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Triple J staff celebrated 50 years of Triple J on Sunday 19th January. Even the ABC itself did the same thing later that day.

Hear from Rusty Nails, Dr Karl, Sarah Macdonald, Craig Donarski, Andy Marinos, Dame Lush, Hannah Thompson and other ex ABC staff and current Triple J listeners.

Here’s what happened at the Triple J 40th staff party…

Maynard Triple J Breakfast show 1989

Here’s a transcript of what transpired this time, at the 50th….
Rusty Nails: An audio dildo!
Maynard: At Triple J’s 50th birthday, and who’s the first guy I run into … drinking a cup of coffee! Is there anything in that Rusty Nails?
Rusty: Just coffee this morning, Maynard, I’ve got some serious professional work to do.
M: What year of Triple J are you covering?
Rusty: I’m covering the 79 to 85-ish era, which is sort of like the Uncle Doug Mulray, Jono and Dano, Off The Record, and the J Team of course, and the Oils on the Water.
M: How come commercial radio never snapped you up from your breakfast show at Triple J?
Rusty: I was probably too rebellious. I did actually, funnily enough, talk to Trevor Smith at one point. He said, “Nothing wrong with your talent, but we don’t like your voice, it’s not Aussie enough.”
M: Everyone knows that when an English guy speaks there’s authority. Or he’s a geezer, it’s either one or the other.
Rusty: Oh, I’m a geezer.
M: What do you reckon has been the greatest moment of Triple J over the last 50 years?
Rusty: At this fiftieth, I’m proud to announce that I’ve almost finished writing, no, not finished, but I’ve almost finished writing my book for my daughter, and it’s called “Dear Emily, Extraordinary Moments in an Ordinary Life”, and it’ll be on the bookshelves by Christmas.
M: I’ll look forward to that. Why do you think there’s never been a book about Triple J? Is it too complicated?
Rusty: Well, there was one …
M: Toby Cresswell was supposed to write one.
Rusty: But there was that Twenty years of Double J and Triple J. They never reprinted it.
M: All David Wales’ artwork through it, too.
Rusty: It had the wonderful stories like Russell Gay answering the phone to the General at Victoria Barracks.
M: I tell you what, Rusty, because I’ve got a lot of reel to reel tape, which I recorded stuff on, at the end of it, there was stuff that I hadn’t recorded over. And I’ve heard a lot of your unedited interviews, one with the Homecoming Queen’s got a Gun, Julie. I’ve got your interview with Julie Brown!
Rusty: Wow! Unfortunately, I lost a mass of tapes moving continent to continent and stuff, but I think I might even have a Yahoo Serious interview somewhere.
M: What’s the song for you that epitomises your time at Triple J?
Rusty: Oh, shit. I suppose it’s gotta be when we were doing the Breakfast Program and Midnight Oil came in and world premiered their Place Without a Postcard album.
M: Well, you have your coffee and I look forward to seeing you on stage, Rusty.
Rusty: Yeah, yeah.
M: Now, remember when you say you’re finished, wait for the applause to die down before you tell them what you finished.
Rusty: Can I dance with you later Maynard?
M: I hope so. See you, Rusty.
Rusty: See you, Maynard.

Maynard: So over the years, you’ve got all the people you hear on the radio, but then you’ve got the people who make you hear the people that you hear on the radio, like Scott. Scott, you were the technical guy. You did everything, really. You, at one stage, held up the antenna during a rainstorm.
Scott Wyatt: Yeah, well.
M: The transmitting mast.
Scott: Of course!
M: What was the most challenging thing about being a tech guy trying to run around with a bunch of ninnies at Triple J and Double J?
Scott: I don’t think anything was too challenging, it was a wonderful experience.
M: Technology wasn’t like it is now. Like, everyone just goes through the phone line now, but if you wanted to go through the phone line to do an OB, then it was like a thousand bucks or something, wasn’t it, from Telecom?
Scott: Yeah, you had to pay the money, yeah.
M: Or the PMG.
Scott: And turn up and find the little cable with the tag on it, and ring up the Telecom people.
M: Were you the guy that recorded Village People at the Hordern?
Scott: No, not me.
M: Oh, wow, OK, because I know, I’m going to find that person, shake his hand. I hope you don’t find a tag that costs you a thousand dollars today.
Scott: Yeah, well, hopefully.

Maynard: We’ve got Murdo here, Murdo McLeod. What do you reckon would be the song that says 50 years of Triple J for you?
Murdo: Oh, going back to The Psychotic Turnbuckles. That was of an era. There weren’t too many bands like that at the time.
M: Hey, do you think it’s really odd that there are no actual ABC cameras or recorders here today? Because this was put on by the staff.
Murdo: I know, I think it’s very much representative of what the ABC is these days. It’s a pity, because it is an era that changed Australia to some extent. Helped highlight the fact that we could be independent thinking.

Maynard: So we’ve got members of the public and ex-employees like Ms Lush.
Dame Lush: That’s Dame Lush to you.
M: I imagine it would be. What do you reckon is the song from 50 years of Triple J that goes “Yeah, that’s the Triple J song that I liked”.
Dame Lush: “You Just Like Me ‘Cos I’m Good in Bed”.
M: That’s the one they started with. Not even “Balwyn Calling”?
Dame Lush: That comes later.
M: What do you think Triple J means these days, after 50 years?
Dame Lush: Well, I’m hoping it means the same thing: an introduction to life, society, good music, and just generally dancing your tits off.
M: Do you remember the first time that you listened?
Dame Lush: I don’t remember those days.
M: I remember hearing it in Newcastle, because it was on after midnight on Radio National. And I think we’re going to hear some interesting history today. Have a good day!

Maynard: Well, we’re here at the official function now, which is at the ABC building in Ultimo, one that brings back many memories to me. And with me is someone else who brings back many memories, and that would be Craig Donarski. Hi, Craig!
Craig Donarski: Thanks, Maynard.
M: What do you reckon is going to go on? This is the official one, this is the proper one, this is the boring one, although it’s much better catered.
Craig: Oh, yeah. The quality of their food is much higher than the staff organised one that we’ve just been at for the last five hours.
Andy Nehl: I like the staff food!
Maynard: We’ve got Andy Nehl here. Look, and since you two know a lot that spread over there is better than anything I ever saw at any Triple J function when I was there.
Andy Nehl: Oh, it’s true.
M: Yeah, so why has the ABC got into catering now?
Andy: Because the federal government doesn’t give them enough money.
M: Very good point. So what’s your best memory being with Triple J, Andy Nehl, being the manager during a very tumultuous time? Was it being egged in St Kilda?
Andy: You remember that? Wow!
M: Yeah, because I felt so sorry for you. Because back in those days there was no one to put up Radio that Bites posters.
Andy: That’s right. I was sticking up posters on telegraph poles down bloody Ackland Street in St Kilda. And some idiots drove past in a car and threw eggs at me.
M: And it was like 11.30 at night, and you’d been going since the morning, and you’d been putting posters up, and it was like you thought, well, fucking great.
Andy: Fucking good memory, Maynard!
M: I really felt for you because you’ve been working hard.
Andy: Great fun launch that Melbourne line.
M: Oh, yeah, and also when everyone was chanting “Bullshit!” at you in the lower Town Hall too. I hadn’t seen that footage before and I thought oh …
Andy: I was just trying to get out what I wanted to say. Eventually I got it out over the top of a bit of bullshit.
M: What’s your one song you remember from the time of Triple J that sums up a lot.
Andy: When we were gonna start going as a national network, I thought, what song are we gonna start with as far as something that was trying to make a statement with what we were starting with? We commissioned Bart Willoughby, who was an Aboriginal musician, had been from No Fixed Address, has currently had a band then called Mixed Relations. We commissioned Bart to write a song for the station. It was recorded in Studio 221, called “Take It or Leave It”. That was the first song on air on Triple J in Melbourne, Perth, Darwin, Adelaide, Newcastle, Hobart and Brisbane.
M: And let’s just correct a bit of George Orwell-ness that went on with the Adelaide launch. The first words spoken on air were, “This is not a fucking test transmission” by Tony Biggs. Not “This is not a test transmission.” as reported by the Adelaide Advertiser.
Andy: Yeah. And, as I kind of mentioned earlier on, about four or five songs in, Tony Biggs did the launch, there was a big build up, they do the launch, and about four or five songs in Tony Biggs plays “Too Drunk to Fuck” by the Dead Kennedys. And I’m kind of standing around there talking with David Hill and Malcolm Long and, and the South Australian Premier.
M: All the cool kids.
Andy: Oh something like that. And I hear in the background, oh, Biggs is playing “Too Drunk To Fuck”. But they never even notice. No one even fucking noticed Biggs played “Too Drunk To Fuck” at about song four. But then, two or three months later, they notice “Fuck tha Police”. Even though it had been on air there over the whole time.
M: Triple J was overplaying that at that time, we’d kind of gone past playing it.
Andy: That’s right. That’s right.
M: Andy, have a good day here and nothing stops you. You’ve had a whole crowd shouting bullshit at you.
Andy: Yeah.
M: Thank you, Andy!
Andy: Thanks, Maynard!
M: And the legend, Andy Nehl. Now back to the legend, Craig Donarski here. What do you reckon will be the one song from your time at Triple J? Because you had Nippy Rock Shop, you did lots of experimental stuff.
Craig: Really hard to pin it down to one, but I’d have to go with the song that I had as my last song on the day that I left, Public Image’s “Public Image”. Three minutes of just pure punk pop perfection. It kind of summed up my goodbye.
M: And for the record, how many hours were you in the lift here in the ABC building?
Craig: Three hours. So my farewell party was in the end of ’98. And after 12 and a half years here, we set up the goods lift, or the piano moving lift …
M: Which had the false back in it …
Craig: Yeah, it was a venue in a lift. And we put in beanbags, sound system, lighting, cases of champagne, crates of nangs, cream whippers, and other things.
M: And you went up and down in the lift for three hours. Did the managing director ever get in?
Craig: No, not the managing director, but we did blow the minds of many of the switchboard people, and Master Control, and the much straighter parts of the ABC, had a different experience.
M: Of course you’re a director of your own arts establishment at the moment. What do you take from your time at Triple J into your career as an arts director?
Craig: Lots actually. It’s like, find the edge. Because all the interesting things happen at the edges of things, not in the middle. Not at the centre. Try to find the people who are doing the interesting stuff at the edges. Because that’s where all of the most interesting stuff occurs. I get how it’s really hard for a national network that goes to every regional centre and every capital city to be able to be, like, really cutting edge. It’s hard. You know, we were lucky.
M: So, of course the original building had that wonderful pink neon on the roof. How great was it to have sex under the pink neon on the roof of the Triple J building in William Street, Craig?
Craig: It was actually pretty awesome.
M: Everything was just bathed in pink and everything was so still in the middle of the night.
Craig: After the sackings of all of the announcers when we were up on the roof and Tony Biggs was burning his mouseketeer hat …
M: Oh, and a shout out to Tony Biggs.
Craig: Yeah, yay Tony Biggs, who I used to produce on The Breakfast Show before you were even on The Breakfast Show. It was awesome to have our own little building and be separate from the rest of the ABC. Part of the problem for Triple J being edgy happened when we had to move into this building we’re in now.
M: Yeah, it’s so sterile by comparison.
Craig: Yeah, I mean, look around. It looks like a corporate head office. When we were our own little building on the corner of Forbes and William Streets in Kings Cross, with the sex workers out the front, and, you know, the hoons driving past.
M: And the trans workers in the back alley.
Craig: Trans workers in the back alley. It was awesome! It was like, we were on the edge. We were on the fringes of things. It helped inform or infect or influence the vibe of what we were doing at the time.

Maynard: And what’s your best memory from listening to Triple J all these years? This is a regular person.
Listener: The one I remember the most is listening to Tim Ritchie at night time on my Walkman with my headphones learning about new music and Triple J really opened up the world of music for me. I remember my first concert was Public Enemy, brought to you by Triple J. Big Day Out was a huge part of my life as well, going for many years. Triple J was a station you tuned to, to find all the music you couldn’t find anywhere else.
M: Just the other day on my website, someone said, “Oh, what’s that song La la la la, I’m addicted to music?” And it sounded like DJ Jazzy Jeff, but no, it’s Subsonic 2 “Addicted to Music”. It’s quite a cool track.
Listener: Maybe I’ll have a USB stick that has it if I go looking.
M: Yeah, you might have that there, enjoy … I just gave this man a USB stick of the Hot 100 from 1990 and he couldn’t be happier. Well, enjoy your day. Are you looking forward to the speeches today?
Dame Lush: I’m always looking forward to speeches. It gives me a chance to get to the bar.
M: Because everyone’s distracted by the Prime Minister.
Dame Lush: Precisely. And isn’t he looking fine today?
M: You know it’s a Sunday because he’s not wearing a tie.
Dame Lush: He’s very hot.

Maynard: We’re just listening to the Prime Minister talk then and what a speech he gave. He could have done a few gags, couldn’t he Dr Karl?
Dr Karl: I do like speeches to be short, and I like them to make me laugh, and I didn’t get either.
M: Well at least he said that the funding won’t go away just yet.
Dr Karl: Good start.
M: And Dr Karl, we know your story, you go way back. What year did you start at Triple J, or Double J in fact?
Dr Karl: I did my first thing on Double J, 74. Talked about my anti gravity machine. I actually spent two years of my life and $5,000 of my money with a colleague trying to build an anti gravity machine and it failed. But then regularly, it was 1981 with the launch of the Space Shuttle, and then doing stuff on Great Moments in Science, and here I am 45 years later.
M: Could you imagine that you’d still be doing it all these years later?
Dr Karl: I had no idea that it would happen like that. Basically, I feel as though my life has been like a paddle pop stick. In the gutter of life, on a rainy day, and this is where the currents have washed me.
M: You strike me as more a Bubble O Bill kind of guy, more than the paddle pop stick. You know, with the bubblegum nose, and it’s a bit more interesting.
Dr Karl: It’s amazing how little control you have over your life. Having been a medical doctor, it’s amazing how just one simple illness can derail you forever.
M: Congratulations on everything you’ve done. And is there one song in your entire involvement with Triple J that really sticks out?
Dr Karl: Well, yeah … ” You Just Like Me ‘Cos I’m Good in Bed” because that was the first one. And I had no idea that that song existed because it was banned by all the commercial radio stations.
M: And that’s what Triple J was all about.
Dr Karl: Breaking the barriers, JJJ, as you’d probably call it.
M: Long may you reign, Dr Karl.
Dr Karl: Thank you so much, Dr Maynard.

Marius Webb: Hey, hello, good to see you!
Maynard: Hey, I’m here with Marius now, the guy who started the whole bloody thing. How’s the day been, 50 years later?
Marius: Oh, it’s been a bit boring, a bit dull. Nothing much to report, I’m afraid, Maynard. Except that wonderful thing you said.
M: What was that?
Marius: Fuck the police. That was so original.
M: Well, I actually said “Fuck the parking police.”
Marius: Oh, did you?
M: I was misquoted. What is the one song from all the many years of your involvement with Triple J, what’s the one that goes, that’s the one?
Marius: “Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll”, Ian Dury.
M: Because that’s what it was all about?
Marius: More or less. “Fuck tha Police” as well.
M: And being a manager of Triple J was a unique thing because you couldn’t really tell people off the way a regular manager could, could you?
Marius: Oh yes, you could!
M: You could?
Marius: Yeah! It’s just I never did, because I loved them all. The wonderful thing about the people we hired, or I hired, I sort of think about them all as friends and old mates, you know? So, very hard to discipline. But herding cats is quite an achievement, and people say I’m not bad at it after all these years.
M: You saw the latest controller of Triple J there, and his job would be so much different. Would you ever want to swap places with him?
Marius: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I could cope and I also think that if I was a manager today, I’d like to leave the ABC, get a whole lot of young people. and start up my own app. Because the ABC should do that. Spotify has changed everything in a way that’s ridiculous. I hate so much of the music I hear these days, because it sounds like it should be on the fucking Voice, rather than interesting, creative stuff. Think of all the different people we picked up from all over the world as well as from here. Marvellous stuff in the first 30 years. Really fantastic stuff.
M: Congratulations to you and thanks to the Whitlam government, by the way.
Marius: Indeed, if we hadn’t had them, it never would have happened.
M: And great to see you as well, Marius, I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Marius: Let’s have lunch tomorrow.

Maynard: I’m talking to a whole bunch of people about songs I remember from Triple J, and what’s the one for you?
Hannah: I think for me, it’s Flume, “Never Be Like You”. I was a producer for The Hottest 100 for a very long time, and I ended up running The Hottest 100 radio station.
That was the first Hottest I ever worked on. It was so exciting being able to organise the surprise and kind of make the dreams of Australian artists come true. There’s nothing like it.
M: Wouldn’t you get a lot of cranks going, “Why isn’t this on the Hottest 100? Why isn’t this one in there?” Would you get people like that?
Hannah: You do get people like that, but it’s democracy. You have to vote to get involved, and if you want to have a say, it is what it is. If you want to complain about it, I’m sorry about it, but it’s life. Sometimes things don’t go your way.
M: What really gets me is that when you go back to some of the earlier ones, people go, why were people voting for that? It’s called history. In 1990, they liked five Cure songs.
Hannah: When I was in the process of making the Hottest 100 radio station, I created this massive database of all of the songs that had ever been in all of the Hottest 100s.
Maynard: And there was “Dancing Queen”.
Hannah: Oh yeah, and the thing is, the Hottest 100 is about what’s happening now. It doesn’t matter what’s happening in the future or how you look at it in the future, it’s an encapsulation.
Maynard: Dennis Leary “Asshole”, that was number one that year, now you never hear it.
Hannah: It’s special though. Because it means something to the people that were there at that point. It doesn’t fucking matter what happens in 20 years time. Asshole was the moment. It was everything that mattered to those people then. And who are you to say that it wasn’t special? Yeah, this meant something to these 18 to 24 year olds in whatever time period.
M: Too right, Hannah! Too right.

Maynard: And who have we got here at this Triple J Gooby Dooby?
Sarah: Sarah Macdonald.
M: And Sarah, what do you think is the one track from all your time of listening and being on Triple J? What’s the one you go, yeah, that’s the one that says it all?
Sarah: That says it all to a part of my life, and that was “Charlie No. 2” by The Whitlams.
M: Why is that?
Sarah: Because it was a song about Stevie from The Plunderers. When I did an Unearthed once, we were doing a fundraiser for Reach Out, which is about young people and mental health. And Tim sang it on the piano, and it’s a beautiful song about love and loss and a friend you can’t help. And whenever I hear that song, it just takes me back to the power of good people coming together to help those who need help, and even those who can’t be helped. Makes me cry every time.
M: It’s almost a perfect Whitlams song.
Sarah: It’s a perfect Whitlams song.

Andy Marinos: My name’s Andy, Andy Marinos.
Maynard: I remember your dad from being really popular from his late night football calls.
Andy: Lex Marinos was his name. He did a lot for early Triple J, early Double J. You know, he wanted to be remembered as a multicultural pioneer, you know, pioneer for Greeks, the pioneer for the world.
M: Did you get your dad’s work when you were younger? Or you’re going, what’s this crap dad’s doing?
Andy: Oh, well, he took me along to Kingswood Country and stuff. But my mum used to also work on Double J Rock. So I would be in a studio quite a bit as a kid.
M: What’s the song you think that would be the one song, you know, from your history of listening to Triple J?
Andy: Oh “Video Killed The Radio Star”.
M: Why is that?
Andy: It’s the first single that I wanted to buy. And I’ve still got it at home somewhere.
M: Triple J probably would have played the album version as well.
Andy: They did.
M: One of Trevor Horn’s greatest moments as a producer.
Andy: It was.
M: What do you think of the future for Triple J?
Andy: Triple J is always going to be around. It’s going to be always evolve, let’s face it. Always.
M: And no matter what it is, someone will always complain.
Andy: Absolutely. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be Triple J.