It's A Gas PBSfm Tuesdays 3-5pm

Tuning into 1950's music show "It's A Gas" on Melbourne community radio station on PBS 106.7 on Tuesday 5 June was the best two hours I spent all week. This show encapsulates everything that is great about community radio: passionate presenters, genre-specific music and a well-researched and informative interview with the incredible Wanda Jackson.

A lot of presenters on community radio have specific handles for their shows, think James "Houndog" Young, Fee B Squared or Leaping Larry L. "It's A Gas" is usually presented by the patriotically named Jamie "Dingo" Suppa but for the past two weeks Mike "Hepcat" Heylbut has parked his rockabilly butt in the hotseat for a celebration of the women of rockabilly. The music is rocking and nothing you will usually hear on commercial radio but the highlight is the informed interview with former girlfriend of Elvis Presley and self-confessed Rockabilly Grandma, Wanda Jackson.

Hepcat is clearly a fan and in an enthusiastically gentle way manages to coax Jackson to talk about her incredible experiences in the world of Rockabilly music. Wanda Jackson toured with a young Elvis Presley and had a brief and innocent romance with him that included Elvis giving Jackson his ring, which she still has today. Jackson also recounts the challenges she faced touring with a black pianist, Big Al, in bars that still practiced segregation. Jackson stood by Big Al, it was all or nothing with her and the band. She also talks about brushes with alcohol, finding Jesus and of course her music.

The music featured on "It's A Gas" is all 1950's good times. If you're a music fan of any genre you'll appreciate the old time rock and roll fun packaged up for your listening pleasure. Fortunately PBS has radio on demand which means you can stream shows that have already been broadcast. So if you're reading this and want to hear the show or the interview all you have to do is tap over to the PBS website and you can listen to it too. Luddites might find it confusing so I have put clear instructions at the bottom of this post.

Sample the rockabilly grandma herself. Here's Wanda Jackson with
"A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On"

1. For radio on demand go to the PBS website.

2. You will need to login and set up an account, your email address in your login in the future.

3. On the right hand menu you will see an icon for "ON AIR NOW" - click there.

4. This will open the streaming window.

5. At the top of the streaming window there will be two options "Live" or "Radio on Demand".

6. If you do nothing you hear the current broadcast after a few moments.

7. To listen to archived shows select the "Radio on Demand" option.

8. Select the show from the dropdown menu, eg "It's a Gas".

9. From the drop down menu below select the date and time you want, eg "5 June 1500". (Shows are usually broken into hour long segments.)

10. A red line of text under "Results" will appear - click on this to listen.

11. Sit back and enjoy.

Hughesy & Kate Nova 100

If you've been living under a rock for the past ten years you might not know that Hughesy and Kate on Nova 100 are Dave Hughes and Kate Langbroek. These two got their flying miles up over on community radio station Triple R with former team member Dave O'Neil. All three had a brief stint on Triple M before heading over to launch the station and their brekky show in 2001. Dave has since jumped to sister station Vega and quite a lot has happened since this show began. There have been proposals, marriages, babies and a huge increase in their profiles. So six years on how are they holding up? Not too shabby actually.

OK, I don't like the music on Nova and there have been quite a few disappointing moments when Kate and Hughesy have appeared to be completely sucked into the commercial radio vortex, (the girly liplock photo comp springs to mind there), but these two have got a good thing going. Their breakfast show still has that rare feeling of spontaneity that we used to be able to get from genuine live television. It takes a pretty unique team to harness the kookiness of guests like Australian Idol judge Mark Holden and make his on-air appearances so refreshingly enjoyable.

Take last Friday's show, Holden came on air at around 8.45am to talk up the Melbourne weekend auditions of Idol. The talk very quickly turned to The Logies and Hughes' dig at Kyle Sandilands. Holden revealed that Sandilands had confided in him about the incident, telling Holden that the head honcho of Nova, Paul Thompson, had called Sandilands and apologised for Hughes' behaviour. Apparently Sandilands also claimed that Thompson thinks Sandilands has the best breakfast show in Australia. Now apart from the obvious fact that the only 'best' Sandilands can claim to have is 'head for kicking in' let's not let the truth get in the way of great opportunity. And this is where the Nova team shine. They got Thompson on the line and he was quick to set the record straight - he has never met or spoken to Sandilands. Nothing could make Sandilands look like a bigger tool or provide an opportunity for Hughesy and Kate to show their ability to fly by the seats of their pants and follow through for the laugh.

It is interesting that Nova's largest audience is in the 18-24 bracket but the breakfast show is hosted by a 41 year old mother of three and a dentally challenged 36 year old.
Obviously genuine funny works, no matter what the age. In the last ratings survey Nova's breakfast dropped slightly, putting them in third place for the FM stations behind Fox and Gold but there's still a lot of love in the air for these two.