Picture a young Peter Garrett with long blonde hair in his first year at ANU in the early ‘70s, who responds to a call-out for students to go on air at a brand new community radio station called 2XX.
Both Garrett and 2XX began public life at the height of political activism and this year our oldest community radio station turns 50, having survived conflict, criticism and even an arson attack.
The ANU campus (where 2XX began in 1976) was a far cry from today’s renovated and sanitised institution – it was a vibrant, grungy hub where both Garrett and 2XX cut their teeth on politics.
“I was a uni student in Canberra and I was in my first year doing arts and law, living on campus,” Garrett said. “The word went out, we need people to play music and the next thing you know I was playing my favourite music on 2XX and I’ve never forgotten it.”
Over five decades, 2XX has faced its share of controversy, with complaints to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal that its content was “explicitly lesbian and homosexual propaganda”, to debates on the importance of feminism in broadcasting, or folk music versus punk.
A suspected act of arson in 1988 damaged the station’s transmitter (possibly related to the station’s anti-apartheid activism and boycott). Despite this, 2XX continued to express solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement and was quickly back on air.
Back in its uni days, 2XX transmission only reached the ANU residences, but later, it extended out to Tuggeranong and a fair way down the Hume Highway before it dropped out. Today, it can be livestreamed (2xxfm.org.au), so 98.3FM now reaches the world.
Declan O’Connell, who’s worked with 2XX since 1991, said the radio station arrived at the right time to pick up niches that weren’t covered on the ABC or commercial stations.
“It was very much part of a milieu at the time,” he said. “You think of the times, like 1976, the Whitlam government had been sacked just six months before that. John Kerr, the Governor General, every time he stepped on the campus there’d be protests. There was a lot of movement and student activism.
“Out of that milieu, it emerged and while the context is quite different now, there’s a way in which you still try to keep true to that spirit. There’s a long history of support for causes like anti-apartheid in the 1980s and a strong feminist history. Musically, multiculturally and politically, that’s where we go beyond the scope of the mainstream commercial radio broadcasting sector.”
Initially, Drill Hall Gallery was home to 2XX studio, which broadcast 24 hours a day and late-night shows required someone coming in to manually put on reel-to-reel tapes.
This tiny little radio station gave a start to some big names and showcased Canberra’s home-grown music talent who struggled to get picked up by mainstream radio.
Locals like the Doug Anthony All Stars and The Gadflys recorded their first tracks in the 2XX recording studio.
“There was a show called Rave Review on Saturday afternoons, and apparently Doug Anthony All-Stars would go busking on a Saturday morning and then they’d come in and chat to the people on the Rave Review show or be interviewed about forthcoming gigs or tours,” Declan said.
This small radio station has some big friends, hosting big-ticket artists that would not otherwise visit small-town Canberra – Midnight Oil, The Angels, Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach, The Pogues and The Ramones.
It has even received promos and sound bites from UK singer/songwriter Billy Bragg – “whenever we’re in Canberra, me and Woody Guthrie always listen to 2XX, they’re the greatest”.
Even former PM Julia Gillard gave the station a plug.
Today, Canberra’s oldest community radio station is based at Civic’s Griffin Centre with three studios and digital sound.
A 2XX 50th anniversary exhibition that will include a recreation of the original studio will be held at CMAG from 6 June to 6 September.
Stay tuned.
