"Broad audience" means an audience who are interested in more than just those dozen acts who are the backbone of the station. Dont get me wrong, i like all three acts mentioned above but not all the time.





i may be alone on this but i find the specialist shows are all one kind of specialist - they all seem to be metal/industrial (bar the irish show and the Producers show). Why isnt there a specialist hip-hop show, a specialist dance-rock show, a specialist folk show? Theyre still all alternative rock

I think the reason why people here have mentioned the weekend shows is because theyre so different to whats on at the daytime. That people are bothering to listen to the radio at the weekend and pick up shows like pearl's show and jim carroll's show means theres a demand for this kind of music during the week.

as i said in my other posting, i'm a phantom fan and its a MILLION times better than anyting else on the dublin airwaves but it does sound like a station stuck in the 1990s a lot of the time.

Do you mean specialist shows like for example Hip Hop, Goth or Heavy Metal? In a broad context the word "Alternative" should include these and not just your run of the mill Indie stuff.

that'll do me.... seems reasonable

although i think one of those boundaries to push could indeed be to introduce a genuinely alternative 10.00 P.M. to Midnight show during the week (or a once weekly 8.00 P.M. to 10.00 P.M. slot).... personally speaking, that evening slot has been the most disappointing thing... i can understand the need for the daytime fodder but the specialist shows lack a little bit of needed variety...

on the whole though - well done - it's good to have you back

I think you're relying on the backbone a bit too much though. I love the Pixies but everytime I hear them on the station I go "aw no not again." The best part of Phantom for me is hearing new things, I'm listening to Edel right now and she played "Heart Shaped Box" (which I love) and something that I'd never heard before, I preferred hearing the song I didn't no. Also, less bad NME approved British bands (Tap Tap are the only decent new band from the UK I've heard since the first Doves record in 2001) and more "pitchfork bands", if Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire can have big audiences here then surely there's a market for hearing more of that sort of thing.

No idea what phantom is like day to day, but I was listening to it the other night on t'interweb and they were playing Delta 5 who have been covered by Chicks on Speed, so it was interesting to hear the originals and prompted me to track them down on Emusic so it's pretty good.

I dunno, more Italdisco?

The unfortunate thing is that Phantom offers itself up to Goths and Metal heads WAY too much.. As far as I can see 'alternative' music is now predominantly electro and anthemic indie. The Pixies obviously surface quite a bit on Phantom and they deserve their place at the table, but not to take all the seats. Anyone just has to surf Pitchfork or Last Fm and see the bands that are making waves right now.

Again, a lot of posters here are concentrating on the fact that it's better than what's out there, that's just not good enough. Phantom is populated by the masters of a legacy of a pirate station that came when the kids wanted to rock.. The kids have now grown up, Ash aren't relevant and Metal is a memory. (Remember, Phantom arose when indie was not in the mainstream. it is now. Bloc Party, Arcade Fire get played on all stations, but that's not reason for Phantom not to play them..)

I'm not going to do up a sample playlist because the info is out there for all to see, but for inspiration check Tom Dunne's Pet Sounds (particularly last nights Dave Couse helmed one) and Donal Dineens late night bliss. I would urge them to do so, because this little niche that they carved out when Wexford St was beginning to hop is becoming narrower and narrower and they are in danger of ruining it for us all (ie proving that alternative radio doesn't work and thus being replaced with commercial)

In a short, Phantom needs to stop looking to Whelan's and start listening to music.

Dave

Inspiration and Tom Dunne in the same sentence?

He plays the same turgid stuff all the time. He show is the most unspiring on radio today. Even friends who are fans are turning off his show in droves. You immediately know your listening to Tom Dunne from the playlist. As for the hilarious name that tune someone's humming.

Of course, horses for courses.

the last few posts have been wrong...

...i hate listening to endless pixies / smashing pumpkins / 90's rock just as much as all of you but these bands still attract WAY more listeners than even some of the more succesful "pitchfork bands" (as unicron described them... by the way, last decent UK album is from 2001 - where have you been, sir?)... they have to think of listening figures first and foremost at the beginning...

the evening time needs the good alternative music (and i don't mean a specialist genre show - music doesn't need to be categorised this way)... you have jim carroll and pearl at the weekend... you could do with a foggy notions show during the week... or a donal dineen...

great post, great great post

This is so true of many alternative shows, look at MTV2, loadsa fallout boy/My Chemical Romance/Muse, the kind of stuff 15 year old skate kids in Nirvana hoodies probably regard as "REAL music", wheres the non-rock in the vein of Saint Ettienne, why do I have to wait until late at night for 120 minutes?

As for alternative is predominantly electro and and anthemic indie, yeah sort of, but I kinda feel the "electro" bit is generally an indiefied NYC/UK/French version of electro, the timeline of Electro history for it's audience sorta goes straight from Kraftwerk to post-Electroclash sorta stuff, neatly bypassing the rich vein of everything inbetween electros second wave as a part of hip-hop and even early electroclash era stuff. Don't want to sound snobbish here, electro has always been a fluid genre that's been re-invented time and again and a lot of the current wave (e.g. Justtice)is fantastic, but some of it feels like indie bands with keyboards trying to make themselves sound more progressive than they are by nailing on the Electro tag almost as an afterthought. It's sorta like the NME inventing the Nu-Rave tag, implying a comeback because a UK band were doing something vaguely rave-y, while ignoring mainland Europe

As for the anthemic indie thing, is that a good trend? I mean everybody likes an anthem but it seems every band seems to be trying to produce a massively "important" epic these days. Some of this is good, some sounds like a bunch of bad Bruce Springsteen wannabes, and what is the obsession with The Boss anyway? I always remember his as being OK, but slightly naff when I was growing up. What about the charm of indie records that don't try to be epic, but sound small and amateur in good way? Along the lines of the Damaged Goods label for example?

I guess what I'm trying to say is it can be good to be aware of these trends but not to be over-influenced by them. Theres also an obsession with "new" music these days, but to me new music is simply something I haven't heard before even if it was recorded in 1978, always nice when a radio show mixes new releases with a bit of crate-digging, which judging by what I've heard on Phantom, does appear to happen even if occasionally.

By a new band. There's been good albums by more established UK acts since then but up until Tap Tap put out their album last year I hadn't heard an exciting British debut since Lost Souls. Of course if you care to suggest some more I'll investigate but the whole nu-(post)-punk thing bores me terribly. I've got Mission Of Burma and Gang Of 4 albums that I can listen to that are good if I want to hear that sort of thing.

Oh wait, that pipettes album, it's alright.

this is exactly where i'm at...

i agree with a lot of the post punk think but still, c'mon!...

brakes
minotaur shock
various
the fence collective
patrick wolf
antony and the johnsons (well, he did win the mercury thingy)
any number of twee indiepop stuff
any number of avant-garde free folkists
lone pigeon
sons and daughters

i don't know, it's not as if i love some of these bands, they just came into my head (that said, i'm struggling to come up with the "big" indie band)...

it appears you are caught up in the american scene via pitchfork and the like... but there is plenty of good british music out there...

Ok, I'm only back from my Cluas sabbatical so I'm not too good with the Quoting but in response to Binokular.

I agree with Electro being a flowing genre and that it lends itself to others, and in a way, I guess you're right about it becoming indiefied. So rather than concentrate on it's bastardisation by UK and Irish acts, could it not be defined as a sub genre, indietronica or what not? The point I was making anyway, was that Phantom seem to prefer the dark over the light. A lot of indie/electro meddling can sound amateur and quirky and Phantom has traditionally shied away from this, which is a pity. But because of it's throwaway nature, it's gets thrown away.

In context, the Pixies would sound a lot better with a good cross section of newer acts. Then these older songs can rightly be elevated to classic status, and would also serve as benchmarks in modern taste, in case we lose the run of ourselves (Razorlight).

Regarding Anthemic rock. I used the wrong term. I got lazy. But you know what I mean. I certainly didn't want to refer to it as emotional rock. There is I suppose an argument for Intelligent Indie Music and I simply feel that Phantom have not produced the good in this department.

As a closing note, Phantom was a huge part of my early 20's and I'll always thanks it for that. But, I really wanted it to be a part of my early 30's too.. And it's not doing that I'm afraid.

Dave

Oh Zing. I don't care for pitchfork that much in terms of writing but they've turned me onto enough decent stuff in the past that I'll check out whatever they recommend but not dismiss what they don't like. As for your list, I don't rate Brakes, Patrick Wolf or Sons And Daughters; Antony who I think is wonderful is, mercury aside, effectively an American act. I've liked what I've heard of Minotaur Shock though. Not heard the others.

It's not that I'm closed to the idea of good British acts, a nation of 65 million people with such a rich heritage can't just have started universally churning out s**te en masse because the NME began liking bad music but I know of no decent place I can go to read about good British music. I only got broadband last week so maybe now it'll be easier for me to find good stuff.

true... harder to find decent sources... i guess with webzines such as pitchfork, stylus, popmatters, tinymixtapes etc... there is always a tendency to american releases... was just a bold statement... and i'm kinda pissed off by these quirky american indie-rock bands at the moment (huge generalisation i realise)...

anyway, phantom - i think punchbowl is talking sense but i also think that we can all get caught up in how many people actually listen to the stuff we listen to... because we hang around these forums, we presume there are millions... but the teenagers rule and they like to hear the smashing pumpkins and nirvana...

I don't listen to the radio ever

I have more money to spend than teenagers do. Cater to me Simon. MEEEEEEEEEEEEE

re: new British bands - I agree with Unicron in that I haven't really heard any new British groups in 4 or 5 years that have really impressed me.. all the new music I've really enjoyed for quite a while has been American or occasionally continental European. I'm sure there are great British new bands out there, but we're not hearing about them.. (Actually, that new Patrick Wolf album is pretty good, so he's possibly an exception to this).

About Phantom, I haven't given it enough listening time since it came back on to give a proper opinion on how they've done.. A few very good specialist shows in the evenings and tolerable daytime playlists would be all I'd really want.. I haven't really listened to music radio since I discovered Newstalk, and I don't even listen to that all that much.

I haven't really listened to music radio since I discovered Newstalk, and I don't even listen to that all that much.

Weird, but News Talk had the same effect for me...