You got a signal yet?

It was always a struggle for us funk fiends to find the music we were buying and hearing in the clubs, on the radio. Radio One was still churning out its daily diet of sugary pap that appealed as much to your parents as it did to your kid sister, but soon that was coming to an end, for ever!
Although Radio Invicta was nothing new, having started around the early 70`s, we just could never pick up a bloody signal...it was either our shitty little cassette radio`s or living right in the center of London with all the concrete to soak up the illicit broadcasts...Then one bright sunny Sunday afternoon we decided to head over to Regents Park from our normal plot hanging and larking out in Fitzroy square. Fitzroy is one of those beautiful squares that London prides itself on surrounded by Georgian houses with Portland stone exteriors, obviously built for the Aristos of earlier times...Regents Park on the other hand offered us a vast expanse of space..to explore, with its fantastic Nash landscape. Really looking back on it now we were very lucky to have such an incredible outlet right on our doorsteps. Passing Gt Portland Street tube station up Park Square east, Timmy`s still dancing along with his brand new Boogiebox bought the week before, we`d enter the Avenue Garden section of the park, always an advantageous position to admire the cuties either domestic or foreign passing by. Finding a spot to plot, it would be on to the dial chasing that frequency..92.4VHF....hissing, crackling...Got it!!!

You hear the jingle 'Soul over London'.....then.



It was the clearest signal we had heard, collectively our minds joined together and so did our eyes, wide open to the potential for taping to the max...."Fuck that does it", We had found another spot to call our own. "Stonehenge" we nicknamed it, due to a rather strange metallic piece of sculpture by some unknown artist, that we used to prop the boogiebox up against, which seem to improve the quality of signal. Sunday afternoon will never be the same again, we could do there what we wanted to do!!



and we did indeed, over the following years and other pirates that came and went most notably, JFM, LWR, Horizon, Solar and later Kiss, who in later years would be the only station to gain a legal status. "Stonehenge" became the mecca for all the funky kids from around the flats...Leeko "mr guitarman", Glug, The Boon, Johnny "organics sax" L, Jinadu, The Langridge family, K,P & Erica Tilly, The Legs Diamond, MD "the pusherman" all becoming one little funky family immersed in the tunes of the times!



And not only on weekends, many balmy hot summer evenings, we`d meet up outside the offy on Robert Street, armed with our sauce of choice, boogiebox and blunts, we`d jump the park gates and head further into the epicenter, so as the circling plod patrol, would never hear the 24 hour sounds...we`d party until sunrise, occasionally crashing because too mashed move.

Too all the dj`s on those stations, thank you guys!