At 27 I was out on that road heading towards stagnation, writes Tim Thorpe in The Age.
I was station-surfing on my first push button radio, which the previous owner had programmed to receive 3CR, 3PBS and 3RRR. It was the moment that I realised there was a whole world of not only music, but ideas that I had been missing. It was like the first time I heard Dylan or Delta blues as a teen. They sounded a little jagged around the edges, but were compelling and ultimately life-changing. Half-a-dozen years later with the inspiration of old radio hand Brian Wise and the persistence of a young go-getter, Cameron Mellor, I realised a dream, and found myself co-hosting a graveyard shift on 3RRR. In 1989 the program manager, Stephen ”The Ghost” Walker, offered me a five-week fill on the weekend breakfast show, Vital Bits. I’m still there.