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She’s known in Bacchus Marsh by the nickname Rockabilly, and Karellyn Dangar loves it because it’s her kind of music – rock ʼnʼ roll, infused with country and rhythm and blues.
Dangar’s favourite artist is Gene Vincent, a 1950s American heart-throb whom she calls “the king of rockabilly, the rebel in black leather”.
As a presenter on Bacchus Marsh community radio station Apple 98.5 FM, Dangar, 77, is on a mission to bring the music she loves to the world.
But it won’t be for much longer, she fears.
Having been a staple of the community north-west of Melbourne for 40 years, the volunteer-run radio station faces permanent closure unless its supporters can raise $25,000 to save it.
Dangar, the station’s president, said sponsorship from local businesses had dwindled because of financial pressures since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The station, which broadcasts from studios in Moorabool Shire offices in the suburb of Darley, has until July 5 to pay the bills, or it will fold – something Dangar said she could not accept.
“Apple FM means everything to me,” she said. “I’ve poured my heart and soul into that radio station, and it would break my heart to see it close.”
In addition to keeping the community informed about local issues such as traffic and footy results, and providing crucial support during bushfire seasons, the station is also a social outlet for volunteers, Dangar said.
David Steele, a retired electrical linesman who founded the station in 1986 and originally named it 3APL after Bacchus Marsh’s apple orchards, said it would be a shame to lose an outlet that had benefited the town over so many years.
Bacchus Marsh bus driver Adam “Stix” Gadsby presents Apple FM’s heavy metal music show, Metal For the Masses. With listeners tuning in from as far away as Egypt, he said his program is part of his identity and he feels devastated that it may end.
Louis Maxwell, a Wiradjuri man who presents the Deadly Live Indigenous show, said his program connected him and other Aboriginal people to their culture.
“It’s going to hurt a lot if we lose it,” he said.
Bacchus Marsh Football and Netball Club president Ian McClure said the station’s broadcasts of local football games were also especially important to the community, particularly for elderly people unable to drive to the ground.
Apple FM was “a cog in the wheel of the community”, McClure said.
Matilda Marozzi, a researcher with ABC TV program Back Roads, said volunteering on an Apple FM music show as a teenager in the mid-2000s was a stepping stone to her media career.
“It’s disappointing that people in Bacchus Marsh won’t have the same opportunities to listen to, and create, local content,” Marozzi said.
But volunteers are determined to avoid the closure. They have launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds to save the station, and a fundraising 1950s-style rock ʼnʼ roll dance will be held on July 4 at Bacchus Marsh Town Hall.
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