Peter Evans

From an Australian Broadcasting Commission (=government funded) 50 Kilowatt AM wireless station, 3LO (which is not supposed to worry about such things as "ratings"), he managed to comfortably hold the top rating for the much sought after breakfast programme slot for 20 years, until his untimely death in 1987.

Melbourne's commercial stations tried everything during that time - beautiful music, shock-jock, comedy, sport - you name it. But the majority of Melbourne listeners still preferred to listen to Peter Evans' dulcet tones as they burned their toast and headed off to work - especially on those cold, depressing Melbourne Monday mornings.

Why? Well, because he was intelligent, witty, very layback, didn't seem to have the slightest interest in the music he was given to play (bright and tuneful though it usually was), and just had a way of making you feel that you were somehow listening into the private musings of a disgruntled yet amusing gentleman who'd somehow wandered into a radio announcing career against his better judgement.

Here are a few surviving air-checks. First up - a 27 minute sample from a 1979 breakfast session:

Wednesday October 10, 1979 - listen via RealBadAudio, or via a (13 Mb) MP3, or even via the super-fi (19 Mb) Ogg Vorbis version.

And here's another 13 minute classic air-check of an Evans breakfast session from 1985. This one is particularly special, as it contains a replay of that all-time classic Spike Milligan ABC news interruption about 6 minutes in. The latter happened back in 1972 during one of Spike's visits to Australia when the ABC made the dreadful mistake of allowing him to remain in the news booth during the reading of the 5 minute ABC National Bulletin.

Thanks to Stephen Spicer (one of that rare breed who managed to successfully evade the dreaded exclusion committee and actually graduate from Monash University's Electrical Engineering faculty) for passing this on. Recorded off his crystal set:

Peter Evans (and Spike Milligan replay), 3LO breakfast, 1985 - via RealBadAudio or the equally bad sounding Windows Media format or via a (6 Mb) MP3 or the best quality of the lot - the 7Mb Open Standards Ogg Vorbis

And here's the final 25 minutes or so from Thursday morning, October 20th, 1977. This particular one was actually recorded off the desk in at 3LO by Dave, VK3ASE (who was doing panels for Peter that morning), and it has Peter chatting with Terry Lane about 7 minutes in:

A quite 'fi Peter Evans (and Terry Lane), 3LO breakfast, October 20th, 1977 - via RealBadAudio or the (12 Mb) MP3 - or for maximum quality, the (14 Mb) VBR Ogg Vorbis version, which extends up to around 14KHz with this cut. You'll hear Peter rattling and crossing off each piece as he reads it, and tapping his feet against the desk as was his habit. You can even hear (or feel) the city traffic out in William and Lonsdale streets in the background. This was when ABC radio was still on the corner of that intersection, right in the middle of Melbourne (before moving out to South Melbourne in the late 1990s).

Thankfully, Terry is still on ABC big power AM wireless via Radio National, midday on Sunday (replayed at 1pm AEST on Mondays). The last 4 weeks worth of the latter can also be accessed via the ABC web site here (but be warned - you'll need that dreaded "Real" player to hear them). Terry used to have an interesting web site of his own too, although it seems he may have killed that off now.

And unfortunately for us Melbournites, he's now retired from his Thursday morning 3LO stint, the 11am Conversation Hour (see "Lane and Faine" below if you'd like to hear some of those classics).

And one last Evans session ... just for the road! This is a long (one hour) off-air recording from 1976, and my well-used Ampex tape (see box at left) also exhibits quite a few dropouts. It's also somewhat over-recorded, unfortunately (which was entirely my fault).

Peter was coming down with a virus on this particular day, as you'll hear.

A complaining Peter Evans (with a cold), 3LO breakfast, 1976 - via RealBadAudio, or the rather large (28 Mb) MP3, or the best of the lot - the 33 Mb Ogg Vorbis version.

Typical Evans back-announcement (50 minutes into this one): Music fades, followed by a time call "Quarter past seven ... (pause) ... You don't believe me? Alright - don't. It's a quarter past seven!"

Once again, my apologies for the tape overload throughout this one ... but I reckon it's still worth hearing.

So, Peter ... we around Victoria (Oz) really enjoyed your brekky shows (and your music) while you were here.