Posts Tagged: Internet

Freeform / Internet / Music / Podcasts — No Comments
8
Sep 09

Small Show, Big Smashes

I’ve been a big fan of Wreckless Eric since fairly near the start of what is now a long career. ‘Big Smash’, in fact. It’s funny how you remember these things, but it was the first double album I ever bought. Probably on the strength of a VFM special offer from the local record shop in Keynsham – don’t listen to the music, look at how many songs  you‘re getting! I don’t actually think I’ve purchased  more than five other double albums in my record buying career, and certainly none that contained so many joyously catchy pop songs, but there you go. Ever since then I’ve been a sucker for his love of loud guitars, ear for a well turned phrase, and latterly a well honed appreciation for the absurdities of the music business.

All of which come together in his delightful series of podcasts, ‘The Wreckless Eric Radio Show’. Each lasting (approximately) a zippy half hour and recorded at his base in rural France, they contain a fantastic collection of well picked music, some very entertaining opinions on everything from space travel to the Rolling Stones, and the occasional reading from his (very funny) autobiography ‘A Dysfunctional Success’.

Kevin Coyne, The Velvet Underground, Tony Christie, and Parliament/Funkadelic all make appearances, as do more surprising artists such as Donna Summer and Hot Chocolate. Some shows are themed – the Space Travel one is a fantastic listen  – while others just freewheel through the man’s rather fine record collection. Eric’s got an excellent, understated presentation style, and some hilariously dead pan stories about on stage power cuts and appalling promoters, along with a wide range of bizarre spoken word antique radio jingles and ‘How to set up your stereogramme’ records which are judiciously sprinkled throughout.

He would probably run a mile from any such offer, but this is really what a station like 6Music should be doing, providing a platform for a truly original and talented voice. But they’d rather have George Lamb and Craig Charles. It really does make you weep.

Internet / Music / Uncategorized — No Comments
8
Jul 09

Its London, but not as you know it….

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Digital Mystikz’ ‘B’ is the first dubstep record I ever bought and the first dubstep record I fell in love with.  Mala was the man who made it, the man who was and still is utterly instrumental within the genre and, arguably, without him dubstep would lack much of its musical soul.  He’s a big thinker, a quiet talker, a genuine gem; I had high hopes for this hour-long journey with the legend himself through his streets and sights and sounds of his London via Red Bull Radio.

The programme kicks off with Mala back in his childhood ends of Norwood and runs through some of his earlier musical memories & local hang outs.  He rattles around a couple of record shops and south London markets and winds up in Forest Hill, where he gets technical about cutting dubplates.  He plays us a few of his favourite tunes, old and new, we meet some of his collaborators, he tells us how cool Red Bull Academy is etc. etc. etc.……Ok, so I’m a huge fan and I know a fair bit about Mala already, but given that he’s such a central figure in such an urban scene, even my Nan could’ve guessed that he probably used to listen to pirate radio in his room, that he hung out in Croydon at Big Apple Records and that Blackmarket is something of a spiritual home to him.   Quite frankly, Wikipedia could’ve done the job.

Look, there are bits of this programme I loved- Mala on the phone to Coki and the subsequent chat with his long time friend and label mate, the nods to fellow Londoners Jehst & Roots Manuva, the bits about him using every penny of his overtime money on that precious first cut of a track.  I get that it has to be about Mala’s connection with London, but I just felt that this programme didn’t entirely do him justice.  A lot of the time, there’s little link with what he’s talking about and the music in the background.  Who were his favourite artists growing up?  Which nights did he go to?  Where in London did he meet his fellow dubsteppers?   Where did he work before he made it?  There’s not even a mention of Brixton, the home of his DMZ night- the biggest dubstep event in the capital, which is rammed to capacity every month.

You very much get the impression that London is something of a disappointment to him, not somewhere he feels totally at home.  At one point he says that he in no way feels patriotic to its cityscape and grey concrete, but that it probably has shaped him.  And maybe that’s the problem.  Get him on the topic of music and he’s away, talk to him about his current locale and he has less to say.  However, for the tracks played along the way, for Mala’s insights into dubstep’s evolution and to get a beginner’s guide to where it all began, you still need to tune into this.  Personally, I’d just like to skip to the sequel.

Freeform / Internet / Music / Podcasts — No Comments
1
Jul 09

Tea + Techno?

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Say you’d decided that for your staycation this year you were off to the Lake District, Ambleside to be precise.  You’d packed your picnic rug, put the dog in the car & landed up there at some point on a Friday evening.  You check into your b&b and it’s all really green and countrified and you’re really starting to feel like you’re getting away from the grind.  You wake up the next morning and the birds are singing and you think that obviously what you need is a fat fry up to start the day.  You spot the delightful looking Daisy’s Café just over the road, it’s got really pretty net curtains and hanging baskets outside and so you drag the fam over there, walk in the door and WHAM….you’re surrounded by beardy weirdos ravin it up in white gloves to a futuristic soundtrack of Aphex proportions.

This is how I imagine Rob Booth- originally of the West Country via London and now proprietor of said Daisy Café- gets down on a daily basis.  In his spare time away from baking scones & serving Earl Grey to the rambling fraternity of the Lake District, Rob is an underground soldier of a rare variety.  At the last count he’s on the 75th edition of Electronic Explorations (the latest featuring Kid 606), his show that explores some of the most experimental electronic beats & artists that don’t get enough love elsewhere.

Clocking in at two hours, it’s an absolute labour of love on his part- I mean how do you keep in touch with the latest grime techno while chatting to grannies about their dead cats?  The BPM’s rarely drop below 140 and you can expect everything from acid to ragga to minimal tinted tech from the likes of Planet Mu, Rag & Bone and Surface Tension, plus he puts together mini podcasts for the shows and you can either stream them or download the file.  Yeah, ok, his presenting style is more West Country train announcer than hyped up youth vibes, but he loves what he plays and that counts.  His guests (Akira Kiteshi, Optika Technika & Syntheme) represent via mixes throughout the show and this is where it gets really clever.  Not only do they mash together some mad beats- Lee Perry, Girls Aloud & sounds from bearded seals a mile underneath the Arctic, in the latest case- but they also intro all the tracks as they’re coming in, giving us an insight into why they’re there.  Annoying?  You might think so, but it actually works.

There are shows out there that could do this, should do this, but none that succeed in quite the same wonky way and that’s why Electronic Explorations is a winner.  Maybe it’s all that fresh air.  Whatever. If you too would like to witness Rob frantically whipping cream to a mental Milanese-style soundtrack, you can find him here-

Daisy’s Cafe
Ambleside
CUMBRIA
LA22 9BS

Otherwise, just tune into the show and I’m sure you’ll get the picture.

Newbit.

Comedy / Internet — 1 Comment
16
May 09

Non-Stop Stand-up (without Arthur Smith…)

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Much like many of you, in the morning all of my radios are tuned to different stations. The kitchen flops between Radio 4, Radio 1 and 1Xtra (what else do you listen to on a DAB over breakfast?); the bathroom, waterproof and FM/AM, does the pirates (dancehall being the audio equivalent of Nivea Sport for Men – waking you up with a start) and upstairs the most recent addition to the family, an Intempo digital number, goes all over the place.

Over the last couple of months though, as I throw on my clothes in the morning I have checking out .977 The Comedy that also goes by the name of Comedy 104. Whether by design or accident, this station has the privilege of being the first of the 86 stations in the ‘Comedy’ genre on my radio, and as such was the first one to be given a go. Since then I have pretty much skimmed through all of the comedy stations (including several that sound like they are recorded at the wrong end of the night in an Austrian bierkeller) and .977 is still probably the most reliable of the jukebox comedy options.

I like my comedy straight up, not-messed-about-with, but I do appreciate that comedy radio provokes a very large range of reactions (my other half can’t stand comedy jukebox radio). What .977 does is give you 3 minute chunks of the world’s best stand-ups (and Jasper Carrot) telling a few jokes. Then it cuts immediately to another stand-up and the cycle continues until the end of time. Contributions are 90% American (thank the Lord) and on any given morning you might hear, as I did today, the likes of Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor and the overlord of comedy – Jerry Seinfeld.

Sometimes the contributions err a bit towards the US’s equivalent of Jethro or Freddie Starr (‘aren’t men and women different?’, ‘anyone else here like beer?’ etc) but you are generally only 5 minutes away from someone with a brain. There is no censorship or mediation whatsoever which can make for pretty uncomfortable listening when segueing from Radio 4 in the kitchen.

A station like this can only have a short listening lifespan: as I am quickly discovering people who listen to a lot of stand-up soon become jaded, hearing the familiar patterns again and again. Also, I have no idea how they are getting the rights to this stuff (I’m not sure how E4 radio with its comedy remit would have existed with international comedy talent 24/7 on the same dial) but for the time being I will still be surfing this station and others like it to get my morning fix of slander and willy jokes.

Check out .977 here.

Internet / Music / Uncategorized — No Comments
4
Apr 09

The Man From The Ministry

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Ross Allen

Firstly, in the interests of full disclosure I need to make it clear that Ross Allen is a mate, and we worked together back in the last century on GLR, when I produced his ‘Destination In’ evening show.

However, if I had no knowledge of the man and his curious taste in quality knitwear, I think I’d still be flagging up his latest radio incarnation. Hailing from the eclectic end of Dance Music Boulevard, The Meltdown’s content is pretty much dependent on the mood Ross is in when he hits the studio, the music that’s excited him while he’s been playing out that week, and the MP3’s and white label CD’s he’s been passed while out and about in nightclubs far and wide across the globe.

Managing to play a mix of exclusive super cool previews, current leftfield remixes and classic old tunes without coming over (like some radio DJ’s we could mention) as trying too hard, there’s always a sense of the crate digging fan boy about Ross’s presentation. It’s a feeling that he’s playing the music because he loves it, and he wants the listener to love it as well. Combined with the ability not to take himself too seriously, it makes The Meltdown one of the most enjoyable shows on the Ministry platform. Hell, one of the most enjoyable on radio, period.

Ross Allen – The Meltdown, Ministry Of Sound Radio Monday nights 6-8pm GMT  and listen again.