I had no idea Radio Caroline, the most famous pirate radio station in the '60s, still existed

[highplainsdem]

Ran across a tweet from one of its DJs yesterday.

Boomers like me will probably remember hearing about it. Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline

You can listen online at https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/ . There's both a US stream and a UK stream. The UK stream is live, and the US stream apparently replays it hours later on a US time schedule

I ran across this info checking Twitter as well as Google yesterday for news about George Kooymans, the Golden Earring guitarist who's started doing interviews again this past month, after having heen diagnosed with ALS in late 2020. He's promoting a new album with American singer/songwriter/guitarist Frank Carillo, and a Radio Caroline DJ from the Netherlands tweeted about it:

Link to tweet

I'd never heard of Andre van Os before, hadn't run across his name on any articles, but Radio Caroline's presenter profile includes this info:

Inspired by Radio Caroline and Mi Amigo in the late 1970's, André started making radio on a landbased pirate in his home country The Netherlands and for a short spell on a Belgium one. He did music and news programmes for hospital radio up north and in Amsterdam, where he was also passionately involved in local newsradio on FM.

For twenty years he worked for several national public broadcasters as an internet pioneer, setting up their first streaming webradio stations with documentaries and current affairs. He was head of the internet department of Radio Netherlands Worldwide, until the government unfortunately cut most of the station's funding.

He's a DJ on their main, AOR channel, their Quality Album channel. (Radio Caroline was one of the first AOR stations.) They also have a channel for pop singles from the '60s and '70s, which I'll probably check out later.

Although he's Dutch, this is a British station so I'm assuming the broadcast will be in English. I don't know if George Kooymans will be doing a phone interview, but he's done a number of other phone interviews for radio stations lately, and he does speak English as well as Dutch. I've been checking for new interviews, because when he started doing interviews to talk about his battle with ALS last month -- https://democraticunderground.com/10181674319 -- I said I'd post updates.

It was a nice bonus to discover Radio Caroline still exists. It'd been a long time since I'd run across that name.

There was a 2009 British comedy about pirate radio, The Boat That Rocked (retitled Pirate Radio in the US), that unfortunately bombed despite an amazing cast and a great soundtrack. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_That_Rocked and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_That_Rocked_(soundtrack) .

[highplainsdem]

1. And he's starting his show with New Model Army's "51st State":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_State_(song)

[highplainsdem]

2. And immediately following that with "Seasons" from the Kooymans/Carillo

album, the bonus track with George Kooymans' own recording of his song "Seasons," which was first recorded by the Dutch band Earth and Fire and launched their career, becoming their biggest hit.

Btw, no mention of an interview with George on his show.

[highplainsdem]

3. And he followed that with Hendrix, "The Wind Cries Mary," and the Ides of March,

"Vehicle." Already better than my local classic-rock station.

[highplainsdem]

4. Now playing Marc Almond's "Tears Run Rings." Another political song, like the opener.

Van Os said at the start of the show that Radio Caroline isn't political, but he obviously likes songs that are.

[IcyPeas]

16. love this song!

[highplainsdem]

20. Me, too! Thanks for posting that!

[highplainsdem]

7. I have no idea. Sorry. But I'm very happy to find it easy to listen to on its website, especially

with the rerun via the US stream.

[highplainsdem]

10. Thanks! That's good to know!

[highplainsdem]

6. Pirate Radio trailer -- looks like there are a lot of clips on YouTube, too, including

scenes deleted when the film was cut by 20 minutes before US release.

[Elessar Zappa]

8. Cool!

[highplainsdem]

17. Definitely! I love happy surprises like this.

[highplainsdem]

11. Hey, they let listeners make their own Top 15 lists, and they broadcast some of these! Link:

https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#top15_page.html

[highplainsdem]

12. "Before you accuse me / Take a look at yourself..."

CCR cover of that great Bo Diddley song.

I like this DJ's taste in music

He played another track from Mirage -- "Sweet Revenge" -- just after the start of the second hour of his show. Curious to see which other track from the album he'll play next hour, since he said he'd do a couple of tracks besides the bonus track he played last hour.

[highplainsdem]

13. The third track he played from Mirage was "Den Of Thieves."

I like all three tracks, but this is my favorite from the album, which I'd hoped he would play:

[highplainsdem]

14. Very watchable half-hour documentary on the early days of Radio Caroline, with

some great old film clips, fairly recent video of DJs reminiscing, and wonderful anecdotes including one about climbing the very high mast that was their broadcast tower.

[AllaN01Bear]

15. i remember hearing them on my sw set in the 80s and 90s along with many others

including radio new york international who was at sea during that time .
flash to now . i have a buddy in the euro zone who says that there is a huge community of dutch pirate radio operators that are quite active and he says they will get together on a certain shortwave frequency and chat . some will use slo scan televsion to send pics .

[highplainsdem]

18. Sounds like a great SW radio community!

[Skittles]

19. I listened to them '69 - 71

from Norfolk England

they were SO COOL

[highplainsdem]

21. Yes, they were! Did you see the half-hour documentary I posted in

reply 14?

[Skittles]

22. it always takes me back seeing footage of the 60's in England

it is sooooo familiar to me

[highplainsdem]

23. I'll bet. That old footage is also a great reminder of how much of a revolution

happened in the '60s.

[Hotler]

24. Thanks for sharing... nt

[highplainsdem]

25. You're welcome! I listened to Radio Caroline a few times today, just

checking to see what they were playing, checking both the US and UK streams since the US stream is a replay of an earlier show, and each time I really liked what I heard.