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ITT: Selection of 'sneak tapes' of THE FIREING SQUAD - a new music review panel show, hosted by mrspring, on RTE2fm. After some sporadic experiments, The show began regular service on thursday nights in the summertime of 1999, as part of 'spring doz fanning' - when mrspring filled in for Dave Fanning during his 6-week annual holiday. The format was less strict at first, and ran for 30 minutes. When mrspring started hosting on Saturday nights, the show changed to a 1-hour format, and ran from 8pm. The new time slot was perfect for international acts visiting Dublin during the 00's club boom to drop in on their way to work, and plug their gigs. The show gave many Club DJs their first taste of 'live radio' as guests, and was notorious within RTE for not only inviting DJs from pirate/hobby radio stations to appear, but also presenters from competing TV & Radio stations. The weekly show regularly 'went portable', broadcasting from remote locations, festivals and venues, but was mostly based in CC3 at RTE's radio building in Dublin - the only room equipped to handle up to 5 guests, the presenter & record decks. Everyone involved in the '626' 12-hour dance music block of shows contributed to the show by recruiting guests, finding music and generally supporting the activities.
The misspelling of 'Firing squad' was deliberate for 2 reasons: 1 - 'Fir' in the Irish language is 'men', and 2 - The show regularly attracted so many complaints that the team constantly risked being Fired, monopolising the weekly 'complaints log'.
The show was inspired by the original 'Record Cabinet' show on RTE Radio 2 from the 1980's, and had much in common with 'The Judge & the Jury' dance music review show on Kiss 100 from the 90's, a show mrspring appeared on during his 'london years', but merged the live threat element from the Fab Cab, with the focussed dance music content of Jules' show, and then threw in firearms and beer.
The show inspired clones on pirate stations, and a 2-year regular 'mini squad' as part of Dave Fanning's weekday afternoon show on 2fm, for which mrspring was a resident reviewer - again attracting multiple complaints, mostly from major labels and artists' management - some of whom tried to bully RTE into cancelling the slot, using threats of withdrawal of their acts from appearances on the network.
The recordings now appearing were mostly kept as 'evidence' by the team, so they could answer complaints. Although it may SOUND like things were out of control, We all learned fairly quickly where the line was, and how to balance perfectly on it. Also, at the time, dance music and DJ culture was evolving, so 50% of what we were all saying was totally alien to most people. Media commentators in the press wrote mostly positive reviews, but all shared a common complaint: ".. i have no idea what they are talking about most of the time.."
To this day, nothing broadcast by RTE as entertainment has ever resulted in more complaints, and higher audience ratings, for so little money. The Squad was as much fun to work on as it was to listen to, hope it amuses You.
The misspelling of 'Firing squad' was deliberate for 2 reasons: 1 - 'Fir' in the Irish language is 'men', and 2 - The show regularly attracted so many complaints that the team constantly risked being Fired, monopolising the weekly 'complaints log'.
The show was inspired by the original 'Record Cabinet' show on RTE Radio 2 from the 1980's, and had much in common with 'The Judge & the Jury' dance music review show on Kiss 100 from the 90's, a show mrspring appeared on during his 'london years', but merged the live threat element from the Fab Cab, with the focussed dance music content of Jules' show, and then threw in firearms and beer.
The show inspired clones on pirate stations, and a 2-year regular 'mini squad' as part of Dave Fanning's weekday afternoon show on 2fm, for which mrspring was a resident reviewer - again attracting multiple complaints, mostly from major labels and artists' management - some of whom tried to bully RTE into cancelling the slot, using threats of withdrawal of their acts from appearances on the network.
The recordings now appearing were mostly kept as 'evidence' by the team, so they could answer complaints. Although it may SOUND like things were out of control, We all learned fairly quickly where the line was, and how to balance perfectly on it. Also, at the time, dance music and DJ culture was evolving, so 50% of what we were all saying was totally alien to most people. Media commentators in the press wrote mostly positive reviews, but all shared a common complaint: ".. i have no idea what they are talking about most of the time.."
To this day, nothing broadcast by RTE as entertainment has ever resulted in more complaints, and higher audience ratings, for so little money. The Squad was as much fun to work on as it was to listen to, hope it amuses You.
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