20/10/2023
This is the first ever Alternative Ulster poster. The story of how this came to be, and how AU started, is an absolute trip.
One day, I was walking down Botanic Avenue after having lunch with my dad. He had been making fun of me for being a DJ – “DJ Jonny, Jonny the DJ!” – standard Northern Irish banter. Next thing, someone stopped me and said “Are you Jonny, the DJ?” I looked around to see if my dad had put them up to it. He hadn’t. She said her name was Cathy Wright, and that she was going to be launching a new website to promote Northern Irish music, called Alternative Ulster, and asked if I would do something for it. The thing was, a few weeks before I’d had the idea to start a new radio station promoting NI artists, and I was planning on calling it Alternative Ulster. I couldn’t believe someone had the same idea and the same name! We swapped details and kept in touch.
A few weeks later, my friend Ciara told me to look at an NI music scene website called Fastfude. On my first visit, I saw a link that said if you had an idea for radio production, programming or presenting, a new Belfast community radio station called Northern Visions was launching. I had the brainwave to turn my idea of a radio station into a radio show. I got in touch with Cathy and asked her if she would like to team up. She was doing the same thing with the website that I wanted to do with the radio show, so why not do it together? I drafted a proposal and showed it to Northern Visions. They liked it and said we could come in and talk about it.
On Thursday March 14, we went to Northern Visions with a stack of CDs from local artists to chat. Instead of chatting, they sent us straight into the studio and told us we could record our show. We pre-recorded our first show there and then and got the last time slot left – 5pm on a Sunday. Later that very same day, Cathy put on this launch party for the website. How wild is it that two ideas conceived by two strangers, using the same name, with the same mission, would end up launching on the exact same day? This one coincidence changed the course of my entire life.
Come celebrate 20 years since the launch of AU on 11.12. Tickets: tinyurl.com/AU-20th
