During my first years in radio, I spent most of my time hanging out in record libraries, learning from music programmers and browsing the incredible collections that used to occupy lots of space in radio stations. I had always loved pop and rock, but here were people who knew the stories behind the songs and had met the people who wrote and recorded them.
I learned so much, and developed an eternal thirst for music stories. It became my passion. Fast forward to 2002, and I’m settling in as the host of a brand new local radio show on ABC Far North Queensland. We notice that the people we book for interviews after 5.30pm have an unfortunate tendency to not turn up, perhaps preferring the lush Cairns outdoors to the radio studio. With few options to plug the gaps in the show, I played a song or two, but a story about a song seemed a better idea, and would consume more of that awkward empty time. So I improvised a couple of segments, and over a few weeks, it became the Time Tunnel of Top Tunes. Daily at first, and now a weekly radio segment on It’s Just Not Cricket with Glynn Greensmith on ABC Digital and Local.
I can’t remember for sure what I did that very first time, 20 years ago. But this was one of the first. The story of how Pete Townshend and The Who roadie Speedy Keen hooked up with post office engineer Andy “Thunderclap” Newman to record one of the biggest hits ever, on their very first go – Something In The Air.
