A wonderful tribute to the people who have made the alternative music station so important to its listeners.
Presenter Nadine O’Regan wrote this emotional tribute to the station, which goes off air this evening at 8pm.
This is the post from Nadine’s Facebook page, written on Tuesday night…
This time tomorrow, TXFM won’t exist anymore. Some people might say that means TXFM has been a failure. And maybe, commercially, that’s a valid argument (the radio station is closing because, in challenging times for rock radio, the backers chose not to renew its licence).
But for me, spiritually, nothing could be further from the truth.
Why? Because for ten whole years, in both its TXFM and earlier Phantom 105.2 incarnations, these two little Dublin radio stations fought with all their might to bring indie-rock music to the masses; to offer an alternative station for indie kids (and their older incarnations) who wanted to hear music that was genuinely surprising and different on their airwaves.
High Fidelity? I feel like at least some of us lived in a radio version of that reality. It sounds trite when you write it down, but we cared.
And, in many ways, what we did mattered.
Irish bands who might have gone under survived and prospered because of TXFM and Phantom. Music fans went to gigs because of music they heard on both stations. Band bookers for big TV shows checked out the tunes on TXFM and Phantom. Even big-name presenters often admitted privately that they were listening to TXFM and Phantom.
It’s not just the bands who got their break because of their presence on TXFM and Phantom; it’s the presenters too.
People who might not otherwise have been considered were taken on and encouraged. I’ve been in radio as a part-time presenter for ten years this very month, and that’s because I was given a shot by management at Phantom FM.
Sure, things weren’t perfect. We argued about the playlist. We argued about the presenters’ right to choose songs. We worried about direction. But we always knew that everyone’s heart was 100 per cent in the two stations. We know this even now, because as the station closes and people go off in their different directions (I’ve been very lucky to have been given a perch at deadly sister station Today FM), we still care. We are all still mates and we all still fight each other’s corners. We will all still dance at festivals together whenever we get the slightest opportunity.
Today I watched a video in which the amazing John Grant came into studio to say thank you to the awesome Clairis Beckis on air, for all the radio support and love she had given him.
Maybe it’s just because I know some of the people involved, but it was hard to watch because it was so emotional. But it was also the kind of amazing thing that happens when it’s NOT about commercial realities and blah blah blah. It’s just about people loving music and playing music.
Thanks to everyone on TXFM and Phantom and also to everyone who listened to the shows, emailed, texted, came up to me in pubs to talk about their favourite presenters, wrote me weird things on Tinder about playing song requests and who generally took the time out to care for the beautiful thing that is alternative music.
(Wednesday) from 8pm the airwaves will be a changed place. But I’ll always be glad and grateful that I got to be part of Phantom and TXFM.
xx
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
