Got A Good Thing Goin'

Such is life when you’re organising the biggest community radio subscription drive in Perth. It’d be easy to once again go on about what RTR and Radiothon mean to your local music scene – constant support of local and grassroots artists, a heap of awesome events throughout the year, the knowledge that your favourite presenter can usually be found across the street after their shift, pint in hand – but all you really need to know is that RTR depends on you, dear reader/listener, acknowledging it’s you that keeps the whole thing going.

“Government and big business continue to take over and push out the independent little guy, and by supporting RTR, you can feed your independence"

The theme for this year’s Radiothon is Feed Your Independence, a term that throws up a whole lot of topics, especially as community radio funding is, once again, threatened by federal power. “We talked a lot in the lead-up about how independent thought, ideas and culture are being further pressured to disappear,” RTR’s General Manager Cleary explains. “Government and big business continue to take over and push out the independent little guy, and by supporting RTR, you can feed your independence; RTR continues to fight against this and supports independent thinking, arts and music all year round.”

As you may well know, Radiothon is on right now; tune in at any time and you’ll hear, as is the RTR custom, anything from black metal to ‘70s reggae to improvisational jazz. This does lead to a lot of picking and choosing when it comes to RTR, and it’s become a bit of a running trope with RTR that you might love one show, but hate another. “One of the biggest parts of Radiothon is getting the feedback from listeners. And yeah, sometimes people go, ‘Oh I can’t listen to that show, I’ve got to switch it off, that’s terrible.’ Whereas they love someone else’s show. Hands down, that’s always better than someone going, ‘Eh, I don’t mind it, I’ll keep listening.’ We don’t want people to just tune in and not be challenged by the music sometimes. We don’t want people to put it on at work and home and just forget about it. We want people to actively listen.”

The best part is the vast majority of RTR presenters are volunteers and know they might turn some people off with the music they love. “Even a show like Woodstock Rock, which showcases an era of music that you can hear on an oldies station or something. But what they’re actually doing with us is totally different. These are the guys who know everything about every possible minor record that was released, and a lot of the time not released and only released now. A lot of the time that’s what we’re dealing with; a whole lot of crate-digging. And I think that’s what draws people in, that passion devoted to music.”