Sounds of the Seventies

LISTENING to much of the music radio around Dublin, I could be back in New Jersey, circa 1979, tuned into one of the many available "rawk" stations cranking out riffs from longhaired bands - with the odd Motown standard thrown in for a bit of colour.

That nostalgic I ain't. But perhaps it could be marginally worse: I could be listening to music radio around, say, Limerick. And I've had great success getting the baby to sleep with the likes of You're So Vain (acceptable to rawk types because Mick Jagger's ego is clearly audible).

And there are some sounds of the Seventies that it is worth hearing again. I class Alistair Cooke among them, though of course he spans many more decades with his work. My first memory of him - about a quarter century old now - is televisual: Cooke seated in an armchair in a book lined study, introducing public TV's Masterpiece Theatre, the anglophile US vehicle for Upstairs, Downstairs, Poldark and other relics of British superiority.

Friday's Letter from America (BBCRadio 4) returned to that era, though not, I think, to the study. Cooke revisited the early 1970s to mark the 25th anniversary of the Watergate break in with as cogent an explanation of the scandal as you'll ever hear - even if it was a potted version of All the President's Men. He also took the opportunity to get in a dignified dig at all the jumped up Woodwards and Bernsteins who pretend they're answering an elevated calling every time they dish up a sex scandal.

In a lovely moment of serendipitous scheduling, Cooke was followed by a Kaleidoscope special to mark the 21st anniversary of Taxi Driver. Although none of the commentators said as much, Martin Scorsese's classic - in which politics is one forum for its antihero's alienation - owes plenty to the Nixon legacy.

Radio documentaries about film have an inherent flaw (guess), but Bernard Herrmann's score for Taxi Driver remains incredibly evocative, as does the sound of Robert De Niro doing that scene in front of the mirror. On the other hand, the assembled British critics didn't have an awful lot to add, and writer Paul Schrader is a bit creepy at the best of times.

The most interesting contribution came from Amy Taubin of the Village Voice, but her suggestions about the film's pornographic subtext - and visual echoes of a cheap skin flick - cried out for what Kaleidoscope can't offer: illustration.

The Mahaffys is also on BBC Radio 4 (Wednesdays at 11.15 p.m.), but it is pure 1990s. Plugged (mightily) as "The Simpsons meets Ballykissangel" it does indeed combine two cultural preoccupations: postmod spoofery and the phenomenon of the Irish standup comic. (It also owes a bit to old Frank Kelly LPs.)

Those comedy lads sure are multimedia these days. Sean and Ardal have Channel 4 wrapped up, while Dylan writes for an occasionally reputable newspaper. The Mahaffys is Karl McDermott's bite of the cherry, and he's not ended up with too much juice on his chin.

McDermott himself plays Jack Mahaffy, a dumber, more selfish version of Homer Simpson, complete with subsyntactical internal monologues. Jack drives the Galway to Tubberbiggle Gus's Buses Expressway Service, while his wife Cora (Pauline McLynn, crossing Marge with Mrs Doyle) keeps the best little B&B west of Moate.

Some of the gags weigh a ton. (Jack: "What happened to the woman I married 25 years ago?" Cora: "She died, didn't she..." Jack: "Oh yeah, and then I married you.") But you've got to like a man with the neck to rhyme Malachy with "phallicky" and to charge through a half dozen dubious plots in each 15 minute episode. It's halfway through its six week run, so check it out soon.

You all know about John Kelly, but there is another oasis in the musical desert for Dublin listeners. Anna Livia FM, where we first heard the likes of Radio Ireland's soul man Karl Tsigdinos, is just the tiniest touch of the dial to the left of FM104, but its programming - 60 hours a week of current affairs and chat as well as diverse tunes - is worlds apart.

Those of you who already know this can show your support for community radio by heading to the Harcourt Hotel in the capital's Harcourt Street next Monday evening, where a fiver gets you into a session of Celtic and trad music - and a fair lump of the dosh gets passed on to Anna Livia.