January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
BIFF Interview / Pirate Radio USA
Radio pirates are on our horizon
Pirate Radio USA, which will screen its world premiere next week at the Bermuda International Film Festival, shows the journey of DJ Him and DJ Her as they find like-minded DJs all over the US.
The two — whose real names are Jeff Pearson and Mary Jones — started their own pirate radio station in 1996.
They said in a email: “We actually started like most people — sick of the mainstream media crap and bummed by how few people actually got to take a stab at making media, so when we met our first illegal ‘casters and discovered you could do it yourself with a tiny transmitter, a microphone and some home equipment the light bulb kinda went on.
“Mary has a big stack of vinyl and I love to talk so we joined their station, called ourselves DJ Him and Her (most pirates use pseudonyms because it’s illegal) and christened our show Morning Sedition, back in ‘96.”
After two years of producing their own show, they decided to “capture the phenomena” of pirate radio stations and take to the road. Travelling across the U.S., they say they came out of the ‘radio closet’ as a result of the film — and shed more light on pirate radio stations.
They said: “Illegal broadcasting is very widespread and very shadowy. Because we have microcast ourselves we were able to get inside some of those places we’d never have even known about had we just been documentarians. At any given time there are anywhere from dozens to thousands of pirate stations operating in neighbourhoods and towns across America.
No one really knows for sure — they often get shut down, then pop up somewhere else after waiting for a while.”
“Just this year in Florida alone, there have been a dozen stations shut down by the Government — it’s so bad in New Jersey they have just passed laws to allow the local authorities to get involved — it’s supposed to be federal turf — to go after rental property owners that have pirate stations on their properties, whether they know they are operating or not. There have also been six large fines ($10,000 or more) levied by the Federal Communications Commission for unlicensed broadcasting in 2005 and 2006 — half of those in 2006. It appears that things are heating up, as far as enforcement goes this year.”
Since the film has its world premiere at BIFF, both DJs Him and Her are coming to Bermuda to take part. “We couldn’t think of a more appropriate place for our pirates to have their first landing than in Bermuda,” they said.
“We can't wait to find out the response from big media to our little movie, as the National Association of Broadcasters and corporate radio conglomerates like Clear Channel definitely have supporting roles in Pirate Radio USA.”
Pirate Radio USA will screen on Wednesday, March 22 at 6:30pm at the Tradewinds Auditorium, BUEI and on Friday, March 24 at 9pm at the Little Theatre.[[In-content Ad]]
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