Key103's Mission Christmas

Mission Christmas started back in November with the lofty target of raising £1m worth of toys for underprivilaged kids living in Greater Manchester. I had worked fleetingly this campaign in 2012 and was struck by the enormity of the whole thing. The fact that the Arco warehouse - Mission HQ - was brimmed with toys, the constant ringing of phones with listeners wanted to get involved, the many drop-off points. I think in 2012 around £850k was raised both in toys and cash donations for the cause, which was awesome.

I didn't feel my involvement in 2012 was much of note, and having stepped up my role at Key103 in 2013, I was eager to get amongst it and help make a difference.

It's always very easy to be blase about charity, what with the mass of organisations out there all doing a stirling job for the great many worldly causes, it's too easy to bury ones head in the sand. I wanted to at least try and make whoever listening to Key103 to stop and truly put themself in the shoes of somebody in the UK, in this day-and-age, NOT recieving a Christmas present. It was a heartbreaking thought on the surface of it, and when I actually delved deeper, it became apparent just how much this appeal meant. It was an education for me, too.

Over the course of the campaign I recorded a whole range of society in Greater Manchester. Asylum seekers, widows, disabled parents - you get the picture. I also spoke to some children at local primary school, who brought to life the very reason Mission Christmas exists. To hear them explain to me how Mission makes them feel - how they felt that kind donations made them think somebody cares - was the epitome of the campaign, for me.

Hearing this content come to life on-air provided quite a few proud moments, because the reaction from listeners proved the messages were hitting home. The OBs I produced from the Hamleys intu Trafford Centre and the Arco Warehouse showed just how massive the whole operation was. It was ridiculous to walk in to the toy-store of these places (well, Arco was one big toy-store), and see the outrageous volume of donations, it was genuinly awesome.



I felt very humble over Christmas, as I reflected on the work that not just myself but the whole Key103 and Cash For Kids team had put in. To raise, in the end, £1,070,611.86p worth of toys was absolutely incredible. For the 150,000 impoverished kids in Greater Manchester, Key103 made a difference to their Christmas.
I interviewed Jimmy, and after hearing his story I went back with presenter Adam Catterall and produced this film. It really was an real eye-opener.



Another film I produced as part of the campaign was totally different. I produced it as part of the show I usually work on, Key103 Hometime. OJ Borg boarded the Flight Of Dreams, which put 50 families on a plane (most of whom would be experiencing a flight for the first time), and flew them to find Santa Claus...

Dave Pegg

Currently sat on a train craving a brew. WHERE'S THE SERVICE TROLLEY?! On my interior I'm having a mini rage, on the outside I'm typing away furiously and listening to Gabrielle Aplin. I found out today via a lovely email from Wembley Arena that she is supporting John Mayer this weekend. It's my Dad's birthday present from me this year - a Mayer gig, which I'm sure will promise supreme guitarwork, bluesiness and country vibes. I'm excited, and so is Papa Chad. 

It'll be awesome to escape this week's rigmarole and take some down time. This week seems to have been a craze pot of constant diary events, early starts, late finishes, but above all a LOT of fun.

I'm ever so content to be working all the hours under the sun, working at my goals and having a good laugh. This week I hosted the second, and certainly my favourite of the two SRA Selector shows I have done so far. 2/2 - back of the net.

With Robbie Boyd in town I was pleased to catch up with him on the phone for the show this week - his new song Under My Skin sat alongside music that's been delighting my lug holes this past week. New additions to my favourites list have got to be Wolf Alice, Lea Lea and George Ezra - who I saw a few weeks ago in Notting Hill. He's got a brooding, deep voice and delectable acoustic guitar work. Worth a listen, and his track Budapest is a free download on his website!

Today - alongside pals Connor and Jen - I was honoured to interview Dave Pegg, who is the bass player with Fairport Convention and who has played with, and booked for the Cropredy festival, outstanding musicians such as Richard Thompson, Ralph McTell, Steeleye Span and many many more. His back catalogue of CD credits is way to vast to contain to a blog post. We once bumped in to him in a foggy-headed daze at the Cropredy after-party and he amused us for a solid 45-mins with tales of touring and his life in music. To catch up with him in the humbling setting of Banbury's oldest building, Ye Olde Reine Deer Inn, was a slightly clearer-minded affair. 

I stuck 5 Hooky's on the slate and sat in the pub's Globe Room, a cute room round the back of the bar lavishly decorated in rich mahogany (no leather bound books), paintings of immense landscapes, rustic oak floor and a grand fireplace. Dave and I got talking about pubs, their importance for villages and communities, how they get on board with the Cropredy festival and how crucial real ale and local music are in village life. It's for a documentary-ballad, which we're making as a 3-parter exploring Villages, Pubs, and Hook Norton Brewery as the engine room behind a huge array of cracking local pubs.

This is one of the last cogs in the machine for the documentary, most of it is now assembled with Dave's sections, some final recording in Morton Pinkney, and finally the excellent music of our local singer-songwriter Franc Sutherland who is composing original music for the programme. It's an incredibly exciting point in production, we're so close to tieing the knot after a summer of recording and editing. I'm really eager to hear the finished doc and indeed Connor's film, which follows the same subject thread. It will be set for a December broadcast.

Back again..

This blog has been dormant for a while now, dormant like a sleepy volcano. Time to turn the page and fill you in with the current fun and games...

Since my last post a few months ago, nothing's changed on the Key103 front, still loving my work there and it seems to be snowballing in the right direction!.. Indeed I've made a wee video of all the awesome stuff:

Third and final year at uni is upon me - so 5Live style radio shows and documentary projects await... I'm excited to get started with next semester's final project. We have free reign over a documentary project and can spend a whole semester producing it. 

I'm currently in the throes of a doc about countryside village pubs, and how the twee, one-man-and-his-dog stereotype of the countryside is far from the case in this bustling community of pubs and locals, all fuelled by family-run nearby Brewery: Hook Norton.

I'm eager to hear the original songs created especially for the doc by a musician we're working with - as soon as they're written/recorded, that doc will be on it's way to air, and I'll be turning my gaze towards the final year doc.

Presenter gigs have been the object of my strife this past summer - demo'ing left-right-centre and working on feedback to try and land a show. Well right at the end of the summer, I managed to get one, then another! 

Firstly the exciting opportunity to present Saturday afternoon's on Wire FM - part of the UTV group. A good few hours of airtime each week to have a bit of banter, tell some stories and play some music. Thrilled to bits with that - I feel like an excitable terrier.

And within a few days of the news of Wire - a show I'd applied for called The SRA Selector got back in touch to tell me I'd been successful with that!

Wee bit of background - The Selector is produced for the British Council - by top London production company Folded Wing - to showcase the best British new music across the world. The show broadcasts in 39 countries globally and reaches an audience of 4 million people! I've now got a chance - along with 5 other people - to broadcast the SRA Selector on my student radio station, which is Shock Radio.  A chance to chat about my favourite subject each week - new music. First show's on Wednesday. I'm excited.
I went down to a training day at Folded Wing, which was awesome: masterclasses and tutorials about the show and presenting new music radio. As if that wasn't good enough, we all went for a few beers in the evening and sampled the local ales. Managed to get a few people keen on Strava - a cycling app that maps your routes and shows how well you compared against other cyclists! And in return I have come away with an app called Untappd - a social network for beer drinkers!

The new chapter begins with lots of exciting projects on the blend, and many more to come! 

Awards and London

Last week I won the award for the most raucous celebration after the announcement of the Bauer Show of the Year nominations.
Before we get to that, I'll tell you about the fun we've had leading up to it all. Alas, here we go, whilst I crunch on my Sula fruit mix. Sugar free.
I work on OJ Borg's Hometime show on Key103, last year we had a right laugh working on bits and pieces for the show. One of my favourite but cumbersome features to produce was the House of Pain, pitting local rivalries against each other in the a physical battle for bragging rights. Whilst the nation enjoyed Bake-Off, we had the Key10-Tea Afternoon and the Key103-Tea-Mergency Services running to the rescue of those continuing to work in the rain!...we had a great year full of features and continually learning. I worked as many hours under the sun and fitted uni work in around Key103, which suited me.


Food update. Sula fruit mix have been devoured. I've found Turkish Delight from Christmas, still uneaten, which is sugar-coating my keyboard as we speak.
To progress the tale, I put together our awards entries for the various industry awards at the start of the year. I put in my own Cropredy Festival documentary too. Took absolutely ages to put these entries together, and I did so with hope but not massive expectation.
Key103 are owned by Bauer, and they have a huge internal Bauer awards party in May where all the stations from around the group put in for various things.
Last week was that very party. I awoke at 7, made for Manchester Piccadilly train station and got aboard. Gin'O'Clock arrived, and then we had our own Anchorman quiz, making up our own questions. 'What was a bad choice? Milk.' We also attempted to name, in chronology, the James Bond films. We're so middle-class aren't we?..we arrived into Euston and got aboard a coach. I was bewildered at this point with the scale of the event and couldn't believe I was a part of it. We arrived at the Park Plaza on Westminster Bridge. It's a lovely part of town and it looks even nicer with the sunshine! Blazers off, we toddled inside to the drinks reception where I necked my first drink of the day- a lemon Vodka martini - and basked in the sadness of Q Radio's demise with Kev, who also present(ed) on the station.

It was awesome to have the whole radio sector of the company in one room, about 1000 people. All downing Vodka Martinis. A few drinks in, we made our way to the... what do you call it? Awards room? Main room? Function room? It's a little more than a 'function room' - loads of tables seating the various stations, TV cameras filming everything, big bad graphics, my old boss doing the deep voiceover, a neon blue night that made you feel as if you were in the engine bay of a car from 2Fast 2Furious, and silver troughs of wine and beer on each table.

We sat down, got treated to a 3 course meal consisting of the best cut of the cow, a chargrilled courgette and a tiramisu with raspberry coolie. I'm a student. My plate was soon cleared and I made for the pick'n'mix.
Talking of food, I've just found Reece's Peanut Butter Cups (also from Christmas). I'm home for the weekend and this stuff just hasn't been devoured. I'm amazed.
The awards began and Key103 soon picked up some nominations, to the delight of all close by. Then the Show of the Year category popped up, and believe it or not Key103 Hometime with OJ got a nod! I  leapt out of my seat as if my team had just scored a goal in the Champions League Final and flung my arms in the air. A little over-reaction I think. But who cares, I was delighted. Hard work had received some recognition. Although we didn't win, I felt so chuffed that we'd got noticed, really proud to be part of the show and to have had a big hand in the entry.
We'll win it next year for sure.

The awards finished, drinks continued flowing, and then the afterparty begun. I nipped off to Covent Garden at this point to meet my mate and have some dinner. We put the world to rights over a gin and tonic, then set off in search of a pint in Soho. Bad move being the bank holiday weekend. We retreated to homely vibes of a pub on Baker Street for another G&T. All in all, a very successful day, which left my brain absolutely shattered. It's one thing drinking all day, it's another to drink and socialise all day. Anyhow, we'll be doing exactly that x5 days at Glastonbury. wheeeyyyyyy, roll on Glasto.
The following morning we headed to Golden Square for a coffee and a cinnamon bun in the Nordic Bakery. I am going to build a Nordic Bakery next to my flat and have a cinnamon bun and a coffee every morning. My taste buds danced all the way back to Manchester.

Standing Up For Comic Relief

Have you ever had a go at stand-up comedy?? - It's one of the most nerve-wracking things I've ever done in my life!

I was really delighted, recently, to be asked to produce some packages for BBC Radio Manchester, to introduce the listeners to a host of Mancunian volunteers who had bravely agreed to partake in a stand up comedy evening to raise money for Comic Relief. I have to admit my thoughts were hazy at first on how to produce these pieces... I decided I'd make a couple of bespoke 'introductions' to some of the volunteers - really find out about their lives and get some nice, evocative audio and interviews together to provide a window into their worlds... The other I decided should be a bit of a document for the group's journey to the comedy night and all the prep that went into the evening.

A few weeks in when the group had begun practising, it was suggested that I get involved with the stand up myself! This would entail me, a Southerner, going on stage in an Irish Club in Fallowfield, Manchester, and telling a load of jokes for a few minutes. It doesn't sound too daunting... it was.

Wherever you go and it's a new environment, place names are tricky to get your head around. Hell, you don't even have to go anyway, for years I was mispronouncing Palmolive hand wash. I decided that with a few place name gags done and dusted, that I would regale the story of my turkish bath in Bulgaria.

On our lads holiday, my mate and I decided to haggle the prices down at the Spa round the corner. It was a rock'n'roll lads holiday, for sure. We managed to get some decent rates and I booked in a Turkish Bath. Oh my word, I've had them before, and done properly they are incredible.

I was excited.

I arrived and was met by a Turkish Bath Giver (what do you call them?...) and instructed to take a small plastic bag to a changing cubicle and don its contents. Alas, I removed my clothes and stark naked in a Bulgarian 3* Spa, I removed the outer packaging of a paper G-string...which I had to poke my head out of the cubicle to confirm which way round to wear...

I assumed I'd have the audience in fits of laughter and I'd go home having stole the show... let's say the tale of the posh Southerner having a spa on a lads holiday was more ridiculously amusing than the thong incident itself. Still, despite my worries, I didn't forget my lines and I didn't wee my pants.

Success.

I was delighted with the audio too. One of the volunteers was John Consterdine, so I thought it would be a good idea to join him doing a Parkrun and find out more about him to introduce the audience to him!

listen to ‘BBC Radio Manchester - Stand Up For Comic Relief: John Consterdine’ on Audioboo

Another of the volunteers was Sam Smith, this was a package I produced with her to introduce any listeners to her prior to the comedy night!

listen to ‘BBC Radio Manchester - Stand Up For Comic Relief: Sam Smith’ on Audioboo

This was a package intended to document the journey the 10 Mancunian volunteers had been on to prepare for the Stand Up evening

listen to ‘BBC Radio Manchester - Stand Up For Comic Relief’ on Audioboo

Dog is Dead Interview Preview!

Really lucky to have gotten the chance to catch up again with Dog Is Dead. I met Rob and Trev last year when they toured in Manchester so was really nice to talk some more. Last time round I found out about their football tournaments in between gig dates, where their drummer nearly broke his ankle and had to postpone gigs!...It was also great to hear them talk about their EP - back then - and the album prospects.

The progression has been brilliant for the band. A bold 16-track album release followed multiple EPs at the latter end of last year and sounded so diverse. There were tracks laiden with a truly anthemic quality, almost commanding stadium audiences to recieve them. Equally there was softer and more intimate venue type songwriting.

In the bar of Sound Control, I had a chatter to the boys about last night's gig in Hull...hopefully this will whet your appetite for an in-depth talk, which I'll play out on my Q Now show this Friday from 3pm.

listen to ‘Dog is Dead Interview Preview!’ on Audioboo

(Yes... I did ask Trev - with his beautiful red-head locks - whether he was the man behind the acquisition of the array of females in the video above. Tune in Friday to hear more!...)

The last few VERY EXCITING days

Had a fabulous end to the week! It's these kind of weeks that hit home so strongly why I love working in radio!

Thursday we were all set for Hometime show on Key103, until I got notified that Gary Barlow was available for an interview... hello chicago! I got onto the agency setting up interviews and it transpired that at 5:15pm, I was on the phone with not only Gary Barlow, but also Prof Brian Cox, Chris Evans and James May!! They were travelling from Lands End to John O' Groats in a pink Rolls Royce raising awareness for Breast Cancer Care. It was a surreal experience!... I put them through to OJ and enjoyed 5 awesome minutes of radio, completely improvised and totally unpredictable.
Next we attempted the Marshmallow challenge, which made me howl with laughter. OJ had to squeeze as many marshmallows into his mouth, saying 'Fuzzy Bunny' after each to claim a world record. At 16, it was looking insanely good...then it all got a bit much and a grim sight followed!


I also prepped my Q Radio show and finalised some bits and pieces. I was completely aware it was Record Store Day on Saturday and I wanted to make a big song and dance about it. I decided to drop in to Piccadilly Records in Manchester, a heritage record store to see if, on the off chance, I could grab an interview. Low, I managed to speak to Martin, the lovely chap that is, and we talked about the romance of physical music, a resurgence in popularity for vinyl and how important RSD is.
Funnily enough, despite me going to a vintage market last weekend and adding some 20p vinyls to my collection, I don't even have a record player to play them on. Idiot me. I thought I may as well ask around and see if I could hunt one down... after all, if I was to spend money for RSD, I'll at least need to justify the further damage to my bank balance with the sound of it.

After hunting for a long time, I finally found one... a gorgeous, old Toshiba number. I got it back to the flat and eagerly set it up with my mates. It shocked me how amped everyone was for a record player purchase in 2013?! - the romance of vinyl music is still very much alive.

listen to ‘Record Store Day on Q Now!’ on Audioboo

With my Record Store Day feature set to play out, I also had a interview pre-recorded with Peace for my Q Now show. I did SO many interviews last year for The Source radio show - I listened back to some of the podcasts today actually...3 band interviews a week and session tracks, was so much fun - but unfortunately as things go so busy with other projects, the band interviews became fewer and farther between. I picked up the reigns with interviews again when I landed my Q Radio show, and instantly rediscovered the joy of talking to musicians about our mutually favourite subject: music. I felt rusty at first, but with this chat to Peace I felt completely in my comfort zone and thoroughly enjoyed chatting about Birmingham - their hometown and feed-bed for so much great new music currently - the album, and the writing process for the album, which sounded very amusing and reminiscent of Ozzy Osbourne's recollections in his autobiography, as he describes the recording of one album in a haunted old house - bloody good book that, can you believe Black Sabbath have new music out too?!.

Peace were a pleasure to chat to and on stage they were a different class! It's great chatting to bands fresh off-stage, everyone is on such a high from the gig and it's brilliant to mull over the evening's proceedings. Especially at high-intensity gigs like that, shenanigans are rife!

listen to ‘Peace Interview - Q Now’ on Audioboo

With so much exciting stuff happening at work... I did manage to make time to trek to the Peak District to interview James Sharp, a textiles artist. This was for a uni project and again a really interesting thing. I had met him at this aforementioned vintage market, he was selling collages, textiles and bespoke art journals and diaries. His work is really cool, all hand-crafted and very creative. Off the back of the Great British Sewing Bee, I thought he'd be great to chat to to set up a 'What was the last thing you made?' feature for our student radio show assignment - putting a 1hr speech show together. It's a fun project, I'm presenting it, which I'm very excited about. It's not often I get a chance to do speech based shows, but rest assured I'll meander my way to talk about something new music related... I'm waiting with bated breath for the Producer to bark down the studio talk back system "FILL, NEED 2MINS"!.. so I can launch into an anecdote about some recent gig or an album I've enjoyed recently.
The Peak District was fun, and it evoked loads of fond memories of motorbiking back home in the countryside. Especially with these views, I made my way back to the flat tinged with nostalgic thoughts!

Back at Key103, we were all set for another Hometime show to finish the week. We had Record Store Day interviews and we even played out a vinyl!!



We also welcomed the presidents of both Salford and Manchester rowing teams set to come in ahead of the Two Cities Boat Race at the weekend. Having so much on the show is a rarity, but the last few days have been an absolute ball. That doesn't even take into consideration the weekend, which I'm sure I will find the time to chatter about at a later date!

Cats are entertaining

I found out that the cats are absolutely hilarious when it comes to making 6 second films on Vine.

Today's Q Show

Real good show today - thoroughly enjoyed! Couple of bits I thought I'd upload to audioboo. I've recently cobbled together ALL my previous gig tickets, everything from The Blackout in B'ham Irish Club in 2007 to Coldplay, Ben Howard, Elbow, small-time acoustic artists in London Borderline, concerts from my time in Manchester... it's been awesome to collate everything together an reccolect specific memories of the experiences. I brought my bulging envelope of tickets in to the studio for a lucky dip to see which I'd talk about...

listen to ‘Gig Ticket Wall Art’ on Audioboo

Another moment I uploaded from Q-Now earlier was playing out Heaven's Basement, a pretty brash, bold rock back who have recently released a new album called Filthy Empire. I'm a fan of it!- I purchased it the other day and let my Granny have a listen to one track called 'I Am Electric'... fair to say she's stoked, so she gave me a voicemail to let me know her thoughts.

listen to ‘Granny rates Heaven's Basement’ on Audioboo

More fun and games on air next Friday 3-6pm on Q Radio. Tidy.

VHS!

Went over to my Grandma's today for a few biscuits and a properly brewed pot of tea. Nice to catchup after we last saw each other at Christmas!! And good to see my Uncle Ben too - we got chatting about the nearby Hooky Brewery and some seedling plans I have to make a documentary about it...hmmmm that's all in the pipeline. She did however give me some VHS footage she had of the Brewery and my word!!.. when was the last time you heard this noise?.. VHS seems to be a thing of the distant past, wonder when it will make it's vinyl-style revival...

listen to ‘VHS!’ on Audioboo

Recreating builders' shouting in 'Up'!

Part of my Uni project currently is to recreate the sounds of a film clip. I had had trouble deciding which clip to do... favourite film Anchorman?- but there was too much music running throughout sequences which made it hard to use. I settled on Wallace & Gromit!- the train scenes from The Wrong Trousers, but again it was full of music!

I needed something rich with sounds for me to go out and record. Happily enough, a scene from 'Up' was perfect. I had only seen a bit of the film but EVERYONE keeps telling me its the greatest in the world. The scene I chose is where the old man is sat outside his house, which is in the middle of a building site, so there are lots of digger trucks with their meaty engines driving around, metal is crashing about, bricks are being shifted, drills and pick axes galore and builders shouting across the site to each other. It's a foley artists playground!

I set to work with papa Chad, a tradesman himself, to firstly get some heavy duty drills trilling against a breezeblock on our patio at 11am. We then amassed an array of bricks from the 'leftovers from previous extensions' pile and clattered them about. The most hilarious bit was shifting three sink basin units from their storage along a concrete path - causing almighty clashing and metallic mayhem, but ultimately very resemblant to a heap of scrap metal being shunted across a construction site by a JCB. First class improvisation.

Projects like this are a right effort to sink teeth into - it took ages to continually re-listen to the clip (which is only 90s), and pick out all the various sounds in a big list. I sometimes forget we have projects like this going on when I am doing so much other work. Happily enough, getting started was good fun, and I'm excited to lay these newly recorded sfx down on protools next week.

One sequence that was really funny to record was some very faint but audible dialogue between construction workers in the scene. It's very faint and occurs over about 15s, we recorded all the lines in one go, which fitted together with surprising cohesion!- having said that, it was very amusing to draft in my sisters boyfriend and his hoarse morning voice, aforementioned papa chad and myself, with my mic some distance away to convey the faint nature of the sound.

listen to ‘Recreating builders' shouting in 'Up'!’ on Audioboo

Student Radio Conference

Earlier this week was the Student Radio Conference in Leicester - I went last year in Bradford and it was awesome, so had high hopes for this one!
Needless to say, it didn't disappoint! It's basically a conglomeration of hundreds of students from various student radio stations up and down the country, all getting together to complain about a lack of food in the lunch bags, drink excessively and learn more about the craft we so love.

As it happens, I learnt an awful lot for the two days that I was there. More than I have done in two days for a long time! I've got page after page of notes, and after being prodded to realise that radio shows do not exist as time-slots on air, they should continue to live on social media after the show. As such, I've had a bit of a social media breakdown these last few days, and added Vine, Pinterest and Instagram to the already long list of Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Spotify, YouTube, Vimeo and more. Too many to keep track of, but I'm hoping I can keep them all music related. That is after all, what I am most interested in!!

So a very interesting, eye-opening conference. Not to mention, very funny. It was nice to bump into people I'd met for the first time in Bradford, and indeed meet new faces. I met one person who had a near-on replica of village life back home. The same formula of: "Village. Village has a pub which is the centre-piece of the community, there is also a school. This village is part of a bigger network of villages, which all have schools and pubs. There is one secondary school in a slightly bigger village, and all the smaller ones have buses to get there each day. Each pub has a summer beer festival, there is a town nearby".
I said to my Dad that this discovery of similar lifestyles to ours is brilliant - it justs stokes the fire in my mind for a big documentary about the music communities in these places, which are on the periphery of the major locations like London and Manchester, and now Birmingham, my word we're getting so much great music from Birmingham at the moment.

On the Tuesday night, funnily enough, I did go and stay overnight in Birmingham. It's only a short jaunt from Leicester, and I needed to do some work on my Q Radio show which is based there. I hot-footed it over on the train, had a bit of food and set to work. It's a lovely chilled atmosphere in a radio station by night. The stress and distractions of a 300mph workday is a foreign thing, I had a little chatter then set to work. It's absolutely awesome to be working on a new music show. May as well be called a 'this show couldn't be more up Louis' street if it tried, show'. Whether I'm doing it right or not is unbeknownst to me, all I know is that I am thoroughly enjoying regaling stories of music in my life and trying to bring it alive, to be more than just a new track by a new artist. Music is never that 2D is it? - there is always a back-story, an initial impetus to create that song. I'm enjoying relating my own, personal, genuine reactions to the music and hoping that resonates a bit stronger than a bit of verbal bumpf about what label the band are signed to. You can Google that yourself!

Stayed in the Travellodge over night! - Felt like Alan Partridge. Arrived at 11pm to the shock of the night-shifters, "you want a room, now?!" - yes please.
Immediately ordered a beer and a cheese panini, retreated to my room to have a brew and natter with my better half, then hit the hay. Wasn't in bed for long, I was rudely awoken (not by the dustman, #parklife) by my Mariamba alarm-tone and hastily obliged to get up and slap another day on the bottom. Turned out to be such an early start that I didn't properly feel awake until I made it to Leicester McD's for a coffee. Another day of very intriguing lectures ensued...

It's nice to come off the back of a conference and not feel overwhelmed, drowned and pessimistic because of all the radical things presented that we should be doing, instead it's nice to come away and have a wealth of ideas and drive not just because of the presentations themselves but because of the opportunity to meet people and share tales of their lives that ignite a creative spark.

Rare you get that!.....currently though, all I'm thinking about is Birmingham's music scene and how much I'd like a cheese panini.

Country Life

Back in the Shire for a week at home. It's not often I ever take any prolonged time off. For once I have decided to turn off my work phone, set an out-of-office and break for a little bit of a breather before assignments kick in and before work resumes.

There are many things on the list for the week ahead, but it's not a normal list of tasks (and too many for a 12hr day at that!). My current list is more along the lines of: 

• Visit Granny
• Make a collage of past gig tickets as new wall-art for my room
• Pub
• Coffee catchups with mates
• Watch Nile Rogers documentary

I never watch TV at Uni, or if I do, it's re-runs of Top Gear, so to watch the Nile programme is pretty bloody incredible. 

So far I have already ticked a few things off! - was a nice time visiting Granny: eating her brownies and succumbing to her preaching what an amazing comedian Victoria Wood is.

Went to the pub last night to see Cole Stacey perform - had never heard of him but aunt, uncle and cousins in Cropredy said he was good.

My mate and I went over for an ale and a catchup. Cropredy's a brilliant place - not just the visually pleasing drive I took for granted for so many years, but the village vibe is always fabulous. Not just on Fairport weekend. Most are now away of this festival for all my banging on about it: 20,000 people descending on this sleepy canal-side village in the middle of Oxfordshire, which turns into a folk-music mecca for 3 days in August. I made a big documentary for Banbury Sound last year, about the festival, Fairport Convention's history and the village vibes - I've recently condensed it down into a wee 15min chunk if you fancy a listen:

Earlier in the day, I'd enjoyed another ale with pals Nik & Gemma, who congrats to them are on the verge of marriage. Nice to have a catchup, they're off on a 5000+ mile road-trip across the USA for their honeymoon!!- needless to say, they're taking a mechanic with them.

Girlfriend said she HATED the composition of this photo. Thanks.

And one last thing about being back home in the countryside - not only am I seeing my family, catching up on LOTS AND LOTS, but we have had a lot of sheep move into the field behind our house where I used to play football every day when I was a youngling! It's quite nice seeing them toddle about in the day, quite pleasant.

Schlepping through the snow

When I can finally prize myself away from my 2013 Playlist through my headphones I'll get on the road and jaunt across to Sheffield. Quite quickly this year I've amassed a collection of songs in this playlist that are truly awesome. From older numbers like Heavy Cross by the Gossip, Grimes' new material, Rosabella Gregory who I'd heard on Bob Harris recently, lots of reccomendations off Guy Garvey's 6Music show and much more. It's been a strong start to the year in terms of musical discovery.

The question that remains is what to put on in the car... Unfortunately due to the closure of the Snake/Woodhead Pass heading to Sheffield I'm going to have to take the motorway, which will require my phone to act as a sat nav, drastically hindering Spotify's capabilities. Therefore I need to find something CD based... I did get hold of a REALLY old copy of Grace Jones - Island Life a few days ago, and some classic Faith No More. Might give those a blast, but I'm dying to give the Tame Impala album a listen to, seeing as everybody seems to be raving about them at the minute.

Either way, time to schlep through the snow, see you on the other side!

Physical

Sat in bed preparing for another busy week, the forthcoming seven days are a daunting prospect. All of a sudden, after a lull in some of my responsibilities at work, briefs have come flying in and I find myself about to embark on a very busy week! I am envisaging all sorts of problems, but to take heed of my uncle's ethos - "no problems, only solutions", so these are only to be overcome, not to be lingered on.

It's another busy week of awards prepping, putting the button on two entries I have an amazing confidence in! More demos and some editing on a documentary I am working on to enter into the Charles Parker Prize. I am quite keen to have a go at editing that on Pro Tools rather than my native Audition...

These presenter demos I am working on are coming along well - it was quite a nostalgic, emotional link I crafted with regards to HMV...the memories of that place are unreal (assuming it does go...) - the landmark in town where we all met on a Saturday, where you'd kill hours of the day waiting for a lift home, either in the indie aisle or over at the posters ogling at 'artwork' you didn't understand...likewise, there was the beauty of physical music, a tangible CD! I'm currently listening back to Guy Garvey on 6Music, he's just suggested we ought to be making our loved ones and friends more CDs - a great story of a couple who CD swap each month or something along those lines! I'm a fan of this idea, even though without knowing it, the exchange of music is constantly happening with Spotify sharing! Nothing quite like physical music though eh!?

Brit Award Predictions...

Seem to do this annually, predicting who will win what award... May as well continue the trend! With the Brits just round the corner, here's who I think I'll pick up some gongs..



Mastercard British Album Of The Year
Emeli Sande – 'Our Version Of Events'
Mumford & Sons – 'Babel'
ALT-J - "AN AWESOME WAVE" - Definitely Alt-J...everybody seems to have gone crazy for this CD, and it'll be a refreshingly worthy winner!
Plan B – 'iLL Manors'
Paloma Faith – 'Fall To Grace'


Best British Single with Capital FM
ADELE - 'SKYFALL' - yep, suppose it could have been any one of these, they're all about the same calibre of song but ADELE probably gets the nod above the rest!...meaning I'll probably end up giving Producer Paul Epworth the nod too!
Alex Clare - 'Too Close'
Coldplay & Rihanna - 'Princess of China'
DJ Fresh feat. Rita Ora - 'Hot Right Now'
Emeli Sandé - 'Next To Me'
Florence & The Machine - 'Spectrum'
James Arthur - 'Impossible'
Jessie J - 'Domino'
Labrinth Feat. Emeli Sandé – 'Beneath Your Beautiful'
Olly Murs feat. Flo Rida 'Troublemaker'
Rita Ora feat. Tinie Tempah - 'R.I.P.'
Rizzle Kicks - 'Mama Do The Hump'
Robbie Williams - 'Candy'
Rudimental Feat. John Newman - 'Feel The Love'
Stooshe - 'Black Heart'


Best Live Act
COLDPLAY - having seen these guys live, I'm not sure any of the others can compare! Do you get flashy wristbands at The Vaccines?... Mumford would be a good gig, can always dance to their stuff!.. But I'd probably head for the bar if any tracks off Babel come on!...jesting, obv.
Muse
The Rolling Stones
The Vaccines
Mumford & Sons


British Male Solo Artist
Calvin Harris
Olly Murs
BEN HOWARD - maybe I'm biased, having seen him live and his music really striking a chord with me on many levels this year, but for such a lyric-driven folk musician to hit the mainstream with such force this past year must give him some chance of a gong here!
Richard Hawley
Plan B


British Female Solo Artist
Bat For Lashes
Amy Winehouse
EMELI SANDE - however much I've heard her stuff played so much!...she can turn a brilliant lyric, and she's been known to write one or two catchy melodies as well..
Paloma Faith
Jessie Ware


British Group
One Direction
ALT-J - probably these chaps again. Why not, go for it fellas!
Muse
Mumford & Sons


British Breakthrough
Jessie Ware
Jake Bugg
RITA ORA - had this situation last year, where any one of the nominees in this category could easily have won. In this case I'm going to elect to pick someone other than Ben or Alt-J and go with the mainstream breakthrough success in Rita Ora.
Ben Howard
Alt-J


International Group
Alabama Shakes
FUN. - can't believe these guys churned out so many catchy hits all the way through the year!
The Script
The Killers
The Black Keys


International Male Solo Artist
Bruce Springsteen
Michael Buble
Frank Ocean
Gotye
JACK WHITE - apart from Gotye writing one decent song, and Frank Ocean writing a whole album of dark but sick alternative hip-hop, I don't know what Buble or Springsteen did last year!? Will Frank's work be rewarded?..or more likely Jack White should claim the award for a truly amazing Blunderbuss album and some devilishly good live performances in the summer.


International Female Solo Artist
TAYLOR SWIFT - didn't require much thought...even with Rihanna nominated as well...but Taylor seems to have hit incredible form this year.
Rihanna
Alicia Keys
Cat Power
Lana Del Rey

BRITs Global Success
To Be announced at BRIT Awards 2013

British Producer Of The Year
Damon Albarn
Jake Gosling
PAUL EPWORTH - yep, go claim it for having masterminded Skyfall.

Critics Choice
Tom Odell

Special Recognition Award
War Child


Lets see how I get along!....

Awards season!!

I love awards season! This is the time of the year where we all get to look back over the hard work of 2012 and marvel at what we achieved. The prospect of packaging up that hard graft into something that might even get rewarded is even more exciting!

If anything, the awards themselves are the bonus...Instead the real excitement is the chance to look back and celebrate projects where we've devoted so much time and effort, and then build on that retrospective and use it as a springboard for even better endeavours this year!

I am really keen to submit my Fairport Festival documentary for an award. This project taught me so much, built wonderful bridges with some great people, and proved to bequeath a result I was delighted with.

I knew I wanted to produced a doco about Fairport, and I was eager for my best mate and filmmaker Connor Hawkins to direct a short-film to complement what I would produce for the radio. Summarising a whole project is near on impossible...but I'll give you a flavour of our task and let you in on the best bits...
Fairport's Cropredy Convention is a folk-rock festival for 20,000 just outside a small village Oxfordshire, named Cropredy. It is also dubbed the Friendliest Festival Of Them All!..which I would suggest is a good shout, having been there every year with my folks since I was a lil' baba. The documentary I wanted to do constructed itself around the 45th anniversary of Fairport Convention that year, and thus the festival would have an extra special sentiment (with lots of TV docs also in production to celebrate this too!). Combining a look back over the band's illustrious and long history, I wanted to also capture the magic of Cropredy: the people who visit, the fringe festival, even those who come to Cropredy to enjoy the weekend without tickets to the main festival!...this human level of the programme, exploring what the punters take away from Fairport each year, was exactly the kind of anti-corporate job I wanted, opposed to a straight, hard-and-fast look back at a band history.

Initially, I hinged a lot of my pre-prep on interviews that were unlikely to happen! Even in the run-up to the festival I am sure I was a little nervous about filling 52mins of programming time on the local radio station Banbury Sound. When I got some interviews recorded prior to the Festival with key members of the Fairport repertoire I began to feel happier, but nothing could have ignited the project's incendiary like the weekend itself.

Arriving on site on Thursday morning, having spent Wednesday over in Cropredy soaking up the pre-festival vibes at the pubs, we established ourselves in the press area before quickly retreating to our humble Field 2, where our wolfpack of mates have situated ourselves and our quaint camp for years now. It's always been a mission for us to gain access, as it's technically the car parking field and we'd always been backpackers. We always succeeded in blagging our way through, but this year with a car was a piece of cake.

We had until 4pm, when the festival began, to gather some content, so off Connor and I went in our separate directions to hunt for audio and video. We agreed we'd do this the following day too, and I was prepared to sacrifice a few band viewings to capture everything I wanted. After having spoken to the lovely press officers on Thursday morning, I had been amazed to learn that I had been granted interview time with all the members of the Fairport band, and most incredibly, rare facetime with both Dave Swarbrick and Dave Mattacks! Swarb is one of the most accomplished, celebrated folk fiddle players of all time, and DM was with Fairport from near-on the beginning. Their contributions, I hoped, would bolster the credibility of this programme dramatically!

With some great voxes and wild track in the can, I made for the festival field to records some ad libbed 'diary entries': I had decided to keep audio diaries throughout the festival, to then edit together to create a parallel storyline of my festival unravelling. Whether it would work or not, I did not know, but I endeavoured to try it nonetheless!...it was in my storyboard!

The usual antics took place for us fellas, enjoying our 'holiday' festival. A place with such familiarly we could navigate it blindfolded...although don't challenge us to! Rum and beer was drunk, laughs were shared, and we always made it to the bar in the evening to meet our families and more friends to soak up the last few bands of the night.
On the final night, Fairport Convention take to the stage to perform a marathon 3-hr set, this time complete with rare appearances from the aforementioned folk legends. Swarb played his fiddle with such finesse!...amazing to watch! Certainly one of the festival highlights, watching a man I had spoken to only hours before, a thoroughly insightful and switched-on chap. What a pleasure to talk to him. DM, well lets just say he won't take any prisoners. I was 19. I had researched him as thoroughly as possible in the time I had, yet he exposed my patchy knowledge of the early days of Fairport, back in the 60s. I certainly learnt a lot about researching somebody during that chat...but in the end I carried home a decent interview!

With the 3-hr set concluding with their signature farewell anthem 'Meet On The Ledge', we all sway with interlocked arms at the bar and treasured the moment, before retreating backstage to join in the singalong joviality with a different crowd.

When I got back to the edit room, I was amazed and delighted with just how much phenomenal content I now had to play with. Sure I had done some detailed story boarding, but the audio I now had demanded a revised narrative, and I bloody well edited it together whilst wearing a smile.

I knew Connor would have gathered some great footage too, he's a talented cameraman with a keen eye for a photo. We were blessed by the weather, so I was also excited to see his film and package up our endeavours ready to give to Banbury Sound.

I loved that project, who knows if it will receive any recognition at any industry awards...but I do know for certain that my mind races every day to come up with new ideas so I can enjoy that production process once more!