John Phelps

So, how does a budding musikophile get started? 

Well, in the case of MVFM’s Paul Conn it was when his mother gave him the Beatles “Help” album in 1965.

Then, it was his final school year mates and their albums – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railway and all the others.

Having got started, Paul collected LPs (albums, note, not just singles) for 15 years and then moved to CDs.

Nowadays, he has an impressive collection – thousands of CDs plus a hundred box sets, lots of DVD concert recordings and several metres of music books.

Paul worked with the National Film and Sound Archives in Canberra (where one of his colleagues was our very own Director of Music, Nick Weare) and among his achievements was the curating of some CDs of rare Australian music.

About 36 years ago, Paul became involved in radio, firstly with the ABC and then, for the past decade or so, in community radio in Newcastle, Cessnock, Queanbeyan and Canberra.

Currently he is with a U3A music group in Canberra where he has presented sessions on Woodstock, Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan.

Lately, Paul has concentrated on presenting ‘Live Archive’, featuring concert material from a diverse range of artists and uses the tag-line “some famous, some not so much”.

He loves to broadcast material that is just not heard on any other public community or commercial radio. So, we are fortunate indeed to have his interest and knowledge available to us in the Meander Valley.

We can hear his program, “The Live Archive” on MVFM 96.9 each Wednesday evening from 8 o’clock.

Many thanks to Mrs Conn who gave help (!) to young Paul as he began his journey in music. We are indebted to her.

By the way, don’t bother checking on the word ‘musikophvile’ – this writer just made it up.