Brave New Waves
| Running time | 4 hrs. |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Home station | CBC Stereo/CBC Radio 2 |
| Hosted by |
Augusta La Paix (1984–1985) Brent Bambury (1985–1995) Patti Schmidt (1995–2007) |
| Created by | Alan Conter and Augusta La Paix |
| Original release | February 6, 1984 – March 16, 2007 |
| Brave New Waves | |
|---|---|
| Compilation album by Various Artists |
Brave New Waves was a Canadian radio program which aired on CBC Stereo, later known as CBC Radio 2, from 1984 to 2007. Airing overnight five nights a week, the show profiled alternative and indie music and culture, including film, comics, literature and art. The show was once described by longtime host Brent Bambury as "explaining fringe culture to a comfortable mainstream audience," and by his successor Patti Schmidt as "invented with an idea of what John Peel's show was, but without ever having heard it."
The show was created after Augusta La Paix submitted a demo tape for a show on avant garde culture, featuring music by Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Klaus Nomi and Nina Hagen. In an early interview with The Globe and Mail, La Paix told the newspaper that she was only a recent convert to underground music, having previously been primarily a fan of country music.
Produced throughout its run at the CBC's studios in Montreal and originally hosted by La Paix, the show aired for the first time on February 6, 1984. The first song it ever played was Simple Minds' "Promised You a Miracle". In its first year, the show was briefly the subject of a police investigation into obscenity charges, when a CBC employee who disliked the show filed an anonymous complaint about an interview with underground performance artist Karen Finley, although the investigation was dropped by the police without charges.
The show's initial audience figures could not be directly measured, as the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement did not track radio ratings for the show's overnight timeslot; however, indirect indications of success were available as both its lead-in and lead-out programs, A Little Night Music and Stereo Morning, posted significant and sustained audience gains after Brave New Waves debuted.
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