rosedraws wrote: 
Watched it with Beanie and the Mr. some time back (hard to remember when). Second time for me. Big Bill Nighy fan - and my favorite Rhys's, (Darby and Ifans) too!

We just watched the movie.

It was FANTASTIC!  I love EVERY actor (actually, except the main character, Carl).  All those others?  WAY fun.

 

 jagdriver wrote: 
Let's not forget the women!  A good friend of mine was a DJ on a couple of those ships.

Unmentioned in the litany of Brit radio is the access, spotty for most Brits was the Armed Forces Radio broadcast by the American Forces.  I can speak of 1959 to 1963.  We got up to date American music in spots through daily programming.  Kept us in touch with what was happening stateside. Lucky Brits who lived in the coverage got ahead of the rest.  TV was light, too.  One BBC and one ITV TV station, that was it.

These days, forty-five years on, the idea of pirate radio is irresistible. Those toothy, louche young men, defying seasickness and the law, clambering up the sides of converted forts and ferries, playing young people's music to young people otherwise ignored or patronised by British broadcasters, have taken their place in the mythology of the Swinging Sixties. Those pirate stations, anchored just outside British waters, provided, it seems, the soundtrack to a social revolution.

The reality was a little different. 60s pirate radio was a European (not just British) phenomenon and it was driven by the familiar logic (and established capital) of US radio. And while it had a significant effect on the subsequent sound of British broadcasting, it had little influence on the history of British music. It's a great story, but one that needs to be understood in a much wider framework than the pirates' brief life between 1964-7.   More