The Story of Beats…..

So once apon a time, many many moons ago, myself [Stu Calvert] and Ty Klemm, whilst trying to gain an education back in our youth attending Williamstown North Technical College [Willy Tech], upon hearing that an in house school radio station was being launched, as we both love our music jumped at the chance, and soon enough creating, producing and comparing our own radio show during the lunch break on Radio 3WTS, whilst being a tad nerdy, we thought we were bloody cool, but still nerdy. 

During this time we were fortunate to be paid visits from some of the indutries best radio program hosts, John Blackman [Hey Hey It’s Saturday Talkover Man] and John Peters [EON-FM] which later become Triple M, he also worked on Countdown doing voice overs for a few years, 3LO also interviewed us which went on air later that night.

Ty went on to do work experience at 3AK, we also toured a few other commercial and independent stations.

This ran for a few years, we also started up our own Mobile DJ Business called Quazar Mobile Disco later changing to KC’s Mobile Disco, driving around Melbourne to various parties, 21’s, Footy break up’s, weddings and even the odd high rise 14th floor with one lift, only to be kicked out by the police…….????, many kilometres walked with 5-6 bloody heavy crates of records, we were DJ’s, hosts, and our own roadies…wahhhhhhh!

During our time at 3WTS, we met a friend Rohan who DJ’ed in clubs around Melbourne, showing us the ropes as far as mixing records is concerned in his grungy backyard old wooden shed, teaching us on the latest and industry standard Technics 1200 MK2 turntables, leaning BPM’s [Beats Per Minute] and matching music to mix and blend to create a smooth mix.

Our business ran on and off for a good 6-7 years, then in the early 90’s, Ty came up with the idea of trying out for a local Gippsland community radio station called 3MFM in Inverloch, Victoria, so we tried out and were given the almighty awesome timeslot of 6-9 on a Saturday night, creating 3 hour playlists with the latest Dance Beats from Melbourne, we called our program “BEATS INTERNATIONAL”, a first for this very station and a real eye opener for some of the locals, this went on for a few years driving two hours and back from Melbourne every Saturday.

We sometimes also also filled in till late late early morning on that Saturday night Sunday morning till all crazy hours, this also gave me the opportunity to be get creative in production making up crazy ID’S and jingles for our program, we would also have a hand in creating adverts for ours and other programs on this radio station, good times.

During this time we met a lot of wonderful people, including a few that would come and help out and sit in with us during Beats, this is how we met Tayla Allen, Ian Cherry [Cherry Bear] or Eeeeee was another regular, Tayla also compared programs including the monday to friday morning slot “Toast On The Coast”, another very popular program.

Our program ran for a few years, with work commitments back in Melbourne etc, we decided time was up, we’d had our fun, time to move on.

In the late 90’s, and quite a few years after Beats and our Mobile DJ Business fizzled out, i was fortunate enough to have contacts and forced my way into the Melbourne nightclub scene as a DJ, Beat mixing a 4-6 hour set on Friday nights from 10pm, again, amazing time slot in the clubs, working at a nightclub called “Salon Kitty” in Smith street Collingwood, this lasted for over 12 months, absolutely loved the gig, but unfortunately like a lot of clubs eventually closed down.

Fast forward a few years, well decades actually and we came up with the idea of re-creating Beats, online, Ty’s in Melbourne, Tayla is in Brisbane, i am also in Brisbane, how the hell is this going to work, well, hello technology, definately not a word used around the original Beats 3MFM days.

So via the net, DJ Mixing programs, Google Drive, Ty’s skill on the computer setting up the website and posting each and every podcast, me with my advertising and creative skills, Tayla with THE VOICE, and the rest is history.

Technology over the years has changed dramatically digitally, meaning now i go from creating and making up ID’s and promo’s via a cassette deck and using a record pause buttons, an Akai mono Sampler, a Korg M1 keyboard to load in voice keys, loads of hiss to now computer software, no loss in quality, an upload and send off for distribution, with my graphic design background also create the cover art and website art for all podcasts etc.

So there we have it, it’s some thing that has a fair amount of history behind it, and now as always will continue to post an hour long music podcast, in various styles and formats, from dance to Eighties, end of year and Christmas specials, Mixtapes, DJ Mixes, Radio style programs and the odd Megamix.

So many years of practice, learning the craft, many many demo tapes, and long lives Beats international.