Radio Musicola – A more personal post.

“we’re growing, we’re growing up, to radio musicola” Nik Kershaw sang in 1986.

“you can find it in the streets you can find it in the elevators you can find it where the ladies wash their hands it emanates from littleboxes on the wall and it’ll soon be coming in disposable tin cans”

Last week I heard that the DJ I have listened to for three hours a day, every weekday, for 14 years, is to leave Radio 1. Many people are relieved that he is leaving the airwaves and many more are saddened. I know he divides opinions but he makes me laugh out loud on a daily basis and his morning rants have become part of my life; and 14 years is a lot of life.

Over those years, things have changed. A lot…

He first started on the Drive time show in 1998. The year I got married…. for the first time. I was 25 and full of excitement for the future. Billi Piper was a pop star(!) I owned a house in Verwood, Dorset. I had two cats and a Mk2 Golf GTi and life was good.

In 1999, I moved to a cute cottage in Wimborne and got a dog who became one of the most important things in my life. Baz Lurmann’s “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen” was on the radio. Late in the summer I heard “Drinking in LA” on the radio and proclaimed “why am I NOT drinking in LA at 26?”. Almost immediately the phone rang and my boss told me that we had a customer problem that only I could fix so I should get on a plane the next day to California…. not LA but a little place called San Francisco (funny how life works). This plus a few business trips to Chicago gave me a taste for the US, but it was a guy called Frank and a large steak at the top of the World Trade Center in New York that finally pushed me over the edge.

In January 2000 All Saints were singing about Pure Shores and Madonna was destroying American Pie and I had an interview in New Jersey. By April the house was on the market and I was living in a hotel in NJ. In July the family followed (wife, two cats and my dog).

Life in NJ was fun. Sometimes frustrating but mostly good. Thanks to the local rock station (95.9 ‘The Rat’) I rediscovered Pink Floyd. Hearing “The Wall” on my Saab’s sound system inspired to me to buy some CDs (remember them?).

The Saab was replaced by a 1975 Porsche 911S and a V8 Jeep and both  added to the fun. Rock radio for the drive to work and Radio 1 over the Internet at my desk while working.

A second dog joined the family. A German Shepherd crossed with a Rottweiler. She is the soppiest great muppet you could ever meet. This period of time all ways comes back to me when I hear Spiller / Groovejet “If this ain’t love”

Sept 11th 2001 changed things; In the world, in the US and in my life.

Average America seemed shocked that anyone could dislike them, that people could attack a country that only helped the world, not harmed it. American flags appeared everywhere and even the poor old fry potato had to be renamed to remove “French” from it.

We carried on for another couple of years, and it was still mostly good, but a mind was made up and some bad personal news in 2003 meant that the decision was final. In early 2004, Peter Andre was back in the UK charts that DJ was promoted to the Breakfast show and the house was being packed for the move back home.

In 2005 my wife became pregnant.

For the first time in my life I actually worried on planes (I was flying somewhere almost every week for work), I actually found myself thinking that if I was wrong, and there was a God, then maybe he could make sure the plane didn’t crash today. If not for me, then for my unborn baby who deserved a Dad, even a non believer Dad. I guess you might call that praying.

At the second ultrasound there wasn’t a heartbeat. Our baby had died.

Nizlopi were singing about JCBs and my world collapsed around me.  I had to be strong. I was needed. Even my precious dog was “just” a dog that week. It wasn’t until a few weeks later, after things had calmed down, that I allowed myself to burst into tears.  It was the middle of the night and  I thought about how I would never walk my daughter down the aisle or see her graduate from university… I was devastated.

Carrying her coffin at the funeral was the toughest thing I have ever done and to this day I can’t listen to Eva Cassidy’s Songbird without crying.

The following spring Gnarls Barkley was Crazy, Sandie Thom wanted to be a punk rocker and we decided to buy a house. People used to joke that the three most important things in my life were my Golden Retriever, my 911 and my wife… in that order. In 2006 my lovely 911 wasn’t being used enough and I didn’t want it to fall into bad condition though lack of use so I sold it to raise a deposit to buy a cottage in Ropley that my wife was in love with.

Six months later we decided to divorce so she moved out of her dream cottage and Rhianna spent a very wet summer at number 1 singing about her Umbrella (…ella …ella …eh …eh).

The following February my poor Golden succumbed to Cancer…. so much for those three most important things in my life! They were all gone. I was alone and I sank into a depression that lasted for many months.

During those dark lonely days, I listened to dark, depressing music. The sad sounds were comforting and I rediscovered my love of music. I listened to Metal, blues, soul, pop and even opera.

Eventually I snapped out of my depression(listening to happy music helped) and decided I need a change. I needed to be in a city not the countryside. I needed to be where people (single women) were. My work wanted me to move to Stockholm. Paris was another option that was suggested but my heart had been left in Sydney the previous year and it became my first choice. Most of my close friends lived in NJ, so that became my second favourite.

On a business trip to NJ in the Summer of 2009, I explained my dilemma to a few of my friends. Someone really important to me said that they would love me to come back to NJ but it would be a career mistake, it would be a dead end and another friend said “I can’t think of any suitable positions here, but we really need someone we can trust in Northern California if you would be interested?”

So in December 2009 I moved to San Francisco. My bosses wanted me to live nearer Cupertino, but after growing up 70 miles from London and living 50 Miles from New York City, the thought of living 50 miles from San Francisco, especially as a single guy, made the decision very, very simple.

Every evening I drove back to the city listening to tracks by bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica. A song I will always associate with the first winter in San Francisco was Help I’m Alive by Metric and I still break into a huge stupid grin if I hear Californication when I’m driving along the 280 and the sun is shining.

In August 2010 I met The Wife and within a few months we were living together and by Thanksgiving I had proposed. It was good to feel happy again and in a few weeks we will be celebrating our first Wedding anniversary.

So to sum up, that DJ has been there on the radio providing the soundtrack of my life through two cats, two dogs, two marriages, one divorce, death of a baby, death of two cats and the death of a dog. He has been there when I lived in Dorset, NJ, Hampshire and California.

Over the last three years, that DJ and his team have kept me in touch with the UK and entertained me during my 50 mile drive to San Jose and back.

Luckily he doesn’t play much music and to be honest I skip over most of the awful Radio 1 playlist when he does, but the show makes the journey fly by and the open way that they talk about their lives makes them feel like friends.

I will miss the show when it ends it September…. but it will allow me to get back to listening to music.

Which is probably a good thing….