The Frankster Archives

We’ve lost Mike Drayson overnight folks. Terrible news. News of this started coming through around 9pm-ish but it was unconfirmed then – it didn’t take long for confirmation to also come through though.

What an absolute bummer. One of the good blokes of the industry who recently picked up where he left off on 99.3 FM Sydney (Northside Radio). We’ve been through the vault and here are four audio pieces of Mike.

The first two are airchecks from 5AD from February 1973 recorded a few days apart (with thanks to my good mate Les Cook – tapes are a little worn but we still managed to get some signal out of them), and following that, two reels recorded in December 1989 two weeks apart containing voiceovers by Mike for KA-FM.

5AD with Mike Drayson – February 22nd 1973
Dur: 30’33”, Mono, 42 MB
Audio credit: ARN

5AD with Mike Drayson – February 26th 1973
Dur: 30’28”, Mono, 42 MB
Audio credit: ARN

KA-FM voiceovers Reel 1 of 2 with Mike Drayson – December 6th 1989
Dur: 5’04”, Mono, 11.9 MB
Audio credit: SCA

KA-FM voiceovers Reel 2 of 2 with Mike Drayson – December 18th 1989
Dur: 10’13”, Mono, 23.4 MB
Audio credit: SCA

A bit of a background for this update, and I’m putting these up while I get things together again to be able to present regular updates here once more.

This audio forms part of a collection of audio cassettes I acquired in 2012 which had a lot of Melbourne radio throughout. I was looking at things like 3MMM, TT-FM etc, but the bulk of this lot was mainly recorded off the 1422 3XY AM side, as well as the 3XY/Bay-FM 93.9 simulcast. So I thought I’d put up a few so the site has some audio at least rather than leaving it bare bones for another period of time.

The various edits you hear from these were done by the person who recorded them – rest assured I haven’t tampered with any, what you’re hearing is how the audio appears on the tapes.

3MMM-FM: Andy McLean, 1991
Dur: 1 hr 32 min approx, Stereo, 87.2 MB
Audio credit: SCA

3XY: 1422 AM “Tape 13” – 1990/1991
Dur: 1 hr 32 min, Stereo, 88.1 MB
Audio credit: Nine Entertainment Co.

3XY: Kick To Kick 1988-1989
Dur: 1 hr 32 min, Stereo, 88.3 MB
Audio credit: Nine Entertainment Co.

3XY: Punter To Punter 1988-1989
Dur: 1 hr 33 min, Stereo, 89.7 MB
Audio credit: Nine Entertainment Co.

**Aircheck audio supplied by David Rogerson and Dave D Whitcomb

Here are the September dubs from the Dave Rogerson collection! This collection is relatively smaller than the last couple, so I’m combining other audio with them. Each week we’ll have two from the Dave Rogerson collection, two from the Dave D Whitcomb collection (ex-2WS, 4KQ and others), and then two tapes from a collection of reels discovered in a storage area in 2003 that once belonged to 2UW Sydney.

David Rogerson Collection

Dave D Whitcomb Collection

2UW Master 1/4″ Reels

2UW Promo Master #2
Dur: 20’32”, Mono, 28.8 MB
Audio credit: ARN

**No cuesheet for this reel but it mostly consists of various versions and mixes for the 2UW Supaloo competition

2UW Promo Master #57 – Recorded June 16th to July 7th 1986
Dur: 30’03”, Stereo, 42.1 MB
Audio credit: ARN

**Cuesheet here

Well, my apologies for a no show last week everyone. On January 17th my wonderful golden retriever Rexy passed away after 11 years and I was pretty cut about it so I went offline for a little while to deal with it. Toughest thing I’ve ever had to do. As the old saying goes, “Tell me it’s just a dog, and I’ll tell you you’re just an idiot”. I’ve also been trying to pay off his vet bills which has also turned out quite hard to do so I have enlisted a GoFundMe to help with this. If you can help in my quest, it’s certainly not required nor expected of you but it will take the pressure off. Go here and please accept my sincere thanks if you do decide to give me a hand.

**Aircheck audio supplied by David Rogerson and dubbed and mastered by Frankster. This is the last lot of tapes from the April 2022 dubs! Next week, we’ll present the September 2022 dubs.