Samuel hates 666

Mutley – throw a bit more in the mix liek depeche Mode – Eurythmics – Icehouse – Hall and Oates – pretty much anything – hell I even wear a straw hat and listen to Garth Brooks.

I can go from extreme black/death metal to 80’s/70’s/60’s/50’s/ to country to dixieland jazz to trance/neurotrance.

Soo much great music out there that I dont limit my appreciation to one particular genre.

My favourite song at the moment is Whiskey Lullaby by Brad Paisley – a sad c+w song about.. well ill let you download it.

Favourite Album at the moment is Rebel Meets Rebel – a project between David Allan Coe and the late great “Dimebag” Darrell Lance Abbott. c+w meets texan heavy metal

nothing like a good ecletic taste in music.. on any given day I can be into indie, metal, hip hop, jazz, blues, classical, electronic sometimes I can even stomach some top 40 stuff… I think the only music I don’t stomach is that top 40 gangster rap… no rythym, no musical integrity, the guys can’t even really rap well.

Danman – that’s a bit of an eclectic mix

jb – i have considered that, and believe that the person you spoke to was in fact an actor.

Experienta docet…

It certainly does…;-)

i notice that sgs is doing a comprehensive review of several stations and is setting up standards eg each station will be review for one hour (and twice) at a random time between 6am and 6pm during weekdays.

Fascinating stuff. Can’t wait for the results.

I long thought the same thing, but I have actually met him and you can hear us talking in an earlier podcast.

i read his blog because im convinced sgs does not exist, and it is in fact an elaborate practical joke being played by a group of uni student studying communications.

just a theory however.

Experienta docet…

Hey SGS, I don’t so much object to your opinion of 666 – as I said, I don’t really care but your generalisations about listeners got my goat, namely :

“So why do people listen? Clearly it has something to do with the sheer amount of people who are either Chief Turnip Stanhope admirers, require warning signs on clothing to remind them not to iron shirts while they are wearing them, or both. The other 666 listeners have me baffled as I can’t see how anybody else can put up with that crud for any length of time.”

My original post was, in part, a hasty response to these statements. Now, a day later and having had read your blog site a bit further – I find I really don’t care about your views and find myself a little embarrassed at wasting my time.

I just chuck a CD in and blast obituary, pantera (RIP Dime), Sepultura or Dixie Chicks.

At least I choose what I listen to.

Lonely little people arguing about AM radio!!!

that would have been me sgs

Jemmy, I agree that ABC 666 is an amateur, parochial station – Sydney’s ABC 702 (via its webpage or in the car) is far superior. I often get annoyed and switch between 702, RN and 666 while driving. However we do need local information sometimes. Though to be frank, I personally find more info on offer from the music channels on weekends (Mix and 2CA) than on 666.

The ABC (and the ratings people) treat Canberra as ‘regional’, like eg Newcastle, instead of ‘metropolitan’. So the local stations don’t even get surveyed for ratings as often as Sydney or Melbourne. So they don’t give a.

Hey SGS, don’t like ABC 666? Who cares? Get off your backside and rotate that little round thingy on your radio and tune to something else.

That whole “don’t like it, don’t comment on it” ideaology is just plain stupid la mente torbida, if we all did that then not only would this website not exist, but governments would be completely unaccountable.

I can’t remember who around here said it to me on a number of occasions, but an opinion is not an axiom. On my blog I promote my opinion. I have a readership who for the most part would agree with my sentiments. I reserve the right to post my opinion on my website, just as I’m sure Johnboy reserves the right to ridicule it here.

I agree that, on the whole, what I think of a radio station which I have previously proven that I don’t particularly, doesn’t really rate as newsworthy, but at least one person here disagrees with it and so be it.

It will be interesting to see if Johnboy decides to follow my radio station review series in any detail.

Ultimately, I think I can only do one thing here, and thank Johnboy for the free advertising of my site.

Just to test SGS’ thesis, I actually listened to some of Lawsie this morning.

All I got was the woeful traffic problems besetting Sydney because of ships in the harbour and Dick Cheney’s forthcoming visit.

-All very interesting to me in Canberra, of course.

Let’s not forget that SGS has been singing the praises of his beloved radio station, like a genuflecting acolyte, for some time now – so he’s bound to bag the opposition, isn’t he?

How much are they paying you, SGS?

Leaving the ABC out of the equation for the moment, the latest Sydney radio ratings came out this week and John Laws is ‘dead in the water’. A rating of around 6%, while Ray Hadley is rating around 16%. The Golden Tonsils are getting a bit rusty.

a chap makes an admittedly biased survey of a radio station by one-time forty five minute listen, and has the gall to compare it to ‘issues’ discussed by john laws? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, that’s real funny…

and this is a story?

the beast rocks, especially most of the time. it’s your abc, after all, mr stewart…

Whoa, steady on. Tintin is able to:
*fly a seaplane in a storm while being attacked by a drunken, bottle-wielding sea captain;
*carve and play a wooden trunpet that allows him to communicate with elephants;
*outsmart a bunch of ancient Incas using a scrap of newspaper and a solar eclipse;
*scare off a yeti using a (non digital) camera;
*use all manner of guns as well as being able to beat the stuffing out of a range of villains in hand to hand combat;
*carve an ice ladder in a cave on the moon;and
*pilot a shark-shaped mini submarine; amongst many other talents. I doubt that SGS can do any of these things.
Also I suspect that SGS’s dog does not have the fine sense of irony possessed by Tintin’s dog, Snowy.

Good work bonfire. Great take on it!

who is this samuel ?

boy and dog on adventures together.

The problem with Canberra radio (and tv) is that anyone who is any good moves on to Sydney. Eg Melissa Doyle, Jessica Rowe etc.

its just as if tin tin had a blog.

he had maps and everything.

i loved sgs expose on dangerous ballons attacking buildings in civic.

John Laws is a strong arguement for legalising euthanasia.
Alex Sloane is cute.
I like a bit of left wing bias to balance out all the right wing consumer orientated drivell that clogs our airwaves.
The ABC is only biased when you dont agree with it.
JJJ isn’t as good as it used to be.
Talkback radio is for simpletons.

Lawsie is paid a lot of money to “discuss the issues”. As a former member of a lobby group, I am well aware of the amount of money we paid him to “discuss the issues”.

LG: Glad she never got around to signing the confidentiality agreement before she got out of that place.

hey ralph if lawsie deals with real aussies then australia has a problem.

jemmy… you will quickly learn that there is no place for your lucid and rational (and spot-on)point of view in this town

Hey SGS, don’t like ABC 666? Who cares? Get off your backside and rotate that little round thingy on your radio and tune to something else. Your tastes are obviously not the same as mine so I wouldn’t presume to be such a knob as to criticise them – diff’rent strokes and all that.

Hey Ralph, have to agree with Hasdrubahl, intellectual laziness in you argument. ABC journalism may not be perfect but it generally has far more balance and objectivity than anything I’ve seen on commercial media (but then again I’d never rely on single sources for information before forming my own opinions and conclusions).

Commercial media exists to make money for their owners – nothing more, nothing less – everything else is secondary. To paraphrase John Pilger, there is probably more general awareness of the truth in a totalitarian state – at least they know the media is publishing b*sh*t.

Hasdrubahl, thanks for the pointing out the job at the ABC. I actually went and looked at it. They require editorial broadcasting experience that I don’t have.

You all will notice I didn’t criticise the editorial content, only the method of presenting. The *entire* team makes basic delivery errors that a one-week intern on community radio learns about. That points to a problem.

I know it’s annoying when an ‘outsider’ comes in and criticises the home team, but often a fresh perspective is useful.

I pay exactly the same amount to fund the ABC that I did in Melbourne. Why should I put up with a lesser quality of service? More importantly, why should you?

How anyone can go past 88.7 from 5:30 until 9 is beyond me. Radio Collingwood, with Mick McGuane and Michael Christian is superb, controversial, and unmissable radio.(*)

*In comparison to 2CC and their collection of cash for comment geriatrics. SGS – I listen to the CC’s from 6-8 whilst driving…

lawsie is a tool, as are most talk back presenters on commercial radio. Whilst 666 isn’t really my demographic it would probably be 4th on my list to listen (and first when cricket is on).. my list goes something like jjj, raw FM, ABC FM, ABC AM, and then that 2xx local community station..

Shame we don’t have the variety sydney/melbourne does.

I find all other radio stations available in canberra, bogany / white trash material.

And remember I am always right.

Arguing over who is a better talk back radio host is like arguing over who was a better genocidal dictator, Hitler or Stalin.

The ABC is biased. It’s only good for cricket and footy. Nothing more to say here.

jemmy, there’s a job going right now at the ABC – for Director of local radio (i.e. 666). Why not apply?

Ralph, instead of merely trotting out tired and long-discredited old arguments, why not come up with something original for a change? You’re as boring as the radio station you like – oh hang on, there’s a correlation there…

I can’t stand John Paws-for-cash, but 666 leaves me cold too. I couldn’t believe it when I moved here. After John Faine, Derek Guile, Virginia Trioli, Richard Stubbs (Melbourne 774), where is the quality here? They’re all amateurs. Even the summer intern did a better job on the afternoon show.

The announcers (all of them during the day, with that bonehead on the afternoon show the worst) just don’t seem to understand the basics of how to broadcast radio.

1. Don’t constantly laugh and giggle. We don’t have the body language cues that you do with your guest and it’s distracting.

2. Don’t talk at the same time as your guests. FFS, this is basic.

3. It’s not a cosy club and it’s too bad if Canberra is a small town. We don’t care if you run into the pollies at the supermarket. Pls ask at least one in-depth and controversial question and persist to the point of rudeness. We want answers, not a cosy chat with platitudes.

Most days I tune in ABC 702 Sydney. At least the broadcasters are professional.

Sorry if this turned into a rant, but you hit a hot spot.

I listen to John Laws every morning. Real issues and real people. No elistist left wing rubbish. Hasdrubahl, I take what you mean by Radio National focusing on ‘real issues’ to be another code for ‘left wing socialism’?

My model for Australia doesn’t include the current ABC as a drain on taxpayers and a bastion foe dying, outdated, ill-informed, left-wing ideologies, it will move to a model fully funded by private advertising and public donations – like the US PBS.

I read the whole sentence, but modest or not, I have door handles with more charm than what she exhibited yesterday. I hope that I caught her on a bad day though because I would hate to think that she is like that every day. With any luck the random number generator will allow me to review her again, hopefully the review will be much different because I fail to see how the 45 minute example I heard yesterday could keep an audience for very long.

As for people and planets, well it would certainly explain a lot about this world if I, or people who I manage to disagree with an awful lot, were not of this world. To that extent I use it as a metaphor (and I don’t really care if anybody understands it or not). I do however acknowledge that it is just the wonderful and at times amazingly infuriating nature of humans to disagree.

I think that if groups of like minded people were all sent to other planets, they would gradually find more and more to disagree about. As far as I can tell, diversity seems to be a fundamental feature of human nature.

your news gathering would go far if you learned to read sam, read the whole sentence.

note that the the charms are described as modest.

So everyone who disagrees with you on any issues orbits another planet? fascinating.

but why is the minutiae of NSW administration (as delivered by a man proven to sell his opinions to the highest bidder) more intriguing than even the modest charms of Alex Sloan?

Whilst NSW Government information was not the only thing on offer on the John Laws show yesterday morning, it may be worth noting that both 666 and 2CC have coverage areas which extend far beyond the ACT border.

As for Alex Sloan…I do hope that I caught her on a bad morning because if what I heard yesterday passes for charm in your books, then you are further off this planet than I previously thought.

Very funny. At least I can call you the source of that information…I’m glad somebody knew. It would have been nice to see it on the ABC News website though.

maybe you need to listen to more ABC Sam.

Why are you so sure that it is a Chinese language station Johnboy? I find no reference to that on the ACMA website, it isn’t on-air yet, and as far as I can see there has been no mention of what it will broadcast in the media yet. Did I miss that bit of information?

For the record, I cut out the music of one episode of Insatiable Banalities so that it would fit on one 45 minute long side of a 90 minute cassette without interruption. At the time a radio with an inbuilt cassette player was all I had to accompany me on a journey to Sydney and back.

Usually I listen to the first 30-60 seconds of the songs before I decide whether or not to listen to the rest, much like I did with 666 yesterday.

A chinese language station is of pretty narrow appeal and interest Sam.

Perhaps I just caught 666 at a bad time…I will find out when I next review them, and next time I’ll stay for the full hour.

I’ll be reviewing each station in the ratings race twice before the ratings period is over.

And surely Johnboy, if you are going to do news about local radio, New Radio Station for Canberra is more interesting and important than what one person thinks of a radio station…or perhaps you just think my opinion on the matter is important?

The boy would be advised to listen to Radio National every day, if he’s serious about “focussing on real issues”.

And the best digest of breaking stories can be found on News Radio.

Have to say I think 666’s music selection is ordinary at the best of times, they should stick to talk, interviews etc. That said though, I prefer local perspectives on the issues to Lawsie any day.