REPRINTED FROM 'THE MMATTRIX' (ISSUE No. 5 - SUMMER '92 UPDATE)

MMATTLAND COMMUNITY RADIO?

IT CAN ONLY MEAN THEM AT THE OVERFLOW...

Once in a while, a radio station does something truly inspired, though this isn’t one of those times at all.

Yes, them wacky folks at our favourite pirate station, Freedom Overflow, pulled off a Cripplecock (it’s cider, honest) fueled April Fools Day joke on the poor people of Colchester (and general surrounding area). ‘Twas the night of April 1st (no shit?)... the airwaves crackled into life on 90.7 and 106.1 FM... two alcohol crazed disc jockeys, claiming to be Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer and Mrs. E (and definitely not Garry Lee and The Black Widow), announced that you were listening to Mmattland Community Radio, MCR FM, for short. Right through the early hours of Arpil (Arpil??? Learn to type, Magic!) 2nd the show continued... playing nothing but MMATT material (plus Internal Autonomy here and there)??? There were tales of balloon releasing from the roof of Frimley Town Hall too, it all seemed so real??? Well, those nice Freed... oops... MCR FM folks normally record all their broadcasts, then they are not always so rat-arsed drunk that they can barely see the volume knob. However, amidst the 8 or 9 hours of insanity, they did manage to record a 90 minute section of this “historic” broadcast... ooh, golly, huh? And, obviously still the worse for wear, offered us the recording to release to the general public... so, with apologies to the crew of the Starship Overflow, here it is... a unique souvenir of a unique event... be the first on your block to own one! You know it makes sense (it do?)!

Again showing their complete lack of good sense, Garry Lee and The Black Widow invited me to stay with them Spring Bank Holiday weekend at the top secret base of Freedom Overflow , somewhere in the depths of megaspace (well, Colchester, actually). So, that Saturday morning, I set off in my Nissan Taxitron to navigate the vastness of the space lanes of the M25, via the Dartford Tunnel. Garry Lee explained that they could reveal their top secret pirate’s base to no-one, so I had to tune in on a special sub-space beacon to find it. Finally, I did. “I didn’t think it was you,” Garry greeted me, “you’ve had all your hair cut off!” The way he’s thinning on top, it won’t be long before I’ve got more than him. And in I was summoned to the dark and clandestine lair of The Overflow. The Black Widow was there too (nice skirt) and said hello. No noncing about with coffee here (with or without biscuits), “Beer?” Garry asked. Silly question. Oh yeah, I saw Garry’s little willy. Oh, don’t be so filthy, you do have dirty minds, don’t you? Garry and The Black Widow recently had a baby called William, what else could I have meant? Like all babies, William is a little bald podgy thing (takes after his dad) that smiles when he’s being sick (very much after his dad, thinking about it) and does “doodahs” in his nappies (and there the similarity with daddy ends, fortunately). It was a gloriously sunny day, baking hot as it had been for ages, so they took me to a local funfair that evening. And it pissed down with rain and there was a thunderstorm so we went home to get our coats and didn’t bother going back. That was the only bit of bad weather we had all weekend though, so can’t complain. Sunday was “on the air” day, so at sometime near 10.00 am, Freedom Overflow starts off with pre-recorded shows from various guest DJs, 90.9 FM. Garry himself didn’t go on till 2.00 pm, so we had some time to kill. A guided tour of their secret location was in order. They had an outside toilet, obviously trying to corner the “working class hero” market, I thought. The fridge was wacky too, it had about 735 strains of fungi growing inside it, matching the early bubonic period décor... but the fridge did have this huge choccy bar in it that The Black Widow (not wearing that nice skirt any more, sulk) was later to share with me. Nice lady. Garry got breakfast together, a bowl of “muse, man” and a cooked thing to follow, a man after my own appetite. Then we started on the beer. Oh yeah, rock and roll! The Black Widow, meanwhile, was in the kitchen, rocking William’s bouncy

No reason I can't add some digitised old photos to the reprint, is there?

Yes, they actually let me have a cuddle with baby William, which was lovely! Didn't appreciate Garry Lee calling me 'Thunder Thighs' though...

o

chair with one foot while hopping around roasting a wild boar on a spit. It’s a while since I had a Sunday roast, so I was looking forward to this one. Come the time, Garry Lee took to the airwaves and announced he had a very special guest in the studio. I wondered who else was coming, but it seems he meant me. And so to the on-air interview which was funny. Garry said I was the most unco-operative bastard he’d ever had the misfortune to interview. He even let me play DJ for a couple of records too, one of which I jogged while reaching for my beer, the second of which I mis-announced coz I hadn’t read the label properly. That’s why he’s a DJ and I’m just a rock star. Coz he knows what he’s doing. The Sunday roast was great, but they pour soup over it coz they don’t like gravy. Garry later sent me a tape of the interview. He was right. It was silly. I told him that I thought his station was only pretend and only broadcast to the end of the road. Garry wasn’t having that. So, once evening came and The Black Widow took over at the controls, Garry beckoned me go walkies with him, ghetto blaster in hand. Sure enough, at the end of the road, Freedom Overflow stopped coming through the GB’s speakers. Garry made some lame excuse about the batteries failing. Oh yeah?

CONTINUED...