THE SKINNY
Music
Always Listening We chat to some of the people behind Scotland’s community radio stations to find out how they’ve been keeping the music scene connected during the pandemic Interview: Chiara Wilkinson
February 2021 – Feature
“Lockdown gave us more flexibility in terms of new shows, and oneoff shows” Feena McKinnell, EH-FM For the best part of the station’s inaugural year on air, Glasgow has sidestepped in and out of lockdown, with the whole of Scotland enduring strict coronavirus restrictions, including a ban on in-venue music. When the country’s grassroots music venues were boarded up overnight, the communities they served backed into their bedrooms – but they’ve been far from silent. Independent radio stations have ensured that the unique spirit of Scotland’s underground music scenes continues to thrive. “It’s almost like we have become a digital venue,” says Chris Murray, Head of Events & Partnerships at EH-FM. With listening figures rising since the start of the pandemic, the Edinburgh-based station was set up in 2018 to provide a virtual space for people to get involved with the city’s alternative music scenes without going to a club or knowing the right people. The station operates from a cosy studio in Summerhall shared with LuckyMe Records, and is more or less the mouthpiece of the Cowgate club circuit. In the last week alone, it’s hosted a varied
selection of promotersturned-presenters: from the bass-laced electro cuts you’d catch at Palidrone’s Mash House residency, to the heated disco rhythms of the HOT MESS queer parties. “It’s quite like a boiling pot,” says Murray, “and is just the best way to get to know everybody in Edinburgh who is involved in music.” Akin to London’s NTS, EH-FM, Clyde Built Radio and Radio Buena Vida are independent, community-focused broadcasting projects, allowing for a refreshing amount of creative control and musical freedom compared to commercial stations. Led by a team of dedicated volunteers, it’s a concept that spotlights local talent for a wide audience – without the need for much physical space – and has proved essential for connecting the public to promoters, DJs and musicians while venues have remained empty. When the first lockdown forced the studio to shut in March last year, EH-FM’s transition to a fully digital station was smooth: DJs, guests and presenters would send in pre-recorded shows and would only broadcast live from home if they had the equipment and ability to do so. “We were able to host a few things – Miss World’s birthday, for example – which would have usually been done in a club,” says Feena McKinnell, the station’s Programming Coordinator. McKinnell started at EH-FM as a volunteer while learning how to DJ, before becoming a resident at Miss World, a collective which promotes female, non-binary and female-identifying people in the club scene. “I think after a while, obviously we’re all missing being in the studio,” McKinnell says. “But lockdown also gave us a bit more flexibility in terms of new shows, and one-off shows.” One such example was when the station hosted St Andrews-based Asha Sound System for an all-day takeover in the summer, with their local DJs programmed alongside the likes of Mungo’s Hi Fi. — 20 —
Photo: David Fleming
S
oaked in the smells of wet concrete and deep-fat fryers, a pavement in Glasgow’s Southside resembles a makeshift dancefloor. A crowd accumulates, drawing in passers-by and an audience from the chippy queue across the road as rhythms ripple from a live broadcast in the window of the Some Great Reward record shop and cafe. Bodies move in the rain and smiles appear on faces. It’s not the same as being drenched in sweat, bass frequencies throttling ear drums and hair sticky with stranger’s pints, but for now it’s the best we’ll get. David Fleming and Susan O’Neill launched Radio Buena Vida in October 2020, a project dreamt up in Barcelona and realised with the help of Glasgow’s music community. Since its launch, the station has been broadcasting three days a week and has hosted Harri & Domenic, VAJ.Power, Suzy Lee Kidd, and the Glasgow African Balafon Orchestra among many others. With a name translating to ‘Good Living’, the couple envision broadcasting full-time and opening a bar to give the station a home from its temporary record store residency on Victoria Road. But it’s not the only independent station to have popped up in the city in the last year; in February, Clyde Built Radio will celebrate its first birthday via a locked-down broadcast shindig.
