Gary's Gig List

In the late 1980's and early 90's I played at various venues in East London and Essex. These were regular gigs which took place most weekends. I don't remember them all and some have long gone but here are a few for old times sake...

Flappers Stratford London E.15 (Temple Mills marshes) - 1985 / 86

Mainstreet Ilford Essex - 1987

Tico's Chelmsford Essex - 1987

The Cube Leytonstone London E.11 - 1989

The Bull & Crown North Chingford - 1990 (Also as part of a Thames Telefon sponsored event broadcast live on Thames News)

Dalton's Fairlop waters Hainault Essex - 1993 / 94

5th Avenue Ilford Essex - 1994

Gary Drew's History in radio

Radio stations I have worked on over the years.

October 1984 - February 1985 WFR - Waltham Forest Radio WFR - East London 102.9 FM. (Unlicensed)

April 1985 - September 1985 Spectrum Radio - East London 88.6 FM. (Unlicensed)

October 1985 -  March 1987 SOS Radio The Sound Of Soul - North London 88.2 FM. (Unlicensed) 

April 1986 - August 1986 City Sound Radio - City Of London 94.5 FM. (Unlicensed)

May 1987 - September 1987 Melody FM - East London 102.4 FM. (Unlicensed)

Septmber 1987 - July 1988 Soul FM The Sound Of Underground London -  East London 96.9 FM. (Unlicensed) 

July 1988 - August 1988 Jive FM - East London. (unlicensed)

August 1988 - December 1988 Throwdown FM - North London. (Unlicensed)

April 1989 - August 1992 GFM - Great Funky Music - North East London. Owned and operated by Gary Drew. (Unlicensed)

April 1990 - July 1990 Base FM - North London 91.8 FM. (Unlicensed)

July 1993 - November 1994 Snaresbrook Community Radio. SCR 1503 AM Wanstead East London RSL LPAM station. 

April 1995 - August 1995 QBC Quality Broadcasting Company - East London. (Unlicensed)

1996 - 1999. RSL LPFM station.  

July 2000 - September 2001 Internet Radio Norwich IRN On-line community radio.

November 2001 - November 2002 Radio North Mid - North Middlesex Hopsital Radio Edmonton London 999 KHz AM. RSL LPAM station.

May 2002 - October 2003 Chase FM Enfield RSL LPFM station.  

March 2004 - December 2006 Archive Radio. Internet radio station.

May 2007 - Ongoing. SHR - South Herts Radio - Internet radio station.

January 2009 - Ongoing. Laser Hot Hits shortwave and internet radio station. 

Favourite all time radio stations past and present: Solar Radio, Horizon Radio, LWR, TKO, JFM, Soul FM, GFM, Laser Hot Hits & SHRI.

Webmaster background

My name is Gary Drew and I have been a part time radio presenter and broadcaster since October 1984. I have worked on many radio stations over several years some of which were unlicensed. See the list of my history in radio for more details.

Since I was a young I was always fascinated by the way radio works. I had a kit bought for me one Christmas which taught me how to build an FM and AM radio. I think this came from the store known as Tandy at the time. This was very basic but as I grew older I began to take radios apart to see how they worked. Most people I knew back then were not happy to tune their receivers to other channels in case they lost the place of their favourite station on the dial. Even with presets available, I noticed an older generation happy to leave the radio tuned to just one station all the time. I later began to find out about offshore radio stations which got me interested in pirate and clandestine radio and I became a bit of an anorak in this field.

By the time the 1980's had come I was tuning into to various pirates mostly on the FM band and I was DXing the shortwave bands. My first love of shortwave was discovered in 1980. By 1984 I began making radio programmes from experimenting with cassette tapes and editing pieces of music together while recording inserts to make jingles etc. Later in that year I was listening to my favourite pirate station Solar Radio. It was in the Autumn when the Brother of a friend asked me to make some shows for a station he was starting in the Walthamstow area of East London. This was the short lived W.F.R. - Waltham Forest Radio. Most of the time it was broadcast from a portable tape recorder rigged to a transmitter behind Walthamstow Town Hall in the bushes by the Chestnut playing fields.

In around late February of 1985 WFR had ceased broadcasting due to lack of interest but at least my programmes had been put out on the air which gave me the buzz to carry on as a radio D.J. It was in August 1985 that I got my second turntable and a mixer, this is when my D.J. career began properly. I was making commercials and jingles onto cassettes for many pirate stations across London and mix tapes for friends. I even became involved in being a lookout for people testing low power FM transmitters and microwave links for local pirates from the roof tops of housing estates in East London. A popular test channel used by many pirates at the time was 88.6 FM.

Later on I found myself more regularly broadcasting live on London pirates instead of just doing pre-recorded shows. I was known for playing soul & funk music which I still have a large collection of and it is a format I love. In September 1987, I was asked to join Soul FM which was one of the best stations around London during that period. On Bank Holidays we used rigs of up to 100 watts power and as 1987 drew to a close, I had established myself with my D.J. name Mixmaster-G after mixing records into each other continuously and keeping it going for hours. That's when I began to get work in nightclubs and I enjoyed the hip house explosion in 1989 after the acid house scene had died out. I never really got into the rave scene but admit to buying a few dodgy records.

By 1990 I had bought my own mobile disco rig and began doing private parties and disco's around London, Essex and Hertfordshire. This lasted until about 1993 when it all got too much and I decided to take a little break for a while. After selling my disco gear in 1996 I started learning how to do broadcasting from computers and began radio presenting on a more professional level deciding to revert back to my real name Gary Drew. 

Today I continue to broadcast on the internet with live and recorded programmes as well as finding time to DX the radio bands to find new stations of interest. I am involved with various other radio projects, websites, and forums as well as providing many rare and restored radio material to various organisations across the UK. To hear some examples Click Here.

You can purchase many recordings from the offshore pirate radio era including some contributions donated by me by paying a visit to Pirate Radio Sales or Radio Fab. To hear music and jingles from the offshore radio ships tune into Offshore Music Radio

There is more to this story but my radio knowledge is what gave me the idea to create and launch this website and blog which is a platform that allows me to share my love of radio with you. I hope you enjoy it.