Quote..."If I Keep telling the story over and over
again, Real Men will appear in the city of DECATUR,
ILLINOIS and DEMAND Justice for Mildred Jones and her
children"......Napoleon Williams 11-27-98

Visit this site and hear him telling the story........

http://www.blackliberationradio.mypodcast.com

Or download and listen:

http://www.freespeech.org/videodb/viewers/realmedia/ramgen.p
hp?media_id=5076

Read this while you listen to the story.............
http://www.exodusnews.com/NATIONAL/national029.htm
or read this
http://www..shop.org/news_archive/radio2.html

Please feel free to pass this bottle.

Break The Blackout.....

This is no intent to speak for the Rebel Radio pirate crew but my own recollection and participation.

i didn't start Rebel Radio and i didn't end it.

i hope the other pirates will correct my dim memory banks if need be... 

Do you remember lying in bed

With your covers pulled up over your head?

Radio playin' so no one can see

We need change, we need it fast

Before rock's just part of the past

'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me

---Rock and Roll Radio

    the Ramones, 1980

IT ALL SOUNDS THE SAME TO ME :

Rebel Radio Memoirs...episode 6

It was anti-climactic afterwards, although it didn't seem so at that moment. No knock, no warrant, nothing except that cheap Dragnet adrenalin of cops with nothing better to do. The feds eyed those of us in the living room. I kept my mouth shut this time. I was already fucked and decided someone else could share in the fucked-ness. A sizeable party situation was going on during the broadcast, never a smart move when committing illegal activities. A couple of party goers made it out the back door and maybe a window but as I recall at least a dozen of us were stuck inside. A glass bong was found in the kitchen but the cop shattered it on the floor, doing us all a favor. Another also did us a good turn: he came out of a bedroom, shut the door behind him and shook his head, signaling other officers to keep out. The occupant of the room (who wasn't even home at the time) had a few unlicensed firearms stashed there. Another safety rule down the toilet: don't conduct illegal activity where there's already illegal activity going on.

As usual, the living room action centered around shutting the equipment down. It seemed no one wanted to make a move since it could be interpreted as an implication of guilt. As far as the Feds were concerned though, anyone present during a federal offense is guilty. Someone, I can't recall who, finally stood up and powered down. The weekly Rebel Radio broadcast was off the air for good. I only hope a few minutes of the melee went out over the airwaves.

Inexplicably, the feds once again didn't confiscate the equipment nor make a move to touch it.  My theory is we were just a large pain in their federal ass and the FCC had no desire to actually prosecute. They merely wanted Rebel Radio off the air so they could get back to their routine of making sure garage door openers don't interfere with Clear Channel broadcasts.

Drivers licenses were collected and names taken. The ex-sex worker duo looked pained but mostly disgusted. They were used to harassment. Those couple of teen girlies looked scared as hell. Who were they anyway? I never knew who invited them nor had I met the occupants of the house. I was way out of the Rebel Radio loop except for making my prerecorded tapes. The party-goers were there just for kicks and seemed put out that they had to deal with this shit. I didn't buy it. They made the choice to be there, they can take responsibility for their actions. That's what activism including Rebel Radio is all about.

 This time, the feds made it clear that everyone in the house was in big trouble and it wouldn't boil down to one perp as it had before. With that, the authorities left. By that time, a couple of the regular Radio crew had arrived on the scene and approached the cops outside, acting like concerned neighbors when all they really wanted to know was Is anyone getting hauled away? Do we need to raise bail? Is the transmitter safe? They were looking out for us, bless 'em. Unlike the Stanford Ave bust, no one really knew the occupants that well and they understandably wanted us the fuck out of there pretty quick. Ejected, dejected,  we dispersed with equipment in tow to await our federal fate. 

My memory's pretty vague after this. I recall a meeting at the Frontier Restaurant where a couple of angry moms made it clear their little girls (the teens) had nothing to do with any of it but were corrupted by college kids and responsible adults like (ahem) myself. Every mom believes its always someone else's fault that their babies get in trouble. Likely those teens didn't know the full ramifications of going to an illegal broadcast but people were drinking beer and smoking dope and I give the girls enough credit to know that that was a risk right there. Stay Out of the Kitchen and all that. Anyway the busted motley group --which had only two or three actual Rebel Radio crew members --agreed that these innocent flowers of youth should be protected at all costs. Of course what Mom 1 and Mom 2 really wanted was for us to plead guilty thereby exonerating their darling angels who, from the looks of them, had their share of activities that would curdle a parent's blood. Still when it came to court time, we'd defend the teens' virtue like Crusaders defending the Holy Sepulture against marauding Turks. 

Paranoia and apprehension ensued for weeks. Contingency plans, consultation with pro bono hippie lawyers, maybe even a getaway plan or two. I lost sleep wondering how the hell I would pay thousands in fines. Would I actually do time for using the public airwaves? See, that's what the FCC wants: to scare you out of using the public resource. To the Feds, the public means stockholders, corporations and money in the bank. We were obviously not that. To our surprise, wimpy warning letters were received by all, basically saying keep your nose clean of radio piracy and all is forgiven. I was astonished but relieved that mine was another first warning. I briefly pondered how many first warnings I could get away with…

But general enthusiasm for the whole thing waned. The Feds actually took us much more seriously than we did. Everyone at the bust that wasn't Rebel Radio crew sighed relief and were glad to keep well away from us FM hooligans. The station non-collective decided to hang it up in support of me which I truly appreciated. But I secretly hoped they'd go back on air after a lull. I sort of got my wish. After a few months the transmitter and what remained of our trashy equipment was bequeathed to a new group of kids who took the mantle of Ditch Radio. The core Rebel Radio crew mostly moved on to other things: bands, biodiesel, graduate school, remote cabins in Tecolote, New Mexico...

I tuned in now and again to Ditch but must admit disappointment that political and activist content was low or at least small compared to us self-important egotistical Rebels. This was the time period when the "second" wave of punk washed out, "alternative" music was waning as a genre in favor of (c)rap metal and no one but Fred Durst was pissed off anymore.

Ditch Radio has their own story to tell. They even had a couple of run in's with the FCC but none of their broadcasts included me. Well, almost none. Intelligence whispers once burned, twice shy. I wasn't listening.  Someone called me to a Ditch locale because of antenna logistics. It was a two story apartment building but no one had access to the roof for antenna hanging and no trees were close or high enough to do the job. So I pulled up in my truck with ladder, poles, ropes & tools and proceeded to scale the building. An old lady on the first floor came out to see what was the commotion. I vaguely offered that there was some problem on the roof and I was the after-hours guy. She was skeptical but finally figured it was on the up and up and went back inside. Its always amazing to me that anyone who acts with the least bit of authority is accepted with the flimsiest of evidence. Caveat emptor.

That was my last act in FM piracy. Theses days, the transmitter still surfaces on occasion in isolated broadcasts, typically political in nature but sometimes just to offer a ghostly voice to music that someone just feels they have to send into the ether. Me, my radio is as close as I get to it anymore.

Somewhere in the chronology after the second bust, the spirit of Rebel Radio made a last but typical appearance. Pirate Willy and Owl Bird bicycled with the transmitter and antenna to a freeway overpass halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, hung a banner urging drivers to tune in and broadcast a freedom of speech loop for a few hours while they picnicked in the nearby shrubbery. 

This is no intent to speak for the Rebel Radio pirate crew but my own recollection and participation.

i didn't start Rebel Radio and i didn't end it.

i hope the other pirates will correct my dim memory banks if need be... 

Do you remember lying in bed

With your covers pulled up over your head?

Radio playin' so no one can see

We need change, we need it fast

Before rock's just part of the past

'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me

---Rock and Roll Radio

    the Ramones, 1980

IT ALL SOUNDS THE SAME TO ME :

Rebel Radio Memoirs...episode 5

The prospect of three years in prison and a $10,000 fine for illegal FM transmission was a little um disconcerting. I think I had replied to the Federal Communications Commission with a yes sir, no sir, won't do it again sir letter, essentially saying I was done with unlicensed FM broadcasting. That seemed to satisfy 'em. But no one wanted the station to die.

After a few weeks of airwave silence, it was settled. Rebel Radio was back on. I was not to be present at any more broadcasts. Suddenly, I lost my invitation to the weekly fun and happenin' parties I'd been attending for a year. I was sad. After a few weeks, I occasionally dropped by, pre-air time, to kibbitz equipment set-up but left post haste as soon as the transmitter powered up.

I soon began recording the weekly broadcast while listening alone at home. I'd earlier found a box of dozens of cassette tapes in a UNM dumpster (teaching tapes like Je Voi Dire and Let's Habla Espanol!) which were just perfect on which to record Rebel Radio's lo-fi output. I've hours of archive tapes nobody's had the will power to slog through to this day.

By our own admission, some of the broadcasts were perfectly dreadful. No wonder we had so few listeners. But when it clicked, it was full-on. There were nights when fifty people came through the studio and it was still a useless dog of a show. Other broadcasts would see maybe six pirates and a flawless, entertaining and intelligent show. Bands even showed up to play on air, notably tribal hip-hoppers Stoic Frame who I think may have been among the first live performers. Some participants were appalled at the lack of professionalism, others embraced it wholly.

While the broadcasts may have been tedious at times, it was never boring to locate that week's host house, scout antenna locations, climb trees and run around on roofs, or having to run to Radio Shack at the last minute for a fuse or relay or a length of co-ax cable because oh shit we left the old one at those apartments last week. 

Missing all that, I decided to "pre-record" my weekly Dirt City show, featuring local music and the crew was gracious enough to run them every time. It was pretty strange to tune in and hear my own voice coming out of the speakers. So that's what I sound like. What a maroon!

Not long after, Rebel Radio found another semi-permanent home: a room in an alleyside garage but this time with full blessing of the host household. It was clean, uncluttered and looked like a sterile lab in comparison with our other "studio" dungheap which we'd long abandoned after the antenna crane came abruptly crashing down out of the trees one night. In the new garage, the adjoining carspace was piled high with old computer monitors, motherboards, towers and other digital flotsam because the residents were cyber-tweaks.

This time however there was full-time security posted, someone to hang around the hood, circle the block endlessly by foot or bike and watch for telltale Colorado plates on slow-moving vehicles. A scruffy-looking kid loitering around respectable residences probably didn't look so good, what with the high rate of Breaking and Entering going on in the student ghetto but no way were the feds gonna re-catch radio pirates unaware. And yeah, I got so cocky that I started attending broadcasts again.

One evening, a hour into the broadcast,  the security sentry flew into the yard on his bike, reporting a cruising boat of a car, Colorado license plates, slowly rolling through our hood, the driver peering up as if looking for something above the rooftops. Since the antenna was rarely if ever free and above the treeline, it usually wasn't visible but next minute, the driver was spotted walking the alley (our alley!) with some handheld equipment.

At that report, we hastily powered down and disassembled the studio, ditching various components into the pile of computer parts while a few of us took off in different directions on bicycles, each with a piece of incriminating evidence like antenna, compressor/limiter and transmitter, all small enough to be wrapped in a spare shirt or jacket. No fat fed would be able to follow on foot.

The early warning system worked! Too, though, luck was on our side. Using three readings of the broadcast, triangulation monitors (such as FCC vehicles were equipped with) could point towards the origin of the FM signal, but only within a band two or three houses wide.

It turned out the neighbor was a licensed ham radio operator and had a legal and bonafide transmission antenna on his roof. Our intrepid fed, thinking he had uncovered the Rebel Radio pirate cove, demanded entrance to search this innocent bystander's home. Said bystander was understandably indignant and pissed off at the accusation, losing the agent valuable time to find the real miscreants.

We had a good laugh over that and an even better one when (at the fed's invitation), a TV news crew showed up a few minutes later to cover the event. Deducing where the broadcast had originated, our man with the FCC directed the cameraman to the garage. There was nothing to see except the non-studio half of it, that chest deep pile of cyber junk. It  was videotaped and reported on the evening news to be the very technology used by wiley FM pirates to subvert and thumb noses at authority.

We were feeling like we could elude the FCC indefinitely, especially with the New Technology our engineer was working on. I won't go into details since it may prove useful yet but it involved the broadcast signal being carried partially on a beam of light, to break the telltale link of wire from transmitter to antenna. It actually worked but the focus tolerances being tight and demanding, the system proved pretty much unwieldy in the end.

Meantime, one of our pirates had put me in touch with Radio Limbo in Tucson, Arizona. Since I was visiting there a few days, it would be worthwhile to scope their more "pro" set-up. I met my deejay contact at a third-party location where I was driven to a nondescript neighborhood. I felt like I was in an old gangster movie, being whisked to the hide-out for an audience with Edward G Robinson or Jimmy Cagney. Their HQ was also in a garage but a bright, clean and permanent studio, professional-looking with actual rules, reg's and by-laws. Hand-written notes pinned to the walls directed deejays to re-shelve CDs in proper order and turn off the lights on your way out. Not our style at all but I was envious none the less.

Their rig was a thing of beauty. Again, I'll keep mum on specifics but as described in great detail by their engineer, it involved a system similar but superior to our man's light beam approach. Designed to bypass physical triangulation and tracking to a studio it called for a wireless phone relay. This back in the days before everybody and their dog had a damn cell phone.

I was allowed to play some Albuquerque bands on air but at random during the deejay's show but his was a whole 'nother style. Harder or softer I don't recall but Limbo got phone calls (they had a studio line?!) complaining about it. Their formatting was so rigid they had a core audience but apparently one who didn't want to hear anything else but what they'd tuned in for. When Rebel Radio hosted visitors, we'd pretty much hand over the reins to them, why not. Ours was a non-schedule at best.

Limbo too was later on hassled by the FCC who destroyed their remote antenna, miles into inhospitable hike-only access wilderness--those desert FCC were tough!

As far as I could tell, Radio Limbo's political/activist content --while not quite non-existent--was pretty small. I had happened to hit town the week they were holding a benefit show on a grander scale than ours. Given the chance to mouth off on stage between bands, no one in the crowd, even Limbo pirates, seemed to give a shit when I talked about free speech and our bust situation. Fuck y'all.

In any case, politics wasn't the only determining factor in becoming an FCC target. Federal laws were broken and that was enough.

Back in New Mexico, our engineer's next tactic was a kill switch adapted from a garage door opener. The night's designated Rebel Radio security sentry could remotely cut the transmisson at first sign of a federal interloper. All of us took turns on duty, which involved patrolling the hood with a walkie talkie, kill switch in hand and an FM walkman to listen to the broadcast. There were a few false alarms but the technology worked. Better to be paranoid and cut the signal than take a chance on the feds finding us again. It was a simple matter to power back up when the all-clear was given. Some sentries took it less serious than others, reporting back inside frequently for beers or to just hang around. Not a good portent.

Still, I stayed away more than not since we were on the FCC's radar after all, especially since the egg-on-their-face incident with that ham operator. Fortunately, my official Violations letter turned out to be a first warning. As long as I kept my nose clean, I was golden. Or as close as I could get. Apparently, I'm still barred from ever obtaining a legit broadcaster's license. Boo-hoo.

These days, low power licenses are available (they weren't back then) but you still have to operate at a professional level with modern high tech equipment, pass routine inspections and prove your worth to the community. As soon as these licenses were introduced, church groups across the country snapped them up like peanuts in a party dish. God is always on the Federal side it appears.

Every once in a while I delivered my Dirt City tape to a broadcast in progress despite it being a crappy feeling to be on the outside, missing all the fun and games.

One night, I meant to just drop the cassette by and move on but the place was packed and humming. In all, about thirteen or fourteen people were in the host's living room passing the mike around. Some of my old crew was there, some of the new. There were two peep-show/escorts who went on the air to report about miserable conditions for sex workers and corrupt cop harassment. A couple of high school teenies who just happened to hear about it somehow and thought it was, like, cool. Punk rockers and political science majors. Activist discussion was really clicking tonight, the best of what Rebel Radio stood for. I stuck around, just for a little bit, proud of Albuquerque for this diverse event and sank into one of the couches. I never did find out what the fuck was up with pirate security that night.

The front door banged open and two FCC agents stormed in, followed by six APD officers. We got the usual stay where you are stuff as the cops fanned out into the house. The feds stood before us. I sunk my face to my chest but there was no hiding. My old buddy Federal Communications Commission District Director Leo Cirbo spoke up.

"Hey! Brett's here!".

I sure was. 

This is no intent to speak for the Rebel Radio pirate crew but my own recollection and participation.

i didn't start Rebel Radio and i didn't end it.

i hope the other pirates will correct my dim memory banks if need be... 

Do you remember lying in bed

With your covers pulled up over your head?

Radio playin' so no one can see

We need change, we need it fast

Before rock's just part of the past

'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me

---Rock and Roll Radio

    the Ramones, 1980

IT ALL SOUNDS THE SAME TO ME :

Rebel Radio Memoirs...episode 4

The Bust (the first one) happened this way: It was the end of September and I was sitting out on the porch of the Stanford House while a broadcast was going down inside. Close to election time, we were waiting for a Green mayoral candidate to show up and go on air. So when some guy in a polo shirt came up the steps and asked, "Is this the radio broadcast?", I said, sure! come on in.

What an asshole!

Not him, me. For inviting a Fed inside. He pulled out a badge and identified himself as Federal Communications Commission District Director Leo Cirbo.

We never considered the FCC would bother with us. The nearest office was outside Denver, over six hours away. We hadn't interfered with any legit station's FM signal; we made sure of that. Our engineer was diligent and re-tuned the transmitter regularly. We were on air only six or seven or eight hours a week and sometimes our transmission didn't reach further than ten blocks.

Alright, so we talked about subverting the dominant culture, about civil disobedience and we advocated anarchy (true anarchy-- a political system of shared authority by small communities--not chaos, not that stupid "circle A" jazz) and no matter how much fun it was to air Jello Biafra and Noam Chomsky or play records by Anal Cunt, it was the principle of free speech and access to the publicly-owned airwaves that was Rebel Radio's foundation.

But naw, I never really believed that anyone in power really gave a damn about that. The rumor was that some policy-wonk at KANW-FM (pretty much right down the street from any broadcast from the student ghetto) complained about an unlicensed radio station. We never knew for certain.

FCC Agent Cirbo entered the room and explained that no one was to leave. There were maybe eight of us present, including residents. Then he went outside to take readings on the signal strength. Someone turned down the music that was broadcasting, grabbed a mike and explained to the listeners that we were in the middle of a bust and to stay tuned. A few minutes later, Cirbo allowed how he thought it was pretty clever of us to announce what was happening on air. Yeah, we thought so too since we knew we were gonna need legal help.

When he ordered us to shut down, nobody moved. Our equipment was so outdated and DIY, I'm not sure he could identify the transmitter in our pile of junk on the coffee table. After more demands, someone snapped the transmitter off. Maybe they even said goodnight, I don't recall.

Notebook in hand, Cirbo asked who owned the station, the equipment. We all looked at each other. Ummm…nobody, we explained. It's a collective.

That wasn't rhetoric. Although the stuff was stored at my house most weeks, everything was donated to the nebulous entity known as "Rebel Radio".  No one owned anything.

He didn't buy it and repeated his question.

Honest, Mr Cirbo, nobody.

We weren't trying to be cute. That's just the way it was. We had no membership, no by-laws, no meetings, no minutes, nothing. Well, that just wasn't in an FCC agent's worldview. Feeling stonewalled, Cirbo threatened to call the landlord.

That did it. This was the venerable Stanford House. Sure, it was only a crumbling trashheap full of hardcore crusties but it had been a punk house for as long as anyone could remember. The landlord had put up with a lot of shit, but a Federal offense? No way, the residents would be evicted sure.

As far as I knew-- older by everyone else by about fifteen years--I was the only one there with a regular job and a savings account, a taxpayer; not a student, no parents to contend with. I wasn't all that far from the agent's age either. Hell with it.

I asked Cirbo, if I claimed responsibility, would he let everyone else off? That satisfied him. Right away, he changed demeanor. I followed him as he looked around, even got into his Bronco and asked about all the triangulation and tracking equipment embedded in the dashboard. Leo (my new buddy!) explained it all and showed me how it worked, very open like we were cohorts or something.

No, he said, we hadn't interfered with any other broadcasts or disrupted air traffic controllers. Ha! that air traffic thing was the line all the conservatives trotted out every time pirate radio reared its gnarly head: planes will be dropping out of the sky! But it was a crock.

But no, we hadn't messed with anyone except the FCC. We were simply unlicensed and paid no fees therefore I could expect my official Violations notice by registered mail soon.

Finally as Cirbo wrapped things up, I asked "Do you really believe in this, what you're doing?"  That was my only question that he ignored totally.

Before we knew it, Leo was on his way back to Denver and we were left sitting there on the floor and on dirty sofas and cigarette-burned upholstery, empties strewn about.

But we still had all the equipment. Nothing was confiscated. What the hell..?

This is no intent to speak for the Rebel Radio pirate crew but my own recollection and participation.

I didn't start Rebel Radio and I didn't end it.

i hope the other pirates will correct my dim memory banks if need be... 

Do you remember lying in bed

With your covers pulled up over your head?

Radio playin' so no one can see

We need change, we need it fast

Before rock's just part of the past

'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me

---Rock and Roll Radio

    the Ramones, 1980

IT ALL SOUNDS THE SAME TO ME :

Rebel Radio Memoirs...episode 3

By Captain America

Do you remember lying in bed

With your covers pulled up over your head?

Radio playin' so no one can see

We need change, we need it fast

Before rock's just part of the past

'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me

---Rock and Roll Radio

    the Ramones, 1980

episode 2

Rebel Radio was always looking for a host broadcast house and there were just two requirements: that you were willing to have all kinds of miscreants and weirdos show up at your place and that there was a  tree tall enough from which to hang the antenna. Legalities of unlicensed FM radio rarely came up if at all. Once weekly, a weak FM signal, tens of listeners: who gave a shit? We felt safe.  

Watching Pirate Willie climb was always a thing of beauty. Hed scamper into the branches contrary to Sir Isaac Newton himself, shinny up branchless trees for fifty feet, hang upsidedown on limbs too big to climb around.

Once up, hed drop rope to us below. Wed tie on the antenna and haul it up, a modified j-pole copper tube, made of parts available at any hardware store. An occasional pirate flag was hoisted but this was soon nixed in favor of discretion. Not nearly enough discretion as it turned out but thats a later story.

As long as the antenna hung free and was above physical obstruction, it was good to go. A cable ran from the antenna to the transmitter that was powered either from a deep-marine battery or, later, an ac/dc adapter. A clip-on plastic Walgreens desk fan cooled the transmitter; it could max and tweak out from too much heat. From there, a limiter / compressor kept the output sound from going into the red. Or I should say, too much into the red. Most of the pirate crew liked loud obnoxious punkass music so a little red was always good.

A beat-to-shit mixing board --that was at one time used to master recordings by (I think) Word Salad -- was fed with an even more beat-to-shit phonograph, squeaky battered tape deck and wimpy CD player. One or two or three microphones added to the cacophony.

Rebel Radio, on the air!

The only time we ever allowed full-on commercial music was when Sunshine brought her tiny teeny-bop daughter and friend who wanted nothing so much as to DJ new Spice Girls songs. There was a little grumbling from the stick-up-the-ass members of the crew but come on! How much more punk does it get than contributing to the delinquency of a minor? On a federal offense no less! 

Soon after, some inhabitants of The Tower hosted a broadcast. Its the taller of most  buildings down on First or Second Street, one of those places that has an elevator open right into the studio apartment. Up the fire escape and to the roof and presto! the antenna was hung in its most choice location yet, high above the entire downtown. As a bonus, while speaking with one of the gals who lived there, she let out with the statement Rod Parker is my boyfriend. Whoa! we were impressed!  Parker was the first local (loco?) musician to send a homemade tape for airplay. It was a few 4-track demos. I still have it and Rod is still rockyrolling around town.

There were regular crew members who hosted weekly shows of  blues, folk, hardcore and local music and, for a time, ska and two-tone. The real pirate heart though was early evening news & info that mostly centered on activist events. From people who had chained themselves to logging trucks in Colorados San Luis Valley to Cop Watch reports, or striking miner solidarity updates and this weeks Food Not Bombs location.

Other features drifted in and out, like the weekly Bike Tip (five minutes on how to tune your bicycle but I think she only lasted a couple of weeks) or, my favorite, the Stock Report: that weeks prices for aluminum cans or scrap metals that were easily found discarded in alleys or dumpsters. Speaking of which, inveterate dumpster divers would show up with eats from grocery trash like garbage sacks full with day-old Wolfs bagels or entire unsold pizzas thrown away, still in the box, at the end of the night shift.

My first winter on the crew, we even had a permanent studio: a disgusting trash-heap of a second story garage overlooking the 66 Diner alley. When we first got the ok to set up there, someone knew somebody who lived in the house. Or something. But soon the word was they had moved--like all college kids do on regular basis. But we kept parading back there each and every Tuesday. No one ever said a word. 

Who knows what went on in that nasty garage during the rest of the week but we loved it. First, it was so full of junk, we could stash the equipment there, undiscovered, all week rather than hauling it around.

Second, it was at the edge of I guess what youd call the UNM mesa and sloped from there straight to downtown. Low power FM waves travel line-of-sight so buildings can deaden the signal. From this spot, our ranting, raving and rock n rolling was open to the whole of western Albuquerque.

But third and coolest: Willie had built a crane to hoist the antenna: a bunch of dumpster scrap two-by-fours spliced together and pinned to a tree by big fat spikes on which it could pivot. The antenna was tied to the long end pointing to earth, and a rope to the short end pointing skyward. Hauling on the rope and up she went, pivoting to bring the antenna ten feet above the eighty foot tree. Normally we were enviro-freaks who wouldnt think of driving a spike into a venerable old tree but this was high-tech for us. I bet that  trunk still bears a Rebel Radio scar.

So amid rusty junk and garbage, sitting on stained with god-knows-what couches, the aroma of diner burgers wafting our way in the cold, awash in beer empties and ciggy butts, Rebel Radio had a real live regular studio space.  No one was ever more excited about hanging out in a smelly unheated trash heap for eight hours a winter night than we were.  

by Sunshine (remixed 12/15/05)

Someone had to do it. I took the idea directly to the most capable anarchist I knew.  Pirate Willie. Most of this article is an ode to him.

Our original idea was to make it 1/6th solar.  In addition to his being a solar genius, he has the unusual destinction of being the "guys who eats cats..." in one of Fast Heart Mart's songs What To Do In Albuquerque.

In the song, Pirate Willie would " get his meals out of the trash"  and say, "Hey man, that will be that."   FHM also goes on to say, "...but I respect him for that...." Of course compassionate and thrifty Willie  couldn't let fresh roadkill go to waste!  After the Bar B Q, he made a banjo head out of the cat skin. (It still has grey fur around the edges.)

      "Respect" is the least one could have for this man who has mentored a generation of gutter punks, dirt heads, suburban rejects and traveling groupies...showing them how to quit their jobs; to eat out of the Pizza Hut dumpster; while scavenging parts to build a bio-diesel processor.

     Willie built his own trailer and heats it with barrels of water, which store the sun's heat. He has also built solar ovens, composting toilets, and a solar still and food dehydrator.

           Until he learned to process alternative fuels, he refused to drive a car. Just riding his bike long distances and train hopping for longer ones.

       For a time, he would sell the juices of scavenged fruit from a self-made, solar operated, bicycle-cart-juicer (Never a permit.) 

     Willie is an avid activist.  Whether he’s saving trees or unionizing.  His most annoying quality is that he's right most of the time. His second most annoying quality is his unconscious male identified egotism about that fact.  But I forgive him because he is one of my dearest friends and otherwise, highly evolved.  He’s also good to his woman.

     Willie coordinated with roommates to maintain grey water systems, solar still, composting toilet, large organic gardens and a variety of birds.

      Did I mention BEES?  Willie is the Emperor of Bees!  He kept hives for ten years with meticulous notes.  His bees produced the most delightful Scrappy South Valley Honey.  Willie   also relocates wild hives!   He says stings, "help with plant allergies."  He isn’t even afraid of Africanized bees.  He says we need to learn how to work with them.

     When its not bees, its bats...following them for research which could save their lives.

      If he's not hopping trains he's sailing.   And a hardy sailor!  After surviving a gas explosion on a boat with terrible burns and a painful recovery;  then a devastating fire which lead to the loss of his home and bankruptcy and worse:  the un PC decision to appear as a zombie pirate in a Johnny Depp film: The Walt Disney produxion Pirates of the Caribbean!

    Pirate Willie and his goddess of a partner will soon co-captain yachts while sailing around the world -leaving ye olde  land lubbers to yer doom..  

      But back to iRadio Revelde!  I loved the cross-cultural inference of the name and the revolutionary spirit, although I am no longer a communist.  I can’t accept any government.

 I have become seriously  feral. My only concern is maintaining bio diversity and forage for posterity. So enough about me...

      A dear friend and associate of Free Radio Berkeley donated us a transmitter.  We purchased the crystal, which would give us 91.1 fm at first (ha ha) but that one wouldn't work.  We ordered a new crystal to tune us in at 90.9 fm because there wasn't anything close to it to interfere with and a Christian station to either side.  (I think it was the Christians hearing the prostitute interview that motivated the feds to focus in on us...and the Alibi interview duh! )

      After Pirate Willie was on board, I approached my friend -the bicycling, snowboarding, thrash bassist "I.M.FUKT", was eager to share the hate. He had the largest collexion of extreme hardcore and underground music that I could locate.  Bonded as fellow Pirate Willie groupies, yet competitive for his attention, we became his bumbling henchmen.

      The debauchery began with the first $10 donation to the cause.  Money changed everything.  Instead of carefully guarded, sober, responsible meetings, the broadcasts became drunken revelries. Money meant beer, and suddenly we're all invincible --no security riding bikes around the neighborhood with walkie-talkies anymore; door left unlocked; lame ass shit. And for beer is where the money went. 

     When the adults couldn't be there, some cliquish, incestuous, trendy poser kids would host the broadcast (goddess bless 'em for keeping the torch burning.)  Their scene was less than welcoming to the outsider.

     I remember begging my shy friend for months to bring this awesome tape down to the station!  It was a bootleg, and quiet...just some crazy schizo guy talkin' fucked up and playin' guitar...funny stuff.  She finally showed up, scared to death, and started to play the tape. But after two minutes, some shit head poser kid took the tape off, disgusted. He didn’t even know how cool that tape wasor what an obnoxious fool he was.  My friend ran out of the room and I was never able to convince her to come back to Rebel Radio. The girl has star quality and an incredible collexion of totally weird lounge music, 70's pop, punk rock and 20's music. She even introduced me to Pirate Willie, allowing the whole project to exist. That experience was the low point of Rebel Radio for me.  Dealing with posers. Not anarchist like at all.  Anarchists adhere to the highest principles of etiquette and consensus decision-making. It’s all of us, or none.

       In addition to my being a long term Willie groupie, I was, at the time, a recently converted Captain America groupie.  Not the Wig Wam Bam asshole he has become, but the humble nerd who traded native drought tolerant seeds with the local Native American tribes people. This was my guru. The Captain had a huge music selexion of classic Motown, early punk and even bluegrass. His Cancerian tenacity proved vital, yet fatal to the project.  After two busts where he had been named as an accomplice, The Cap'n, rather than laying low, attended another drunken, indulgent prostitute ridden evening of sleazy company and trashy punk music in the student ghetto....

    Three's a charm and after the threat of the $11000 fine, we all bowed out to protect The Cap'n.

     To compensate, we all started zines:

     Wig Wam Bam--Captain America’s slanted rant on the local music ob-scene is still available at Burt’s Tiki Lounge and other dive’s near you.

     Seedhead News--Pirate Willie’s DIY rag and I think you can get it online…

     Chaos Ninja--An ethnically diverse jumble -half written and half cut and paste. I still have the master copy of issue #1 -which I will probably upload here (including the never before seen celebrity Steve Eiland centerfold!).

      Insurgo was a collectively run musical space --another attempt for the radio activists to get the music out there. (Especially to the all ages crowd.)

      Voces Feministas the KUNM Radio show (89.9 fm) and Indy Media on Channel 27 are licensed alternatives to the pirate radio format started up by our own Chinita DJ.

         I don't think I was " Rainbow" either.  I was" Sunshine".   That was a joke because of my Debbie Downer style radical on-air ranting.  For example, the bit about corporations like Nike contracting labor from private prisons so they barely pay prisoners $1/hr. This makes it desirable for lawmakers to illegalize stuff like marijuana and even public sleeping – creating a population of criminals with no rights. Sure this is one way to collect revenue but in the larger scheme of the rising “private prison” system, it allows “Big Brother” to turn some otherwise unremarkable person into a CRIMINAL- to be disposed of or used in their prison/slave camps.

      The contribution of which I was most proud, was the taped interview I did with Jay from none other than Bad Religion (my heroes!) It had about 5 or 6 songs -and a piece of Jay.  Good guy. (Probably eventually downloadable from this Rebel Radio MySpace profile)

         Blunt Society played on the air, and Apricot Jam, shit...I don't remember everyone.  I just get stuff goin’…it’s up to other people to keep 'the stuff goin' as long as it continues to serve a purpose. Folks kept it goin' for two years…now this.

 Makes a mamma proud.

This is no intent to speak for the Rebel Radio pirate crew but my own recollection and participation.

I didn’t start Rebel Radio and I didn’t end it.

God, I hate disclaimers. Just shut the fuck up and tell the story!

I hope to hear more from the other pirates….

__________________________________________

IT ALL SOUNDS THE SAME TO ME : Rebel Radio Memoirs

 Captain America

Do you remember lying in bed

With your covers pulled up over your head?

Radio playin' so no one can see

We need change, we need it fast

Before rock's just part of the past

'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me

---Rock and Roll Radio

    the Ramones, 1980

Episode 1

It’s pretty sad when the high point of your life is when the new weekly paper comes out.

I was 38 and single after ten years of raising a couple of step-kids and spending the rest of my time farming and landscaping. I’d mostly given up on rock and roll since age 19 but after two decades as a mellow organic hippie, it was time for a change.

That change came in the form of “alternative rock” radio.

 I’d been tuning in with my 11 and 14 year old kids the year before. It was all new to me and exciting as hell. Yeah, it was so new I recall thinking that the Cranberries’ Zombie was grunge. What the fuck did I know. The last records I bought years ago were during the death throes of the Grateful Dead.

It took a year or so but I finally began to filter through the horrid and deplorable Alanis Morisette, Sponge and Soundgarden to discover the punk and indie roots of alt.rock : the Dolls, Stooges, Minutemen, Husker Du – man! I’d missed out on all that stuff. Truth to tell, I would’ve hated it even if I’d heard it the first time around but still…

I was  voracious now and didn’t want to miss a thing. In fact, it was a fight over me attending a Cibo Matto/Babe the Blue Ox show at the Launchpad that led to my newly-single status.

Sounds dumb but it was worth it.

I was inspired out of my skull and music was exciting in a way I’d forgotten for first time since I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show when I was five, the Rolling Stones a year later or  Paul Revere & the Raiders on Where the Action Is and Hullaballoo.

After being obsessed with seeds and farming for fifteen years, I  was nuts over loud obnoxious music. I was hungry and haunted Albuquerque shops like Mind Over Matter (the best store on the planet) and Drop Out Records, I pored over the Weekly Alibi in search of shows to scope out , spent all my extra cash on piles of used CDs and checked every phone pole in the student ghetto for show fliers to steal and hang on my walls.

One that said Rebel Radio Tuesdays 6PM to 1AM caught my eye, especially since their contact was Drop Out, a funky little garage/punk rock shop near the college. Not an FM pirate but a go-between, the guy at the counter told me Rebel Radio was an illegal station but cool as shit and worth listening to.

When I tuned in and heard them spinning everything from anarcho-punks Crass to 1950s acoustic blues as well as reporting on enviro-social justice issues like anti-logging demonstrations in the San Luis Valley or the corporate interests behind Wild Oats Market, I was hooked.

Coincidentally, there was an anonymous interview in the UNM Daily Lobo with a few radio pirates during the very same week I found out one of my organic gardening buddies was among them. That was good news since now I didn’t have to actually be cool or anything to check it out but had my Letters of Introduction, so to speak.

Its kinda hazy now but through my friend, the Fun Guy, I think I checked out a broadcast or two and met Pirate Willie, Racer X and Sunshine (hey! I’d met her before too!). Still being a longhair and social moron, I didn’t get involved but brought a crappy record or two that somebody kindly played on-air. Too, being about 15 years older than everyone else, I was a little intimidated. Well, ok, a lot intimidated.

A couple weeks later, I was tuned in at home when the deejay apologized for not having a good selection of music since hardly anyone had shown up to the broadcast that week. I knew what he meant.

In order for the station to function, people had to show up. See, the “studio” consisted of the transmitter, antenna, tapedeck and CD player transported (as likely by bicycle as not) to a willing volunteer’s house, an early effort to hide from the authorities by changing locales but also as a way to involve the community.

And when people came, they brought their music.

The light finally went off in my hippie-addled brain: all I had to do to be involved was to get involved!

I called the Fun Guy to check where the broadcast was this week. Filling a bag with records and discs, I just about ran the few blocks --the locale was almost always in the UNM Student Ghetto.

The latest in a long line of studio turntables had died that week (the consequence of hauling sensitive sound reproduction equipment strapped to a mountain bike) so my records were useless but the beat-to-hell CD player was still working.

 Starved that evening for something good to play, Racer X (the deejay on duty) took one look at my pile, said “cool!”, slammed in an MC5 disc and pushed play.

He even let me pick and announce my music. 

Fuck yeah! I felt like I had arrived home. I done good. After that, I didn’t miss attending a weekly  broadcast until The Bust…

to be continued

posted   on ROCKSQUAWK.COM september 27, 2005 11:50 AM

http://rocksquawk.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/507106529/m/3871033121

i just happened to stumble into the pirate thing when it was happening here. i kept asking around and it turned out there were a few friends of mine involved but keeping Rebel Radio way on the DL: i knew rainbow and the fun guy but there was pirate willy, racer X, betty crocker, owl bird and others whose pirate names i forget. that's when i took the captain america designation.
i just kept showing up with lots of records until they had no choice but to let me dj regularly. i was like 10-15 years older than everyone but they were totally cool about it. soon i was there every week (it was only 1x week, tuesday 6pm-1am) doing "dirt city" a local music show. since no one ever sent us stuff, it mostly was from my own collection. (gotta give props to rod parker [now of the darlington horns] for sending us the first contributed local music: a cassette tape of 4 track demos. i still have it).
pretty soon i was setting up and tearing down each week (we set up in different locations every week), driving equipment around, climbing trees to hang the antenna, doing minor equip repair, scheduling shows & locations, etc
we got pretty lax, letting anyone come in and dj or rant.
finally in late september 8 years ago, i was sitting on the porch of the infamous stanford house during the broadcast originating there when this guy in a polo shirt strolled up and asked if this was where the station was. we were expecting some green mayoral candidate so i said sure come on in.
d'oh!
it was an agent from the FCC office in denver.
he told us that we were busted and that he was going back outside to check the antenna etc. we kept broadcasting, even informing the audience of what was happening and that we may soon need support, etc.
finally he came back in, shut it off and asked who owned the equipment. we kept replying "no one, its a collective", he kept asking, we kept repeating the same answer.
he couldn't deal with that collective commie concept and finally threatened to call the landlord. at that time sonny was more or the less the official tenant of that long-time punk rock house. after so many years, no one wanted the house to be shut so being the oldest one there i volunteered responsibility.
in a way, it was cool 'cause i got to go hang with the agent in his bronco with all the tracking and triangulation equipment and ask him all kinds of tech questions. he was pretty open about it all.
except when asked him if he really believed in what he was doing (busting us) he wouldn't answer...

long story a tiny bit shorter, all that happened was i got a threatening letter of up to one year in prison and $10,000 fine. the FCC didn't follow up until we went back on the air when they busted us again. for some reason, they gave me another first warning. no one was ever procecuted and most of us passed the equipment on to Ditch radio, a bunch of new kids. that's another story.


the most difficult part of setting up a station is finding bandwidth wide enough so you're not fucking with any other station's signals (if you do that, you may as well call the FCC yourself and tell 'em to come get you).
you need at least one (better two) channel(s) on either side of you. the airwaves are pretty damn crowded these days. there used to be most space down low, around the community stations ( like KUNM and KANW)
we had a great engineer who never wanted to be on the air but kept the equipment in top shape. he was ex KUNM by the way.

these days the FCC licenses low-power stations if there's room and you can prove community involvement and have "real" equipment (unlike our pile o' crap). low power licenses are going mostly to churches and civic groups who just waste airspace & air time and have approved content. yuck. the rules say i could never get a license since i got caught twice but i never wanted one anyway.

Radio Limbo, a pirate station in tucson lasted for years since they had an ingenious system for masking their signal's origin (no i'm not gonna tell ya) but also no one fucked with them because they did almost no politcal stuff. we had people each week telling about locking themselves to logging trucks, encouraging protest and dissent etc etc so i think although we were smaller and reached less people, we were a bigger target.
bah.

...

ok time for me to shut up now...