A question I am often asked is “Why is it called Trash Disco?”. The answer is both simple and convoluted. Here we will take the convoluted route.
Back in 2000, I was temporarily living and working in Sydney. One of my colleagues was telling me of his hobby of presenting oldies music on a community radio station in the area. I was intrigued. I had grown up listening to a lot of radio, in particular the audio antics of the late, great, Kenny Everett on London’s Capital Radio. I had always harboured delusions of being on radio myself.
One day, our semi-regular chats turned to radio once more and I asked how I could be involved. It turned out there was a vacancy on a Thursday night between 7pm and 9pm, currently filled by the satellite feed which ran overnight. Maybe I could take that slot?
A meeting with the station chairman, a couple of times sitting in with my colleague on his Saturday afternoon show and I was shown how the knobs and levers worked. All I had to do was think of what I could do. But what?
Most commercial radio to me is about what’s hot and rotating through as many songs as they can in between all the ads. It’s noisy, you don’t learn anything and is usually relegated to background noise. Community radio is different. It engages the individual and people actively listen to the shows they love. It is not background noise.
I, too, wanted to do something different. I wanted to play things no one else was playing; B sides, album tracks, 12 inch remixes that went for ages. And themes! I could have themes for each show. Artist specials, with information about the artist. Thus was born “The Arkive”, and my first show was broadcast on 25 October, 2001, on 90.5 2CCR.
I was nervous, I had my list of things to say and play mapped out to the minute. Of course, that was thrown out almost immediately by playing the wrong song at the start of my first show. I put the CD in the player, fully expecting to play Beatbox (Diversion One) by The Art Of Noise. I introduced my new show and what it was going to be about and dutifully hit the play button. And I instead played Opus 4 by The Art Of Noise. I had planned for the 8 minute 33 second song to play, but was now playing a 2 minute song. The harsh (and public) lesson of learning to improvise was learnt very early.
In 2002 I returned to Melbourne. I found myself a job and, being bitten by the community broadcasting bug, I searched for a station. I found Southern FM in Moorabbin and they were happy to let me loose on the airwaves once more. This time, however, I wanted to be more focused. The Arkive was very broad in its musical styles. I decided to make it an 80s show, but stay true to the philosophy of playing the obscure, the alternative and the absurd.
The Arkive was no more, a new name was needed. After messing around with a few names, Trash Disco was born, and “The Obscure, The Alternative and the Absurd” became “The Obscure, The Alternative and the Strangely Familiar”.
Trash Disco began airing on Friday nights from midnight to 2am on 13 September 2002. At some point during the years I moved to a slightly more friendly 10pm to midnight slot and stayed there until October 2004. Show 100 was my final show with a massive 3 hour Duran Duran special with about 10 Duranies live in the studio with me, it was a great way to end things. It was also sad to end it, but I was about to become a dad.
Fast forward to 2015 and I find myself enrolling in a broadcasting course at Plenty Valley FM. I had already done one of these courses at 3PBS back in 2002, as well having my own show already, but it was good to refresh what I knew and learn a few new things. I also got to know a great new bunch of people. At the end of the course, I put in my form for a show (no guarantees of course). But luck smiled upon me again, and Trash Disco returned to a 10pm to midnight slot, but this time on a Saturday night, starting on 3 October 2015.
In September 2022, Trash Disco celebrated its 20th birthday! While we haven’t been on air that whole time, we still took the opportunity to celebrate with some special shows and going back to its birthplace at Southern FM and interviewing Nick from Built For Speed, the show which preceded Trash Disco and continues to be on air to this day.
As of October 6 2023, Trash Disco moved from Saturdays to Fridays, bringing the show full circle as that’s where it started all those years ago.
Nerves occasionally still pay me a visit, and I still sometimes press the wrong button, but I’m having a ball doing what I do. And it’s nice to have people listening in having a ball with me.
On Friday, October 3, 2025, Trash Disco celebrated both its tenth birthday and its FINAL SHOW. It has been a fabulous ten year run and it was a joy to bring new and lesser heard music and help people discover things they’d not heard before or not heard for a long time.
Trash Disco 