THE HIGH VOLTAGE SAGA

1997 will mark the first decade of HIGH VOLTAGE on the air. 10 years of music dedicated to the hard and heavy music genre has blasted through the speakers to our listeners enjoyment. Be warned, as we will continue for the second decade!!!

HIGH VOLTAGE is a Metal program running on a radiostation called TOPP RADIO. The station is non-commerscial and is owned by an anti-drug organisation. This means that the program is not interrupted by all these commercial spots we hear on the commercial stations all day long. 10 years ago, GEIR FOSBY started the program. He's been running other programs before HIGH VOLTAGE, so you might say he's got some conciderable experience. The HIGH VOLTAGE team changed frequently during the first 5 years, but during the last 5 years, the team has been solid and firm. During the years, we have established contact with some of the most influencial Metal-labels in the world. This has made it possible for us to make the show better and better. Without the support of these labels, I don't think the show would have been around today. So a BIG THANXXX!!!! to these labels is really in order here!!! Through their support, we're able to stay updated on all the interesting releases from week to week. Further more, we have access to do interviews with the interesting metalacts world wide. We are constantly looking for new labels who are interested in having their releases promoted on our show. We do also colaborate with Scream Magazine, the best Metal Magazine in Norway!!!!

Who are we and what is our goals running HIGH VOLTAGE? Well, the team members are:

We're doing this for the love of the music. We all feel that Metal music is very poorely delt with by radio and TV in general. The fact that there is just one radioshow in the Oslo area 100% devoted to this kind of music, HIGH VOLTAGE, really says it all!!!!! We do not earn any money on this job. Our reward is that we do our share to promote the music and that there is a lot of listeners out there apreciate what we're doing. When we are putting the playlist together, we do not allow ourselves to let our personal taste decide the choice of music. It is important for us to reflect all the music that one can put under the Metal hat. We're playing everything from AOR to Black Metal. Allthough some of the music we're playing on the show may be controversial, we will not do any kind of sensorship in the show. We concider the Freedom Of Speech to be too important. In short, our goal is to be a mirror of all the things that is going on in the world of Metal.

For many years, we've been broadcasting on FM106.8 tuesdays 8:00pm - 11:00pm. In 1996, we got more airtime available. Since there had been some demands for more prog.oriented music in the show, we decided to fill the new available airtime with that kind of music. We also decided that it would be better if we could find some real experts to run that part of the show. We did find two guys who run a prog. fanzine called Prognetik. They would like to try it, and it worked very well. We split the program in two parts. The first part where the regular show from 8:00pm - 10:30pm. Then the Prognetik part took over 10:30pm - 12:00pm. This has been a succeful experience for us. There will be some changes in 1997. January 1st 1997, HIGH VOLTAGE will change from FM106.8 to FM101.1. We will share this frequency with other programs aimed for the younger generation. This is a good thing for us. We will be on the air every tuesday 8:30pm - 11:00pm. However, we will have to split with Prognetik. They will have their own show every thursday 8:30pm - 11:00pm on FM101.1. Kind of sad, but all in all, we feel this is the best for everybody.
If you like a more in depth story on High Voltage, click on The Story Behind High Voltage written by Geir Fosby, our senior DJ. By the way, the story is located at Rockhouse, his own personal homepage (under construction).

It's been 5 years since I put out this page telling the story about High Voltage. Of course, things have happend and changed during the last 5 years. First of all, our technician, Paul Fekjær, had to leave a couple of years ago, because he didn't have time to stay on, but we still regard him as a part of our team anyway. He was replaced by Gry Gulliksen. She used to handle the technical stuff years and years ago, and she was more than willing to come back to us.
The biggest changes in the history of High Voltage, happend in 2001 - 2002. In September 2001, TOPP RADIO was sold to Spillebutikken. We moved from our old, analog studio, to a digital studio by the waterfront in Oslo. We were excited about the new situation, but pretty soon, we realized that Spillebutikken was not very interested in our show. January 29th 2002, 2 hours before we went on the air, a representative from Spillebutikken informed us that from now on, they would charge us for the use of the studio in order to make money. We were not able to come up with the kind of money they demanded, so after the show, we were off the air. We were all pissed off about the way this was done. They never even hinted to us that they would charge us for the use of their studio. The deal was that we would advertise Spillebutikken, which is a Video/Computer game store in Oslo, in our shows. But their lack in helping us out in the beginning, made us think that they were not really interested in Heavy Metal at all.
After that show, we started to check out all the radiostations in Oslo to see if one of them would be interested in having High Voltage on board. After 3 months, we received a positive message from RADIO NOVA, a radiostation driven by the students from the University of Oslo. This was actually the radiostation we were hoping for, because they are very rock orientated, which suits us very well. At the same time, they didn't have a show dedicated to Heavy Metal, so High Voltage fitted them like a glove.
We had our first show last night (Midnight - 2:00am cet), and we had a lot of response from our listeners who appreciated our return to the airwaves. A new feature for the show is, that it is accessable on the Net from the RADIO NOVA homepage: www.radionova.no. By clicking 32k or 56k while we're on the air, you can enjoy the show no matter where you live in the world, provided you have access to the Net of course.
At the moment, it looks like we will be broadcasting Thursdays, midnight - 2:00am (cet). We are thrilled to be back, but until things has been cemented, the show might be off the air from time to time. Hopefully, in July/August 2002, we'll have worked out a permanent schedule for the show. Finally, for the people in the Oslo area, High Voltage are no longer broadcasting on FM101,1. We have moved to FM99,3

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