Classic Radio Cuts

Here we invite you to listen to a podcast of pirate radio from yester-year, 1984-85. It includes an historical moment when Solar Radio and JFM Radio made the very first simultaneous broadcast to mark the start of new year.

From a UK perspective pirate radio has been around since the first British pirate station, Radio Caroline started off the Essex coast in 1964. Soon many more would appear right through to the mid 80’s when pirate radio flooded the airwaves with the sounds of Soul & Raggae Music. Some say that we owe it to the pirates for the rise of soul and black music in general to its current popularity in today’s music in the UK. Opening the doors to Hip Hop and Rap leading right up to today’s modern trends. Back then the pirates were constantly at war with the authorities who would often track then down, to simply wipe them off air, even during a live broadcast and confiscate their equipment, but the pirates would always come back.

There was huge support for the pirates from their ever growing audiences and it soon became a game of cat and mouse between themselves and the authorities. So in the mid to late 80’s the government had to eventually give in to public demand and make a truce, in the form of a legal Soul station for London. In return the pirates had to agree to close down never to return which would qualify them to make a bid for the licence. On September 1st 1990 Kiss FM was awarded by the then home secretary Douglas Hurd a legal licence to broadcast. Kiss FM was first set up as a pirate radio station in October 1985 by Gordon Mac who today runs the popular Mi-Soul radio.