Local playlists not very local

THE previous neck of the woods I was living in was characterised by an abundance of woods but, because these came with a degree of isolation, not too much in the way of radio reception.

It was a pleasant surprise, then, to turn on the radio down here and suddenly have at hand half a dozen or so local stations.

So, of an evening when there's not too much going on the goggle box - which is to say every evening - it was nice to flick on the ghetto blaster and groove down to some crazy rhythms.

There they all were - the Eagles taking it to the limit; George with his gently weeping guitar; Joe Cocker coming in through the bathroom window; the Foo Fighters getting it on - and, occasionally, a bit of a Bob each way with Dylan and Marley. Great stuff.

But after a few weeks a slightly unsettling sensation seemed to creep into my enhanced listening experience - a nagging little concern as though I was halfway to Sydney on the plane and suddenly remembered the toasted cheese sandwich still grilling in the oven that was going to be lunch before I got distracted by running late.

Kdang! And finally the penny dropped ...

A month or so listening to a variety of stations, and I realised not being able to recall hearing a single Kiwi track! Not o-n-e. Okay, maybe there was one, but I just happened to miss it. Time for some serious market research. Back to the dial, notebook and Biro. Serious Kiwi Watch, or should I say, Listen: Wanganui 95.2 - zippo; the Sound, at 94.4 - nada; Zed Em, 96.8, zilcho; The Hits, 89.6 , zero; More FM at 91.8, nilsville; Radio Brian at 91.2, who make a big thing about playing only what Brian feels like playing - but Brian never seems to feel like playing any Kiwi music either!

The head is spinning by now, but after all this listening I'm starting to notice something else as well. The majority of tracks seem to fall into a very narrow waveband of sound and beat - a sort of hardish driving beat as per Bachman Turner Overdrive, Def Leppard, and the like. And then a scary thought popped up! Surely the local stations aren't buying in pre-packaged playlists spat out by some outfit in Cincinnati that couldn't give a fig about Kiwi music? Surely not! Or worse, maybe they even get the playlists free because they're all laced with subliminal messages about which fizzy drink to buy?!

And then, an even scarier thought! Maybe the local stations are all owned by the same outfit anyway?! And that outfit is the one that owns the multi-national fizz company! You see, not that I'm a conspiracy theorist, but there are big questions which need to be answered here, because there's only so much Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band I can handle. And I keep having to go to the toilet because of all the extra fizz I seem to be drinking.

Stop Press: I think I just heard a Hello Sailor track, but it may have been an hallucination from all that sugar in the fizz.

Frank Greenall has a masters degree and managed Far North Adult Literacy before moving to Wanganui.