Train to Invisible City - Threads Radio and Invisible City on East Side Radioo

IdleRich

IdleRich
We now have two radio shows on two different stations which provide an interesting contrast. Rather than do loads of events I'm just gonna put 'em up here when I remember to (just to cover the extremely unlikely eventuality of someone actually wanting to listen to one them).

Threads is a London based radio station - it was called something else until recently (I forget what to be honest) but they have rebranded and, as part of that rebranding, they have launched a European version. I think that now the London (UK) stuff is sorta their BBC1 and their BBC2 equivalent consists entirely of shows based in Europe (but not the UK). For this latter channel some shows are created live by going in to their studio (there is one at Grow in Tottenham and I think they have others in Europe but could be wrong) and doing it straight to air, but some (the majority I believe) are done by the DJs recording them at home or with any facilities they have access to and then sending the recorded mix to them in good time for their next slot so it can be played when required. The advantages of this are of course that you can erase mistakes and do more stuff, check information etc etc Ultimately you would expect this method to generate more polished shows (er, though not in our case cos we had to do in-between other things at a busy studio... should be sorted for the next show). Our show is called The Train to Invisible City, the first one is here and it will repeat every four weeks with the next one on 23rd May.


East Side Radio is based in Lisbon, they record out of the back of an abandoned booze shop owned by some Mexican guy, the shelves in the back room are stuffed with bottles of tequila and (strangely) there are a number of those Mexican wrestling masks kicking around (apparently this is only a temporary base but no sign of their new one materialising). They want their radio station to be something that happens just as it's broadcast, you come in and do your show live - no pre-recording, no doing it somewhere else - you meet the guys who run it and the dj who was on before you and the one after you and maybe the ones before and after that. They have explicitly said it's more important to them that people listen live whereas Threads have implied it's the n umber of times people click on the mixcloud of the show that they will be monitoring.
Our show doesn't really have a name as such, it's just Invisible City - I'll put the new shows here as they arrive.
 
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Leo

Well-known member
I love that you're doing adventurous radio, it's an art form unto itself.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I love that you're doing adventurous radio, it's an art form unto itself.
Er I dunno that I'm personally doing anything adventurous as such. And maybe I've made that sound too one-sided as to which way of things I like best. I mean, ultimately I do like the ESR way best cos it really does feel like you're part of something in that you go in and meet the guys and they give you beers if you want and they took a load of us out for dinner once (they probably take everyone out in the end). Well, basically, Tiago and Andre who run it (Funkamente is their DJ name) are the nicest guys in the world. I love them and I love their enthusiasm for what they do, for all types of music. I don't know for sure but there must be stuff on there that they don't like or that they even hate, but they have this amazing ability to understand how someone else might be passionate about whatever it is and to give those people a chance to be passionate about it on air. They are fantastic.
But I don't mean to say that Threads are wrong in the way that they do things. They are putting on shows from all round Europe so it's not gonna be possible to just pop in and record it with them. Their station is a whole different kettle of fish. And there is a (to me) slightly deeper point, the technology exists so why not use it? Someone could argue that doing it live and in person is a kind of rockist approach to radio broadcasts. Kinda like people saying "I am a real musician cos I make proper music on real wooden instruments". And also, when a person is listening to an ESR vs a Threads broadcast can they tell that one was made right there with some drunk people having fun and chatting to their mates next door and the other one was recorded in someone's bedroom and sent over by WeTransfer?
Personally, as someone involved, I don't care if that argument is correct, it is a lot of fucking fun going to East Side Radio and it is exciting to be part of something and meet loads of people...
 

luka

Well-known member
Threads is the one Lee (ach! From dissensus) runs. It was called 199 and operated out of new river studios. It's the one my show was on.
 

luka

Well-known member
Obviously when I done mine I was drunk and doing it live. Im getting wifi this week. .. in theory... so I'll fi a finally be able to listen to this sort of thing again. Uses too much data atm
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Obviously when I done mine I was drunk and doing it live. Im getting wifi this week. .. in theory... so I'll fi a finally be able to listen to this sort of thing again. Uses too much data atm
Yeah Lee said "Do you know Luke *****" and I said "No, who the fuck is that?" and he sounded a bit miffed and said "well he's in your FB friends" and I didn't say I anything but I thought to myself that there are millions of dickheads I've got in my friends list but that doesn't mean I really know them...
Then a bit (weeks if not months) later I said something about dissensus and started going on about you again and it finally clicked and I realised that I was (inadvertently) being quite rude and dismissive. And yeah, he told me he was Ach on dissensus which rings a very distant bell. I don't think we've ever met though as far as we could work out.
Yeah it was in New River Studios and now it's in Tottenham I guess. Our first show was recorded effectively live in the ESR studio. They kindly stayed behind and let us do it there, so we made it and sent it to them. Then it turned out that they wanted a two hour show so we had to go back and do another hour later. For the second hour we'd been up all night doing things and we tried to take the edge off by drinking loads. I was quite the worse for wear by the end, all the mixing was fucked up... but luckily we'd actually recorded a few extra minutes and so I could edit out most of the (many) bad bits and still have just enough to send in as a radio show. The next one we'll do a lot more properly, in fact we're doing it right now.
 

luka

Well-known member
Lee's nice. I've known him for ages, pre dissensus. From the blog days. He always comes to my birthday drug binge/booze up
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Lee's nice. I've known him for ages, pre dissensus. From the blog days. He always comes to my birthday drug binge/booze up
He seems cool, it turns out we have a mutual friend. A guy called Olaf who has a show on the station told me to get in touch with Lee cos Liza wanted a show based in UK as well as the ESR one.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I don't think they know what ket is here. Though they make up for that by pretty much all being cocaine dealers. One guy actually has had the most interesting life. I probably shouldn't say this but he aint gonna read it - first he was a cage fighter, then he started training to be a lawyer, then he started selling cocaine and now he's standing to be an mp (right wing party obviously).
 

luka

Well-known member
One of the funniest things I remember is when he spoke in some made up gibberish for a whole week and said it was the language of Sirius, the dog star. Fucking right weird
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
One of the funniest things I remember is when he spoke in some made up gibberish for a whole week and said it was the language of Sirius, the dog star. Fucking right weird
Hmm, I remember when Mr Tea did that - although he didn't say it was the language of Sirius, he thought it was English but it wasn't.
 

luka

Well-known member
Craner did that after a couple pulls on a spliff although it only lasted for one night. Couldn't make English noises at all.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Latest show from us on Threads Radios with some guests this time who are, neatly enough, the guys who run East Side Radio
 
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