It used to be called The Stockholm Syndrome, a weekly radio show on radiocafé 98.6 FM, hosted by a team of expat presenters, based around indie music, life in Budapest and general comedic banter. Now, after a summer break, the Syndrome guys have taken it all a little more underground, and made the move to Tilos Radio.
As presenter Howard Cohen explained, “The format of the show hasn’t changed much, apart from the fact that we have far fewer restrictions about what we can say or play. For the music, this means we’re able to play much more new indie music, instead of the largely mainstream bands which were on the café playlist.” As for the lineup, “All the old team are still involved, but not always on every show, particularly as Christian and Bret are now getting more work outside Hungary and are not always in town. Christian particularly has been doing standup tours in the UK, Canada and elsewhere, after having great success at the Edinburgh Festival. Alan will still be on most of the shows with me, but the other slots will vary both by names and numbers!” Perhaps one of the biggest changes can be felt in the show’s estrogen levels, as relative new girl in town, Cathy, is now doing most shows, “which means we finally have a regular female voice; whilst Dan is going to be doing most of our pre-recorded interviews and occasionally appearing live.”
The show is currently only one hour and is broadcast every two weeks, at 4 p.m. on Sundays. The next one will be November 15th, then fortnightly after that. “As for what people can expect”, explained Howard, “it’s a mixture of indie music, comedy, chat and interviews.”, and, more specifically about the tunes, “The music will include many tracks which won’t have been heard elsewhere on Hungarian radio. We’re also trying to showcase Hungary-based indie bands, Hungarian and expat, and want to hear from any who might fit in with that genre and have music for us to play.” Hear that, you musical lot? Get yourselves out there! As for the gab, “The comedy and chat will involve our regular and rotating team, all of whom have great experience on the English-language comedy circuit in Budapest and elsewhere, in addition to occasional special guests from abroad. One new innovation will be our celebrity interviews. I can’t say too much about these yet, except that we intend to pre-record some of them in Budapest and others in different countries. On the show itself, we’ll be discussing current news stories and issues, in addition to tackling occasional discussion topics.”
Last year saw the start of live music being performed on the show, which was great to see, and thankfully the guys are also planning to continue this; they’ll also soon be re-launching their live music gigs and doing some indie party nights. Another new twist is that they intend to record some shows in front of a live audience, which, Howard exclaimed, “could be fun”!
Oh, and one final important fact: the show’s now, perhaps more appropriately, called The Budapest Syndrome!