On The Beach the interviews, the performances, and even the DJ banter are telling the stories of our little island. And if you gather these stories what you've got is a slice of social history. But, like I said, on radio once the words are uttered they're gone. Sure you can record them - I've got boxes of cassettes downstairs with documentaries, live performances and special feature shows I've recorded from radio over the years but if YOU want to hear them, you've got to come to my house.
What we need is a repository where we can store recordings in a way that is readily accessible to the general public. What's that I hear you say? The internet? Now there's an idea.
Podcasts have been around for a while, and are becoming part of everyday life for many - in fact there are a couple on the sidebar that have been there for a while so you can sample what The Beach is all about. But we've been thinking that we might try something a little different. What if we could start to build a record of the social history of Waiheke as reported, discussed and broadcast on The Beach. And what if in ten years, or twenty years, or even fifty you could access it to gain an understanding of island life as it is now.
Country Mike has another great post below on The Internet Archive, a project dedicated to the ideas I've discussed above.. From now on, some of the interviews and live performances from The Beach will be recorded and posted on the The Internet Archive. Whether you want to catch up with something you missed, or you want to learn a little about life in the gulf in the early years of the 21st century, we hope these posts will be of interest.
Our radio station is pretty rough and ready, the gear doesn't work that well and we're all volunteers - we're not offering hi-fidelity or regularity. But every once and a while we'll put stuff up and we'll point to it from here on the blog.
To kick things off we have posted one of the great live-to air performances we've presented on our specialist NZ music show Counting The Beat to mark NZ Music Month.
This is the fifth year we've featured the "Live On The Beach" series. Every Sunday in May a Waiheke musician plays live. Kicking things off this year was Chris Orange who plays in local outfit, Chocolate Fish. Here he talks about his musical background and performs solo, playing original material and covering The Scavengers True Love. Take a listen.
