This article has been in gestation for 13 years and was conceived thousands of miles away from where I sit now, that is in a crowded office in Strait Street, Valletta. It was a week before the 1992 American presidential elections and, on the invitation of the American government, I was touring various parts of the land of the free to observe how the free elected their head honcho.
On a warm, crystalline morning I was on a coach bombing down the highway through the Tennessee heartland towards Memphis. Through the window I could see for miles and miles – open fields, quaint farmhouses and the occasional colonial mansion. But it was not the scenery which kept grabbing my attention.
Throughout the entire four-hour journey, the coach driver had the radio tuned in to this music station which played one classic southern and California rock hit after another – The Eagles, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, America, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Band, Joni Mitchell and so on.
Contrary to Maltese radio stations – and I was the chairman of one of them at the time – this Tennessee station knew what its audience wanted and it gave it to them without fail. There was no switching around of musical genres with every song that came on. Fans of classic southern and California rock could be sure to tune in and not have to hear soul or heavy rock. Unlike Maltese stations, Iron Maiden were never squeezed in between an Eagles harmony and Fleetwood Mac’s intelligent pop melodies. As a fan of this style of rock I was in seventh heaven. The palpable sensation was that the radio DJ was reading my mind and playing each song just for me. The vast sunbathed Tennessee landscape zipped by, backed by a soundtrack played by southern rock gods.
From that day on I could not listen to another Maltese radio station with a straight face or, rather, ear again. Except for news and odds and ends of current affairs programmes, I never tuned in to another Maltese radio station again. Musically, barring Noel Mallia's rock programmes on Radio 101, the dozen or so stations might as well have closed down.
For 13 years all I have listened to in the car were original CDs and compilations burnt from my CD library. These home grown burnt CDs were just a half-assed attempt to relive snippets of those magical four hours on the coach in Tennessee. But it was never the same because of one missing key ingredient – the element of surprise. The Tennessee station played what I wanted to hear but I never knew what was coming next. I had all the songs I heard in Tennessee but logistically I could never be in a car or sitting in front of a computer and play them in sequence as that mythical radio station did. CD burning did not and could not end my search for a replay of the Tennessee buzz.
A ray of light shone briefly on my life a couple of years ago with the coming of age of Internet radio. This new technology promised the facility to listen to practically every radio station around the globe. My heart palpitated with anticipation. Off I went into cyberspace on a quest for musical nirvana. Where was the station playing the best rock, the one pumping out best soul and Motown sounds, the best classic rock station?
Alas, it was not long before this new technology proved to be a dead end. Sound quality was poor and access was somewhat erratic. But the worst thing was when, right in the middle of a great song, just as the lead guitarist was about to fire off a magnificently searing solo, the connection would be cut off. I have uttered many a swear word when the word “buffereing” appeared on my computer media player. And in any case, no matter how much I racked my brain, I could not come up with a practical way of taking the computer system with me in the car everyday and making it work from the passenger seat.
Still, I did not give up. And sure enough, after 13 long years, the journey which started in the land of the free reached its destination in the land of eternal electoral campaigns. Last Christmas I was given a micro MP3 player with a capacity to store and replay around 10,000 songs. Hooked up to my computer, this little gift from heaven categorises songs by artist, album and musical genre at the press of a button.
My life has not been the same since. For three months, I have been stuffing this little box of joy with all the songs I might ever want to listen to. The sensation of being able to play them back at home or at work has been indescribable.
Yet I still had one small problem. Although I could carry my little toy in my breast pocket, it could not be plugged into the car stereo. Home and the office were musical heaven but shuttling between them through the Qormi and Siggiewi road works detours proved to be hell in more than the usual sense.
My luck, however, held out. Last week, a friend of mine procured me a new gadget hot off the Taiwan market. It has turned any traffic jam I am stuck into in a musical oasis. Less than two inches in size, it attaches to the MP3 player to become… wait for it… a fully fledged radio station. I am not kidding. All I have to do is tune the car radio to an empty FM frequency switch (I chose 99.00 FM), turn on the MP3 player and the Taiwan gadget and, hey presto, I have my own private radio station. And it fits, literally, in the palm of my hand. My nine-year-old daughter, a budding power-monger, decided to name my station after herself. At last, the Tennessee coach has arrived in Siggiewi.
Moral of the story: If you are stuck in traffic and you spot me in a car ahead of you don’t worry. Tune your radio to 99.0 FM and shout out your request.
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