1997-99 Rock Radio Network (RRN)

Tony Wilson is really the grand daddy of it all still there at the helm – TotalRock started life in his and my head as the Wrangler Rock Report back in the early 90s… the idea was to furnish radio stations (who were all ditching their rock shows for musical wallpaper pop crap) and give them something sponsored that they could air and keep rock fans happy with… the problem was: neither Wrangler – who made jeans – nor the stations themselves gave a toss!

Then we became Rock Radio Network (RRN), broadcasting in downtime on Country Music Radio via Sky (before it even became digital – so we had, literally, hundreds of listeners in weird places like Russia… as Sky analog was almost global). I’ll never forget a Russian rock fan ringing in live to tell us about his life and signing off with (adopt Meerkat accent) “I heff just spent my whole month’s salary on thees call!”

We then moved into Nigel Roberts’ (known as Skull – a pirate radio DJ of some reknown) house’s front room in East Finchley and started our (often unruly, damaged and dysfunctional) family: Maria, who had the world’s longest pigtail, moved in upstairs and gradually odd people (funny, that, that we kinda magnetised oddness) came and joined us… only for the love of rock and metal! All the while, obergruppenfuhrer Wilson (known as Bwana or Twils to his mates) attracting more and more waifs and strays to Da TR Family.

God bless The Godfather Of Rock, the late Tommy Vance for coming onboard on Day One of the Wrangler Rock Report and giving the whole insane concept some respected front… one of the nicest blokes I’ve ever met. We still all miss him. And Mr Malcolm Dome who brought knowledge beyond reason to the on-air and on-site areas and who seemed to have an almost magical ability to summon tickets to any gig at a moment’s notice and to exist without any apparent sleep whatsoever – haunting gigs til well past midnight and always being at work by 6am latest.

~Andy King