The 95bFM show Carnival In Rio has a title that one could take a case to the commerce commission on and win. Talk about misleading advertising. A Shambles on Symonds Street more like, but don't get me wrong, because this is one of the best things on radio in this shoddy city of ours. Hosted by Richard, Paul, Tony and James - bFM has always been about first names - the show has been running since 2007.
The ethos seems to be the absence of pretension and a professional approach to being casual. At times it functions as a on air clubhouse for mates who seem like they really don't have anything better to do, which is to say it represents bFM at it's best. The hippies who set the station up in 1969 - when it was called Radio Bosom - would approve. It veers between sounding like an incredibly well read student flat to the dementia ward at a rest home. In some ways the show is a standard bearer for the old student radio culture that has somewhat eroded over the years as alternativeness has gone mainstream and commercialism has soaked into every nook, cranny and orifice.
It's fair to say that show is a bit of a sausage sizzle, as the regular guests are all male too. At 4.30pm there's Rob's Bollocks, a rambling sports chat with the entertainingly gruff Rob, who sounds like a cross between an East End barrow boy and a PG Tips Chimp. He loves football and was naturally concerned about Sky losing the rights to the Premier League, prompting him to say things like, "I might 'ave to get a bleedin' compoota".
Tony Tunes, joins in at 5pm to play new music. The new Pixies single Bagboy got an airing last week and was accompanied with a debate about the repercussions of Pixies bass player Kim Deal leaving the band. It's not a deal breaker apparently. A dreamy new track from electronic band Boards of Canada was next, called New Seeds. Then Beck Hansen's new track Defriended.
