Photograph
Biting Tongues, The Men Of 992
Cobdens
1983

“According to my gig diary, this was thursday, 24th May, 1984. The Men of 992 had to wait two hours to do a sound check and were not too chuffed (I'm paraphrasing what it actually says!) also marked the first guest appearance of Landmark on sax during the song called 'Pass Me By'. Chris Rowland (now in Vancouver) was still playing rythym guitar for 992, but not for much longer if the lovely Janet had anything to do with it.....”

“Soundchecks, I remember those.......”

“Oh my God! I was still the resident DJ at Cobdens then!!! That was the year before we launched KFM Radio...”

“Dave, did you ever get the tapes back that were confiscated from KFM? I remember a guy called Craig broadcast a recording of 992 in The Boar's Head that he'd done on some portable recorder that was probably quite a gadget for the time!”

“It was a Sony Walkman he had. I have a cassette tape I didoff the radio when it was aired somewhere, the quality of recording (and playing) was poor so if they show up just burn 'em. It was a buzz to hear it go out on the radio however. KFM was great when it started,it had an obligation to play a large percentage of local music but was doomed to failure. I think it went out from Regent House on Heaton Lane(the big multi-storey building adjacent to the chippy next to the George Pub. They morphed into Signal Cheshire and are now in Stoke (I think) and indistinguishable from any other station. It was better when they were skulking about in the back room of shops on Hillgate and being busted all the time and having to move about........”

“Apologies sinuf_mood but all the gear that was confiscated in those raids rarely came back to us. However, chances are the guy called Craig you referred to may well have been one Craig Cash famed in much more recent years for his brilliant TV work such as the Royle Family etc with Caroline Aherne. You never know he may still have some of those tapes, I certainly retained a lot of mine from those early days... Oh, and sorry sbilts, perhaps you're getting a little confused here? These were the days when we were based on Hillgate (the halcyon days of KFM) although whoever told you we were at the back of any shops was pulling your leg - we were originally in a studio at Raynor house on Hillgate. Also we didn't keep moving around. In fact we only changed address once and that was to a custom built state of the art (at that time) studio at Goyt Mill in Marple. An address we constantly gave out over the air. Most of the original team had little or nothing to do with the later watered down version of KFM hyped at it's launch and, as you stated, doomed to crash and burn due to it's limited appeal. That was the one which was sited at Regent House on Heaton Lane where incidentally it still partly resides under the name of Imagine FM.
Could I also point out that we in fact didn't have as you put it "an obligation to play local bands". We CHOSE as a station to promote local bands because in those days, (as Steve Toon once said)unless you were Sad Cafe or The Smiths you didn't get a sniff in on ILR, thankyou!”

“The Craig to which Sinuf Mood is referring was Craig Wood who was a mate of erstwhile 992 keyboard player Derby(still is in fact). Im sure I read somewhere at the time that a condition of the broadcasting licence being granted was that the station play mainly music produced locally but I cant be sure...I would think you would be in a better position to know though sir so will put it down to all the beer and chemicals (mostly prescribed) that I have consumed over the years. I do remember listening to KFM a lot at the time and enjoying it and I was sad when it "went legit "as it were....”