Someone still loves you

I heard it on my radio

A few years ago I booked a little house for two nights as what turned out to be the first of a series of self-funded, self-directed writing residencies. The place was in a small town, but down some stairs and off to the side from the main street, in a semi-industrial area. I’d packed enough food so I wouldn’t need to go out, but I did anyway: little strolls down to the harbour, walks to the bookstore on the main street, visits to a coffee shop just up the stairs. One night I returned from one of these walks just as twilight was gathering and, as I passed a park in front of a historic property – I knew, because it was marked with a commemorative plaque – a red fox stopped to look at me, then ran away.

The rest of the time, I stayed in the tiny home I’d rented. It was very quiet. I like quiet, but I also like, often, to have music on in the background while I write – usually something classical and non-vocal, occasionally something ethereal with vocals that can’t be understood without effort. Music with real lyrics, whether choral or rock, sometimes distracts me. I get caught up in the words, taking my focus away from the words forming in my head. To break the silence, I could have streamed something through my computer, but instead I turned on the old radio/tape-player in the rental, which was tuned to the local community radio station, 99.3 The County.

Whatever was playing when I tuned in was just un-slick and non-commercial enough to be immediately noticeable. Later, I ate dinner to a jazz show. Then it was eclectic rock from six decades. I even found myself leaving the radio on during the live broadcast of the Junior A hockey team’s game down the highway. The radio accompanied me all weekend.

Some hosts told long, meandering stories. There were interviews about local events, and with local authors, artists, and politicians. Other times, uninterrupted stretches of songs with little indication about what was playing. Late at night it turned into a party mix, a wide range of lively (but not dance) music punctuated by an excitable DJ.

A song you might hear on a Canadian community radio station. The video is an artefact of its 1980s time and the song is a cover. Note the spray-painted reference to the Pukka Orchestra’s best-known song within the first few minutes.

The following year, I rented another place in the same area. My AirBnB host, while walking me around to show me amenities – it was at the start of the Omicron wave, so we were both masked, and I was uneasily backing up to keep space between us as she enthusiastically demonstrated the many features of her newly renovated guesthouse – pointed to an ancient component stereo and recommended the local radio station. I told her I knew it already and was looking forward to having it as my soundtrack once again. It turned out she was dating the station manager. It was a small place.

I spent a happy two or three years as an undergrad volunteering at the campus/community station, CKDU, based out of my Halifax university. My work included everything from cataloguing newly received music to hosting an early morning current affairs program, to a meandering show of what a fellow host, possibly derisively, dubbed “top alternative hits” at 10 in the morning. (I took requests, and occasionally someone would actually call in; I dreamed up themes for shows, but didn’t have the encyclopedic music knowledge to populate them. There’s a reason these A Song a Day posts are short.)

While I was a student, the staff wasn’t. The schedule also included many shows produced and hosted by non-student community members, or created by students from other places, like the art school, or even local high schools. The latter were best positioned to stay awake for the overnight shift, a common trial shift/rite of passage that I somehow, perhaps through the current affairs-to-music shuffle, was able to bypass. The station was a welcoming place, a mutual appreciation society of radio shows of all shapes and sizes and the people who made them.

A few years ago I was again in Halifax, and walked my husband around my old campus. We stopped in the Student Union Building, and I led him upstairs to point out the radio station offices. I popped my head in the open door. A friendly young person asked if they could help. When I said I’d had a show there years before, they invited me to come in and look around. I walked down the hall and saw the glass-walled studio with the controls, where I’d played music, and the mic room in front of that where I’d hosted the news show. To my delight, the record library, where I would pre-screen songs, and which was the perfect enclosed space for important, confidential, early-twenties conversations, was still there, despite the many changes in format over the years. The person who had welcomed us in said it had been kept because they’d felt it was an important part of the place.

Even in the face of my mediocre programming skills, guidance was minimal. If I played the same seven-minute song at the beginning of the show to give myself time to prepare more than one week in a row, no one complained. As long as I met the Cancon* requirements – not hard, with local bands looking for airplay – I basically had free rein.

What I hear in the community radio station I now tune into regularly (now available online, as well as by antenna) is this freedom. Shows are compilation tapes, curated with love and curiosity, not pressure from management or audiences. It’s a place where it might be the weird fourth track of an album that is played to death, instead of the hit. The patter is human, not practiced— or, sometimes, non-existent. (Recently, listening to a community station on our ancient car radio as we passed by on a road trip, every three songs or so there was an unsettlingly long pause, followed by a drawling, barebones announcement of only the most recently played song: “That - was - ‘Carey’ - by - Joni Mitchell.” It seemed quite possible the host was high.) Ads, generally minimal, are charmingly earnest where they exist. Weather reports are as accurate as the DJ’s competency in refreshing the Environment Canada forecast on a browser, and should not be relied on.

One Canada Day weekend we were driving around Prince Edward County when we ran into a road closure. We tuned into 99.3 FM - The County, which turned out to be broadcasting live from Canada Day festivities just south of us. Thanks to the radio station, within minutes we had the whole parade route, and chose a new approach to get into town. The live broadcast also led us to a new destination: the strawberry social at the United church. Eclectic music, useful information, local tips: the very best of community radio can offer.

*Campus/community stations must ensure 35% of popular music is Canadian content during the day: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/cancon/r_cdn.htm