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When the pirate operator Oliver Smedley shoots and kills his rival Reg Calvert in Smedley's country cottage on June 21, 1966, it is a turning point in the careening career of the outlaw radio stations dotting the coastal waters of England. Situated on ships and offshore forts like Shivering Sands, these stations blasted away at the high-minded BBC's broadcast monopoly with the new beats of the Stones and the Who and DJs like Screaming Lord Sutch. For free-market ideologues like Smedley, the pirate stations were entrepreneurial efforts to undermine the growing British welfare state as embodied by the BBC.
The worlds of high table and underground collide in a riveting story full of memorable characters like the Bondian Kitty Black, an intellectual femme fatale who becomes Smedley's co-conspirator, and the notorious Kray twins, brazenly violent operators of a London protection racket. Here is a rousing entertainment with an intellectual edge.
A historical retelling of the pirate-radio revolution that swept throughout 1960s England.
In June 1966, pirate-radio rivals Reg Calvert and Oliver Smedley faced off in Smedley's home, leaving Calvert dead. After chronicling the encounter, Johns (History/Univ. of Chicago;Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates, 2010, etc.) takes a leap backward to the '20s and England's initial steps to introduce the nation to radio. After the British Broadcasting Corporation monopolized the airwaves, several music lovers and businessmen set out to win them back, oftentimes employing guerrilla tactics to offer free music to the people. These so-called pirates of radio began assembling their operations beyond territorial waters—most notably, Shivering Sands, an abandoned, high-rise military fort in an estuary of the Thames. Described as "sinister-looking boxes perched on steel legs," the abandoned structure was occupied by Calvert and his colleagues, who imbued it with new life. What began as an enterprise of free-spirited entrepreneurs transmitting music from off-shore ships soon morphed into something else. "Floating DJs were one thing," writes the author. "Squatters on military installations was quite another." The stakes continued to rise, eventually leading to an actual invasion of the fort by Smedley's men. It was, quite literally, piratical behavior on the high seas, eventually leading Calvert to Smedley's home to settle the matter. Yet Calvert's murder functions solely as a convenient focal point for the larger implications that arose during the movement. The pirate-radio revolution spurred a debate that would have long-lasting implications. While Americans celebrated peace and love at Woodstock, the British pirates pushed the boundaries of copyright and information sharing well into the 21st century. Smedley called Calvert's murder "a joke gone sour," yet the lasting effects of their revolution is no laughing matter.
A powerful yet understated history of pirate radio and its impact in the Internet age.
List of Illustrations
Prologue June 21, 1966 1
1 A Pirate People 13
2 Ethereal Enterprise 37
3 Poltergeists and Politics 70
4 The Abominable No-Man 105
5 The Two Towers 142
6 "Things Are Getting Hot" 178
7 The War Against The Pirates 213
8 A Man Called Uncle 241
Sources and Acknowledgments 263
Notes 269
Index 287
Anonymous
Posted December 15, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
When the pirate operator Oliver Smedley shoots and kills his rival Reg Calvert in Smedley's country cottage on June 21, 1966, it is a turning point in the careening career of the outlaw radio stations dotting the coastal waters of England. Situated on ships and offshore forts like Shivering Sands, these stations blasted away at the high-minded BBC's broadcast monopoly with the new beats of the Stones and the Who and DJs like Screaming Lord Sutch. For free-market ideologues like Smedley, the pirate stations were ...