
Retro Pop Radio
Pro Radio Demo Top Music Radio
I was born with music running through my veins. I’m sure if you cut me in half, it would say ‘and this week’s number one is’ running through me like a stick of Brighton rock. I can thank my genes for that. My grandfather played in a village brass band, and my father played guitar in bands all his life. From 50s dance bands playing popular tunes of the day, to country bands later in life. There was no escape for me, my right sided creative brain was switched on full throttle and there was nothing I could do about it.
My earliest memory of music was a song called Bits and Pieces by the Dave Clark Five. It came on the radio in the kitchen. I could just about walk then and I did my best to have a little boogie. It’s a primal instinct thing dance you know; you can’t stop yourself. I wish you could, you should see me dancing at weddings!
In the UK in the 60s, there wasn’t much mainstream radio except the BBC. To me the BBC always sounds like we have just declared war with Germany, I mean have you heard Radio 4, I just can’t listen to it. That’s what spurred the rise of Pirate radio in the UK. The British youth were after something different. There was all that fantastic music in the early 60s but the BBC wasn’t playing it. Enter the pirate stations, I was too young to listen to the classic 60s pirate stations such as Radio Luxemburg, Radio Caroline and Radio London, however its impact was huge. A lot of the top UK DJs learnt their craft at these stations including Tony Blackburn and Johnny Walker who are still on Radio 2 today. The pirate stations were hugely popular and the BBC didn’t like it. Long story short, they convinced the UK Government a change of law was needed and made them illegal. Consequently, they had no choice but to stop broadcasting.
I got my first cassette player/recorder when I was around aged 12 in the mid-70s. It coincided with Glam Rock which flooded the UK charts at that time. Bands like The Sweet, Slade and Mud were constantly in the charts and on the radio. The first single record I bought was Tiger Feet by Mud. My favourite was Marc Bolan though and T. Rex. I still play them all the time. His music doesn’t seem to date in my opinion. I used to rush home from school to watch his TV show he had in the 70s. It was when I saw them on TV on Top of the Pops the seed was sown, I wanted to be in a band. More on that in a bit.
Like most teenagers at that time, it was common to tape records when they came on the radio. In particular the Top 40. It was quite the skill to press stop recording before the DJ spoke. Plugging a lead from the Headphone Out of a radio into the Aux In on a cassette recorder was just magic. That changed everything, and that’s when I started to record everything and make mix tapes which would eventually become my own shows. I was the go-to DJ for school discos too. It just came naturally to me, instinctively I knew what to play and when.
British radio had improved in the 70s. I would listen to people like Noel Edmunds and Kenny Everett. Kenny Everett was a creative genius, no doubt about it. The stuff he packed into his radio shows was awe inspiring. If you haven’t heard him, check him out on the internet.
Living on the Essex coast, meant that I could tune into American Forces radio which was broadcast from the American air bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath near Ipswich. These bases had been there since the Second World War. I would lay in bed listening to these American DJs with their movie star accents talking about baseball and all things American. It was very exciting for a teenager and a world away from the stuffy BBC.
Glam Rock came and went and was replaced by Punk. I was a ‘closet’ punk. I didn’t dress up but loved the music. I saw lots of the bands at the time, my favourite being The Stranglers. I saw them live numerous times and still play their albums from time to time. The DJ John Peel was very influential at this time also. I did listen to him a little back then. I’ve recently been listening to and enjoying some of those shows again, there is a lot available to listen to on YouTube.
It was now the early 80s and I had left school and was working as a darkroom technician at a photography business. It was my passion to work in photography, other than being a rock star that is. That’s my creative side again. I would have the radio on all day listening to the various DJs, their different presentation styles, jingles and features etc. I lapped it up. Simon Bates, Dave Lee Travis, Paul Burnett and then along came Steve Wright. He was in a different league with his American ‘zoo’ style format and cast of silly characters. Some of the best times of my life were spent with his show on, and it was a real shock when he passed away in the spring of 2024. He had been talking to me for 45 years. He certainly influenced some of my shows, no doubt about it.
Punk had faded and along came Gary Numan and that was it. Again, he was on the very influential TV programme Top of the Pops. There he was, half man, half alien playing a synthesiser with one finger. I watched in awe and realised that was how I could get in a band. So, I bought a synth. I saw him in Tesco once, in the freezer isle, but that’s a tale for another day. However, another long story short, I formed Taste the Colour (picture below), wrote some synth pop songs and tried to get a record deal. We had some near misses but fame passed us by sadly. That’s me in the middle below. I know what you’re thinking, well it was the 80s!
Fast forward several years because life happens. My interest in music, entertainment and particularly radio continued. During that time, I studied audio production and began to record and produce other people. I did tons of audio restoration and in particular rescuing sound from old cassettes and vinyl. These skills were essential and have served me well for producing radio content for my station. The birth of the internet gave me access to radio from all around the world. I started to explore and listen to stations from all over. I’ve always been drawn to American radio and their style of presentation. It’s a world away from UK formats. Some of the American stations are so ‘hot’, you can get a tan just by looking at the speaker! The jocks are full on and very passionate and slick at presenting.
It was whilst surfing around the web listening to different stations, I began to think it would be great to have my own station. A station that I wanted to listen to. A station that didn’t take itself too seriously, had a retro vibe and wasn’t just one long competion like most of the UK stations are these days. Advances in technology meant that it was now possible. So that’s what I did, I set up Atlantic Surf Radio. It’s was hard work and very rewarding and I was very proud of it.
And that brings us up to date. In January 2025 Atlantic Surf Radio morphed into Retro Pop Radio, one of the coolest internet stations around. Please have a listen if you haven’t already. There’s something for everyone, awesome music, fab memories, cool presenters and loads of laughs 24/7.
Thanks for reading and listening. Neil, Founder of Retro Pop Radio.
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