In the town I grew  there was a man who ran a pirate radio station that my grandfather listened to in the 50’s. The broadcaster only identified himself as “The Radioman”. The Radioman would play the The Beach Boys. Most kids were listening to these bands at the time, but no one took them quite as seriously as the Radioman and he would go on lengthy, breathless diatribes about the occult imagery that inspired them. He was particularly keen to talk about the writings of Aleister Crowley whom my grandfather had heard references to in interviews with the bands. Sometimes he would broadcast for a coolest music! Music my grandfather had never heard the adults play. Delta Blues they called it. My grandpa told me a story once of Robert Johnson who sold his soul to the devil to be able to play the guitar. He played a record of his for me once. Listening to those crackling recordings seemed to lend some haunting credence to the theory. As my grandpa grew up the Radioman evolved with the times.
When my grandpa was a teenager in the 1960’s the Radioman played bands like The Rolling Stones and full hour without playing any actual music. Just rambling on and on about this satanic book and that. My grandfather never had any interest in that stuff. He just wanted to hear whatever music that half-insane disc jockey would spin next. Then in 1964 my dad was born. My grandfather no longer had the time to listen to the Radioman. He had a family to take care of. One day he would show my dad the Radioman. When he was old enough.

That day came in 1971. My grandfather and my dad sat down at grandpa’s old ham radio and tuned to the Radioman’s station. My grandfather began to doubt if he would still be broadcasting as the dial brought the needle ever closer to that dark signal. That doubt was dispelled as he arrived at that familiar frequency and Black Sabbath’s Children of the Grave blasted through the speakers. They were transfixed. Neither of them had heard anything like it. Heavy metal it was called. Listening to the Radioman became a routine for them. Almost every other night they would sit down and listen to whatever new music he was playing. As Black Sabbath established heavy metal as a genre in it’s own right and more and more bands began to play it his playlist choices became more obscure. Rainbow, CWT, Coven, Bloodrock, Cain. The list goes on and on. Every night something new, something heavier.

When my dad moved out on his own in the 80’s his very first purchase was a ham radio. He would listen to the Radioman every night. He would call up his dad whenever there was a new song and gush about it. As the 80’s went on the Radioman kept playing heavier and heavier music. Extreme metal like Thrash and Death. My Grandfather sort of lost interest at this point. “A bunch of fuckin’ noise and screaming” he called it. My dad listened on though. One night I asked my dad how the Radioman fell out of his good graces.