23 May, Oslo:
Saw fantastic film Yesterday, The Boat That Rocked, by Robert Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, etc). This movie, however, is not romance but rather about a weird gang of DJs and a pirate radio station broadcasted from an old boat out in the North Sea. With lots of 60s good pop music to enjoy.
THE PLOT is the weird DJs fight to keep up their Pirate ROCK Radio station against the British Government including a stiff, control-driven Minister (played by Kenneth Branagh) and some overeager Gov officials. We´re back in mid 1960s (1966 I think it says in the film) when the British Government did not like this music nor its broadcasting, and BBC allowed only a very limited time for the new pop music played in official channels, as far as known.
POP MUSIC SPREAD QUICKLY. Despite limited BBC access, the 60s new pop music did not stop but rather spread fairly quickly and eventually became a flood-shed. Pop music gained increasingly more in popularity... whether listened to from radios stuck secretly under children´s pillows or shared more in the open by teenagers and eventually others, in variable places indoors or outdoors, thanks also to new transportable radios.
I wonder how this diffusion was actually feasible when BBC and Government were restricting the pop music broadcasting severely at the time? How active they were I do not precisely know, could be interesting to know more about this. (I´m not an expert in this field and was a bit young at the time but my friends remember more and listened to e.g. Radio Caroline. We also have a record with authentic recording from this and other pirate stations).
Anyway, a lot of new pop-based pirate radio solutions popped up so to speak... What is only hinted to in the film, is the role played by commercials. It was probably not merely the closed state broadcasting regime but perhaps also (or even more) the actions of numerous commercial interests spreading ads in relation to popular music programs that nourished an outside-the-shore pirate solution. Broadcasting via boats and a "free ocean solution" seemed to be financed by commercials and was tried successfully for some time... opposing and bypassing the severe restrictions on the British island. Remember Radio Caroline and other pop and commercial boat solutions at the time.
This is timely to remember now in our new pirate music and movie situations, I guess...
And if you enjoy pop music from the 60s as well as the DJ lads´ongoing relationship plays - a thrilling mix of bad and good behaviour and much humour - this is smth for you. Enjoy.
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