from YAPRap February 2006
by Barney Langford
"It was a Monday like any other... For DAVID HASSELHOFF at least. However for celebrity paparazzi MICHAEL MEDIOCRE that Monday was a day that was just about to transform his life. That Monday was a day that he would make three life-transforming mistakes. Each mistake on its own was not critical. But when combined, Metamorphosing Monday made Freaky Friday look like a simple case of mistaken identity.
Firstly MEDIOCRE made the mistake of getting too close to Hasselhoff at the world premiere of Hasselhoff's new movie THE DAY MY CAREER CAME BACK. Secondly he kept on snapping after Hasselhoff told him to stop. And thirdly he forgot to duck when Hasselhoff hacked the hugest golly at him.
Amazingly the Hasselhoff saliva reacted with Mediocre's skin. Before his very eyes he saw the burgeoning chemical reaction result in his transformation into ( cue echo effect)
OVERLY ATTRACTIVE MAN ( OAM for short)
Aided by housewife with six kids UMA POWERS, herself transformed into the tectonically powerful THIGHMASTER, OAM makes a fateful decision to choose good over evil, in the process confronting those musical and fashion scourges of the eighties ELTON JOHN and BOY GEORGE, and the unspeakably evil master of malevolence: FECAL MAN"
No Rhys for the wicked
Rhys Nicholson is 15. He's the person behind Overly Attractive Man, NINJA RADIO's first ever serial. Rhys spends a lot of time at the Loft Youth Venue. He is involved as volunteer at gigs and with INZINE the Venue's Zine. But over the past 12 months Rhys has turned much of his attention to the Loft's latest project: NINJA RADIO. Rhys was one of the original members of the Ninja project and OVERLY ATTRACTIVE MAN has been part of NINJA almost from the beginning.
We wanted to reclaim hip hop for us rather than all the American stuff that Triple J is now playing
Adam Henry is 25. He got involved with the Loft one day when he wandered by some people doing some aerosol art at Woodberry, one of Newcastle's western suburbs. He recognised one of the participants and asked if he could be involved. Adam started attending the Venue's hip hop and electronica workshop group: BEATS AND RHYMES. He formed a duo (NAMELESS) with Aza, another member. When Ninja radio started he signed up to be part. Adam runs a two hour show on Monday nights: URBAN FIX with Adam, Aza and Begsie. They play mainly local stuff. Adam is passionate about Ninja. His background in music production allowed him to quickly become proficient in radio production as well.
I'd always wanted to create a radio serial
Michelle Nunn is not that much older than Adam. She is the Project Coordinator at the Loft Youth Venue. Two years ago the Loft was awarded an Australian Youth Foundation ON TRACK LEADERSHIP GRANT. Michelle took responsibility for ON TRACK and set about working with a group of young people to develop a project which would foster leadership amongst young people in Newcastle.
The group eventually settled upon the idea of a youth run and youth-oriented radio station. A youth radio station would allow young people to make their own radio programs: documentaries; live gig recordings; opportunities for new and emerging bands to get their music out to a wider audience; specialist interest programs. Above all a youth radio station would broadcast stuff the kids wanted to make and hear.
How do you start a radio station? Well you need equipment; and you need to know how to use that equipment and you need product, hours and hours of product. And above all you need a licence to broadcast.
For the Ninja kids it soon became apparent that getting a licence was a difficult process. They needed more resources than they could possibly hope to acquire. And it was likely to take years to achieve. And years were not something that they had an abundance of. Unless of course they wanted to start a middle-age radio station. And there were already heaps of them around. So confronted and eventually overwhelmed by the bevy of bureaucratic, financial and legislative roadblocks to securing a broadcast licence, the group decided to look for an alternative solution. And what they came up with was simplicity itself: online broadcasting. Just sit at your computer and listen. Voila Ninja Radio !! In September 2005 Ninja radio was born.
NINJA RADIO: Keeping young ninjas off the streets and on your radio
Sometimes there is a synchronicity at work in the world that makes for elegance and neatness. Paralleling Ninja's development was the emergence of TIN RADIO. TIN is the online radio arm of the Newcastle multimedia conglomerate known as the OCTAPOD ASSOCIATION. OCTAPOD runs the annual THIS IS NOT ART (TINA) Festival in Newcastle. For the past 2 years TIN RADIO has been an integral part of TINA via a temporary broadcast licence.
One of the difficulties of starting and maintaining an initiative like a youth radio station is that, by definition, there is going to be a regular turnover of membership. Young people grow up, become adults and move on. One of the issues which the young Ninjas had to address was how would they maintain their ongoing viability.
Throughout the development of NINJA the young people involved had been in discussions with TIN as to how they could work together. Towards the end of 2005, agreement in principle was reached to have NINJA operate under the mantle of TIN. The collaboration with TIN provides a structure for NINJA. Importantly, it also provides an ongoing radio involvement for NINJA members to progress to after they move on. TIN provides studio facilities and mentoring for young people and devotes a specified number of hours per week to NINJA contributions. For its part NINJA contributes product and resources via the On Track Grant.
A Memorandum of Understanding setting out this relationship between NINJA and TIN should be in place by March 2006.
In 2005 funding from ARTSTART provided the opportunity for NINJA to take on a regional role. NINJA ran a series of radio production workshops to train up young people in regional centres of the Hunter. The aim is to create little NINJA outposts in Hunter Valley towns. And because NINJA is an online radio station each of these outposts can contribute to NINJA via their computers.
The radio production workshops had another beneficial spinoff. The Loft is keen to promote peer mentoring as an effective training methodology. The Loft was able to employ Adam Henry as a peer educator to help run the radio workshops. This in turn has enhanced his skills and abilities and employability, and enabled him to become part of the Loft's casual worker pool. In recognition of Adam's commitment and skills, he was appointed TIN's Station Manager for the month of October 2005.
So what does the future hold for Ninja? Well one of the benefits of being an online venture is that you can store material and have it available for download (podcasting). So the Ninjas are in the process of setting up a computer server which can house both this product and which can facilitate the download process. Here will reside recordings of gigs held at the Loft as well as all the material "broadcast" now and into the future.
How can you access Ninja?
Simple. Listen to TIN www.tin.org.au
Give it a try.
Contact
Michelle Nunn
Projects Officer
The Loft Youth Venue
(02) 4974 2090
