Reason on the radio

Scanning the radio for something interesting, I was suddenly hearing someone speaking sensibly about the bombs earlier in the month.

After some time, it transpired that it was a recording of speeches made at the Stop the War Coalition post-bombs rapid-response rally held in Friends House Gardens and that I was listening not to a pirate station, but the duly licensed London art radio station Resonance.

Run by the London Musicians' Collective and with Robert Wyatt as an honorary patron, Resonance started broadcasting in 2002 in central London and on the internet as part of the Radio Authority's Access Radio Pilot Scheme, to provide a radical alternative to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting.

The non-commercial station, which features programmes made by musicians, artists and critics representing the diversity of London's arts scenes, is currently seeking a five-year extension to its licence.

Resonance's extraordinary range of musical genres is both enticing and educational.

From traditional Scottish though contemporary classical and underground Japanese to black metal, it is every adult music radio station in one.
Magz Hall's diverse You Are Hear and Artrocker's humorous shows are immediate favorites. While you're certain to like a lot of Resonance's musical content, equally, there will inevitably be more challenging content.

However, it is Resonance's speech content that is particularly captivating.

One morning recently, I heard an Angela Davis lecture. Another time, there was a recording of a speech made by George Galloway in Chicago earlier this year.

Resonance carries material aired on the acclaimed progressive Pacifica radio network from the US, including Amy Goodman's Democracy Now.

As well as artists of all kinds, the station gives regular voice to Londoners as diverse as radical pensioners from Deptford, cyclists and Indymedia. Morning Star music columnist Lee McFadden was interviewed recently.

Its coverage of London's world famous Speaker's Corner is a treasure in itself with the current trend in suppression.

Saturday evenings has the hugely entertaining Max Keiser's The Truth About Markets.

Keiser is a radical capitalist concerned that those in power are liquidating the environment in the pursuit of profits.
His jolly good rants about the rigged so-called free market, which he terms neo-feudal corporate occupation, are not to be missed.

Foreseeing the mother of all economic crashes on the horizon, Keiser's diatribes are reminiscent in content, if not vocabulary, of Economic Philosophic Science Review's noted "catastrophist" and one-time vice-president of the Socialist Labour Party the late Royston Bull.

He pours much-merited contempt on new Labour and business hype generally via commentaries on financial pages stories.

So here's to another five years and more for Resonance FM.

Meanwhile, the Resonance Radio Orchestra is performing a benefit gig for the station in Dragon Hall, Stuckley St, London WC2 in early December.

HUGH TYNAN