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Every time I keep reading about Pirates (Usually stations running High Power without an FCC license and some part 15 operators) blaring uncensored offensive language Rap music on the airwaves it makes me want to throw a fit because it totally ruins any initiative that some of us Hobby Broadcasters like myself are desperately working towards and that is to either have a part of AM from 1620-1700 Khz for Hobby Broadcasting where there are no stations on a frequency and instead of the restrictions set for antenna and ground rules have them relaxed and maybe 5-10 watts on AM.
There are people like myself who do the best we can to run a clean station that a parent would not cringe if his or her child stumbled onto it. I’ve played Stairway To Cleveland which is about critics trying to force Progressive Rockers and Album Rockers to make Top 40 hits and the band said “F you we do what we want!” but I don’t play that everyday and the song does not have every other word the F word.
I’ve even stopped using Voodoohippie as a name on air because I got complaints that it sounded like I was into Satan and the listeners would not associate with someone into Satanic activities. Rather than argue about what Voodoohippie meant I simply dropped the name and went by Dj Troy which many people in the broadcast industry I associate with said is more professional and I’d get taken seriously.
If you know anyone running a Hobby station playing offensive language please encourage them to STOP with the on air abusive language. People like myself would practically sell their soul to get an FCC license to run a High Power station and yet because of money we can’t ever get one and Hobby Broadcasting with the hopes of the FCC working with us is all we have to hope for.
Thanks for reading this and hopefully you see my point.
They’d sure like mine. Nothing bad there….well mostly all family clean. A few songs are adult content like “Lightning Strikes” by Lou Christie but it’s in a different way.
There’s also “Steamy Windows” by Tina Turner, same example. But that’s not at all what Legacy is referring to. No place for swearing, vulgarity, or other stuff like that on radio.To add… certain songs that are about not good things like “Brown Sugar” by the Stones or “Itchycoo Park” Small Faces for example and some others will never by played on my station.
Brown Sugar was about the slave trade in the states. Nothing obscene about this song.
Itchycoo Park however from what I see could be about acid. It seems about more than pot but still plenty of 60s and early 70s songs have some drug related material.
Itcycoo Park was about a guy telling his girlfriend to skip school and school is for fools anyway and we’ll go to the park and take drugs.
Brown Sugar is about slavery and one slaver who’s a real cool guy whipping and raping his slave girl and his son getting his too.
I won’t play songs like this.
These are just two examples. A song doesn’t have to have swear words to be not acceptable.
What about the Beatles Run for Your Life?
or I Shot Mr Lee by the Bobbetts or Down by the River(I shot my baby)
Other examples.
And when rappers are accused of the content in their stuff they point to the songs I mentioned and say look at what you listened to.How about “Black Bird” by the Beatles. Also dealing with race issues in the states.
Nothing more completely wacko than listening to people decide the meaning of the songs. LOL. Yup, I’m sure Mick Jagger sat down and said “I think I’ll come up with some lyrics about slave trading and raping 200 years ago”. NO, he said “I think I’ll write a song about sleeping with that hot black backup singer” The “Brown Sugar is a slave song” is completely silly. I guess Mick was lying in all those interviews where he talked about the song, as well as the rest of the band who have talked about it. Mick was, I’m sure, trying to write a deep song based on slave history. Yeah. Right.
And if you’re gonna worry about every song where someone gets shot, you’re gonna censor thousands of songs going back hundreds of years. The difference is, they sing about someone getting shot without using every four letter word you can get in there.
TIB
Of all the songs in my era maybe 1 out of every hundred is “bad” in my mind so out of all of them only a very few fall into the “don’t like for content category” 99% of the others are good and those few won’t be missed.
Some songs the meaning isn’t straight forward and a lot of interpretation is needed and 10 people my have a different idea of the meaning but others are very straight forward. It doesn’t matter what Mick was thinking when he came up with Brown Sugar or what Neil Young was thinking when he came up with Down By The River, same as a movie with content that doesn’t agree with me. I can ignore those. But the song by Burton Cummings “Break it to Them Gently” is different because it condemns the act.
Anyway, my slogan is good times, songs about fun, love, romance, boy and girl, and innocence.
Somehow shooting your school teacher because you don’t like him or a girlfriend because she was not faithful or whipping and raping a slave no matter what the intent of the song, and it not being condemned in the song is not in my format.
Just my opinion though. There have been movies that win awards but have content or are about things that I don’t want to see or like and I can choose other movies, if I can draw a parallel there.
But this has gotten off topic I know as this is a different subject than bad language.Sorry Tim, you’re off base on this one:
Brown Sugar
The Rolling StonesGold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he’s doin’ all right
Hear him whip the women just around midnight
Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good
Brown Sugar, just like a young girl should
Drums beatin’ cold, English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonderin’ when it’s gonna stop
House boy knows that he’s doin’ all right
You should have heard him just around midnight
Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good
Brown Sugar, just like a young girl should
Brown Sugar, how come you dance so good
Brown Sugar, just like a black girl should
I bet your mama was a Cajun Queen,
And all her boyfriends were sweet sixteen
I’m no school boy but I…What’s going on here?
A post questioning the appropriateness (is that a word?) of some alleged Part15 stations’ broadcasts has devolved into examples of what some may deem inappropriate.
If you think it is inappropriate then the solution is simple…don’t play it on your station.
I don’t know how this thread promotes or helps us at all.
Neil
PS….Thread lock may be imminent.
The reason I had posted it was because in the broadcasting full rum on Facebook there were several individuals who were in Broadcasting talking about some stations they had received while they were in different parts of the state.
Some of them didn’t go very far on the am broadcast band but also too they talked about some FM folks that were behaving quite bad.
Thinking of what these broadcasters were posting I decided to let the folks know some of the things I’ve been reading and see what their take was on it. I myself along with if you weather folks are desperately trying to see if we can get a service for the am broadcast band that would allow us a nice signal for at least two miles I’m talking about a full quieting signal.
The one thing that could stop us from getting that would be FCC agents hearing this kind of stuff and putting it in their thinking caps when it comes time that some of us asked for some type of service that would give us the privilege of more power.
It really hurts the cause when some folks deliberately behave badly over the airwaves.
And I plead guilty in leading the original intent of the thread to a somewhat related but different issue.
My mistake.TheLegacy,
Someone who I consider wise once told me “Freedom includes the ability to make an ass of yourself.” Perhaps those who broadcast “objectionable” content, by whatever definition, are excising this freedom.
If some clown wants to broadcast such material so be it but I do not assume any guilt by association because I am a license free broadcaster due to this. I know of no FCC rule pertaining to Part 15 which addresses such activity. Listeners have a choice called the ON/OFF switch.
I observe folks using coarse language and incivility (often on the so called main stream media) but I try my best not to do so and have rarely witnessed such from those with whom I personally interact daily. My take is some are only trying to get a shock reaction or perhaps they are too ignorant (or stupid) to express themselves otherwise. I can’t and don’t want to control them but I can choose not to interact with them.
Concerning this forum, we used to have a motto authored by SCWIS (long gone unfortunately) that posts should be “positive and encouraging.” I personally would prefer to remember this when posting here.
Neil
Canada’s BETS-1 has the CRTC rules on programing in writing. Nothing hateful, political, religious, keep it clean. And nothing rebroadcast(like a baseball game).
Here’s the rules from the CRTC for unlicensed ultra low power stations…..BETS-1As a low power station the service is exempt from most CRTC content requirements as long as it respects the CRTS’s exemption order defined by the following criteria:
Operates between 88 -107.5 MHZ,
Field strength measurements at 30 meters must not exceed 100 uv/m
Meets all technical requirements of Industry Canada,
Originates all programming,
Does not rebroadcast the programming of another (broadcast) undertaking,
Does not broadcast religious or political programming,
Does not broadcast the same message on more than one transmitter.So as long as I respect those rules I can program what I want.
Keep it clean isn’t written there but I was told back when, when inquiring that anything hateful or swear words is not tolerated and not following the rules will void the privilege of not needing a license. And you wouldn’t get a license. No freedom of speech on the radio here!
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