Alice's Restaurant Rock Radio

In 1969, Europe's first [big] album station; Radio 428 - also known as Radio Rupert, began broadcasting on 428 metres or 701kHz via the transmitters of Radio Andorra in the Pyranees. By January 1970, the station had moved to Radio Monte Carlo's transmitters, and was calling itself Radio Geronimo.

Press clipping 1970: "Most DJs are totally unnecessary. Perhaps the BBC should follow the precedent set by Radio Geronimo, and have announcers who give the relevant details about the records they play, and nothing else." J.Coleman, Lowestoft, Suffolk.

Press clipping 1970: "A radio station called Geronimo which broadcasts late night pop from Monaco to Britain also runs a mail order business in gramophone records. The discs most in demand are Mozart's Horn Quintet in E flat Major; Bach's Italian Concerto and Handel's Choral Sinfonia and Fugue"

May, 1970. Quote, about refusal to take advertising, from Tony Secunda, station Director: "We've had various people offering to take time, but they've demanded that they had jingles and noises and all that scene. And to us, our format is sacred. If we want to play an album right through we're not going to have some baked bean freak come in the middle with his jingles."

There is a story to tell of a completely legal radio station broadcasting (initially using the transmitters of Radio Andorra in 1969) from the transmitters of Radio Monte Carlo. Broadcasting on 205 metres [1466kHz] Medium Wave, this transmission was just next door to 208 metres [Radio Luxembourg] so it was fairly easy to stumble across Radio Geronimo. If you happened to be listening after midnight at the weekend and you wrote to Geronimo, this is the letter you would have received:

GERONIMO HELLO!

Many many thanks for your letter...through your active support Geronimo can become your voice, to shout loudly and freely - politically free, socially free, absolutely free. By writing, Geronimo can feel your support and react to it. We can play the music that you dig but which doesn't normally get played, and we can also relay information that can help bring us all together.

Geronimo is Hugh, Barry, Tony, Jimmy, Jenni, Pat, you and three million other listeners. We began broadcasting on January 3 with one motivation: radio has no function if it does not broadcast GOOD music, and the amount of good music being broadcast in Britain was practically nil. We use the transmitters of Radio Monte Carlo with a power of 400 Kilowatts. For all the people on the road, take a pencil and draw a circle from the Transvaal in South Africa, to Israel, to Poland, to Finland, the Shetland Isles, New Jersey (U.S.A.) and this, including of course Britain and the mainland of Europe, is the range of Geronimo.

If you find your reception fades and sounds shitty, then don't completely blame our transmitter cuz it could be your receiver. If you listen on a Japanese tin box or something like that, then throw it in the dustbin along with your copy of the Radio Times, and rush off to your local junk shop and get an old granny type steam radio and settle back and listen to Geronimo LOUD - the way it is intended. If you can't get that together, then score 20 yards of coiled copper wire, attach it to your aerial, walk around the room for a bit until you find the perfect spot, and there you go. Remember that you might have to adjust the aerial every few days, as the weather conditions often change and affect our signal.

Geronimo does not accept advertising, and by doing this stops any commercial interests having control over the programmes. But the cost of your freedom is high - like £1,000 a week - and can only be overcome with your complete support. Geronimo is no ordinary radio station, but only you can keep this lunacy going.

So... join the Geronimo Society - it'll cost you 30/- and the bread goes directly towards keeping Geronimo on the air, and covers things like transmission fees, production costs, tape, airfreight, office rent, telephones etc. etc. In return you get not only a radio station, but cut-price records, cheap festival tickets, and the possibility of more goodies in the future. The Geronimo record catalogue is being sent to everyone, and this is another way you can help Geronimo get it on - instead of buying your records from a shop, you can now buy them from Geronimo at reduced prices (eg: Dylan "Self Portrait" and Soft Machine "Third" double albums for 52/6d, the new Traffic "John Barleycorn Must Die" for 37/6d.)

We are now broadcasting Friday, Sarurday and Sunday nights from midnight til 3 a.m. on 205 metes on the medium waveband, but we shall keep fighting til Geronimo is 12 hours a night, 7 days a week in FM stereo. But now it's up to YOU. Join the Geronimo Society, and tell your friends to listen - and then join - and we'll make it together. But we can only do it together.

Keep listening, keep trucking and for godsake keep smiling!

Happiness

P.S. Meanwhile we're selling our own T-shirts for 12/6 each, in small medium and large sizes, and very beautiful "Geronimo is summer sun" posters for 2/6 each.

Promo Leaflets & Artwork - click on thumbnails for full size illustration There are no strangers... Earlier version of Geronimo introductory letter Promo Flyer Geronimo catalogue pages Geronimo Catalogue Music Press Advert

Above illustration is taken from a Geronimo T-shirt. Catalogue intro.. Promo Flyer Alice in Wonderland t-shirts Car Sticker Geronimo Piper

Linked to Geronimo, or at least Barry Everitt and Hugh Nolan, are 'Revelations' - the triple album celebrating the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre released in 1972, and Radio Seagull - based on the Radio Caroline ship 'Mi Amigo'. Back to Menu

Media reports from 1970

Press sources include: Disc & Music Echo Record Mirror New Musical Express The Sun

7 March 1970: Other 'pirate' news includes Radio Geronimo, described as 'the only legal progressive rock station in Western Europe', which takes to the air again this Saturday on 205 metres from midnight 2 a.m. Planned for the programme are exclusive tracks from Ginger Baker's Airforce 'live' LP, 'Delaney and Bonnie On Tour' LP, and Doors 'Hard Rock Cafe'.

28 March 1970: Radio Geronimo this Saturday exclusively previews the yet-to-be-released album by Leon Russell, producer and pianist for Delaney and Bonnie and writer of Joe Cocker's 'Delta Lady'. Featured on the album are George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Delaney and Bonnie, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and Joe Cocker. Also on the programme [205 metres midnight-2.00a.m.] is 'Live Dead', new album from Grateful Dead.

25 April 1970: Underground station 'Geronimo', still broadcasting every Saturday from midnight on 205 metres, was this week given clearance by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. This official endorsement of the station's legality, now means 'Geronimo' will be able to obtain advertising from British companies.

2 May 1970: 'RADIO GERONIMO' extends air-time by 60 minutes to 3 a.m. Eventual aim to broadcast four hours a night, seven days a week.

9 May 1970: GERONIMO, the legal progressive music station, has decided NOT to accept any outside advertising. Says director Tony Secunda: "We have done this because every advertising agency we spoke to wanted to alter our programmes to suit their advertisments and wanted to use jingles." As an alternative 'Geronimo' is to start its own mail-order catalogue, starting with special LP offers. The station, currently broadcasting from midnight - 3 a.m. every Saturday night, plans to increase air-time to four hours within a month, with the ultimate intention of broadcasting from 9 p.m. - 4 a.m. seven nights a week.

9 May 1970: RADIO GERONIMO is not going to accept any advertising! The legal progressive rock music station has decided that the advertisers wanted too big a say in the programmes - and they've decided to finance the station with a large mail order system. Said one of the station's directors, Tony Secunda: "We've had various people offering to take time, but they've demanded that they had jingles and noises and all that scene. And to us, our format is sacred. If we want to play an album right through we're not going to have some baked bean freak come in the middle with his jingles. So we're going to get totally into the mail order scene - with imported American records and some local product. As soon as a record comes out in the states we'll have it to sell on Geronimo. And they'll cost slightly less than the import shops sell them for. We've also got other schemes to raise money - like an agency deal with the Hollywood Festival. We'll sell tickets over the air and take a percentage of the gross sales. And we're thinking of a separate mail order catalogue selling things like posters and tee shirts. We're getting some shirts from Morocco to sell. And some dune buggies to sell at £400 or so. And in four weeks time we hope to be starting weekend broadcasts - on Friday, Saturday and Sunday." The Geronimo decision comes two weeks after the station had an official go-ahead for advertising from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

23 May 1970: RADIO GERONIMO, the progressive rock music station, has been having talks about its future with the Director-General of Radio Monte Carlo, the station which transmits Geronimo every Saturday evening. M. Jacques Maziol flew into London on Wednesday and discussed, among other things, an expansion of Geronimo's airtime and the new financial structure from the mail-order scheme - recently launched in preference to direct advertising.

May/June 1970: "GERONIMO" this weekend play "The Who 'Live' at Leeds" and repeat their exclusive preview of the forthcoming Stones' LP "Get Your Ya-Yas Out". Response to the station's new mail order service has been excellent and "Geronimo" is expected to announce an increase in broadcasting hours this week.

13 June 1970: Three-night Geronimo - RADIO GERONIMO is to treble broadcasting hours from June 20. Geronimo will broadcast three nights a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from midnight to 3 a.m. starting June 20. Director Tony Secunda told Disc: "We will gradually increase our air time so that by the end of the year Geronimo will broadcasting seven nights a week - from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Geronimo is waiting for a permission from the French Government to take over a 300,000 watt strength station in Northern Europe to establish an F.M. stereo station. "At the moment there are only two or three stations of that type on the continent and they are all very weak. By the beginning of next year we hope to be operating that station seven days a week from 6 p.m. till 6 a.m.

NEW LABEL PLANNED BY RADIO GERONIMO by ROB PARTRIDGE (13 June 1970)

A NEW RECORD LABEL is among the major innovations planned for the near future by Radio Geronimo. The records will be disributed entirely through Radio Geronimo's own mail-order scheme and negotiations are already underway for at least one major artist to join the label. Tony Secunda, one of Geronimo's director's, said: "The Label - from pressing to distribution - will be handled exclusively through Geronimo. And on top of that the artists will receive an unprecedented ten shillings per record in royalties and the record buyers will get the records for slightly less than the market price. "We can make these savings because we've cut out the record companies and the middle men." Geronimo is also negotiating for the rights to a number of American artists, including the recordings of Lennie Bruce, the satirist. It is hoped to start the label within the next few months. Meanwhile, Radio Geronimo expands its broadcasts to three nights a week in two weeks time. The station will broadcast from midnight to three a.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The new air-time allocations were agreed in talks last week between the directors' of Radio Geronimo and M. Jacques Maziol, the Director-General of Radio Monte Carlo, the Geronimo transmitting station. In October the air-time is to be increased to seven nights a week from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. and by December from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Geronimo will also become the first stereo FM radio station in Europe in December when they will also use a French transmitting station of 300 Kilowatt strength from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. None of the new innovations will be directly financed by advertising, however, as Geronimo will not accept commercials. Instead, the station have their own mail-order scheme selling everything from tee shirts to beach buggies. They have also added the entire Mary Quant range of cosmetics and fashion clothes and Hamleys' toys to their catalogue, as well as a new Radio Geronimo radio, made in agreement with Rank-Bush-Murphy.

GERONIMO ALLEGE JAMMING (11 July 1970)

Radio Geronimo has complained to the BBC about alleged jamming of Geronimo's programmes from Radio Four transmitting station in Folkestone. The transmitting station, Geronimo claims, produces a continuous tone on 206 metres medium wave, when Radio 4 closes down each night. Geronimo is one metre away, at 205 metres MW. Commented a BBC spokesman: "The BBC doesn't jam other stations. Radio 4 is a perfectly legal station and for Geronimo to intercept any signals, it must be because they've set their transmissions too close to us." The Geronimo complaint has been sent to the Head of BBC Broadcasting and to Christopher Chataway, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. Meanwhile, a new pop station takes to the air in September from the transmitters of Radio Andorra, the station first used by Radio Geronimo. The new project will use the 250 kilowatt station in the Pyrenees to broadcast an hour long British pop programme every night from 1am........

How the BBC was 'jammed' (24 July 1970)

THE BBC, which is not unfamiliar with the art of jamming, was 'jammed' itself yesterday. And the mechanics of the operation couldn't have been simpler. A group of young people arrived at Broadcasting House with a pile of plastic bags filled with jam bought from a nearby store - and hurled them at the building. The thick and sticky mixture of strawberry, apricot, blackcurrant and greengage jam spread over the doors, the windows, the walls, and the pavement. One of London's tastier demos, it was carried out by a group protesting that for six weeks the BBC has been jamming the late night pop station, Radio Geronimo.

Click on thumbnails below for full size pictures:- Pictures by Michael Brennan. Demonstrators outside the closed doors of Broadcasting House. A youth is led away by police.

THE DAY THEY 'JAMMED' THE BBC by ROBERT HART (24 July 1970)

THE BBC was 'jammed' yesterday - by a small group of demonstrators. They left jam on the walls, the doors, and on the pavement outside. They said they were retaliating because for the last six weeks the BBC had been jamming - in more traditional style - Radio Geronimo, a pop radio station based in Monte Carlo. In fact the BBC deny having anything to do with jamming the British-based station which has been broadcasting late-night programmes quite legally for three months. Smeared Supporters of Radio Geronimo turned up outside Broadcasting House armed with 30lb of jam which had been poured into plastic bags. They bombarded the buildings and smeared the jam over doors and windows. Hugh Nolan, a 26 year old disc-jockey with Radio Geronimo, said: "The BBC deny the jamming is going on. We know it is." Two men were arrested later.

Radio men threw jam at BBC

TWO programme directors of a radio station, who threw bags full of jam at the BBC headquarters, Broadcasting House, were fined yesterday. Mr. Edward Robey, magistrate at Marlborough Street Court, London, told them: "You ought to know better." When arrested one of the men, who both work for Radio Geronimo, said: "The BBC jam us, so we jammed them." Barry Everitt, 22, of Tennyson Road, Mill Hill, and Hugh Nolan, 26, of Denning Road, Hampstead, were each fined £25 and bound over for insulting behaviour.

GERONIMO (14 November 1970)

Mystery surrounds the future of Radio Geronimo this week. The station did not broadcast this weekend at all and SOUNDS understands that there will be a meeting in London during the next two weeks to discuss its future. The station - which on Friday, Saturday and Sunday uses the Radio Monte airwaves to broadcast on - has been on the air for over a year.

RADIO GERONIMO - THE FACTS by STEVE PEACOCK (28 November 1970)

Since Geronimo went off the air, the rumours have been flying wild. First there was the mystery - no one knew what was happening and people who tuned to 205 found the nearest that could get was Luxembourg or some German station - then there was the speculation about what had happened, and what was going to happen. There was a great deal of confusion about the birth of the new station on 205 - Monte Carlo International - and there was a generally held misconception that MCI had replaced Geronimo. Among the rumours even wider of the mark was the idea that Geronimo were going to take over late night shows on Luxembourg.

To try to clear up the confusion and set the record straight, I spoke to Barry Everitt at Geronimo and Maurice Gardett, Managing Director of Monte Carlo International and formerly a programme director with Radio Monte Carlo. In January of this year, Radio Monte Carlo started test broadcasts of Geronimo's programmes from their transmitter on 205 meters (sic) on the medium wave. "We went to them with the idea, we more or less had to persuade them to do it," said Barry. They started out with broadcasts from 12 to 2 on Saturday nights - "we had 100 letters after the first one" - and in June they started to broadcast at the same time on Fridays and Sundays as well. In June they did their first three hour programme, devoted to the Woodstock album and some J.S. Bach harpsichord music. "Our test agreement was due to run out on November 1," said Barry, "and what they have basically done is not allow us to take up our option to continue with them." Geronimo say they had planned to start broadcasting seven nights a week on 205 from January 1 next year, and from eight in the evening seven nights a week from August. They claim they had worked out a deal with Monte Carlo where they handled the advertising and transmitting, and Geronimo provided the programmes. They had plans for a new studio to cope with the extra recording and up until three weeks ago they say they thought this deal would go through. "Maurice Gardett came over to see us in September and offered us this deal", claims Barry. "He even offered to build us the new studio. There would have been three minutes an hour of advertising, and we planned to have a free information service for ats labs, musicians, magazines and things like that.

"Then in November, Maurice Gardett came over again - we thought - to finalise the contract, but he avoided all talk of it," says Barry. "The next thing we heard was these rumours about a new station called Monte Carlo International, and Geronimo's programmes stopped being broadcast, although we'd sent them the tapes. The Friday before our last broadcast, they sent us a bill for £840 overtime. We couldn't pay all of it - we were £300 short - and the Saturday and Sunday programmes just didn't appear. We didn't know any more than our listeners." Geronimo say they feel they have been used by Radio Monte Carlo to test the potential for another more commercially minded station.

Monte Carlo's version of the Geronimo affair is, of course, somewhat different. "Geronimo told us they wanted to broadcast every day from September 30", said Maurice Gardett, who - as Managing Director of Monte Carlo International - is now based in London. "But as it turned out, they were not ready to do that. The original trial period was due to end on that date, but we kept on transmitting their programmes for another month. We were charging them very low rates, only £80 an hour." On the overtime bill he said: "The agreement was to do a three hour programme ending at three o'clock. Every day they went on past that - one night they went on for an extra hour and five minutes. This caused us a lot of trouble with the local electricity authorities. At the end of October we sent them (Geronimo) an overtime bill for £840."

He said that he did come over to look into the advertising situation for Geronimo in September, but this was at their request. No, he said, he definitely did not make any promises to Geronimo about an amalgamation deal: "I did not get a very god reaction from advertisers for Geronimo", he said. "They did not like the presentation on the station - sometimes they used crude words, you know." This 'crude words' may well have contributed to Monte Carlo's decision to stop broadcasting Geronimo's programmes, because Mr. Gardett said later in the interview: "We (Radio Monte Carlo) are not the kind of station that broadcasts crude language."

But there were other reasons. He said that Geronimo had not always paid their transmission bills on time, and that he didn't have much confidence in Geronimo as a commercial proposition. Monte Carlo International will start broadcasting in December, with Dave Cash and Tommy Vance as DJ's.

Meanwhile, Geronimo are in the process of finding a new home. Barry says they have great hopes of being back on air by the New Year, and Tony Secunda is enthusiastic about the possiblity of building their own transmitter. "Geronimo is certainly not dead as far as I am concerned", said Tony. "Whatever happens, we shall be back, and what we do will be completely legal", said Barry.