Turning Up 20
Various artists
Community Radio 2XX
$25 ($20 for 2XX subscribers) to 2XX, GPO Box 812, Canberra ACT 2601, or phone credit card details to (06) 249 4512.
Review by Morgan O'Keefe
Throughout 1996 Community Radio 2XX volunteers, staff and subscribers partied long and well in celebration of the station's two decades of service. Turning Up 20, a double CD commemorating the station's commitment to broadcasting local music, is 2XX's birthday present to its listeners and an artefact of a slice of alternative Canberra's life since 1976.
2XX first began broadcasting in 1976, when community broadcasting was in its infancy. From the beginning, the station championed progressive causes and aired political and cultural alternatives.
The station took up residency in the ANU Drill Hall and built four studios with much help and participation from listeners. Studio C, completed in 1985, was designed as a multitrack recording studio for music and drama, with the intention of offering accessible, high-quality facilities for local bands as an alternative to the overpriced and over-hyped commercial studios.
Turning Up 20 brings together an eclectic mix of the local music recorded by 2XX in historic concert locations such as Cafe Jax, the Civic Hotel and Spurs, and from tape logs of live-to-air performances. The CD is also a testament to the longevity and achievements of this non-commercial community radio station and its ability to foster local culture.
The double CD brings together 24 tracks from 24 bands — some which have passed into legend and some which still perform today — the Black Dogs, the Gadflys, Blind Freddy, Froggy Bottom Sisters, Elephant Talk, the Falling Joys, Swinging Mambas.
Worth a particular mention are No Relation's "The way we used to live" and the defiant "Bicentennial Rap", written by XX presenter Tanya McCovell, which both reflect the massive protests that were to erupt during the 1988 rewrite of the history of this country's indigenous people. That same year, 2XX was put off air by an arson attack.
In these days of shrinking media diversity, 2XX and a handful of other uncompromising community radio stations around Australia continue to provide a source of alternative news, views and music. I'm looking forward to the release of Turning Up 40 in 2017.