OK. If this show lands on target many of our listeners will be driving in the sun, strolling on a white rocky beach or recovering from last night’s paella and that extra shot of herbs… So with that in mind i’m going to keep this short. Welcome to the long-mooted and strategically timed Finders Keepers Balearic Especial. A show that does exactly what it says on the tin. Made from strictly indigenous secret ingredients with little need for preservatives or technological enhancements.
For our fourteenth feature-length attempt at “Making Global Sound Local” regular Finders Keepers office dwellers and co-hosts Andy Votel, Pete Mitchell, Doug Shipton and Lee Janda use their unique brand of wax-anorak-geekery, dubious dad jokes and mountainous mispronunciations to unveil two hours of lesser-spotted Balearic uber-classics. From the islands and islets that link Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera and continue to unite folk, funk, farmers, free-thinkers, fine food and fauna, The Finders Keepers radio hosts unearth a small selection of mid-Med microgroove discs with a trail of crumbs pointing back to the days when the first hippie communes welcomed jazzers, artists, actors and activists to those mythical retreats over 50 years ago. Including our all of our regular rigged competitions (!) and magazine features Finders Keepers also invite special guest and Manc blues prophet Victor bros who regales stories of the early days on Ibiza in the presence of a pre-Velvet Underground Nico while namedropping Don Cherry and the first free music ensembles and DJs to hit those unknown shores in the early 1960s.
The Finders Keepers radio renegades gather once again to bring you a special edition satellite show, custom orchestrated to celebrate the return to our screens of the longest-running annual international TV song competition aka Eurovision. Yes, that’s right, the outer national psychedelic librarians behind one of the most alternative outer national record labels on the pear-shaped planet are here to prove that the genre that we’ve loosely termed as B-Music exists in all corners of the vinyl vault and even the most hell-bent ambitious entrants for the kitschiest competition show in Europe have bones in the closet, irons in the fire and bats in the belfry – all of which crop up on Eurovison single B-Sides, previous precocious pressings or post mic-battle bounce backs.
If we’re not making ourselves clear here, lets just clarify. Outside of the competition these Eurovisionaries also made some pretty good synthy, fuzzy, drum heavy records when left to their own devices and Finders Keepers Radio is here to prove it. So sit back in your favourite chair, pour yourself a Babycham, light up that dangerous fondue oil and marvel as we bring you resilient rock follies from the likes of Greece, Turkey, Belgium, Luxembourg etc. while trying not to count the amount of times we use the phrases “You Were Robbed” and “Repeat Offender” safe in the knowledge that we’re already panning next years follow up show every time we hit foreign thrift stores. This one’s for you, Terry.
