So first of all, as the silly song suggests, “I’m f***ing off”. At the end of the year I’m leaving Triple J. To answer some questions my relatives and friends asked: no, I didn’t get sacked for playing too much Aussie hip hop or saying “rad” one too many times. No, I don’t have a job waiting for me on Channel 10. And no, it’s not because I don’t love the place. I bloody do. I hope Triple J will be around forever, along with its Double J and Unearthed siblings.
I also know not everyone shares my cult-like zeal for the place, so I thought I’d have a sit down and explain why Triple J matters, to me and everyone else.
Starting with the obvious and self-serving: Triple J gave me a job. Ten years ago I had pretty much spent all of my vaguely ill-gotten gains from the major label deal Frenzal Rhomb signed at the end of the 1990s (it was fun while it lasted).
Jason, Frenzal Rhomb’s singer, eventually asked to do some shifts at Triple J. We’d been interviewed there plenty of times: radio people like it when bands can talk nonsense (something we learned quickly). First a Super Request, then overnights. Saturdays afternoons led into the Drive while Chris and Craig from The Chaser made jokes on TV about Mark Latham not getting elected, and then during that time Jason and I were asked to take over from Adam and Wil on Triple J breakfast.
We weren’t comedians with TV shows. We weren’t mathematical savants with bung eyes. We hadn’t even been up at that time unless we were still up. (“You mean there’s another 6 o’clock?!”) Still, knowing all of that, Triple J took that chance and gave us the job.
We weren’t really radio listeners, either. We didn’t know much about how radio worked or even too much about the music the station played. So along with learning how all the buttons worked (a lot of on-air trial and error), Triple J prised my genre blinkers open to a whole bunch of different music.
And with the music came the lovely people who make it. Triple J introduced me to legends from various musical and geographical landscapes. I’ve talked about real estate paparazzi with Calvin Harris, nipple tans with Nick Cave, Seinfeld parody Twitter accounts with Bethany from Best Coast, secret Simpsons societies with Megan Washington, Icelandic vegan food with Jonsi, gluten-free vegan food with Jen from Ball Park Music, vegan 50th birthday parties with Davey Havok from AFI (don’t worry, a lot of the vegan banter happens off-air, or the textline trolls would go nuts). I’ve jammed with an astronaut, heard Dave Grohl’s daughter tell a dirty-ish joke, talked about punk rock with Josh Homme ... heck, John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin even played mandolin down the phone for me!
The memories of friendships, of the bands we played, and of the people who listened and whose faces I signed in red permanent texta will be around forever.
Those people still washing the red texta off their faces know this already, but Triple J matters radio listeners. It matters to kids like me growing up in the suburbs who feel a little left out by the footy, fast cars and pop songs world. It matters to people outside the major cities, at work on tractors, who want a trusted voice to suggest cool things to them, letting them know they’re part of a community. It matters to people all over the world, whose texts and tweets I get every day, who feel connected to Australia by listening to us in whatever weird timezone they are.
There are heaps of stations in Australia, and so many different ways to listen to music. So if you listen to Triple J, you’d better believe we love you for it. And if you listen to music because you love it, think about this: commercial radio is called that because it has commercials. And the word “commercial” comes before “radio”. So what do you think is more important to them?
Commercial radio’s main aim is to sell advertising. Which is fine, it’s a business. But remember, every time you hear a song you like, or a show you laugh at, that’s not for you. It’s there to entice you to listen, which in turn gives them a ratings figure used to get advertising dollars. Even if the presenter actually loves the new X-Factor song, it’s being played to lure you in so they can sell you a shiny new thing.
Triple J is government-funded radio, which means we don’t get our cash from commercials and “brand-integration” (a way of getting product names into things like personal stories and talkback. Classy!). We are funded by the government, so basically by you. Everything we do is for you, not because an advertiser wants us to play a specific song.
I don’t know what I’m going to do once I leave at the end of the year (besides lie on a beach for a while, play some sweet guitar riffs on the new Frenzal album, and marry my girlfriend). But I do know that I’m still going to love and value my old place of work. As technology blooms, the music world grows ever larger and the internet speeds up (but not too fast, thanks Malcolm!) people still need a place they can go to find honest, trustworthy, down to earth people who really do love music and want to tell you about it.
This week, former prime minister Gough Whitlam died aged 98. He did some amazing things in his life, including creating Triple J. It was always his vision to create a National Youth Radio Network, and in 1975, the Whitlam government began Double J.
In 2005, the year I started working full time here, Gough recorded a message for our 30th birthday.
In 1975 government started 2JJ in Sydney, and now it broadcasts through radios all over Australia... Well may we say that Triple J should provide innovative, contemporary and leading programs for Australia’s young and young at heart for many more years.
It’s been 10 years since Gough made that statement, and well may I say that Triple J should probably hang around for many, many more.
