Radio Dave is a short documentary that Graeme Stables filmed in 1997 for a friend's website that experimented with the cutting edge concept of internet television and broadcasting.

I have forever been interested in the plight of homeless people and streetwalkers with mental problems who are let loose a society that has no capacity to care for the welfare of these people properly. I really wanted to present a different face of the homeless, because it seemed that most people were content to judge these people instead of hearing their story.

It features Dave Gamble, who was a local identity in Ballarat, Australia. Dave was mainly famous for walking the streets with a ghetto blaster on his shoulder, literally pummelling the people in the streets with music. Dave started doing this in the late 1980's, and I remember how he often stopped to try to sell me tapes of the Damned or bands as crap as Pseudo Echo. As Ballarat grew in the 1990's, outside cafes became popular and more people learnt of Dave and his antics. He would often ask people for money, cigarettes or free coffee.

Unfortunately Dave suddenly passed away in 2003 from apparent natural causes. This really rocked the whole Ballarat community, who took it as a granted that he would be always trudging around the streets defiantly playing his music. It was a sign that Ballarat was forever changed. Two other major events of that year that added to this feeling was the closing of the Bridge Mall Inn, Ballarat's premier live venue, and the tragic death of Ballarat legend Guy 'Badger' Farnie. (less info)