Presents a personal diatribe
Ex-Cocteau Twin SIMON RAYMONDE presents his personal diatribe, ‘Video May Have Killed The Radio Star (But Now Everyone’s Dead What Shall We Do?)’
"Seventy-five years ago, one single radio show caused mass hysteria across the USA and resulted in the military being called in to restore order and calm the panic. Orson Welles’ The War Of The Worlds was broadcast in October 1939 and so convincing was the performance of Welles’ Mercury Players, made to sound like a live news report, by breaking into the regularly scheduled shows, that literally thousands of people ran screaming from their houses across the country, convinced that aliens from Mars were landing. That one episode prompted years of research by the US Government agencies into the phenomenon of ‘mass hysteria’.
It struck me that from the early 1920s till the 1960s the radio was the only device delivering music, news and entertainment to the world. Its power in being the only real-time window to the world outside the living room was significant. In Woody Allen’s marvellous Radio Days, we see all the families of the Jewish neighbourhood in which he grew up, sat silent and anxious around the wireless in the front room as news of the situations in Nazi Germany came in.
This collective experience of living history as we hear it together, has mostly disappeared from our lives. The headphones we all now sport isolate and confine our feelings inside our tiny heads, which are already full of other mostly meaningless data. Either that or we consume our news and entertainment by standing on packed trains staring at the screens of small phones that now spend hours not minutes per day in our sweaty palms.
On the upside, the actual content available to listen to on whatever device you are currently packing is better than ever. In my own field of music, I am spoilt for choice. Some will disagree, and there is probably some value in the argument that never has so much shit been available so readily to so many, but thankfully it is countered by the wonderful music I find DAILY for my radio show, or for the record label I run, Bella Union.
Yes, you have to wade through a lot of mud and dirt before you reach the deeper blue sea, but the journey is always worth it, if you believe in it. Radio may never create mass hysteria on the scale of October 1938, but I can attest to its remarkable and resurgent power as recently as last night.
The Manchester band Money performed a live session for my radio show on Amazing Radio, and in over two years of doing radio shows, I have never had a reaction to any song or session as overwhelming as they received from the public. I had goosebumps for two hours during the show, from the music and from the reactions. There is SO much music out there, it can be hard to filter through the junk to get to the good stuff and then even harder to mine the special stuff, but last night PROVES that whatever radio is now or becomes in the future, it can still be a force for good."
Simon Raymonde runs the label Bella Union Records and hosts a weekly new music show on Amazing Radio. His new band Snowbird will release an album on Bella Union in 2013. The label’s 15th Anniversary 2012 sees them taking over day one of End Of The Road Festival on Aug 31st with the cream of the label’s roster.
"Seventy-five years ago, one single radio show caused mass hysteria across the USA and resulted in the military being called in to restore order and calm the panic. Orson Welles’ The War Of The Worlds was broadcast in October 1939 and so convincing was the performance of Welles’ Mercury Players, made to sound like a live news report, by breaking into the regularly scheduled shows, that literally thousands of people ran screaming from their houses across the country, convinced that aliens from Mars were landing. That one episode prompted years of research by the US Government agencies into the phenomenon of ‘mass hysteria’.
It struck me that from the early 1920s till the 1960s the radio was the only device delivering music, news and entertainment to the world. Its power in being the only real-time window to the world outside the living room was significant. In Woody Allen’s marvellous Radio Days, we see all the families of the Jewish neighbourhood in which he grew up, sat silent and anxious around the wireless in the front room as news of the situations in Nazi Germany came in.
This collective experience of living history as we hear it together, has mostly disappeared from our lives. The headphones we all now sport isolate and confine our feelings inside our tiny heads, which are already full of other mostly meaningless data. Either that or we consume our news and entertainment by standing on packed trains staring at the screens of small phones that now spend hours not minutes per day in our sweaty palms.
On the upside, the actual content available to listen to on whatever device you are currently packing is better than ever. In my own field of music, I am spoilt for choice. Some will disagree, and there is probably some value in the argument that never has so much shit been available so readily to so many, but thankfully it is countered by the wonderful music I find DAILY for my radio show, or for the record label I run, Bella Union.
Yes, you have to wade through a lot of mud and dirt before you reach the deeper blue sea, but the journey is always worth it, if you believe in it. Radio may never create mass hysteria on the scale of October 1938, but I can attest to its remarkable and resurgent power as recently as last night.
The Manchester band Money performed a live session for my radio show on Amazing Radio, and in over two years of doing radio shows, I have never had a reaction to any song or session as overwhelming as they received from the public. I had goosebumps for two hours during the show, from the music and from the reactions. There is SO much music out there, it can be hard to filter through the junk to get to the good stuff and then even harder to mine the special stuff, but last night PROVES that whatever radio is now or becomes in the future, it can still be a force for good."
Simon Raymonde runs the label Bella Union Records and hosts a weekly new music show on Amazing Radio. His new band Snowbird will release an album on Bella Union in 2013. The label’s 15th Anniversary 2012 sees them taking over day one of End Of The Road Festival on Aug 31st with the cream of the label’s roster.
