This past weekend, I tuned into part of a 48-hour broadcast by Dundee Radio Club. The stream began at 2pm on Friday via their website, with audience interaction on Instagram, ending shortly before 4pm on Sunday.
I was having difficulty listening to the stream at first. The radio player simply wasn’t showing on my browser, yet it didn’t seem to be blocked by my VPN or the ad-blocker. Once I did manage to receive the feed early on Sunday morning, I kept listening until the very end in case it disappeared as suddenly as it arrived.
It isn’t often I have difficulty describing an event, but this one is proving to be a challenge. Each of the programmes – to use the term loosely – was an audio contribution from people around Dundee, but following no specific theme. The organisers wanted, and I quote from the Open Call: sonic artworks, interviews, conversations, music sessions, storytelling, audio lectures, dj-mixes, radio plays and more!
As such, you might be listening to a history of ambient music for 20 minutes, followed by an artist sharing thoughts about cows while standing in a field, and then a DJ set featuring techno music, and the 40-plus hours I missed must have been equally as surreal. While not explicitly stated, there was a real sense that the event was intended to be an ephemeral affair, with no recording made available afterwards.
I’m part of the Amps network, which is a community of people who make and cultivate creativity in Dundee, and I voted for the Club to receive funding for this project. I was influenced by my previous volunteering at three different community radio stations. I’d given up the last of these by 2013 because I was becoming much more interested in writing by that point.
While I still wouldn’t go back to having a regular presenting slot, I’m still frustrated about missing my opportunity to take part in this project.
The Open Call somehow passed me by, despite following their Instagram page since August 2024. I even think I know what topic I would have presented. Still, I’ll keep that under wraps just now, as it isn’t time-sensitive and can be used some other time, perhaps if Dundee Radio Club returns one day.
Gavin Cameron 