onto the BBC music channels, of which the best, 6Music, is available only digitally.

Radio 2 passes the time, but in the same way that sorting your shoes passes the time - slowly and with an air of depression. The only highlight to a day spent listening to Radio 2 is when Pop Master comes on and you can remind yourself by failing the quiz that actually your life hasn’t been completely wasted listening to the brainless trivia that comes from the regular companionship of Ken Bruce.  

Radio 1 is hard to criticise without revealing yourself to be bitter and ageing, but let’s face it, it is unquestionably dire. The Radio 1 daytime schedule begins with Chris Moyles and chums trading stories about their celebrity mates and dreaming up woeful parody songs. It ends with the ‘John Peel’ slot, now hosted by one of the station’s new champions of contemporary music, Nick “Grimmy” Grimshaw, who appears to be in the job only to remind us how great Peel actually was. That’s saying something, because if I’m being completely honest, and if it’s not going to get me thrown in the Tower of London, I was never really a fan of Peel’s show…

I suppose my gripe is that the DJs have become the focal point of the shows, not the music. When you wake up to the same voice every morning, it becomes like a comfort blanket. Like heroin, you take it away and you get a bit narky. Likewise, another DJ voice is there as you drift off to sleep every night, just like your mother singing soothing lullabies. Without that nightly reassurance, your life seems empty and cold. 

And that final line, the one that ended in “empty and cold” brings this post to its enthusiastic zenith. The point is to say that there is an alternative! Thanks to our old pal The Internet, we now have access to hundreds of stations which aren’t focused solely on lulling their way into the grinding routine of your life. They are there to challenge and inform, to bring new sounds and old sounds and other sounds that are neither that old or that new but are just undeniably good. There is a place where the DJs have no urgency to talk about themselves, but instead want only to play music to make you have a good day. 

Listener supported radio like KCRW in California and WDVX in East Tennessee are so finely tuned into what their audience wants because they are directly funded by the listeners themselves. They would not survive if they were not attracting enough support. Yes, the BBC is, strictly speaking, listener funded. But I don’t choose to pay the licence fee every year, I have to. And in any case, the fee is split between the hundreds of channels and stations and projects and other outlets that the BBC has that it does not reflect at all where I think the money should actually be going.

Listener funded radio does exist in the UK. There are a few stations about. The Living Tradition is one example, a folk station set up in a guy’s house in Bristol. It needs to be supported. Not specifically The Living Tradition, although I’m sure they would appreciate it, but whichever station it is that takes your fancy. With the developments in mobile internet technology, I predict there will be a greater demand for this kind of radio in the near future. Through supporting these stations you will be supporting new music. It is kind of organic, and it should be embraced. That is if unless you are happy with Fearne Cotton ‘tipping’ a band as if no one had ever read Pitchfork, or the whooping of Steve Wright’s posse, or YET ANOTHER episode of Moyles’ Car Park Catchphrase, in which case you are a lost cause and you should go get your head shrink wrapped now, and not in that way that people get all sexed up for. Shrink wrapped to death.