Learning curve

Everyone is assembled for a tour and lessons in recording.. Doug Lyon and Vibeka Venema give everyone a lesson in how to record on the giant Marantz tape machines.  We test our mics, then it's off to find our Vox Pop victims... Mainly local issues of the day, then back to try and edit with a razor blade, cutting tape to make some sense of it all.  After that, a once over at the studio about 'driving a desk' (the radio mixer using the buttons and cart machines) leading to stage 3.  The show.

It's about 10 mins to 3am and I'm climbing through a downstairs window to get into the studio as the main door is locked... followed by my cohort in DJ crime. The previous occupants, writers from the Melody Maker music press,  have left one of the turntables still spinning, with an empty bottle of tequila. We get to work... our show’s ‘manifesto’ is to showcase female music artists. Anything goes to be honest.  The mixer I am ‘driving’ is manual and I'm pressing buttons at the same time and not necessarily in the right order.  A few hours later, exhausted, with vinyl records and tape all over the floor, we pack up, and gingerly climb out the window to pass the baton on to the next DJ's.  Whooping with a sense of achievement, we stagger off clutching ill gotten sugar snacks, donated from the 7/11 store lads - probably the only ones listening.

Fantastic times. Festival had an open policy with anyone who wanted to try something.. we met and made new friends and found a path towards a creative life - even if it wasn't in Radio. Some of the skills proved to be useful later on, especially at Blue Peter...