have given crucial exposure to new forms of music. Between 1964 and 1968, pirates
began broadcasting from offshore ships located around the UK. The most famous
of these was Radio Caroline, which Matthew Collin (1997) suggests was the first
pirate station to play rock and R ‘n’ B, music that was rarely aired on national radio
at the time. He also suggests that since their introduction pirates have continued to
fill cultural gaps, particularly for black music such as reggae and soul. Collin (1997)
argues that this process continued with house, which was noticeably absent on
licensed radio stations until 1990 (ibid.:130). The emergence of London’s dance
culture was greatly influenced by pirates such as Centreforce, which began
broadcasting various forms of dance music in May 1989. They were later followed
by a host of others, including Sunrise, Obsession, Fantasy and later Dance and Kool
FM (Garratt 1998:155; Belle-Fortune 1999:57). Other stations, including Girls FM,
London Underground and Freak FM, are regarded as important pirates that were
amongst the first to introduce UK garage music to the London-wide audience during
the early to mid-1990s. During the formative years of the UK garage scene, when
the music was ‘filling the clubs, but not being played on mainstream radio, the role
of the pirates was fundamental’ in maintaining its presence and attracting new
consumers (Sawyer 2000). Drawing on Sarah Thornton’s work, one can argue that
as a form of communications medium they played an important part ‘in the
assembly demarcation and development’ of this musical scene (Thornton 1995:
160). Since 1997, the majority of the capital’s pirates have focused on various
elements of UK garage, and at present, there are 73 pirate stations broadcasting in
London, of which 37 play UK garage (Pir8radio 2003). Throughout the late 1990s
several licensed British radio stations such as BBC Radio 1, Capital Radio and Kiss
FM have moved previously ‘specialist’ UK garage shows to primetime audience
slots, making expirate radio acts such as the Dreem Teem, DJ EZ, DJ Luck and MC
Neat household names (Williams 2000).
Pirates help to foster a sense of community amongst UK garage participants due
to their apparent openness and accessibility to listeners, who are encouraged to
contact stations via telephone or text messaging so they can exchange greetings with
friends and relatives, send out ‘big ups’ and ask for requests. It is here that the
community role of the MC again comes to the fore, as they often provide and
maintain an important link with disaffected youth, by regularly sending out
messages of support to individuals serving custodial sentences in young offenders’
institutes and prisons, a community function often overlooked by commercial
stations. Many operate on a small-scale basis involving a network of friends run on a
semi-professional basis, whilst others are highly organized and directly involved with
the promotion of UK garage parties in and around the capital. Their daily running
is fraught with dangers, mainly due to their illegal nature, as stations operating
without a Radio Authority broadcasting license are liable to prosecution (Radio
Communications Agency 2002). As a result, pirate stations employ a range of
methods to avoid detection, including relaying signals between booster aerials in an
attempt to safeguard their studio’s location, and are shrouded in secrecy. Gaining
access to participate as a DJ or MC requires intricate negotiations often only
192 CIARAN O’HAGAN