CRACKER JACK

Words fail after this last week. Thankfully I have been active. Some off the required action was remedial (see Saturday below for the whole sorry saga), some was a surprise.

In the midst of recording this final Quarantine Care mix for my mates at Scarborough Wine Co. yesterday I was asked to make tracks to Palmer and Co. pronto, so as to reanimate the DJ booth in our sweet little speakeasy. I high-tailed it the moment I stopped recording and was overjoyed to find the atmosphere genuinely warm and convivial, even with numbers capped at 50.
Apologies for not being able to tip you here first (last night was really just a toe in the water) but as it went exceedingly well I hope to have good news for anyone keen to head back out soon.


Friday June the 12th ~

Questions Of Law continue to dominate matters here in Sydney (my eternal esteem goes out to these two barristers from Dubbo, who succeeded in their last-minute appeal to have the police and government's backflip ban on the Black Lives Matter rally overturned).

Today's not-entirely-trivial quiz with Julian Morrow will be the last of our season for NSW Young Lawyers, so hop online at 5PM via the link above if yr keen to have a beverage and test yr wits.

Saturday June the 13th ~

Jack Off began mere minutes after the legal reprieve for the BLM vigil enabled 20000 people to take to the streets with slightly less fear of police violence. I got to break that news (with vast relief) then dive in to one of the most intense programs I've ever done.

I was in full fight-or-flight mode going in to FBi. The station could have lost it's licence had I advocated for attendance at an 'illegal assembly'. It was incredibly invidious situation to be in - given we are normally duty bound to reflect and enable the caring community we serve.

I was hugely concerned for the safety of all going, especially after Police Commissioner Mick 'Bad Day' Fuller had boasted of the deployment of 'force multipliers' (like the mounted police and riot squad) at his press conference with Gladys 'Back-Down' Berejiklian the day before. Even though I felt triumphant at the NSW Court of Appeal ruling, I was still disgusted that countless thousands of people (particularly families and the vulnerable) had been disenfranchised from democracy by this bullshit ban.

During the program we received so much love and respect from listeners (bar one, there is always literally one). The music we played during the taking of the knee and silence in town brought many, including me, to tears.

When I concluded the one-off three hour show I was concerned to see one of our loggers had failed the night before. Within a few days it became clear the back-up logger had also gone down, in this timeslot only! The prospect of losing all of this audio, from this pivotal moment in our city's history, was devastating. I contacted everyone I could to try and rescue it: techs, listeners that sometimes tape stuff, even media monitoring companies.

Only the biggest company, Isentia, had a copy. I pleaded my case for a reduced price, given the community cause, prepared to pay it out of my own pocket. This vast corporation is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They decided to charge a volunteer-run station in their home city what they deemed fair - $462 for 88 minutes of audio recorded at the execrable bitrate of 24kbps. They can fuck off for all of time (and it seems they are failing fine anyway).

Long story short: all seemed lost until our ultra-dedicated Station Manager Nikki went hell-for-leather through some crazy lateral options before turning up a copy from a realm we can't really even disclose. Suffice to say there is some poetic justice in the equation. I am deeply indebted to her and so glad I can now share the full three hours with anyone that cares on-demand here. Please read the intro and click on as many of the links included as possible. A lot of work went into this. I even had to teach myself to edit for the first time so as to stitch the 6 or 7 fragments together as a cohesive whole. So, as they say in the sting, please listen!

Dunno what this Saturday will throw up from 3 - but there's never a dull moment eh? Tune in and see!