I'm rather disapointed that not many of us have turned up to play our rough cuts for our features and quite a lot of people haven't even started editing.
All hell really is going to break lose by the end of this week as the deadline approaches.
The feedback I got for my rough cut wasn't too bad, I just need to make a few edits to the interviews which work pretty well, and when I go to do my interview with Laura later on this week, I need to ask her to explain a bit more about how she actually does her activity.
Asides that I just need to get hold of the relevant music to use in the feature and record my own solitary activity which will require someone else handling the Marantz, so I'm sure there's someone in the second or first year who will be willing to help out.
For the first time ever, the team running Smoke last year recieved feedback from industry insiders on our entries from last year and they were all pretty positive with good constructive comments.
I was impressed that the entry for Best Journalistic Programming was listened to by David Garrido from Radio 1's Newsbeat and liked the presentation style of the programme although he did suggest that we could have looked into more as to why people didn't vote which is a very important issue.
There were also positive comments on Goodlass and Marshall's entries including their interview which came third in the Best Interview category which they're still pretty bitter about.
If those comments don't make them feel any better than I'd imagine they'll end up trying to steal someone's Sony Award as it seems as if they really feel they deserve one and have wanted to win so badly since day one.
It may be worth trying to submit my own show again next year as whatever happens, I'll be able to get professional feedback this time round and see whether they can be "turned on" as such.
Although by this time next year it will be too late to make any changes so overall I'm just here to enjoy it all, and laugh about it and go on if I fuck it up on air.
The line up for tonight at the Undercroft has been announced and it's a strong one at that, featuring Fiz playing a bit of garage, Mattie from YHIHF rocking out along with a few electro beats, Steven with his R&B anthems, and new boy Luke Shasha who's on after my soul set which will be kicking the night off.
Chris and Phil will be finishing the night off with a 90 minute set that has caused a bit of fuss with a few people on Facebook with regards to them being longer than the other sets, but it's a really important night for the Undercroft with extended opening hours, and with the right blend of chart and cheese, and a few Christmas hits, it will definitely prove how much fun can be had overall after a few drinks.
This will be shown if they end up having to use the "one in one out" regime on the doors.
And there's also the Area end of termer where they'll be playing a bit more garage and "grime" or so to say, so I really wish those certain individuals would stop complaining.
Although one suggested the soul set should be one of those extended which it already has in a way as I'm on for an hour where most of the others have got 45 minutes.
With regards to drinks they're right out of VKs which is a bugger considering that they were being sold at £1 a bottle but as long as they've still got Smirnoff Ice I'll be happy.
However there's no time to worry about any aggro as I need to start sorting the set out
and it should be a superb night overall.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Rough Cut, or "Cut!" All Together?
Getting out of bed was a struggle but I made it in around 8:30am to work on editing my interviews including the one I did with Concha last week.
For some reason the Marantz didn't record the introduction I recorded with Concha after the interview which I'm a bit gutted about because it gave a really good perspective as to what exactly she does on her own.
I did manage to record a few links but I fell back into the mode of having to re-record them several times as I wanted the delivery to be perfect and not sound too arrogant.
I've now managed to put some sort of rough cut together lasting just under 15 minutes, so it probably means I'll have to cut quite a lot of stuff out as there's still a few things left to record including my own solitary activity.
Hopefully Matthew won't see too many problems with what I've done although at the moment it's very much in the making.
No one else has arrived yet but I'm hoping they'll be a few more people present by this afternoon all up for the rather exciting goings on, due to take place at the Undercroft tonight.
For some reason the Marantz didn't record the introduction I recorded with Concha after the interview which I'm a bit gutted about because it gave a really good perspective as to what exactly she does on her own.
I did manage to record a few links but I fell back into the mode of having to re-record them several times as I wanted the delivery to be perfect and not sound too arrogant.
I've now managed to put some sort of rough cut together lasting just under 15 minutes, so it probably means I'll have to cut quite a lot of stuff out as there's still a few things left to record including my own solitary activity.
Hopefully Matthew won't see too many problems with what I've done although at the moment it's very much in the making.
No one else has arrived yet but I'm hoping they'll be a few more people present by this afternoon all up for the rather exciting goings on, due to take place at the Undercroft tonight.
The Laughter Gongs
I finally got round to watching last night's British Comedy Awards and despite a different host at the helm it wasn't too different from the others in the past few years as it had the same titles and studio set with the large framed paintings of comedians.
Angus Deayton was on top form as host right from the beginning with a joke about the absence of Jonathan Ross being a long story involving a radio show, an ageing sitcom actor and "over 30,000 complaints from a bunch of self righteous twats who never even heard the programme".
Another joke he did that I liked was about the BBC's succesfull series this year including Robin Hood and Merlin which in Angus's household prompted the question "When's Doctor Who coming back?". Exactly what I was thinking especially as I ended up sitting through a few episodes of the former when I was "recovering" from mania last October.
Did they help? Did they balls.
Onto the awards themselves where amongst those in attendance, Olivia Colman from Peep Show looked superb with her new blonde hair and was up alongside Ashley Jensen from Extras for the best actress award. Surprisingly, none of them won with the award going to Sharron Horgan from the BBC Three series "Pulling" which I doubt is as well known as the other two shows.
Russell Brand managed to get an award for best stand-up although he wasn't present at the awards, and Harry Hill won the Best Comedy Entertainment Programme for TV Burp. Personally I prefer Charlie Brooker when it comes to ripping the piss out of television but I can understand why the show got the award and it was interesting to see producer Spencer Millman come up on stage as one of those accepting the award having known his name from Ricky Gervais's unsuccesful chat show he did before the Office, and the first few series of Bo' Selecta.
Speaking of which Ricky won the award for Best Comedy Actor and he appeared accepting the award in a VT package which he just used like he would to plug his new DVD of the Extras Christmas Special. Prick.
Moving along, and there were quite a few special awards as well including David Renwick recieving the Ronnie Barker Writers Guild Award, a writer responsible for series such as One Foot In The Grave and Jonathan Creek although for me his masterpiece has to be the Two Ronnies "Mastermind" sketch which gets funnier every time as I understand more on how well the questions were written.
On a more serious note there was a posthumous award for the Outstanding Contribution which went to the late Geoffrey Perkins and included a superb VT package with interviews from Angus Deayton, Simon Pegg, Pauline McLynn, and Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson.
I never realised until his death that he had made such a great contribution to television and radio comedy as he happened to come up with the idea for the famous "Mornington Crescent" game on Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
It was also good to hear the vocal version of the Father Ted theme being used in the package, that being the Divine Comedy's "Songs Of Love".
There was also a Lifetime Achievement Award which went to Jasper Carrott who in his acceptance speech made a very funny joke about the list of previous recipients, most of which are now dead. A few comments were made about his record "Funky Moped" although I think the B-side is even funnier of a stand up routine containg a lewd episode of "The Magic Roundabout" and it's difficult for me not to laugh whenver I hear him shout "BOOIIINGG!".
There was another sketch he did in his series "Carrot's Lib" where he did a spoof gameshow called "What's My Secret" where one of the guests he had was Neil Kinnock and it flashed his secret on screen for the audience which said "I am the leader of the Labour Party".
Although Carrot's now popular with housewives and a slightly younger audience with his gameshow "Goldenballs" it was good to see him getting recognition for his comedy in many forms from over the years.
The show itself however wasn't without it's usual flaws such as having to rush it all towards the end, and the awkward speech from the spokeswoman sponsoring the show on the final award that is always going to have the piss taken out of it.
Collecting the final award for Best Sitcom was Gavin and Stacey and James Corden was unable to give a proper speech due to Kevin Bishop from Star Stories shouting "Fuck Off!" at him, as you'd expect him to, due to him being a prime example of someone on television who swears for the sake of it.
I was also disapointed that in the category for best comedy panel show there was no sign of Mock The Week, which surely would have been up for running, whereas instead they had Have I Got News For You, Buzzcocks, and Qi which ended up winning.
With regards to the production of the show itself, one of our Westminster alumni happened to be helping out, that being a lovely girl called Sara who used to do TV and lived with Lucie, and Ross Powell and is lucky enough to be working in what used to be the LWT building on the South Bank.
It also happened to be one of the only shows on television that didn't have Peter Dixon as the announcer, with that job being taken by Howard Hughes, better known for being one of the best radio newsreaders in the UK.
Howard was actually one of the contributors to Sean Martin's "Happy Birthday JAM" compliation four years ago, which was made as a surprise present for Jon Wolfert around the time of JAM's 30th anniversary of being in the jingle business.
This was made up of jingle fans and people from broadcasting around the world, who told their own anecdotes of JAM and played their favourite cuts.
Quite a lot of those from the UK included the Radio 1 News jingle from the 1970s/1980s for some reason.
Howard's contribution can be heard here and whilst it's entertaining, it should be noted that neither Capital or LBC have ever used JAM jingles during their 35 year history which is why I found having him as a contributor rather questionable.
However a few of the other stations that Howard has worked at have used JAM at one time or other.
These include Radio City in Liverpool although I'm guessing that when Howard was there as a newsreader they were still using the Gerry Marsden penned news intro that had Madeline Bell singing "1, 9, 4, Radio Ciiiiittyyyy!".
However in the early 90s when they were known as City FM they had a couple of JAM packages including one that had a stunning resing of cut 15 from Hot KIIS that they used to read the weather as heard near the end of this extract.
I also happen to have a version of that cut although the City FM version's a lot better as the strings are more dominant and orchestral, and the vocals sound better as well.
And I guess you could also include Smooth Radio as one of Howard's stations as the
East Midlands station included JAM jingles as part of Len Groat's Sunday afternoon show last year until he resigned after a disagreement with the management over them.
There are a few people on Jinglemad suggesting that Len should get Lesley Douglas's old job at BBC Radio 2 but I doubt Auntie will want to hire a man who would take the station back to the 1970s.
As for tomorrow it's a very busy day as I need to be up early to work on my feature and there's the Undercroft Xmas party later on. I haven't even been properly told what time I'm DJing so I hope it will all manage to pull through.
Angus Deayton was on top form as host right from the beginning with a joke about the absence of Jonathan Ross being a long story involving a radio show, an ageing sitcom actor and "over 30,000 complaints from a bunch of self righteous twats who never even heard the programme".
Another joke he did that I liked was about the BBC's succesfull series this year including Robin Hood and Merlin which in Angus's household prompted the question "When's Doctor Who coming back?". Exactly what I was thinking especially as I ended up sitting through a few episodes of the former when I was "recovering" from mania last October.
Did they help? Did they balls.
Onto the awards themselves where amongst those in attendance, Olivia Colman from Peep Show looked superb with her new blonde hair and was up alongside Ashley Jensen from Extras for the best actress award. Surprisingly, none of them won with the award going to Sharron Horgan from the BBC Three series "Pulling" which I doubt is as well known as the other two shows.
Russell Brand managed to get an award for best stand-up although he wasn't present at the awards, and Harry Hill won the Best Comedy Entertainment Programme for TV Burp. Personally I prefer Charlie Brooker when it comes to ripping the piss out of television but I can understand why the show got the award and it was interesting to see producer Spencer Millman come up on stage as one of those accepting the award having known his name from Ricky Gervais's unsuccesful chat show he did before the Office, and the first few series of Bo' Selecta.
Speaking of which Ricky won the award for Best Comedy Actor and he appeared accepting the award in a VT package which he just used like he would to plug his new DVD of the Extras Christmas Special. Prick.
Moving along, and there were quite a few special awards as well including David Renwick recieving the Ronnie Barker Writers Guild Award, a writer responsible for series such as One Foot In The Grave and Jonathan Creek although for me his masterpiece has to be the Two Ronnies "Mastermind" sketch which gets funnier every time as I understand more on how well the questions were written.
On a more serious note there was a posthumous award for the Outstanding Contribution which went to the late Geoffrey Perkins and included a superb VT package with interviews from Angus Deayton, Simon Pegg, Pauline McLynn, and Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson.
I never realised until his death that he had made such a great contribution to television and radio comedy as he happened to come up with the idea for the famous "Mornington Crescent" game on Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
It was also good to hear the vocal version of the Father Ted theme being used in the package, that being the Divine Comedy's "Songs Of Love".
There was also a Lifetime Achievement Award which went to Jasper Carrott who in his acceptance speech made a very funny joke about the list of previous recipients, most of which are now dead. A few comments were made about his record "Funky Moped" although I think the B-side is even funnier of a stand up routine containg a lewd episode of "The Magic Roundabout" and it's difficult for me not to laugh whenver I hear him shout "BOOIIINGG!".
There was another sketch he did in his series "Carrot's Lib" where he did a spoof gameshow called "What's My Secret" where one of the guests he had was Neil Kinnock and it flashed his secret on screen for the audience which said "I am the leader of the Labour Party".
Although Carrot's now popular with housewives and a slightly younger audience with his gameshow "Goldenballs" it was good to see him getting recognition for his comedy in many forms from over the years.
The show itself however wasn't without it's usual flaws such as having to rush it all towards the end, and the awkward speech from the spokeswoman sponsoring the show on the final award that is always going to have the piss taken out of it.
Collecting the final award for Best Sitcom was Gavin and Stacey and James Corden was unable to give a proper speech due to Kevin Bishop from Star Stories shouting "Fuck Off!" at him, as you'd expect him to, due to him being a prime example of someone on television who swears for the sake of it.
I was also disapointed that in the category for best comedy panel show there was no sign of Mock The Week, which surely would have been up for running, whereas instead they had Have I Got News For You, Buzzcocks, and Qi which ended up winning.
With regards to the production of the show itself, one of our Westminster alumni happened to be helping out, that being a lovely girl called Sara who used to do TV and lived with Lucie, and Ross Powell and is lucky enough to be working in what used to be the LWT building on the South Bank.
It also happened to be one of the only shows on television that didn't have Peter Dixon as the announcer, with that job being taken by Howard Hughes, better known for being one of the best radio newsreaders in the UK.
Howard was actually one of the contributors to Sean Martin's "Happy Birthday JAM" compliation four years ago, which was made as a surprise present for Jon Wolfert around the time of JAM's 30th anniversary of being in the jingle business.
This was made up of jingle fans and people from broadcasting around the world, who told their own anecdotes of JAM and played their favourite cuts.
Quite a lot of those from the UK included the Radio 1 News jingle from the 1970s/1980s for some reason.
Howard's contribution can be heard here and whilst it's entertaining, it should be noted that neither Capital or LBC have ever used JAM jingles during their 35 year history which is why I found having him as a contributor rather questionable.
However a few of the other stations that Howard has worked at have used JAM at one time or other.
These include Radio City in Liverpool although I'm guessing that when Howard was there as a newsreader they were still using the Gerry Marsden penned news intro that had Madeline Bell singing "1, 9, 4, Radio Ciiiiittyyyy!".
However in the early 90s when they were known as City FM they had a couple of JAM packages including one that had a stunning resing of cut 15 from Hot KIIS that they used to read the weather as heard near the end of this extract.
I also happen to have a version of that cut although the City FM version's a lot better as the strings are more dominant and orchestral, and the vocals sound better as well.
And I guess you could also include Smooth Radio as one of Howard's stations as the
East Midlands station included JAM jingles as part of Len Groat's Sunday afternoon show last year until he resigned after a disagreement with the management over them.
There are a few people on Jinglemad suggesting that Len should get Lesley Douglas's old job at BBC Radio 2 but I doubt Auntie will want to hire a man who would take the station back to the 1970s.
As for tomorrow it's a very busy day as I need to be up early to work on my feature and there's the Undercroft Xmas party later on. I haven't even been properly told what time I'm DJing so I hope it will all manage to pull through.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
"Your Time Is Coming, Don't Be Late"
So tonight started off with Take That's special which was pretty good, containing live performances of new and old favourites such as "Shine", "Back For Good", "Rule The World", and "Never Forget" as well as a few tracks from their latest chart topping album which beat Britney's "similarly" titled album by 3 places.
One of the tracks being a song called "Up All Night" which sounded like a tune that the Beatles didn't include on their Sgt Peppers album.
There were also a few questions asked by the audience, with one of them coming from a certain Geraldine McQueen AKA Peter Kay. She later joined the boys for a quiz putting two members from the band into two teams which was a bit awkward but it probably proves that Peter doesn't really work well when appearing on other people's shows.
More or less in the same way as Chris Moyles.
It was also odd to see Howard taking lead vocals on the performance of "Never Forget" but he has performed lead on a few album tracks in the past including on "Everything Changes" and "Nobody Else" which I think he also had a hand in writing.
It was interesting to see one of the names in the credits being Mark Wagman who used to appear on Channel 4's Big Breakfast and worked as their guest booker.
I can remember one such incident when they got British WWE wrestler and then commisioner William Regal on, and Mark had ruined a stunt that they were going to do involving Regal, so William took him out into the garden of Lock Keepers Cottages and threw him down in a rather hastily set up ring.
This was a show where a lot of the crew members became celebrities in their own right with characters such as "The Carpet Monster" and "Baby Ben" becoming popular.
Having known their real names, I tend to spot them quite a lot in the credits for other shows such as This Morning and I seem to remember Carpet appearing in a car advert dressed as a penguin a couple of years ago.
Moving on, and the Coming Out special of this year's "Celebrity" was good viewing if nothing too special. Some of the key moments included Dani Behr giving and exclusive interview to the Daily Bastard where they put words into her mouth in the printed article where apparently she made negative comments about Carly.
Most of the contestants nearest and dearest were present to welcome them out of the jungle although Carly's boyfriend Joe Cole was still back in England and doing his bit for the Blues.
It was also interesting to see Dane Bowers, formerly from late 90s boyband "Another Level" and the stunning garage anthems by the "Truesteppers" present supporting Nicola although I'm surprised that he's never actually appeared as a contestant himself.
Although I guess he's been approached several times.
I spoke to someone earlier in the week and suggested with Simon Webbe as one of the contestants, it's easy to confuse Blue with Another Level as musically they more or less picked up from where they left off and actually did a few good tunes.
It was also revealed that David and Timmy's performance of "Biff Baff Boff, We're Celebrities" had recieved several viewings on Youtube although whether it will get released as a single in the next couple of weeks remains to be seen.
Personally it would be even better if George Takay released the "Olly Olly Olly" song, and from now on whenever I see fellow radio student Oli P I will sing that song at him regardless.
So it's finally over and to be honest it's quite a relief as it has felt a lot longer than three weeks since the series started although the contestant line up this year has been strong enough for at least four years, since the series where Joe Pasquale became King Of The Jungle.
Ironically when talking to Ant & Dec after winning, he mentioned that he met the two at a party and told them that he'd been asked to do the show and orginally responded by telling the producers to "stick it up their arse", although I doubt he really meant it.
As for tonight's goings on on the dancefloor, I didn't see the show itself and it still hasn't been uploaded onto iPlayer as I type but the dance off was between Austin Healy and the stunning Lisa Snowdon, with Austin being the one this week to fall out of favour with the judges.
He's definitely been a good sport however and looked like a real contender to go into the final.
I personally should have thought it should have been Tom and Rachel fighting it out and I think you'll all know what I would have liked the outcome to have been!
Next week sees the results show being done live on the Saturday due to the Sports Review of The Year next Sunday, and it's been perfectly timed in the schedule as well, allowing me to watch both that and the X Factor final.
I imagine that the Grand Final results of SCD will be revealed live as well at which point I'll be in Norfolk at the holiday house although I won't even be able to write my thoughts on it here until the following week due to the house having no internet access.
I reckon people would have forgotten all about it by then and all.
One of the tracks being a song called "Up All Night" which sounded like a tune that the Beatles didn't include on their Sgt Peppers album.
There were also a few questions asked by the audience, with one of them coming from a certain Geraldine McQueen AKA Peter Kay. She later joined the boys for a quiz putting two members from the band into two teams which was a bit awkward but it probably proves that Peter doesn't really work well when appearing on other people's shows.
More or less in the same way as Chris Moyles.
It was also odd to see Howard taking lead vocals on the performance of "Never Forget" but he has performed lead on a few album tracks in the past including on "Everything Changes" and "Nobody Else" which I think he also had a hand in writing.
It was interesting to see one of the names in the credits being Mark Wagman who used to appear on Channel 4's Big Breakfast and worked as their guest booker.
I can remember one such incident when they got British WWE wrestler and then commisioner William Regal on, and Mark had ruined a stunt that they were going to do involving Regal, so William took him out into the garden of Lock Keepers Cottages and threw him down in a rather hastily set up ring.
This was a show where a lot of the crew members became celebrities in their own right with characters such as "The Carpet Monster" and "Baby Ben" becoming popular.
Having known their real names, I tend to spot them quite a lot in the credits for other shows such as This Morning and I seem to remember Carpet appearing in a car advert dressed as a penguin a couple of years ago.
Moving on, and the Coming Out special of this year's "Celebrity" was good viewing if nothing too special. Some of the key moments included Dani Behr giving and exclusive interview to the Daily Bastard where they put words into her mouth in the printed article where apparently she made negative comments about Carly.
Most of the contestants nearest and dearest were present to welcome them out of the jungle although Carly's boyfriend Joe Cole was still back in England and doing his bit for the Blues.
It was also interesting to see Dane Bowers, formerly from late 90s boyband "Another Level" and the stunning garage anthems by the "Truesteppers" present supporting Nicola although I'm surprised that he's never actually appeared as a contestant himself.
Although I guess he's been approached several times.
I spoke to someone earlier in the week and suggested with Simon Webbe as one of the contestants, it's easy to confuse Blue with Another Level as musically they more or less picked up from where they left off and actually did a few good tunes.
It was also revealed that David and Timmy's performance of "Biff Baff Boff, We're Celebrities" had recieved several viewings on Youtube although whether it will get released as a single in the next couple of weeks remains to be seen.
Personally it would be even better if George Takay released the "Olly Olly Olly" song, and from now on whenever I see fellow radio student Oli P I will sing that song at him regardless.
So it's finally over and to be honest it's quite a relief as it has felt a lot longer than three weeks since the series started although the contestant line up this year has been strong enough for at least four years, since the series where Joe Pasquale became King Of The Jungle.
Ironically when talking to Ant & Dec after winning, he mentioned that he met the two at a party and told them that he'd been asked to do the show and orginally responded by telling the producers to "stick it up their arse", although I doubt he really meant it.
As for tonight's goings on on the dancefloor, I didn't see the show itself and it still hasn't been uploaded onto iPlayer as I type but the dance off was between Austin Healy and the stunning Lisa Snowdon, with Austin being the one this week to fall out of favour with the judges.
He's definitely been a good sport however and looked like a real contender to go into the final.
I personally should have thought it should have been Tom and Rachel fighting it out and I think you'll all know what I would have liked the outcome to have been!
Next week sees the results show being done live on the Saturday due to the Sports Review of The Year next Sunday, and it's been perfectly timed in the schedule as well, allowing me to watch both that and the X Factor final.
I imagine that the Grand Final results of SCD will be revealed live as well at which point I'll be in Norfolk at the holiday house although I won't even be able to write my thoughts on it here until the following week due to the house having no internet access.
I reckon people would have forgotten all about it by then and all.
"Brent's Blog"
I spent this afternoon watching last night's quarter final of Strictly Come Dancing where at this stage of the competition, it's likely for the audience to start jeering even when a score of 9 is produced.
It also revealed that Lisa Snowdon is from Welwyn Garden City, which also happens to be where last years winner Alesha Dixon hails from. If Lisa makes it to the final, it will definitely be proof of that Hertfordshire town can produce not just stunning looking women, but those who can move as well.
During her and Brendan's waltz, the song that was playing was a vocal version of the theme from "The Deer Hunter" which I didn't even know existed although it works a lot better without vocals.
Those of an older generation may remember the same tune being used for a few years as the music accompanying viewers paintings in the gallery on Take Hart back in the late 70s, which also unleashed Morph onto the nation.
Anyway, highlights of last night's show included Brendan storming off after both him and Lisa got a poor score for their jive, and after Arlene criticised Austin Healy for "a lack of confidence" Len Goodman immediately interrupted by saying "Never!" in the same way as "Seven!, which was amusing to an extent.
As for Tom Chambers, I've only realised up to this week that he reminds me (especially with his stubble) of our very own Phil Landers as he comes across as the nicest man that's currently at this stage of the competition. It just comes across like that for some reason or other.
Afterwards I managed to get round to watching the 2003 Christmas specials of The Office which I haven't seen for quite a while. For those who haven't seen it, David is now working as a salesman selling cleaning products door to door whilst making many embarrassing personal appearances at nightclubs.
The funniest of which being when he takes part in a celebrity Blind Date as one of the bachelors alongside Matt Lucas lookalike "Bubble" from the second series of Big Brother, and Howard Brown from the Halifax adverts.
After watching the series, it's obvious that a lot of Gareth's mannerisms are very similar to that of our own Stewart Paske (and they both look rather similar as well), and the character of Dawn reminds me quite a bit of Amy who's off to Canada next year.
Although it's probably safe to say that I probably am the closest to David Brent for many reasons although I doubt I'm as bigoted as he is.
Examples included continuing to patronise Oliver, the black employee from "the Swindon lot", and trying to show that he's not offended by things people say about him when he really is, especially in the nightclub scenes when he tries to correct what the comperes have said in their introductions to him.
It almost reminds me of just about a year later, when Boris Johnson was seen "correcting" the television news reporters after they did a piece to camera, when he had to go to Liverpool and apologise for negative comments he made about the city in The Spectator.
The music used in the episodes, especially in the Christmas party scenes is spot on, particularly with the bizarre but effective use of "Only You" by Yazoo when Dawn returns and kisses Tim.
There's also a few tunes in their that pinpoint the period that the episodes were made such as Love Inc's "You're A Superstar" which I haven't heard played for quite a while.
The guaranteed viewing for tonight consists of the "I'm A Celebrity" Coming Out special and last night's Comedy Awards, although I'm split into deciding beforehand whether to watch tonight's dance off, or Take That's special concert over on ITV1.
Considering Barry Manilow is tonight's guest on SCD, I'd prefer to watch a band who did a better version of one of his tunes, so here's hoping Take That are on good form and an ideal way to celebrate what may be their fastest selling album which I don't think is too bad.
It also revealed that Lisa Snowdon is from Welwyn Garden City, which also happens to be where last years winner Alesha Dixon hails from. If Lisa makes it to the final, it will definitely be proof of that Hertfordshire town can produce not just stunning looking women, but those who can move as well.
During her and Brendan's waltz, the song that was playing was a vocal version of the theme from "The Deer Hunter" which I didn't even know existed although it works a lot better without vocals.
Those of an older generation may remember the same tune being used for a few years as the music accompanying viewers paintings in the gallery on Take Hart back in the late 70s, which also unleashed Morph onto the nation.
Anyway, highlights of last night's show included Brendan storming off after both him and Lisa got a poor score for their jive, and after Arlene criticised Austin Healy for "a lack of confidence" Len Goodman immediately interrupted by saying "Never!" in the same way as "Seven!, which was amusing to an extent.
As for Tom Chambers, I've only realised up to this week that he reminds me (especially with his stubble) of our very own Phil Landers as he comes across as the nicest man that's currently at this stage of the competition. It just comes across like that for some reason or other.
Afterwards I managed to get round to watching the 2003 Christmas specials of The Office which I haven't seen for quite a while. For those who haven't seen it, David is now working as a salesman selling cleaning products door to door whilst making many embarrassing personal appearances at nightclubs.
The funniest of which being when he takes part in a celebrity Blind Date as one of the bachelors alongside Matt Lucas lookalike "Bubble" from the second series of Big Brother, and Howard Brown from the Halifax adverts.
After watching the series, it's obvious that a lot of Gareth's mannerisms are very similar to that of our own Stewart Paske (and they both look rather similar as well), and the character of Dawn reminds me quite a bit of Amy who's off to Canada next year.
Although it's probably safe to say that I probably am the closest to David Brent for many reasons although I doubt I'm as bigoted as he is.
Examples included continuing to patronise Oliver, the black employee from "the Swindon lot", and trying to show that he's not offended by things people say about him when he really is, especially in the nightclub scenes when he tries to correct what the comperes have said in their introductions to him.
It almost reminds me of just about a year later, when Boris Johnson was seen "correcting" the television news reporters after they did a piece to camera, when he had to go to Liverpool and apologise for negative comments he made about the city in The Spectator.
The music used in the episodes, especially in the Christmas party scenes is spot on, particularly with the bizarre but effective use of "Only You" by Yazoo when Dawn returns and kisses Tim.
There's also a few tunes in their that pinpoint the period that the episodes were made such as Love Inc's "You're A Superstar" which I haven't heard played for quite a while.
The guaranteed viewing for tonight consists of the "I'm A Celebrity" Coming Out special and last night's Comedy Awards, although I'm split into deciding beforehand whether to watch tonight's dance off, or Take That's special concert over on ITV1.
Considering Barry Manilow is tonight's guest on SCD, I'd prefer to watch a band who did a better version of one of his tunes, so here's hoping Take That are on good form and an ideal way to celebrate what may be their fastest selling album which I don't think is too bad.
Solitary Soul
Once again there were some stunners played on Robbie's show this week including one from trumpeter Hugh Masekela and a tune called "African Breeze"
which sounded like something Spyro Gyra would have recorded in the 80s.
One of the other highlights was a rarity from Barry White with the title "L.A. My Kinda Place" which was from his 1989 LP "The Man Is Back" and definitely sounds like it was recorded in that era as it's got a slightly more synthy late 80s sound compared to the full on orchestral music you'd associate him with.
Probably one of the only records by him that I actually like.
I then went into the radio rooms which were pretty empty although Phil H arrived to work on editing more of his party feature. Probably a good time to do so as the place is more or less empty.
I also got an e-mail back from the woman who does jewellry making and I've asked if it would be possible to interview her this coming Thursday as it's one of the times she's available.
But although the feature itself has been going well, I'm still expecting something to go dreadfully wrong, despite only being a week left until submission.
which sounded like something Spyro Gyra would have recorded in the 80s.
One of the other highlights was a rarity from Barry White with the title "L.A. My Kinda Place" which was from his 1989 LP "The Man Is Back" and definitely sounds like it was recorded in that era as it's got a slightly more synthy late 80s sound compared to the full on orchestral music you'd associate him with.
Probably one of the only records by him that I actually like.
I then went into the radio rooms which were pretty empty although Phil H arrived to work on editing more of his party feature. Probably a good time to do so as the place is more or less empty.
I also got an e-mail back from the woman who does jewellry making and I've asked if it would be possible to interview her this coming Thursday as it's one of the times she's available.
But although the feature itself has been going well, I'm still expecting something to go dreadfully wrong, despite only being a week left until submission.
Exit Diana
After getting back from Amy's I watched last night's X Factor semi final which wasn't spectacular but at least the end result came out how I wanted it too.
The performances included Eoghan (or Eggnog as Media Guardian refer to him) performing a pretty good take of Busted's "Year 3000" which for some reason I happen to know word for word and later on in the show he sang the ABBA tune "Does You're Mother Know" which wasn't as good but as Simon Cowell pointed out it was better than what Louis would have probably do if he was Eoghan's mentor,
i.e putting him into a blazer and making him sing "Puppy Love".
Diana for once managed to put a bit of life into her performance, well her first one anyway which was Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend".
It's difficult for me not to associate the song with Westminster Radio alumni Ali O'Boyle as during our first SO4S she used to dance around RP1 singing that particular tune to amusing results.
Back to Diana and the second tune she performed was the slightly less inspiring "White Flag" by Dido and it was one of the performances that I had to fast forward through.
Alexandra's first song was Rhianna's "Don't Stop The Music" which wasn't bad although I've seen a lot better from her, and her other song was a pretty good version of "Unbreak My Heart" which according to Simon is one of "the toughest songs to sing".
I've heard it being done before however by other people including a rather stunning woman called Haifa who took part in the first series of Pop Idol, and I'm certain appeared in an early series of the X Factor although she didn't get very far in neither of them which was a pity.
Finally were JLS who weren't too inspiring but I'm glad they've made it too the final.
Their first song was "Umbrella" by Rhianna which is impossible not to think of Geraldine's version on Peter Kay's send up a couple of months ago which went along the lines of "Freeeeeee, Nelson Mandela-ela-ela-ay-ay-ay!". The boys second song was a rather tedious ballad originally done by Lonestar and covered by Westlife but I'm hoping that their song choices for the final will be on top form.
It wouldn't be surprising if one of them was a Boyz II Men song.
Once again the results were decided entirely by the viewers phone votes and it was Diana who was eliminated which resulted in just about everyone, especially Eoghan breaking down despite the fact that they're getting into the final.
However it's a really good set of contestants although when it comes to the final two
I reckon it will be a tight battle between Alexandra and JLS.
If Alexandra wins however I hope they don't make her a carbon copy of Leona as she has definitely got more balls than Leona will ever have.
That is if they continue to give her the sort of rubbish that seems to be dominant in her material.
I still haven't watched last night's Comedy Awards although it's impossible to avoid the news of Russell Brand's triumph as best stand up. I haven't actually seen his stand up act in full although I know it got into a bit of trouble in Northampton after he made a prank phone call to the police live on stage.
After Robbie Vincent's show this morning I may head over to the radio rooms to get a few DVD-Rs burned and to see if anyone's getting on with editing their features.
By the end of next week it will be impossible for anyone not to be in the editing rooms.
The performances included Eoghan (or Eggnog as Media Guardian refer to him) performing a pretty good take of Busted's "Year 3000" which for some reason I happen to know word for word and later on in the show he sang the ABBA tune "Does You're Mother Know" which wasn't as good but as Simon Cowell pointed out it was better than what Louis would have probably do if he was Eoghan's mentor,
i.e putting him into a blazer and making him sing "Puppy Love".
Diana for once managed to put a bit of life into her performance, well her first one anyway which was Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend".
It's difficult for me not to associate the song with Westminster Radio alumni Ali O'Boyle as during our first SO4S she used to dance around RP1 singing that particular tune to amusing results.
Back to Diana and the second tune she performed was the slightly less inspiring "White Flag" by Dido and it was one of the performances that I had to fast forward through.
Alexandra's first song was Rhianna's "Don't Stop The Music" which wasn't bad although I've seen a lot better from her, and her other song was a pretty good version of "Unbreak My Heart" which according to Simon is one of "the toughest songs to sing".
I've heard it being done before however by other people including a rather stunning woman called Haifa who took part in the first series of Pop Idol, and I'm certain appeared in an early series of the X Factor although she didn't get very far in neither of them which was a pity.
Finally were JLS who weren't too inspiring but I'm glad they've made it too the final.
Their first song was "Umbrella" by Rhianna which is impossible not to think of Geraldine's version on Peter Kay's send up a couple of months ago which went along the lines of "Freeeeeee, Nelson Mandela-ela-ela-ay-ay-ay!". The boys second song was a rather tedious ballad originally done by Lonestar and covered by Westlife but I'm hoping that their song choices for the final will be on top form.
It wouldn't be surprising if one of them was a Boyz II Men song.
Once again the results were decided entirely by the viewers phone votes and it was Diana who was eliminated which resulted in just about everyone, especially Eoghan breaking down despite the fact that they're getting into the final.
However it's a really good set of contestants although when it comes to the final two
I reckon it will be a tight battle between Alexandra and JLS.
If Alexandra wins however I hope they don't make her a carbon copy of Leona as she has definitely got more balls than Leona will ever have.
That is if they continue to give her the sort of rubbish that seems to be dominant in her material.
I still haven't watched last night's Comedy Awards although it's impossible to avoid the news of Russell Brand's triumph as best stand up. I haven't actually seen his stand up act in full although I know it got into a bit of trouble in Northampton after he made a prank phone call to the police live on stage.
After Robbie Vincent's show this morning I may head over to the radio rooms to get a few DVD-Rs burned and to see if anyone's getting on with editing their features.
By the end of next week it will be impossible for anyone not to be in the editing rooms.
Fishing For Compliments?
I left the flat at around 6:15pm where I only found out that Stewart wouldn't be joining myself and Steven 15 minutes later after ringing him up. The reason being that Stewart wanted to save money on his tube fare in order to produce his radio feature but I headed over to Central anyway.
I made it over to Broadcasting House and in good timing as well as I'd only just recieved a couple of text messages from Steven and had just topped up my mobile so I got in the building very swiftly.
The show itself of Radio 4's "I've Never Seen Star Wars" was really good if a bit strung out, with Arthur Smith as the guest. Steven admitted afterwards that he didn't really know who he was which lead to explain to him although he's made appearances on Buzzcocks, Room 101 and several other comedy shows.
Arthur was on good form as you'd expect with some of the choices of things he'd never tried including watching an episode of Top Gear, playing the piano, trying pop tarts and having a go a pottery.
The last of which included an expert showing him how to do the activity in question accompanied rather fittingly by The Righteous Brothers version of "Unchained Melody" paying homage to "Ghost".
This reminded me of one of the "Chums" sketches on SMTV Live where Dec did exactly the same thing whilst being "seduced" by Rachel Stevens which really was exciting, in that way of course.
The funniest part for me was when they talked about Mills and Boone novels which Arthur had never read and I'd imagine a lot of others were in the same boat. It was amusing however, to hear the amount of euthemisms in the books to the point where you could find one by choosing a paragraph at random, which they did with the help of the audience.
Overall it was not too bad a show and it will be interesting to see how they edit it all into just 28 or so minutes.
On the tube back to Northwick Park I spoke to Steven about quite a few things including his relationship with Caroline which is almost a year old. You couldn't see it coming really because Caroline was rather quiet in the first year and by halfway through the second year she really managed to show herself a lot more and become a very familiar face.
Although in all fairness I spoke to her a lot on Facebook around August last year and even mentioned her a lot in my notes, mainly because I liked the photos she had posted of her silly situations. I never got to see her again until November when I came back for an informal visit to see how everyone was getting on.
After returning to the flat and getting the booze I went to Amy's, where most of her housemates were present, as well as Stewart, Spikey G, first years Matt, Rob, Jade and Nicola, and Phil Harris who was getting a lot of audio for his feature which is about "how to plan the perfect party".
A few of Amy's mates from home were also there who had a bit of a boogie in the front room, not to mention screaming out songs by the Cranberries much to Eric's annoyance.
Later on saw the arrival of Dean, Phil Landers, Sophie and even Sam the photographer in time for the revealing of Amy's birthday cake.
Despite drinking all of my Breezers I barely felt drunk at all and felt left out of most of the converstations taking place.
Especially with all of those radio related with certain people saying how good they thought each others shows were which made me feel uncomfortable as I barely get any acknowledgment from people nowadays about my own show.
It doesn't have to be positive as a lot of the tunes played are "of their time" but it would be nice to know that people are listening even just for 5-10 minutes.
And it can't be that dull, especially as I tend to mess it up quite a lot on air with my links.
It's more or less like an ideal place for escapism on the station, save for Johnny's Decompression chill out show that goes out on Tuesdays.
The problem (or advantage) may be that the show is the main reason for still wanting to be at University and it's difficult to find other things to talk about that don't involve repeating lewd jokes from television.
However on the plus side Alice has allowed me to move the final show to a Thursday evening as I want to spend the Wednesday in Central, celebrating with the rest of the year at The Fire and Stone which sounds like one of the best pizza restaurants in London as I've been told they have a massive oven for the pizzas themselves.
I'm hoping it won't get too over indulgent as such things can happen when you've been with a set of people for a long time and some have bonded together better than others. And I fall into the latter for obvious reasons.
I made it over to Broadcasting House and in good timing as well as I'd only just recieved a couple of text messages from Steven and had just topped up my mobile so I got in the building very swiftly.
The show itself of Radio 4's "I've Never Seen Star Wars" was really good if a bit strung out, with Arthur Smith as the guest. Steven admitted afterwards that he didn't really know who he was which lead to explain to him although he's made appearances on Buzzcocks, Room 101 and several other comedy shows.
Arthur was on good form as you'd expect with some of the choices of things he'd never tried including watching an episode of Top Gear, playing the piano, trying pop tarts and having a go a pottery.
The last of which included an expert showing him how to do the activity in question accompanied rather fittingly by The Righteous Brothers version of "Unchained Melody" paying homage to "Ghost".
This reminded me of one of the "Chums" sketches on SMTV Live where Dec did exactly the same thing whilst being "seduced" by Rachel Stevens which really was exciting, in that way of course.
The funniest part for me was when they talked about Mills and Boone novels which Arthur had never read and I'd imagine a lot of others were in the same boat. It was amusing however, to hear the amount of euthemisms in the books to the point where you could find one by choosing a paragraph at random, which they did with the help of the audience.
Overall it was not too bad a show and it will be interesting to see how they edit it all into just 28 or so minutes.
On the tube back to Northwick Park I spoke to Steven about quite a few things including his relationship with Caroline which is almost a year old. You couldn't see it coming really because Caroline was rather quiet in the first year and by halfway through the second year she really managed to show herself a lot more and become a very familiar face.
Although in all fairness I spoke to her a lot on Facebook around August last year and even mentioned her a lot in my notes, mainly because I liked the photos she had posted of her silly situations. I never got to see her again until November when I came back for an informal visit to see how everyone was getting on.
After returning to the flat and getting the booze I went to Amy's, where most of her housemates were present, as well as Stewart, Spikey G, first years Matt, Rob, Jade and Nicola, and Phil Harris who was getting a lot of audio for his feature which is about "how to plan the perfect party".
A few of Amy's mates from home were also there who had a bit of a boogie in the front room, not to mention screaming out songs by the Cranberries much to Eric's annoyance.
Later on saw the arrival of Dean, Phil Landers, Sophie and even Sam the photographer in time for the revealing of Amy's birthday cake.
Despite drinking all of my Breezers I barely felt drunk at all and felt left out of most of the converstations taking place.
Especially with all of those radio related with certain people saying how good they thought each others shows were which made me feel uncomfortable as I barely get any acknowledgment from people nowadays about my own show.
It doesn't have to be positive as a lot of the tunes played are "of their time" but it would be nice to know that people are listening even just for 5-10 minutes.
And it can't be that dull, especially as I tend to mess it up quite a lot on air with my links.
It's more or less like an ideal place for escapism on the station, save for Johnny's Decompression chill out show that goes out on Tuesdays.
The problem (or advantage) may be that the show is the main reason for still wanting to be at University and it's difficult to find other things to talk about that don't involve repeating lewd jokes from television.
However on the plus side Alice has allowed me to move the final show to a Thursday evening as I want to spend the Wednesday in Central, celebrating with the rest of the year at The Fire and Stone which sounds like one of the best pizza restaurants in London as I've been told they have a massive oven for the pizzas themselves.
I'm hoping it won't get too over indulgent as such things can happen when you've been with a set of people for a long time and some have bonded together better than others. And I fall into the latter for obvious reasons.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
"I Feel The Sky Tumbling Down"
PY was once again on good form this afternoon on Jazz FM. In fact he's still on air now but I normally turn off when the Soul Cellar comes on as it's not really the sort of soul music I'm into despite it being very popular with other listeners.
One of the tunes I liked that was played in the first hour was a new soulful house track called "Reach Out" by an act called "Roasted Soul" and it really adds to the amount of good stuff I'm discovering right now.
Also on offer was the Carole King tribute as advertised where there were two covers of "It's Too Late", the first of which being an instrumental by Johnny Hammond and the second by Brazilian stunner Sabrina Malheiros who it seems has grasped a bit of the English language since her 2005 debut album.
My favourite version of that song however, still has to be the one by Quartz and Dina Carroll from 1991 and it could be said that the tune started off Dina's career in becoming the best female soul vocalist of the 90s. Well, apart from Lisa Stansfield.
In fact it could be said that both performers in terms of the above were the exact opposite of how Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse in the present day.
Back to Carole King and there were also two versions of "I Feel The Earth Move" with one of them being a latin jazz version by vocalist Michelle Hendricks who I don't know too much about and an instrumental guitar version by Ivan "Boogaloo" Jones.
Both versions and the original of course, are a lot better than Martika's dreadful cover of the song in 1989.
I never realised that Carole actually co-wrote the song "Up On The Roof" which became associated with the Drifters who's version of the song was also played.
I still prefer Carole King's version as she gives her own original arrangement which is done brilliantly.
I'm hoping to get my cooking done this hour and meet up with Stewart just after 6pm at Northwick Park station to go into Central. I don't know where we're meant to be meeting Steven but I'm sure one of us will ring him pretty soon.
One of the tunes I liked that was played in the first hour was a new soulful house track called "Reach Out" by an act called "Roasted Soul" and it really adds to the amount of good stuff I'm discovering right now.
Also on offer was the Carole King tribute as advertised where there were two covers of "It's Too Late", the first of which being an instrumental by Johnny Hammond and the second by Brazilian stunner Sabrina Malheiros who it seems has grasped a bit of the English language since her 2005 debut album.
My favourite version of that song however, still has to be the one by Quartz and Dina Carroll from 1991 and it could be said that the tune started off Dina's career in becoming the best female soul vocalist of the 90s. Well, apart from Lisa Stansfield.
In fact it could be said that both performers in terms of the above were the exact opposite of how Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse in the present day.
Back to Carole King and there were also two versions of "I Feel The Earth Move" with one of them being a latin jazz version by vocalist Michelle Hendricks who I don't know too much about and an instrumental guitar version by Ivan "Boogaloo" Jones.
Both versions and the original of course, are a lot better than Martika's dreadful cover of the song in 1989.
I never realised that Carole actually co-wrote the song "Up On The Roof" which became associated with the Drifters who's version of the song was also played.
I still prefer Carole King's version as she gives her own original arrangement which is done brilliantly.
I'm hoping to get my cooking done this hour and meet up with Stewart just after 6pm at Northwick Park station to go into Central. I don't know where we're meant to be meeting Steven but I'm sure one of us will ring him pretty soon.
"One Love, One Station"
I hope the 2006-2007 team who ran Smoke Radio receive a writ from the BBC issuing legal action for practically stealing their slogan from Radio 1.
Anyway, asides the title of the post I've had a listen to Nicky's compilation of the last 10 years of Music 4 at Radio 1 and it's quite an interesting listen although it does bring back a few uncomfortable memories of listening to Radio 1 against my will.
Some of those included are the cuts done for Mark Goodier on the UK Top 40 making very clever use of the brass riff from "The Sign Of The Swinging Cymbal" which "Fluff" Freeman used to use on Pick of The Pops and his rock shows. Mark at the time used a rather inferior version by the Propellerheads to count down the hits at the time which replaced a short lived remix by Fatboy Slim which I thought was a lot better.
Other examples include some rather dodgy power intros (jingle accapellas mixed into song intros) from 1999 with ones such as "Red Alert" by Basement Jaxx, "Ooh La La" by the Wiseguys and "Turn Around" by Phats and Small which has to be the worst as the Radio 1 acapella is sung in the completely wrong key.
There's also the cuts done for both Zoe Ball, and Sarah Cox when they both presented the breakfast show respectively and several examples done for Chris Moyles over the years included the song he used to finish the roadshows with on his "One Big Belly" tour in 2000 and jingles for some of the special features he's done on the breakfast show such as "The Red Nose Rally" and the "Say No To Wogan" campaign.
On the day I moved into University for the first time, we were driving behind a lorry around putney that had "No to Wogan" scrawled in the dust although if you look at how successful the campaign actually was, Terry still reigns as the most listened to breakfast show in the UK.
One of my favourite jingles that Moyles had done happened to be left off the CD but I've uploaded it here, which was a cut done the morning after England were beaten
in Euro 2004 by Portugal, which is a mixture of being either very sad or really funny and summed up how everyone felt about Urs Meir's decision to not allow that goal
on the night.
However there was also a rather amusing jingle done in around 2006 which used one of the backing tracks from Vibe's Capital FM network package in 2000 which went
"Capital Radio used to be Number 1 in London, But it's not any more, 'Cause we are".
As well as that it also includes one of the early jingles that Sandy and the team did for Moyles back in 1997 which were a series of pisstakes of old JAM Radio 1 jingles.
In the example uploaded the originals are heard first, followed by Moyles' versions.
Musically I think the send-ups are punchier than the originals and the vocals are amusing, but if you take into account the whole idea and the fact they knew they were intentionally ripping off the old JAM cuts, Jon Wolfert the president of JAM very much had a right to be upset and threaten legal action.
Especially after the way the BBC disposed of JAM jingles from the airwaves after a very creative 20 year relationship.
Overall though, the compilation is one that contains a great part of Radio 1's heritage despite not really being examples of jingles that I'd say inspired me to get into radio.
However quite a lot of them are great examples of how radio IDs and comedy can be blended together.
Anyway, asides the title of the post I've had a listen to Nicky's compilation of the last 10 years of Music 4 at Radio 1 and it's quite an interesting listen although it does bring back a few uncomfortable memories of listening to Radio 1 against my will.
Some of those included are the cuts done for Mark Goodier on the UK Top 40 making very clever use of the brass riff from "The Sign Of The Swinging Cymbal" which "Fluff" Freeman used to use on Pick of The Pops and his rock shows. Mark at the time used a rather inferior version by the Propellerheads to count down the hits at the time which replaced a short lived remix by Fatboy Slim which I thought was a lot better.
Other examples include some rather dodgy power intros (jingle accapellas mixed into song intros) from 1999 with ones such as "Red Alert" by Basement Jaxx, "Ooh La La" by the Wiseguys and "Turn Around" by Phats and Small which has to be the worst as the Radio 1 acapella is sung in the completely wrong key.
There's also the cuts done for both Zoe Ball, and Sarah Cox when they both presented the breakfast show respectively and several examples done for Chris Moyles over the years included the song he used to finish the roadshows with on his "One Big Belly" tour in 2000 and jingles for some of the special features he's done on the breakfast show such as "The Red Nose Rally" and the "Say No To Wogan" campaign.
On the day I moved into University for the first time, we were driving behind a lorry around putney that had "No to Wogan" scrawled in the dust although if you look at how successful the campaign actually was, Terry still reigns as the most listened to breakfast show in the UK.
One of my favourite jingles that Moyles had done happened to be left off the CD but I've uploaded it here, which was a cut done the morning after England were beaten
in Euro 2004 by Portugal, which is a mixture of being either very sad or really funny and summed up how everyone felt about Urs Meir's decision to not allow that goal
on the night.
However there was also a rather amusing jingle done in around 2006 which used one of the backing tracks from Vibe's Capital FM network package in 2000 which went
"Capital Radio used to be Number 1 in London, But it's not any more, 'Cause we are".
As well as that it also includes one of the early jingles that Sandy and the team did for Moyles back in 1997 which were a series of pisstakes of old JAM Radio 1 jingles.
In the example uploaded the originals are heard first, followed by Moyles' versions.
Musically I think the send-ups are punchier than the originals and the vocals are amusing, but if you take into account the whole idea and the fact they knew they were intentionally ripping off the old JAM cuts, Jon Wolfert the president of JAM very much had a right to be upset and threaten legal action.
Especially after the way the BBC disposed of JAM jingles from the airwaves after a very creative 20 year relationship.
Overall though, the compilation is one that contains a great part of Radio 1's heritage despite not really being examples of jingles that I'd say inspired me to get into radio.
However quite a lot of them are great examples of how radio IDs and comedy can be blended together.
Always Exhaustive
I made it back over to halls almost exactly 24 hours after leaving, to find that there was a half empty bottle of Fanta that I forgot to finish yesterday before leaving. Luckily it was still pretty fizzy and was much needed refreshment after not really having anything at all to drink in Canterbury last night.
I then headed over to Sainsbury's to get the usual set of wares and some stronger stuff for tonight in the form mango flavoured Breezers for Amy's birthday party tonight, only this time I hope I don't end up accidentally smashing one of the bottles like last time.
As I'm out tonight I'll need to make sure I succesfully record tonight's X Factor semi final and the 2008 Comedy Awards although it's going to be a struggle tomorrow morning trying to avoid finding out the results before watching.
Hopefully they'll throw Diana out who barely has any personality, although if you think about it, none of the X Factor winners in the past have had much of a great personality when they're not singing.
And we all thought Dannii Minogue was wooden.
I then headed over to Sainsbury's to get the usual set of wares and some stronger stuff for tonight in the form mango flavoured Breezers for Amy's birthday party tonight, only this time I hope I don't end up accidentally smashing one of the bottles like last time.
As I'm out tonight I'll need to make sure I succesfully record tonight's X Factor semi final and the 2008 Comedy Awards although it's going to be a struggle tomorrow morning trying to avoid finding out the results before watching.
Hopefully they'll throw Diana out who barely has any personality, although if you think about it, none of the X Factor winners in the past have had much of a great personality when they're not singing.
And we all thought Dannii Minogue was wooden.
"Good Morning, Barack Obama!"
I'm almost ready to leave and just need to make sure I take a few things back to London with me.
These included my stereo speakers for my laptop and my DVD copy of "That Peter Kay Thing" which I meant to take back with me last time.
It's good that I came back to Canterbury last night as in the mail this morning was an envelope containing pens, a calendar and a Christmas card from fellow jingle collector and BBC journalist Nicky Schiller. There were also two CDs with one of them containing another jingle mix and the other being a special CD he put together called "10 Years Of Music 4 at BBC Radio 1".
Once again it's proof that time has shot by and with the CD over an hour long it should be a very interesting account of the jingles (or should that be "audio imaging") produced for Radio 1 over the last decade dating back to when the company were called "Vibe Music And Audio Imaging".
From a personal perception, when they were introduced back in October 1998 it was around the time when I really started to go off the station and you could tell they were rather tounge in cheek as they had used the heritage Radio 1 melody logo used on and off since the JAM jingles but with the last note changed to be the same as the third i.e. "Ra-di-o-one".
It's also fair to say that the relationship hasn't really been that consistent in terms of providing a continuous overall station sound as nowadays the station relies mainly on sweepers that aren't too spectacular. And for the one of the biggest radio stations in the world you'd really think they'd make more effort.
Music 4's work however can currently be heard on Newsbeat, certain parts of Greg James's show and of course the Chris Moyles Show where I think the jingles and
"brand new cheesy songs" produced by the team are very integral to
the programme in terms of standing out from other breakfast shows on the radio.
And they stick in the listeners mind as well as the Newsbeat jingle definitely proved at the Student Radio Awards earlier in the year.
It's also fair to say that Nicky himself is actually a very good friend of one of the big boys at Music 4 so I'd imagine that this really will be worth the listen when I get round to doing so, judging by the amount of material he has.
Now however would be a good time to sort out everything and pack everything up to get the train from Canterbury as soon as I can.
These included my stereo speakers for my laptop and my DVD copy of "That Peter Kay Thing" which I meant to take back with me last time.
It's good that I came back to Canterbury last night as in the mail this morning was an envelope containing pens, a calendar and a Christmas card from fellow jingle collector and BBC journalist Nicky Schiller. There were also two CDs with one of them containing another jingle mix and the other being a special CD he put together called "10 Years Of Music 4 at BBC Radio 1".
Once again it's proof that time has shot by and with the CD over an hour long it should be a very interesting account of the jingles (or should that be "audio imaging") produced for Radio 1 over the last decade dating back to when the company were called "Vibe Music And Audio Imaging".
From a personal perception, when they were introduced back in October 1998 it was around the time when I really started to go off the station and you could tell they were rather tounge in cheek as they had used the heritage Radio 1 melody logo used on and off since the JAM jingles but with the last note changed to be the same as the third i.e. "Ra-di-o-one".
It's also fair to say that the relationship hasn't really been that consistent in terms of providing a continuous overall station sound as nowadays the station relies mainly on sweepers that aren't too spectacular. And for the one of the biggest radio stations in the world you'd really think they'd make more effort.
Music 4's work however can currently be heard on Newsbeat, certain parts of Greg James's show and of course the Chris Moyles Show where I think the jingles and
"brand new cheesy songs" produced by the team are very integral to
the programme in terms of standing out from other breakfast shows on the radio.
And they stick in the listeners mind as well as the Newsbeat jingle definitely proved at the Student Radio Awards earlier in the year.
It's also fair to say that Nicky himself is actually a very good friend of one of the big boys at Music 4 so I'd imagine that this really will be worth the listen when I get round to doing so, judging by the amount of material he has.
Now however would be a good time to sort out everything and pack everything up to get the train from Canterbury as soon as I can.
The Fame Gutter
With all the goings on in the jungle done and dusted with, I thought it would be a good excuse to re-view a vintage episode of Buzzcocks where David Van Day was one of the guests back in October 2001.
Earlier on in the year he appeared alongside other has been celebrities such as Geoffrey from Rainbow, in a series of adverts for Virgin Money showing the consequences of celebrities who didn't invest their money at the height of their fame, which in his case resulted in him working on a burger van in Brighton and that was more or less the subject of very many jokes throughout the show.
Ricky Tomlinson was also a guest that week and even he decided to jump on the bandwagon with one of his responses to the questions being
"I haven't got a clue. I only come here to make the bloody sausages!"
Other amusing lines in that show included examples such as these:
ML (to David): "Have you had electric shock treatment?"
DVD: "I burnt myself on a cooker once"
ML: "Deniece Williams used to come in for criticism when she allowed her songs to be covered by middle of the road performer Johnny Mathis. Nothing compared to the stick she'll get by having them sung by middle of the carpark burger salesman David Van Day"
I actually plan to play a bit of Neicy on the soul show next week although I can guarantee that it won't be "Let's Hear It For The Boy" or "Free".
Anyway, another amusing exchange went like this after Phill's team guessed the right answer in the ID Parade round:
DVD: "I would have got that"
ML: "OK which one was it?" (audience laughs)
DVD: "You're trying to be clever now aren't you" (massive laughter)
Although the funniest bit was in the next lines round where team captain Sean Hughes just used every question to make fun of David:
ML: "I Believe in Miracles"
SH: "Hence David's on the show!"
ML: "No it was 'where you from you sexy thing' by Hot Chocolate. 'You don't have to say you love me just be close at hand"
SH: "Salt and vinegar?"
That last line had to be my favourite of the show although there were more to come where one of the lyrics was from Jilted John which went "I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop".
David however got it confused with the Kirsty Maccoll song that he thought was called "There's a boy down the chip shop who thinks he's Elvis Presley".
Definitely an example of a much loved female vocalist who got taken away much too soon even though I'm probably fed up with hearing "Fairy Tale of New York" being played to death every Christmas.
Although in all fairness it's really a Pogues song and like Kirsty they've also got a lot more to their bow than most people realise.
After watching the show on it's original transmission my parents thought that they gave David a bit too much stick which may have been rather cruel, but if you ever saw the Trouble at The Top documentary on Bucks Fizz shown shortly after, or Dollar's desperate appearance on "Reborn In The USA", you'd probably have an idea of what an idiot he really is.
I don't think TV people will exactly be rushing to sign up him and Twatty Mallett to host a prime time entertainment show.
Earlier on in the year he appeared alongside other has been celebrities such as Geoffrey from Rainbow, in a series of adverts for Virgin Money showing the consequences of celebrities who didn't invest their money at the height of their fame, which in his case resulted in him working on a burger van in Brighton and that was more or less the subject of very many jokes throughout the show.
Ricky Tomlinson was also a guest that week and even he decided to jump on the bandwagon with one of his responses to the questions being
"I haven't got a clue. I only come here to make the bloody sausages!"
Other amusing lines in that show included examples such as these:
ML (to David): "Have you had electric shock treatment?"
DVD: "I burnt myself on a cooker once"
ML: "Deniece Williams used to come in for criticism when she allowed her songs to be covered by middle of the road performer Johnny Mathis. Nothing compared to the stick she'll get by having them sung by middle of the carpark burger salesman David Van Day"
I actually plan to play a bit of Neicy on the soul show next week although I can guarantee that it won't be "Let's Hear It For The Boy" or "Free".
Anyway, another amusing exchange went like this after Phill's team guessed the right answer in the ID Parade round:
DVD: "I would have got that"
ML: "OK which one was it?" (audience laughs)
DVD: "You're trying to be clever now aren't you" (massive laughter)
Although the funniest bit was in the next lines round where team captain Sean Hughes just used every question to make fun of David:
ML: "I Believe in Miracles"
SH: "Hence David's on the show!"
ML: "No it was 'where you from you sexy thing' by Hot Chocolate. 'You don't have to say you love me just be close at hand"
SH: "Salt and vinegar?"
That last line had to be my favourite of the show although there were more to come where one of the lyrics was from Jilted John which went "I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop".
David however got it confused with the Kirsty Maccoll song that he thought was called "There's a boy down the chip shop who thinks he's Elvis Presley".
Definitely an example of a much loved female vocalist who got taken away much too soon even though I'm probably fed up with hearing "Fairy Tale of New York" being played to death every Christmas.
Although in all fairness it's really a Pogues song and like Kirsty they've also got a lot more to their bow than most people realise.
After watching the show on it's original transmission my parents thought that they gave David a bit too much stick which may have been rather cruel, but if you ever saw the Trouble at The Top documentary on Bucks Fizz shown shortly after, or Dollar's desperate appearance on "Reborn In The USA", you'd probably have an idea of what an idiot he really is.
I don't think TV people will exactly be rushing to sign up him and Twatty Mallett to host a prime time entertainment show.
Friday, December 05, 2008
From Bow Bells To Bugs
I'm still in Canterbury, I've forgotten to go for a blood test, and Leona plans to work with The Script on her 2009 album.
But apart from that, things are still looking good with my interview with Concha going succesfully where I actually got involved in a few yoga exercises and it's still difficult to breathe in for over 7 seconds.
With all that sorted, I went back and watched tonight's final of "Celebrity" where all three remaining contestants took part in a Bushtucker Trial.
Joe was the victim of the underground pit with rats and eels, George was involved in the Bushtucker Bonanza eating cockroaches and kangaroo penises, whilst Martina spent 5 minutes in a helmet full of bugs, stick insects and snakes.
The final result as expected saw Joe becoming the 6th King of The Jungle with a courageous Martina coming second and George Takay in third place.
Immediately after, I watched the ITV2 show "Get Me Out Of Here Now!" and considering I haven't seen it at all this series, Emma Griffiths isn't exactly one of the best presenters and Mark Durden Smith is still the TV equivalent of your embarassing uncle at a wedding disco.
It still provided the usual irreverance expected of a sister show, and contained amusing interviews with the three finalists and at least one rendition of the "Olly Olly Olly" song.
And that's more or less it for the series, save for the Coming Out special this Sunday which having followed the series more reguarly this year will be entertaining.
There's been a lot of talk on Facebook about the third year radio outing, the day after we hand in our features where we've decided to spend the day in Central London where we probably will go on a few rides in Leicester Square and have a good knees up. I suggested that we also go ice skating although quite a lot of the others are rather weary of breaking body parts.
Part of the plan involves spending the night at the Fire and Stone which is a pizza restaurant near Covent Garden although I may head back early to do my seasonal
soul show as it's the last time I'll get to do such a thing whilst I'm at Uni.
As for tomorrow I hope to be leaving Canterbury at 10 or 11am and may spend the rest of the day in a relaxed manner until around 6pm when I'm meeting up with Stewart to go and see Marcus Brigstocke record his radio comedy show in Central.
I musn't forget to buy some booze either, for Amy's birthday party later on.
The next week or so is going to be a case of editing during the day and partying at night (provided that it's away from my flat) and I really wouldn't want to have it any other way.
But apart from that, things are still looking good with my interview with Concha going succesfully where I actually got involved in a few yoga exercises and it's still difficult to breathe in for over 7 seconds.
With all that sorted, I went back and watched tonight's final of "Celebrity" where all three remaining contestants took part in a Bushtucker Trial.
Joe was the victim of the underground pit with rats and eels, George was involved in the Bushtucker Bonanza eating cockroaches and kangaroo penises, whilst Martina spent 5 minutes in a helmet full of bugs, stick insects and snakes.
The final result as expected saw Joe becoming the 6th King of The Jungle with a courageous Martina coming second and George Takay in third place.
Immediately after, I watched the ITV2 show "Get Me Out Of Here Now!" and considering I haven't seen it at all this series, Emma Griffiths isn't exactly one of the best presenters and Mark Durden Smith is still the TV equivalent of your embarassing uncle at a wedding disco.
It still provided the usual irreverance expected of a sister show, and contained amusing interviews with the three finalists and at least one rendition of the "Olly Olly Olly" song.
And that's more or less it for the series, save for the Coming Out special this Sunday which having followed the series more reguarly this year will be entertaining.
There's been a lot of talk on Facebook about the third year radio outing, the day after we hand in our features where we've decided to spend the day in Central London where we probably will go on a few rides in Leicester Square and have a good knees up. I suggested that we also go ice skating although quite a lot of the others are rather weary of breaking body parts.
Part of the plan involves spending the night at the Fire and Stone which is a pizza restaurant near Covent Garden although I may head back early to do my seasonal
soul show as it's the last time I'll get to do such a thing whilst I'm at Uni.
As for tomorrow I hope to be leaving Canterbury at 10 or 11am and may spend the rest of the day in a relaxed manner until around 6pm when I'm meeting up with Stewart to go and see Marcus Brigstocke record his radio comedy show in Central.
I musn't forget to buy some booze either, for Amy's birthday party later on.
The next week or so is going to be a case of editing during the day and partying at night (provided that it's away from my flat) and I really wouldn't want to have it any other way.
Uncomfortable Temperatures
I am up in my bedroom just about to go and get my interview done and it is absolutely fucking freezing.
I've only just noticed this because I spent the last two hours in bed after feeling rather tired on the train, only to be caught off guard by the many passenger announcements at innapropriate times.
I also read today's Metro where there was an interview with last year's over emotional
king of the jungle Christopher Biggins, who gave his thoughts on who his least favourite contestants are following on from his experiences with Janice Dickinson last year.
Unsurprisingly he's hoping for Joe Swash to come out on tops tonight and I bet he was pleased that DVD (as he's known on many internet forums) was voted out last night.
But the funniest part of the interview was when he mentioned fellow contestant, chef John Burton Race, who apparently was even worse than Janice and it was revealed that after he was booted out of the jungle his ex wife had sold off his business.
Biggins also revealed that he didn't have any problems working with Kerry Katona on the Iceland sponsor idents, and that he turned down an opportunity to appear on Dale Winton's "Hole In The Wall".
Tonight looks set to be a good finale however although I'm hoping there will be a few twists along the way, just to make it that extra bit more interesting.
I guess that on Saturday it will probably be straight back to London due to the fact that our washing machine is buggered, although I'll ask Concha if it's OK to borrow hers.
The only problem is that tomorrow morning she's going off to Oxford to pick Tony up at the end of his first semester.
As long as I have the interview done and dusted, I'll be happy.
I've only just noticed this because I spent the last two hours in bed after feeling rather tired on the train, only to be caught off guard by the many passenger announcements at innapropriate times.
I also read today's Metro where there was an interview with last year's over emotional
king of the jungle Christopher Biggins, who gave his thoughts on who his least favourite contestants are following on from his experiences with Janice Dickinson last year.
Unsurprisingly he's hoping for Joe Swash to come out on tops tonight and I bet he was pleased that DVD (as he's known on many internet forums) was voted out last night.
But the funniest part of the interview was when he mentioned fellow contestant, chef John Burton Race, who apparently was even worse than Janice and it was revealed that after he was booted out of the jungle his ex wife had sold off his business.
Biggins also revealed that he didn't have any problems working with Kerry Katona on the Iceland sponsor idents, and that he turned down an opportunity to appear on Dale Winton's "Hole In The Wall".
Tonight looks set to be a good finale however although I'm hoping there will be a few twists along the way, just to make it that extra bit more interesting.
I guess that on Saturday it will probably be straight back to London due to the fact that our washing machine is buggered, although I'll ask Concha if it's OK to borrow hers.
The only problem is that tomorrow morning she's going off to Oxford to pick Tony up at the end of his first semester.
As long as I have the interview done and dusted, I'll be happy.
Not Quite As Tense
I'm heading back over to Canterbury in an hour as I've done just about all I can with my feature to this point where there's about 8 minutes of content that's been edited so far.
Unusually in RP1 it's rather quiet as one of the groups in the second year are doing another dummy news bulletin and there aren't any MAJI students getting in the way.
Charles Carroll is present as always, where earlier on he was drinking from a BBC Radio 3 mug from around the mid 90s as it had the BBC logo with the slanted boxes.
He was definitely convinced that the mug was from later than 1997 despite the fact that in early October of that year the BBC had a mass re-brand and the biggest of it's kind, launching it's new logo across all of its platforms that it still has today.
I may still have my Radio 1 mug from around that same era as Charles's which I brought at a Roadshow in Margate back in 1995.
The other group consisting of all males apart from Potty have been doing more work for their magazine programme which is now based around the format of a children's magazine show for BBC 7, similar to what Chris, Sirin and Steven did last year.
Lottie's one of the presenters and the fact that I've compared her to Phillipa Forrester many times, should make her feel a bit better about taking on the role which I'm certain will be successful at.
The superb and ever popular Dave Sharp was showing them all how to use the infamous
Scoop Reporter although he did explain that you get even better marks for professional handling the technical failiures of Outside Broadcasts which are very likely to happen considering that the equipment is so unreliable.
The interview with Concha should go well tonight and I'm having a meal with her at her house as well which should be just as enjoyable.
I'm hoping to get my clothes washed pretty quickly however as I hope to be back in London by tomorrow afternoon as on PY's show this Saturday on Jazz FM, there's a tribute to Carole King. Not a soul performer as such but there's definitely influences of it in her material and it will be interesting to here some very good interpretations and takes on her various material by other artists.
Provided the Brand New Heavies cover of "You've Got A Friend" isn't included as for me that was when it began to go all downhill for the band.
Unusually in RP1 it's rather quiet as one of the groups in the second year are doing another dummy news bulletin and there aren't any MAJI students getting in the way.
Charles Carroll is present as always, where earlier on he was drinking from a BBC Radio 3 mug from around the mid 90s as it had the BBC logo with the slanted boxes.
He was definitely convinced that the mug was from later than 1997 despite the fact that in early October of that year the BBC had a mass re-brand and the biggest of it's kind, launching it's new logo across all of its platforms that it still has today.
I may still have my Radio 1 mug from around that same era as Charles's which I brought at a Roadshow in Margate back in 1995.
The other group consisting of all males apart from Potty have been doing more work for their magazine programme which is now based around the format of a children's magazine show for BBC 7, similar to what Chris, Sirin and Steven did last year.
Lottie's one of the presenters and the fact that I've compared her to Phillipa Forrester many times, should make her feel a bit better about taking on the role which I'm certain will be successful at.
The superb and ever popular Dave Sharp was showing them all how to use the infamous
Scoop Reporter although he did explain that you get even better marks for professional handling the technical failiures of Outside Broadcasts which are very likely to happen considering that the equipment is so unreliable.
The interview with Concha should go well tonight and I'm having a meal with her at her house as well which should be just as enjoyable.
I'm hoping to get my clothes washed pretty quickly however as I hope to be back in London by tomorrow afternoon as on PY's show this Saturday on Jazz FM, there's a tribute to Carole King. Not a soul performer as such but there's definitely influences of it in her material and it will be interesting to here some very good interpretations and takes on her various material by other artists.
Provided the Brand New Heavies cover of "You've Got A Friend" isn't included as for me that was when it began to go all downhill for the band.
Douze Points?
So Wogan has confirmed that he's quitting the role as the UK commentator on the Eurovision Song Contest after 35 years handing over the reigns to Graham Norton.
I fully agree with Terry's decisions to stand down as it really is more like a circus than a music contest and a lot of European countries have far better music to offer than the tripe they give us at the contest each year. Although we're not very good ourselves in all honesty if you look at how succesfull acts like James Fox and Andy Abraham have been.
They still take it very seriously as well, as I remember Terry Wogan mentioning on
Jonathan Ross's comedy quiz "It's Only TV But I Like It" about how he was banned from visiting Copenhagen after making jokes about the presenters of the 2001 contest who did the show in rhyming couplets.
El Tel had given them the nicknames "Doctor Death and The Tooth Fairy" which resulted in an e-mail being sent to them which went along the lines of (to be read in a "danish" accent) "So! You English think you are the best in the world! Well you know nothing you cocksukker!".
To which Terry responded "I'm Irish!".
I'm hoping that the other reason that Terry has decided to step down is that Andrew Lloyd Nobber is involved in writing the 2009 UK entry although Graham has obviously worked with him before on those dreadful shows searching for new performers of West End Musicals which thankfully they're laying down to rest next year.
Whilst at the holiday house at Christmas last year, we were all watching a special which brought together the stars of "Joseph" and "Maria" and my elder cousin Richard joked that the next series would be searching for stars to take part in a stage play of the South Park Musical and I suggested the title should be
"Shut Your "F***ing Face Unkle F**a".
That really would set the Saturday night schedule alight.
However it's not the last we'll be seeing of Terry on our TV screens as he's doing another series of "Perfect Recall" on Channel 4 after Christmas and it looks like he'll be doing three times as many shows as the last series, as mentioned on an interview on The Paul O'Grady Show a few weeks ago.
And I still think he's better on television than on radio.
I fully agree with Terry's decisions to stand down as it really is more like a circus than a music contest and a lot of European countries have far better music to offer than the tripe they give us at the contest each year. Although we're not very good ourselves in all honesty if you look at how succesfull acts like James Fox and Andy Abraham have been.
They still take it very seriously as well, as I remember Terry Wogan mentioning on
Jonathan Ross's comedy quiz "It's Only TV But I Like It" about how he was banned from visiting Copenhagen after making jokes about the presenters of the 2001 contest who did the show in rhyming couplets.
El Tel had given them the nicknames "Doctor Death and The Tooth Fairy" which resulted in an e-mail being sent to them which went along the lines of (to be read in a "danish" accent) "So! You English think you are the best in the world! Well you know nothing you cocksukker!".
To which Terry responded "I'm Irish!".
I'm hoping that the other reason that Terry has decided to step down is that Andrew Lloyd Nobber is involved in writing the 2009 UK entry although Graham has obviously worked with him before on those dreadful shows searching for new performers of West End Musicals which thankfully they're laying down to rest next year.
Whilst at the holiday house at Christmas last year, we were all watching a special which brought together the stars of "Joseph" and "Maria" and my elder cousin Richard joked that the next series would be searching for stars to take part in a stage play of the South Park Musical and I suggested the title should be
"Shut Your "F***ing Face Unkle F**a".
That really would set the Saturday night schedule alight.
However it's not the last we'll be seeing of Terry on our TV screens as he's doing another series of "Perfect Recall" on Channel 4 after Christmas and it looks like he'll be doing three times as many shows as the last series, as mentioned on an interview on The Paul O'Grady Show a few weeks ago.
And I still think he's better on television than on radio.
From Jiva To The Jungle
I know it's an overused saying but in what is a potentially stressfull time, music really is important and the recent purchases I've made really have been helpful.
I didn't get into bed until just before 1am as I spent the remainder of the night listening to the Carmen Lundy album "Come Home" that I brought in Soul Brother and it didn't sound like the CD had been damaged at all so it was a lucky discount.
The album's not too bad either, not her best one ever but there's some stand out tracks with my favourites being the album opener "Lost In San Rafael", and "Afrasia" which includes some children singing at the beginning which is impressive.
If you compare that and a few of her other albums released in the last decade or so, and compare them to her first album "Good Morning Kiss" from 1985 you can tell that her voice has become more soulful and more deeper over time, compared to her rather jazzy sounding voice from back in the day.
It's nowhere near as manly as Amy Winehouse however and her backing band and players have more or less stayed the same whilst she's worked with other musicians as well.
Although I've still got a few other albums to listen to, the Jiva album is still my favourite with my favourite track being "Shine" and I've been playing that quite a lot in the last few days including on my soul show.
Most of the song titles aren't exactly original but that's not the point as the actual tunes are stunning and tick all the right boxes musically. Although one of the tracks I played on Wednesday was called "This Love" and rather predictably my link after that went along the lines of "and this album really hasn't taken it's toll as I'll be playing two more tracks next week" .
At least it's not as bad as Tony Blackburn who has to link every song title to the next although you'd expect him to do that anyway.
Basically if you liked the Sunburst Band's most recent album "Moving With The Shakers" or any of Incognito's stuff then Jiva's "Day Into Night" is heavilly reccomended.
They're also albums that are much needed around this time of year when things get a bit too stressfull.
I'm up in the SADiE rooms editing the Caporeira interview I did a couple of weeks ago and there's a lot of actuality that I want to include as well from the class itself. I would have burnt a copy of the CD that they were using but they through us out of the main hall before I even had a chance so that makes things a bit more tricky for me.
Luckily as I'm going back to Canterbury tonight, I may see if Dad still has his Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan CD from 20 years ago as that's probably the closest I may get to finding any appropriate music for this part of the feature.
I'm hoping to get my interview with Concha done before 8:30pm in order to see the grand final of the 2008 series of "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" where I'm hoping the Bushtucker Bonanaza will make a return, where one of the celebrities takes part in a banquet and given the choice of luxury dishes such as spaghetti bolognaise or sausage and mash, or otherwise to go with kangroo penises or a koala's anus which usually results in great viewing.
Previous victims include Jennie Bond, last year's winner Christopher Biggins and probably worst of all Paul Burrell who struggled to devour a pair of (or at least one of) kangaroo testicles.
It should be an enjoyable finale to a very good series and possibly the first one in four years that I've been paying attention to.
I didn't get into bed until just before 1am as I spent the remainder of the night listening to the Carmen Lundy album "Come Home" that I brought in Soul Brother and it didn't sound like the CD had been damaged at all so it was a lucky discount.
The album's not too bad either, not her best one ever but there's some stand out tracks with my favourites being the album opener "Lost In San Rafael", and "Afrasia" which includes some children singing at the beginning which is impressive.
If you compare that and a few of her other albums released in the last decade or so, and compare them to her first album "Good Morning Kiss" from 1985 you can tell that her voice has become more soulful and more deeper over time, compared to her rather jazzy sounding voice from back in the day.
It's nowhere near as manly as Amy Winehouse however and her backing band and players have more or less stayed the same whilst she's worked with other musicians as well.
Although I've still got a few other albums to listen to, the Jiva album is still my favourite with my favourite track being "Shine" and I've been playing that quite a lot in the last few days including on my soul show.
Most of the song titles aren't exactly original but that's not the point as the actual tunes are stunning and tick all the right boxes musically. Although one of the tracks I played on Wednesday was called "This Love" and rather predictably my link after that went along the lines of "and this album really hasn't taken it's toll as I'll be playing two more tracks next week" .
At least it's not as bad as Tony Blackburn who has to link every song title to the next although you'd expect him to do that anyway.
Basically if you liked the Sunburst Band's most recent album "Moving With The Shakers" or any of Incognito's stuff then Jiva's "Day Into Night" is heavilly reccomended.
They're also albums that are much needed around this time of year when things get a bit too stressfull.
I'm up in the SADiE rooms editing the Caporeira interview I did a couple of weeks ago and there's a lot of actuality that I want to include as well from the class itself. I would have burnt a copy of the CD that they were using but they through us out of the main hall before I even had a chance so that makes things a bit more tricky for me.
Luckily as I'm going back to Canterbury tonight, I may see if Dad still has his Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan CD from 20 years ago as that's probably the closest I may get to finding any appropriate music for this part of the feature.
I'm hoping to get my interview with Concha done before 8:30pm in order to see the grand final of the 2008 series of "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" where I'm hoping the Bushtucker Bonanaza will make a return, where one of the celebrities takes part in a banquet and given the choice of luxury dishes such as spaghetti bolognaise or sausage and mash, or otherwise to go with kangroo penises or a koala's anus which usually results in great viewing.
Previous victims include Jennie Bond, last year's winner Christopher Biggins and probably worst of all Paul Burrell who struggled to devour a pair of (or at least one of) kangaroo testicles.
It should be an enjoyable finale to a very good series and possibly the first one in four years that I've been paying attention to.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Bif Baf Bugger Off
Tonight's edition of the One Show had Jeremy Clarkson as the guest although unfortunately he had a rather bad throat which is not a sight you'd really expect to see.
It didn't stop the team from showing a few embarrassing moments from his career such as on last years Comic Relief where the team from Top Gear were involved in "Top Gear Of The Pops" where Jeremy was the drummer for a band and ended up dropping his sticks while in action, in a similar manner to Level 42's Gary Husband at the first gig I went to see with them performing, back in 2006.
They also showed his cameo (and rather embarassing hairstyle) in the video for
Mr Blobby's single which would be a good excuse to show Jeremy's gunging on series 3 of Noel's House Party back in 1993.
The highlight has to be the cheer just as the result is revealed at about 2 seconds in which probably shows that Clarkson had people who hated him with a passion even back then.
I hope his sore throat doesn't last too long as he's lined up to once again present Have I Got News For You in a couple of weeks finishing the current series. And I imagine regular viewers of Top Gear won't want to be disapointed this coming Sunday.
As for the One Show itself, it looks as if they're trying to break into the Christmas singles market with their own song of which the video is premiered tomorrow but I can safely say that it's very doubtful I'll be buying the record despite watching on an almost regular basis.
Also on offer tonight was the penultimate edition of "Celebrity" although I only watched two thirds of it switching over to Buzzcocks in between. The first part consisted of tonight's trial where as expected, all four contestants took part in the return of the wet and windy "Celebrity Cyclone". I also managed to see them playing "Chocolate Roulette" which is an idea that's been done before on television but nowhere near as funny as on tonight's show.
And despite the genuine reaction, I know that George Takay's fart was dubbed as I've heard that sound effect several times before.
As the title suggests (inspired by/stolen from last week's 8 Out Of 10 Cats) David Van Day was the last of the celebrities to leave before tomorrow's final, I'm guessing with the hope of actually releasing his song as a Christmas single.
That leaves, Joe, George and Martina in tomorrow's final and I reckon it will be Joe winning with George coming second, although I won't complain if Martina just beats George. Whatever happens Joe Swash has been more of a character than the other two so he's more or less bagged first position.
Tonight's Buzzcocks was enjoyable where Dermot O'Leary and Arlene Phillips did have a few digs at each others shows although I thought Simon Amstell's jokes towards Arlene where slightly funnier when asking her "who she thought would win" and then saying that his money was on JLS.
Simon also made a few jokes about Kate Thornton and how Dermot got her role presenting the X Factor, and although the jokes weren't great, it reminds me of Simon's first ever show as a guest presenter in 2006 when he fluffed a line and said something along the lines of "it could be worse, I could be Kate Thornton" and proceeding to
read out the joke on his autocue in her wooden presenting style;
"When Tina's ex husband, Returns, After The Break!"
Ironically, Kate is now hosting the live tours of Strictly Come Dancing and I reckon one of my biggest missed opportunities is to go to a live stage show version of a popular television talent show which considering this year especially, really would make sense.
Although after typing that last paragraph I've actually booked tickets and tickets that can be printed out at that, to go and see one of the live Strictly Come Dancing performances at Wembley Arena and for the second time see Kate Thornton live, having seen both her and Dermot at the Clothes Show live at Birmingham's NIA in 2000.
More importantly the judges will be there, and amongst the celebrity dancers will be Series 2 winner and absolute stunner Jill Halfpenny, and from the current series will be Cherie Lunghi and Rachel Stevens. And I never thought I'd ever be going to see her peform live 10 years ago.
Back to tonight and it was the first in the new series of Star Stories getting off to a strong and I mean strong start with Elton John.
I personally thought that there were too many fucks uttered in the programme but then again I reckon the real Elton John really would talk in a not too dissimilar manner to Kevin Bishop's potrayal.
Ironically the first advert shown during the break halfway through the programme was the one with the dog voiced by David Mitchell promoting against the use of cocaine.
There were some interesting choices of music in the episode including Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" and on a more tasteful level "Everybody Dance" by Chic, which around 2000, many people criticised Steps for half inching the tune for their own hit "Stomp" which I'd definitely say is one of their better hits.
On a similar note there's rumours of a rather desperate Mamma Mia singalong taking place tomorrow in the halls common room where I hardly go into at all unless I'm paying in my first semester's rent at the beginning of the year or if I start to feel really ill at the most innapropriate times. That fateful day in September 2007 being one example.
I'm guessing it's the likes of Liam and Lucy and the other halls residential assistants who have sorted this out, as they're into this sort of stuff that my nightmares are made of as well as High School Musical and the like.
I should be into it as well but when it comes to cheese, I like jazzy chord structures like you would get in elevators and on records like the Rippingtons circa 1986-1992 and Jiva in the present day like I mentioned a few days ago.
I can't really pinpoint things in writing so I may have to invite any willing readers along to give an idea.
Although it was this sort of craziness that resulted in me being mentally ill in the first place and after recovering it made me realise that everything in reality was bollocks and lost a lot of musical faith or so to say.
Let's hope that doesn't happen again or at least not until I've left University.
It didn't stop the team from showing a few embarrassing moments from his career such as on last years Comic Relief where the team from Top Gear were involved in "Top Gear Of The Pops" where Jeremy was the drummer for a band and ended up dropping his sticks while in action, in a similar manner to Level 42's Gary Husband at the first gig I went to see with them performing, back in 2006.
They also showed his cameo (and rather embarassing hairstyle) in the video for
Mr Blobby's single which would be a good excuse to show Jeremy's gunging on series 3 of Noel's House Party back in 1993.
The highlight has to be the cheer just as the result is revealed at about 2 seconds in which probably shows that Clarkson had people who hated him with a passion even back then.
I hope his sore throat doesn't last too long as he's lined up to once again present Have I Got News For You in a couple of weeks finishing the current series. And I imagine regular viewers of Top Gear won't want to be disapointed this coming Sunday.
As for the One Show itself, it looks as if they're trying to break into the Christmas singles market with their own song of which the video is premiered tomorrow but I can safely say that it's very doubtful I'll be buying the record despite watching on an almost regular basis.
Also on offer tonight was the penultimate edition of "Celebrity" although I only watched two thirds of it switching over to Buzzcocks in between. The first part consisted of tonight's trial where as expected, all four contestants took part in the return of the wet and windy "Celebrity Cyclone". I also managed to see them playing "Chocolate Roulette" which is an idea that's been done before on television but nowhere near as funny as on tonight's show.
And despite the genuine reaction, I know that George Takay's fart was dubbed as I've heard that sound effect several times before.
As the title suggests (inspired by/stolen from last week's 8 Out Of 10 Cats) David Van Day was the last of the celebrities to leave before tomorrow's final, I'm guessing with the hope of actually releasing his song as a Christmas single.
That leaves, Joe, George and Martina in tomorrow's final and I reckon it will be Joe winning with George coming second, although I won't complain if Martina just beats George. Whatever happens Joe Swash has been more of a character than the other two so he's more or less bagged first position.
Tonight's Buzzcocks was enjoyable where Dermot O'Leary and Arlene Phillips did have a few digs at each others shows although I thought Simon Amstell's jokes towards Arlene where slightly funnier when asking her "who she thought would win" and then saying that his money was on JLS.
Simon also made a few jokes about Kate Thornton and how Dermot got her role presenting the X Factor, and although the jokes weren't great, it reminds me of Simon's first ever show as a guest presenter in 2006 when he fluffed a line and said something along the lines of "it could be worse, I could be Kate Thornton" and proceeding to
read out the joke on his autocue in her wooden presenting style;
"When Tina's ex husband, Returns, After The Break!"
Ironically, Kate is now hosting the live tours of Strictly Come Dancing and I reckon one of my biggest missed opportunities is to go to a live stage show version of a popular television talent show which considering this year especially, really would make sense.
Although after typing that last paragraph I've actually booked tickets and tickets that can be printed out at that, to go and see one of the live Strictly Come Dancing performances at Wembley Arena and for the second time see Kate Thornton live, having seen both her and Dermot at the Clothes Show live at Birmingham's NIA in 2000.
More importantly the judges will be there, and amongst the celebrity dancers will be Series 2 winner and absolute stunner Jill Halfpenny, and from the current series will be Cherie Lunghi and Rachel Stevens. And I never thought I'd ever be going to see her peform live 10 years ago.
Back to tonight and it was the first in the new series of Star Stories getting off to a strong and I mean strong start with Elton John.
I personally thought that there were too many fucks uttered in the programme but then again I reckon the real Elton John really would talk in a not too dissimilar manner to Kevin Bishop's potrayal.
Ironically the first advert shown during the break halfway through the programme was the one with the dog voiced by David Mitchell promoting against the use of cocaine.
There were some interesting choices of music in the episode including Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" and on a more tasteful level "Everybody Dance" by Chic, which around 2000, many people criticised Steps for half inching the tune for their own hit "Stomp" which I'd definitely say is one of their better hits.
On a similar note there's rumours of a rather desperate Mamma Mia singalong taking place tomorrow in the halls common room where I hardly go into at all unless I'm paying in my first semester's rent at the beginning of the year or if I start to feel really ill at the most innapropriate times. That fateful day in September 2007 being one example.
I'm guessing it's the likes of Liam and Lucy and the other halls residential assistants who have sorted this out, as they're into this sort of stuff that my nightmares are made of as well as High School Musical and the like.
I should be into it as well but when it comes to cheese, I like jazzy chord structures like you would get in elevators and on records like the Rippingtons circa 1986-1992 and Jiva in the present day like I mentioned a few days ago.
I can't really pinpoint things in writing so I may have to invite any willing readers along to give an idea.
Although it was this sort of craziness that resulted in me being mentally ill in the first place and after recovering it made me realise that everything in reality was bollocks and lost a lot of musical faith or so to say.
Let's hope that doesn't happen again or at least not until I've left University.
"Don't Make Me Redundant"
With quite a bit of time to kill, I've finished watching the second half of episodes from Series 2 of the Office which I reckon is funnier than the first three episodes.
The final episode is one of the best as despite being made redundant, David feels confident about progressing onwards until the people who hired him as
a "celebrity" motivational speaker make a visit to tell him that his services are no longer required, resulting in him being very rude and childish to them.
This of course leads to David unsucessfully begging not to be made redundant although what happens as a result in the end leads to even funnier consequences in the first of the Christmas specials.
It's also worth noting that Olivia Colman AKA Sophie from Peep Show makes an early appearance as a journalist from a trade newspaper interviewing David, whom David tries to take the "auteur" on writing the article by putting words into her mouth unsuccesfully.
Olivia's not the only person from that sitcom to have appeared in The Office beforehand, as the man who David hires in the first ever scene (and fires in the final episode of the first series) was played by Neil Fitzmaurice who plays Mark's rival Jeff in Peep Show, as well as appearing as DJ Ray Von in Phoenix Nights.
It turns out that David Mitchell happens to be hosting Have I Got News For You tomorrow night which should be interesting although I think he's a lot better suited as a panellist as whatever show he appears on, he is guaranteed to provide some of the funniest lines, the most recent example being his dig at Len Goodman on 8 Out Of 10 Cats a few weeks ago.
As for tonight it's quite a good set of guests on Buzzcocks including the return of Dappy from N-Dubz who was one of the more memorable contestants in the last series with his large amount of woolies, although to a lesser extent they have the most annoying talent show judge on television, that being Arlene Phillips from Strictly Come Dancing who I know is just going to be an embarrassment, especially when Simon Amstell gets involved with his annoying sarcasm.
Hopefully there should be a war of words between her and guest captain Dermot O'Leary about who's show is better or along those lines.
The final episode is one of the best as despite being made redundant, David feels confident about progressing onwards until the people who hired him as
a "celebrity" motivational speaker make a visit to tell him that his services are no longer required, resulting in him being very rude and childish to them.
This of course leads to David unsucessfully begging not to be made redundant although what happens as a result in the end leads to even funnier consequences in the first of the Christmas specials.
It's also worth noting that Olivia Colman AKA Sophie from Peep Show makes an early appearance as a journalist from a trade newspaper interviewing David, whom David tries to take the "auteur" on writing the article by putting words into her mouth unsuccesfully.
Olivia's not the only person from that sitcom to have appeared in The Office beforehand, as the man who David hires in the first ever scene (and fires in the final episode of the first series) was played by Neil Fitzmaurice who plays Mark's rival Jeff in Peep Show, as well as appearing as DJ Ray Von in Phoenix Nights.
It turns out that David Mitchell happens to be hosting Have I Got News For You tomorrow night which should be interesting although I think he's a lot better suited as a panellist as whatever show he appears on, he is guaranteed to provide some of the funniest lines, the most recent example being his dig at Len Goodman on 8 Out Of 10 Cats a few weeks ago.
As for tonight it's quite a good set of guests on Buzzcocks including the return of Dappy from N-Dubz who was one of the more memorable contestants in the last series with his large amount of woolies, although to a lesser extent they have the most annoying talent show judge on television, that being Arlene Phillips from Strictly Come Dancing who I know is just going to be an embarrassment, especially when Simon Amstell gets involved with his annoying sarcasm.
Hopefully there should be a war of words between her and guest captain Dermot O'Leary about who's show is better or along those lines.
"I'm Gonna Learn How To Fly"
One of our very own Westminster students, who I haven't seen for quite a while has made it onto the BBC 6 Music website along with several other Belle and Sebastian fans.
That being Kim who really opened me up to more of their stuff despite the band being a familiar name to me for many years. Or even longer as it was also the name of a rather dodgy japanese animation that used to be on CBBC around 1989/1990.
I'm pretty certain that she converted Ross T into liking them as well, especially as like quite a lot of musicians, he hadn't even heard of them!
This reminds me of when the two of them and Josie used to present a punk music show that went out on Monday nights in the early days of Smoke Radio and was the ideal warm up to many a Pound a Pint night.
Unfortunately Kim ended up leaving halfway through the semester due to illness, although she continued making suggestions for the "Old Punk" feature of the show but by halfway through the second year, the then head of programming, Ricky took Ross T off the show all together as it became more and more evident that he knew nothing about the genre and was just using the programme as an excuse for messing about which even Josie was starting to get annoyed with to an extent.
It more or less makes me feel better that as well as Rick Astley, and Kylie Minogue, I was also brought up on stuff such as Dusty, and Petula Clarke as a result of Mum being a Radio 2 listener at the time, and my Dad having several 7 inches of punk records such as X Ray Spex and The Ruts. Not to mention Mike Read's band "The Trainspotters" and the ever infamous "High Rise".
Although those discovering those sort tunes now regardless of their age must be in some sort of awe.
I also remember Westminster alumni Chris Belson who did the CMP course and presented a show with Pippa ST that normally went out before The Punk Show, was also a big fan of B&S and once missed a show because he went to one of their record signings.
These were really good first year memories but that's not to say that interesting and sometimes embarrassing incidents continue to happen whilst I'm still here.
Whenever I arrive back at the flat earlier than normal it's not impossible that I'll have
Paul O'Grady switched on where one of his guests tonight was Justin Lee Collins who has recently filmed another of his "Bring Back" series this time searching for the cast of the movie of Fame.
However this lead to rather moving consequences as it turned out that
Gene Anthony Ray, the actor who played Leroy Johnson is no longer with us and it was difficult for the cast members who he had tracked down to talk about him without breaking down.
However it's noticeable that Alan Parker isn't the most PC of people as whenever he's cast a token black male character into one of his films, they have to be called Leroy, with another example being the shy boxer in Bugsy Malone who the lead character helps to show his true self.
About 10 years ago I acted (if that's the right word) in a play of that musical at secondary school where we bent a few of the rules such as the addition of mobile phones and having a woman playing the role of Fat Sam who was actually very good at it.
However they weren't the only changes made as the script we were working from had some rather dodgy slurs, especially considering that Bugsy had an Italian mother and an Irish father so we dropped any references to County Cork or Irish insults and the use of the word "wop".
Digressing slightly, I can remember Peter Stewart giving a very rare for radio airing of
Matt Bianco's "Wap Bam Boogie" on his Essex FM Carwash show and pronouncing the first word of the title in that suggestive manner.
I'm hoping that wasn't incinuating anything although I do know that at BBC Radio Kent he almost got his vowels muddled up when having to say,
"This is BBC Radio for Kent and Sussex".
That being Kim who really opened me up to more of their stuff despite the band being a familiar name to me for many years. Or even longer as it was also the name of a rather dodgy japanese animation that used to be on CBBC around 1989/1990.
I'm pretty certain that she converted Ross T into liking them as well, especially as like quite a lot of musicians, he hadn't even heard of them!
This reminds me of when the two of them and Josie used to present a punk music show that went out on Monday nights in the early days of Smoke Radio and was the ideal warm up to many a Pound a Pint night.
Unfortunately Kim ended up leaving halfway through the semester due to illness, although she continued making suggestions for the "Old Punk" feature of the show but by halfway through the second year, the then head of programming, Ricky took Ross T off the show all together as it became more and more evident that he knew nothing about the genre and was just using the programme as an excuse for messing about which even Josie was starting to get annoyed with to an extent.
It more or less makes me feel better that as well as Rick Astley, and Kylie Minogue, I was also brought up on stuff such as Dusty, and Petula Clarke as a result of Mum being a Radio 2 listener at the time, and my Dad having several 7 inches of punk records such as X Ray Spex and The Ruts. Not to mention Mike Read's band "The Trainspotters" and the ever infamous "High Rise".
Although those discovering those sort tunes now regardless of their age must be in some sort of awe.
I also remember Westminster alumni Chris Belson who did the CMP course and presented a show with Pippa ST that normally went out before The Punk Show, was also a big fan of B&S and once missed a show because he went to one of their record signings.
These were really good first year memories but that's not to say that interesting and sometimes embarrassing incidents continue to happen whilst I'm still here.
Whenever I arrive back at the flat earlier than normal it's not impossible that I'll have
Paul O'Grady switched on where one of his guests tonight was Justin Lee Collins who has recently filmed another of his "Bring Back" series this time searching for the cast of the movie of Fame.
However this lead to rather moving consequences as it turned out that
Gene Anthony Ray, the actor who played Leroy Johnson is no longer with us and it was difficult for the cast members who he had tracked down to talk about him without breaking down.
However it's noticeable that Alan Parker isn't the most PC of people as whenever he's cast a token black male character into one of his films, they have to be called Leroy, with another example being the shy boxer in Bugsy Malone who the lead character helps to show his true self.
About 10 years ago I acted (if that's the right word) in a play of that musical at secondary school where we bent a few of the rules such as the addition of mobile phones and having a woman playing the role of Fat Sam who was actually very good at it.
However they weren't the only changes made as the script we were working from had some rather dodgy slurs, especially considering that Bugsy had an Italian mother and an Irish father so we dropped any references to County Cork or Irish insults and the use of the word "wop".
Digressing slightly, I can remember Peter Stewart giving a very rare for radio airing of
Matt Bianco's "Wap Bam Boogie" on his Essex FM Carwash show and pronouncing the first word of the title in that suggestive manner.
I'm hoping that wasn't incinuating anything although I do know that at BBC Radio Kent he almost got his vowels muddled up when having to say,
"This is BBC Radio for Kent and Sussex".
December Deadlines
More people in the third year radio class are committing theselves to computers for editing their features with things getting more and more tighter as deadline nears.
Most of us reckon that we won't exactly impress Matthew with our rough cuts next week but I really hope we get constructive feedback as it's impossible to produce anything the equivalent of those so called "masterpieces" that were played to us a few weeks ago.
It seems to be going strength to strength for Smoke in terms of our Xmas events with most of the shows adapting a slightly festive angle including quite a lot of fitting songs played during the Request Show with Manish who flew solo this week due to Matt being unwell.
Amy's been showing Manish the ropes on the web editing software as he looks set to help look after the website after Amy goes to Canada in January, and he's also made some posters for the Area night next week so he's definitely a valueable assett to the team.
The line up itself consists of Decio who I haven't seen DJ for ages, as well as Fiz, and Synamatix although it seems that a lot of non-radio I've spoken to are looking forward more to the Undercroft Happy Mondaze relaunch where Fiz will also be DJing alongside the likes of Chris and Phil, and yours truly spinning the soul.
I'm now back at the flat and don't plan to continue with editing until tomorrow morning as I feel a lot more motivated then and there are fewer people to distract me in the rooms allowing me to get the work done quicker.
I'd definitely say that's one of the advantages of living nearer to campus.
As an aside, I've found it very difficult to get Frank Skinner's Osama Bin Laden song out of my head for a long time so here he is performing it nearer his hometown at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena, and getting an even bigger reception as well.
It's difficult to think that he only learnt to play the banjo two years ago as part of BBC 1's "Play It Again" which showed celebrities as such learning how to play musical instruments that they'd never played before and apart from Frank, most of them felt really reluctant.
I'll definitely play that on my show sometime this year as it's just a very funny live music performance overall.
Most of us reckon that we won't exactly impress Matthew with our rough cuts next week but I really hope we get constructive feedback as it's impossible to produce anything the equivalent of those so called "masterpieces" that were played to us a few weeks ago.
It seems to be going strength to strength for Smoke in terms of our Xmas events with most of the shows adapting a slightly festive angle including quite a lot of fitting songs played during the Request Show with Manish who flew solo this week due to Matt being unwell.
Amy's been showing Manish the ropes on the web editing software as he looks set to help look after the website after Amy goes to Canada in January, and he's also made some posters for the Area night next week so he's definitely a valueable assett to the team.
The line up itself consists of Decio who I haven't seen DJ for ages, as well as Fiz, and Synamatix although it seems that a lot of non-radio I've spoken to are looking forward more to the Undercroft Happy Mondaze relaunch where Fiz will also be DJing alongside the likes of Chris and Phil, and yours truly spinning the soul.
I'm now back at the flat and don't plan to continue with editing until tomorrow morning as I feel a lot more motivated then and there are fewer people to distract me in the rooms allowing me to get the work done quicker.
I'd definitely say that's one of the advantages of living nearer to campus.
As an aside, I've found it very difficult to get Frank Skinner's Osama Bin Laden song out of my head for a long time so here he is performing it nearer his hometown at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena, and getting an even bigger reception as well.
It's difficult to think that he only learnt to play the banjo two years ago as part of BBC 1's "Play It Again" which showed celebrities as such learning how to play musical instruments that they'd never played before and apart from Frank, most of them felt really reluctant.
I'll definitely play that on my show sometime this year as it's just a very funny live music performance overall.
The Congestion Ensues
I arrived in the radio rooms just before 9am and made a start on editing my interview with Maz that I did on Tuesday. I've managed to edit something together but I still think that it needs something extra rather than just an edited interview and am trying to come up with what sort of audio would sound good, accompanying a woman who talks about making her own greetings cards?
I've also got the audio I recorded of the caporeira class but at this stage I really don't feel up for editing it down and would prefer to work on it tomorrow morning as at least I'll have something to be getting on with then, before going back to Canterbury later on in the day.
As I was working on editing my feature, Charles Carroll decided to move the second years who are doing the newsreading part of the radio course into RP1 which is already rammed with MAJI students and it looks as if all hell will break loose when it comes to getting access to studios and what have you.
Even worse is that by next week, the SADiE room will be absoulutely rammed with fellow third years trying to edit their audio for the features. This will mean plenty of early starts until the 16th of December to make sure that I get to use the studios first, if needed.
Quite a few people aren't too well including Matt from the first year, Sophie, and Jake who has gone back home to Sussex as he really isn't feeling good at all which I'm gutted about.
Who's going to poke fun of the other group in the second year when they do run-through's for their news bulletins now?
On a more serious note, this may mean that he will have to file for mitigating circumstances, but I reckon that instead of having to spend an extra year at Uni like I have, they may make him do the News and Magazine module at the same time as the third year Advanced Project.
Of course it's his decision in the end and I really do hope he recovers, and the fact it's happened so soon after his 20th birthday must make things even more difficult.
With the Christmas holidays, and deadlines nearing, quite a few people on the station next week will be doing their last shows of the semester due to the non-media courses only having 10 week semesters. Others have given up all together until the New Year as it seems the demands are too much for them, especially when it involves preparing a show that consists of more than just playing records.
As for my feature and getting more interviews, I'm available to record stuff at practically any time apart from between 8 and 9pm on Wednesdays when I do my show, and between 10am and 1pm on Sundays as the best soul broadcaster bar none (apart from PY possibly) Robbie Vincent does his Jazz FM show which should be back to normal this week after last week's Marvin Gaye special which I decided to give a miss.
That seems more or less fair enough.
I've also got the audio I recorded of the caporeira class but at this stage I really don't feel up for editing it down and would prefer to work on it tomorrow morning as at least I'll have something to be getting on with then, before going back to Canterbury later on in the day.
As I was working on editing my feature, Charles Carroll decided to move the second years who are doing the newsreading part of the radio course into RP1 which is already rammed with MAJI students and it looks as if all hell will break loose when it comes to getting access to studios and what have you.
Even worse is that by next week, the SADiE room will be absoulutely rammed with fellow third years trying to edit their audio for the features. This will mean plenty of early starts until the 16th of December to make sure that I get to use the studios first, if needed.
Quite a few people aren't too well including Matt from the first year, Sophie, and Jake who has gone back home to Sussex as he really isn't feeling good at all which I'm gutted about.
Who's going to poke fun of the other group in the second year when they do run-through's for their news bulletins now?
On a more serious note, this may mean that he will have to file for mitigating circumstances, but I reckon that instead of having to spend an extra year at Uni like I have, they may make him do the News and Magazine module at the same time as the third year Advanced Project.
Of course it's his decision in the end and I really do hope he recovers, and the fact it's happened so soon after his 20th birthday must make things even more difficult.
With the Christmas holidays, and deadlines nearing, quite a few people on the station next week will be doing their last shows of the semester due to the non-media courses only having 10 week semesters. Others have given up all together until the New Year as it seems the demands are too much for them, especially when it involves preparing a show that consists of more than just playing records.
As for my feature and getting more interviews, I'm available to record stuff at practically any time apart from between 8 and 9pm on Wednesdays when I do my show, and between 10am and 1pm on Sundays as the best soul broadcaster bar none (apart from PY possibly) Robbie Vincent does his Jazz FM show which should be back to normal this week after last week's Marvin Gaye special which I decided to give a miss.
That seems more or less fair enough.
SADiE Stresses
There's one or two things that I didn't mention in my post last night amongst all the events that took place. One of them took place during my soul show where I broke one of my own rules by using the infamous catchphrase "Good Mornin'" after saying that Rasmus Faber was reknowed for "touching other people's stuff".
Getting to sleep last night was really tough with too many unstoppable thoughts going round and round possibly to the point that I feel rather queasy this morning.
Due to the balls up with the Russell Howard tickets, the aim for tonight is to make sure I have a really good laugh which means rather than watching it on iPlayer later on, I will watch tonight's edition of Buzzcocks as it goes out on BBC 2 with Dermot O'Leary as this week's guest captain.
Of course it will mean missing part of tonight's "Celebrity", although as it's the second to last programme in the series, tonight's trial may involve all four remaining contestants in some sort of physical challenge along the lines of "Hell Hill" from series 3 and 4 and the "Celebrity Cyclone" from the last couple of series. I probably wouldn't want to see those for obvious reasons.
Later on tonight it's also the first in the latest and long awaited third series of
Star Stories with tonight's "victim" being Elton John. I'm also pretty certain that Pete Doherty features later on in the series so that probably will mean Amy Winehouse will make an appearance in one way or other.
It definitely reminds me of when she mentioned him on her second more infamous appearance on Buzzcocks and said that after the show he was going to do a duet with him responding in Simon Amstell uttering "he wants to sell you drugs!", with Amy later going on to ask "Do I look like Russell Brand?" with the answer being an obvious "Yes!".
I thought I was going to be all motivated this morning for going in and making a start on editing my interviews on SADiE but now I'm not too sure and due to all the minor setbacks that are taking place I'm feeling lesser enthusiastic.
When I actually get in to Uni I may feel a lot better and hope to have some sort of very rough cut by the end of today.
Getting to sleep last night was really tough with too many unstoppable thoughts going round and round possibly to the point that I feel rather queasy this morning.
Due to the balls up with the Russell Howard tickets, the aim for tonight is to make sure I have a really good laugh which means rather than watching it on iPlayer later on, I will watch tonight's edition of Buzzcocks as it goes out on BBC 2 with Dermot O'Leary as this week's guest captain.
Of course it will mean missing part of tonight's "Celebrity", although as it's the second to last programme in the series, tonight's trial may involve all four remaining contestants in some sort of physical challenge along the lines of "Hell Hill" from series 3 and 4 and the "Celebrity Cyclone" from the last couple of series. I probably wouldn't want to see those for obvious reasons.
Later on tonight it's also the first in the latest and long awaited third series of
Star Stories with tonight's "victim" being Elton John. I'm also pretty certain that Pete Doherty features later on in the series so that probably will mean Amy Winehouse will make an appearance in one way or other.
It definitely reminds me of when she mentioned him on her second more infamous appearance on Buzzcocks and said that after the show he was going to do a duet with him responding in Simon Amstell uttering "he wants to sell you drugs!", with Amy later going on to ask "Do I look like Russell Brand?" with the answer being an obvious "Yes!".
I thought I was going to be all motivated this morning for going in and making a start on editing my interviews on SADiE but now I'm not too sure and due to all the minor setbacks that are taking place I'm feeling lesser enthusiastic.
When I actually get in to Uni I may feel a lot better and hope to have some sort of very rough cut by the end of today.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Drink=Disasters
If there's ever a long gap between blog posts, it can only mean that I've been having too much of a good time. Which in the long term means that a rather bad time is ahead but I'll go onto why later.
I headed down to Marylebone this afternoon for the second of the Smoke Radio photoshoots which took place in P3 at the Marylebone campus, the room of which looked like a giant TV studio with metal staircases, similar to that of Top of The Pops in the late 80s or Going Live!/Live And Kicking throughout the 90s, and the addition of a neon sign helped to add to the buzz or so to say.
The plan for the photos was to take three seperate images which would be merged into one photo so there would be three of me in the photo. It may not make sense when writing it down but when Sam Taylor our photographer has it them all sorted it will make a lot more sense.
Also in attendance were Jade and Ana from "Friends Of Tomorrow" Nick SD from "Defenders Of The Faith", Jonny Wei who does the ever superb "Decompression Wavelength" and Stewart Paske who had hot footed it from doing an interview at
BBC Television Centre.
After the photoshoot myself, Jade and Ana went for a few drinks at the Wetherspoons next to Baker Street station where we spoke about our hopes for next year as those in charge of the station have been impressed by their interview with Cage The Elephant.
I suggested that next year, the comittee should have a head of Publicity and Interviews to solely look after that area for the station as more and more are taking place and we have a great track record.
That's not to say that it should stop other members from getting their own high profile interviews but it would be really great and professional to have someone who can guarantee interviews with established bands as well as up and coming acts.
We headed back over to Harrow, helping out Alice, Sam and Stoobie carrying all the equipment back including the Smoke Radio lightbox used in all the photos and later on I went down with Alice and Sam to the Undercroft for a few drinks where Jade and fellow first year Alice were already present.
Later on saw the arrivals of a few commercial music students including JonJon, Synamatix and the one and only J-Swift who had spent the whole day in Area 51 on a major project. I also had a few words with Nana Charlie who was also present who this Friday will be helping out with the third year TV students live project "The Battle Of The Bands".
Apart from a short visit to Sainsbury's I spent the whole night drinking before the soul show although on the reccomendation of Alice, our head of specialist I had a pint of water before leaving although that felt even more uncomfortable when drinking it.
After the show I went back down the the Underpants where the Sports teams were having another do and Caroline was there along with one of her housemates who's on the netball team. Steven wasn't there however as he was at the Radio 1 staff Christmas party and such opportunities cannot be missed.
It's a shame as they were spinning quite a lot of tunes that would fit into his liking such as Eve, Nelly, Fat Joe and Sean Paul although in all fairness the DJ was really rubbish at mixing the songs together.
Later on quite a lot of the cast of "Daisy Pulls It Off" turned up after their final performance although with the excepetion of society president and namesake Priscilla White, I ended up using the Eastenders method of calling the cast members by their character names such as Daisy, Sybil etc.
We left at just before 11pm and this is more or less where I've fallen back to reality with a bump.
That being the fact that I still haven't heard from my potential interviewee who's into jewellry making, and that the tickets for the Russell Howard gig haven't arrived yet which shows how rubbish Seetickets are at delivering.
Not delivering to halls of residences is fucking bad enough but the fact that they haven't arrived at all is really taking the piss and I can't find a confirmation e-mail anywhere in my inbox saying that I had ordered the tickets.
I've not even had an e-mail back from the tracker which I've attempted to use so despite the tickets being at a low price, I'd warn anyone to be very careful if they use Seetickets to book places at gigs and performances.
With regards to my feature, I'll just have to hope that I come up with sufficient material from Concha on Friday, but on the plus side she has more than one solitary activity and I intend to make a start on editing what I've got from tomorrow so I can have some sort of rough (and I really mean rough) cut to play to Matthew on Monday.
Then again I wouldn't want to have too many interviews in my feature so I may try and come up with something a bit different even if it's not that creative.
And although I didn't see it, I'm not too surprised that Simon Webbe is the latest to leave the jungle.
I headed down to Marylebone this afternoon for the second of the Smoke Radio photoshoots which took place in P3 at the Marylebone campus, the room of which looked like a giant TV studio with metal staircases, similar to that of Top of The Pops in the late 80s or Going Live!/Live And Kicking throughout the 90s, and the addition of a neon sign helped to add to the buzz or so to say.
The plan for the photos was to take three seperate images which would be merged into one photo so there would be three of me in the photo. It may not make sense when writing it down but when Sam Taylor our photographer has it them all sorted it will make a lot more sense.
Also in attendance were Jade and Ana from "Friends Of Tomorrow" Nick SD from "Defenders Of The Faith", Jonny Wei who does the ever superb "Decompression Wavelength" and Stewart Paske who had hot footed it from doing an interview at
BBC Television Centre.
After the photoshoot myself, Jade and Ana went for a few drinks at the Wetherspoons next to Baker Street station where we spoke about our hopes for next year as those in charge of the station have been impressed by their interview with Cage The Elephant.
I suggested that next year, the comittee should have a head of Publicity and Interviews to solely look after that area for the station as more and more are taking place and we have a great track record.
That's not to say that it should stop other members from getting their own high profile interviews but it would be really great and professional to have someone who can guarantee interviews with established bands as well as up and coming acts.
We headed back over to Harrow, helping out Alice, Sam and Stoobie carrying all the equipment back including the Smoke Radio lightbox used in all the photos and later on I went down with Alice and Sam to the Undercroft for a few drinks where Jade and fellow first year Alice were already present.
Later on saw the arrivals of a few commercial music students including JonJon, Synamatix and the one and only J-Swift who had spent the whole day in Area 51 on a major project. I also had a few words with Nana Charlie who was also present who this Friday will be helping out with the third year TV students live project "The Battle Of The Bands".
Apart from a short visit to Sainsbury's I spent the whole night drinking before the soul show although on the reccomendation of Alice, our head of specialist I had a pint of water before leaving although that felt even more uncomfortable when drinking it.
After the show I went back down the the Underpants where the Sports teams were having another do and Caroline was there along with one of her housemates who's on the netball team. Steven wasn't there however as he was at the Radio 1 staff Christmas party and such opportunities cannot be missed.
It's a shame as they were spinning quite a lot of tunes that would fit into his liking such as Eve, Nelly, Fat Joe and Sean Paul although in all fairness the DJ was really rubbish at mixing the songs together.
Later on quite a lot of the cast of "Daisy Pulls It Off" turned up after their final performance although with the excepetion of society president and namesake Priscilla White, I ended up using the Eastenders method of calling the cast members by their character names such as Daisy, Sybil etc.
We left at just before 11pm and this is more or less where I've fallen back to reality with a bump.
That being the fact that I still haven't heard from my potential interviewee who's into jewellry making, and that the tickets for the Russell Howard gig haven't arrived yet which shows how rubbish Seetickets are at delivering.
Not delivering to halls of residences is fucking bad enough but the fact that they haven't arrived at all is really taking the piss and I can't find a confirmation e-mail anywhere in my inbox saying that I had ordered the tickets.
I've not even had an e-mail back from the tracker which I've attempted to use so despite the tickets being at a low price, I'd warn anyone to be very careful if they use Seetickets to book places at gigs and performances.
With regards to my feature, I'll just have to hope that I come up with sufficient material from Concha on Friday, but on the plus side she has more than one solitary activity and I intend to make a start on editing what I've got from tomorrow so I can have some sort of rough (and I really mean rough) cut to play to Matthew on Monday.
Then again I wouldn't want to have too many interviews in my feature so I may try and come up with something a bit different even if it's not that creative.
And although I didn't see it, I'm not too surprised that Simon Webbe is the latest to leave the jungle.
The Creative TV Writing Masterclass
Before heading into University, I watched last night's edition of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe on iPlayer.
This weeks programme was a special edition looking at writing and contained interviews with some of the very best working in television. These included Paul Abbot, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain from Peep Show, Russell T Davies and Graham Linehan.
The programme revealed that Jesse and Sam started off writing scripts for Channel 5's Jack Docherty show in the late 90s as well as Channel 4's Big Breakfast before going on to co-write sitcoms such as the disastrous "Days Like These" which was a British adaption of "That 70s Show" shown and dropped by ITV in 1999.
I can remember Lee and Herring on their show around the time making jokes about it having to be moved around the schedules "to give other shows a chance", a joke which they repeated for Hale and Pace's carreer destroying "H&P @ The BBC" after the duo made an unsuccessful move there from LWT.
Anyway back to the main show in question, and it revealed that before becoming succesfull with Father Ted and The IT Crowd, Graham Linehan (and possibly Arthur Matthews) started of as a writer on Smith and Jones' sketch show which I'd definitely consider to be one of the most underrated on television despite the fact it ran for over a decade.
It was mainly their physical based sketches that had me laughing including one where the pair went down a flume at a swimming pool and ended up falling into a rubbish skip.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've told people about that sketch who have probably never seen it before.
As for today it's a case of getting my photo taken in Marylebone and sorting the soul show out with possibly the usual brown nosing and back-stabbing going on within.
As long as it doesn't interfer with the show itself, it shouldn't be a problem and has never been a hinderance at all whilst I've been here.
This weeks programme was a special edition looking at writing and contained interviews with some of the very best working in television. These included Paul Abbot, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain from Peep Show, Russell T Davies and Graham Linehan.
The programme revealed that Jesse and Sam started off writing scripts for Channel 5's Jack Docherty show in the late 90s as well as Channel 4's Big Breakfast before going on to co-write sitcoms such as the disastrous "Days Like These" which was a British adaption of "That 70s Show" shown and dropped by ITV in 1999.
I can remember Lee and Herring on their show around the time making jokes about it having to be moved around the schedules "to give other shows a chance", a joke which they repeated for Hale and Pace's carreer destroying "H&P @ The BBC" after the duo made an unsuccessful move there from LWT.
Anyway back to the main show in question, and it revealed that before becoming succesfull with Father Ted and The IT Crowd, Graham Linehan (and possibly Arthur Matthews) started of as a writer on Smith and Jones' sketch show which I'd definitely consider to be one of the most underrated on television despite the fact it ran for over a decade.
It was mainly their physical based sketches that had me laughing including one where the pair went down a flume at a swimming pool and ended up falling into a rubbish skip.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've told people about that sketch who have probably never seen it before.
As for today it's a case of getting my photo taken in Marylebone and sorting the soul show out with possibly the usual brown nosing and back-stabbing going on within.
As long as it doesn't interfer with the show itself, it shouldn't be a problem and has never been a hinderance at all whilst I've been here.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
More Stressfull Than Christmas Shopping?
I managed to get the interview with Maz done who actually decided to take 10 minutes off her own show going out live rather than wait until the show had finished, leaving Oli P to look after things.
As soon as that was done I headed over to the Auditorium to see the Drama Society's performance of "Daisy Pulls It Off" which was a play set in a girls school in the 1920s which had a predominantly female cast although there were a few fellas appearing in it, some of them even cross dressing with amusing results.
The programme mentioned that they'd tried to put more innuendo into the original script but I think that area's already covered if you look at the title of the play.
The play itself wasn't the best one I've seen from the drama society but that's not to say it was bad in any way at all, just that I thought that the laughs really started coming in the second act.
The turn out was pretty moderate and they were slightly late letting people in due to one of the actors turning up late but once it got going it started to become more enjoyable.
In between the acts they were playing "traditional" christmas songs from the likes of Harry Belafonte, Eartha Kitt, and songs such as "Do You Hear What I Hear" and "Let It Snow".
This reminded me of an album that my Dad insists on playing every year and for me has to be one of their lowest points, that being the Roches and their interpretations of festive tunes from 1990 called "We Three Kings".
Two years ago on my final show before Christmas, I ended it by playing a version of "Winter Wonderland" by the ever superb accapella gospel group Take 6 which I thought worked brilliantly although what I've got in store this year will be even more of a surprise, depending on which way you may take it.
On a similar note, I got voicemail and and e-mail sent from the lovely Sean at iJingles during the play with regards to the seasonal jingle I've ordered from
Century 21's Holiday Package where I've asked for a resing of the first cut.
It turns out that it's difficult for the vocalists to sing "Soul Expression" instead of
"Merry Christmas" despite having the same amount of syllables.
This is because the opening vocal is embedded into the master tape despite the fact that the vocal sound has changed a tiny bit in the last 20 years due to people coming and going.
I'm guessing they thought that when stations ordered the package they wouldn't want any other lyrics sung in it's place due to it being a package specially designed for festive holidays.
However the guys at TM Studios really are the big boys when it comes to jingles and know what they're talking about, so I've decided to go for just "Merry Christmas" sung in the first line which may sound better when played on air.
I'll put the finished result up here when I recieve it and it will definitely add a much needed Xmas sparkle to Smoke Radio's airwaves.
On returning home from the play I managed to watch what was left of tonight's "Celebrity" where the camp had been given a game in which they had to guess missing words from actual newspaper headlines relating to the show a la Have I Got News For You.
David Van Day got exicited when one of the headlines had "Bish Bash Bash" which he thought was relating to the infamous song he's written whilst in the jungle, despite him actually calling it "Bif Baf Bof, We're Celebrities".
I still can't believe he thinks it's actually worthy of a number 1 single.
Even more suprising was Nicola being the latest to leave the jungle and in her interview with Ant & Dec she did not have a good word to say about David, thinking that he was jealous of Joe Swash who everyone thought was going to win and immediately got off on the wrong foot with Nicola as a result.
Although Martina's now the only female left in the jungle and has done well to get this far, I can't see her following in the footsteps of Kerry McFadden (as she was known at the time) and Carol Thatcher in becoming the next "Queen Of The Jungle".
Tomorrow will be the photoshoot for the Specialist presenters on Smoke Radio taking place at both the Marylebone Campus and Area 51 for the benefit of the commercial music students.
Once again we'll have photography student Sam Taylor taking the photos who's really got his work cut out as he also does the photography for the Smoke Newspaper as well.
I also need to get some wares from Sainsbury's and sort out my own show tomorrow so it really will be busy.
As soon as that was done I headed over to the Auditorium to see the Drama Society's performance of "Daisy Pulls It Off" which was a play set in a girls school in the 1920s which had a predominantly female cast although there were a few fellas appearing in it, some of them even cross dressing with amusing results.
The programme mentioned that they'd tried to put more innuendo into the original script but I think that area's already covered if you look at the title of the play.
The play itself wasn't the best one I've seen from the drama society but that's not to say it was bad in any way at all, just that I thought that the laughs really started coming in the second act.
The turn out was pretty moderate and they were slightly late letting people in due to one of the actors turning up late but once it got going it started to become more enjoyable.
In between the acts they were playing "traditional" christmas songs from the likes of Harry Belafonte, Eartha Kitt, and songs such as "Do You Hear What I Hear" and "Let It Snow".
This reminded me of an album that my Dad insists on playing every year and for me has to be one of their lowest points, that being the Roches and their interpretations of festive tunes from 1990 called "We Three Kings".
Two years ago on my final show before Christmas, I ended it by playing a version of "Winter Wonderland" by the ever superb accapella gospel group Take 6 which I thought worked brilliantly although what I've got in store this year will be even more of a surprise, depending on which way you may take it.
On a similar note, I got voicemail and and e-mail sent from the lovely Sean at iJingles during the play with regards to the seasonal jingle I've ordered from
Century 21's Holiday Package where I've asked for a resing of the first cut.
It turns out that it's difficult for the vocalists to sing "Soul Expression" instead of
"Merry Christmas" despite having the same amount of syllables.
This is because the opening vocal is embedded into the master tape despite the fact that the vocal sound has changed a tiny bit in the last 20 years due to people coming and going.
I'm guessing they thought that when stations ordered the package they wouldn't want any other lyrics sung in it's place due to it being a package specially designed for festive holidays.
However the guys at TM Studios really are the big boys when it comes to jingles and know what they're talking about, so I've decided to go for just "Merry Christmas" sung in the first line which may sound better when played on air.
I'll put the finished result up here when I recieve it and it will definitely add a much needed Xmas sparkle to Smoke Radio's airwaves.
On returning home from the play I managed to watch what was left of tonight's "Celebrity" where the camp had been given a game in which they had to guess missing words from actual newspaper headlines relating to the show a la Have I Got News For You.
David Van Day got exicited when one of the headlines had "Bish Bash Bash" which he thought was relating to the infamous song he's written whilst in the jungle, despite him actually calling it "Bif Baf Bof, We're Celebrities".
I still can't believe he thinks it's actually worthy of a number 1 single.
Even more suprising was Nicola being the latest to leave the jungle and in her interview with Ant & Dec she did not have a good word to say about David, thinking that he was jealous of Joe Swash who everyone thought was going to win and immediately got off on the wrong foot with Nicola as a result.
Although Martina's now the only female left in the jungle and has done well to get this far, I can't see her following in the footsteps of Kerry McFadden (as she was known at the time) and Carol Thatcher in becoming the next "Queen Of The Jungle".
Tomorrow will be the photoshoot for the Specialist presenters on Smoke Radio taking place at both the Marylebone Campus and Area 51 for the benefit of the commercial music students.
Once again we'll have photography student Sam Taylor taking the photos who's really got his work cut out as he also does the photography for the Smoke Newspaper as well.
I also need to get some wares from Sainsbury's and sort out my own show tomorrow so it really will be busy.
Dead-Ex
Things are getting even more complicated as I've recieved an envelope containing tickets, but they are for the Richard Herring gig that's happening in February 2009 and not the Russell Howard one that's only two days away.
Whether it's Seetickets being a pain with delivery or just Harrow Halls overall, this is quite a struggle and it makes things worse that barely any of the ticket delivering companies refuse to deliver to Halls of Residences which has made a lot of things inconvinient for me in the past.
I guess that adds to the list of disadvantages in halls apart from the fire alarms going off at innaproriate times and people conversing in the corridors at antisocial hours.
I'm hoping that tonight will provide a bit of escapism as I plan to see the Drama Society's performance of a play called "Daisy Pulls It Off". I'm not sure if I'll recognise that many people this time round but I'm sure they'll continue in the vein of very witty and entertaining performances that they've given since I arrived here, and probably long before that as well.
Even better is that they'll be performing the play in the main auditorium of the Harrow Campus which I don't think they've done since I was in the first year.
It may mean that for the second night running I'll miss the goings on in the jungle although I'm pretty confident that either Simon Webbe or Martina Navratilova will be the next to be eliminated.
Whether it's Seetickets being a pain with delivery or just Harrow Halls overall, this is quite a struggle and it makes things worse that barely any of the ticket delivering companies refuse to deliver to Halls of Residences which has made a lot of things inconvinient for me in the past.
I guess that adds to the list of disadvantages in halls apart from the fire alarms going off at innaproriate times and people conversing in the corridors at antisocial hours.
I'm hoping that tonight will provide a bit of escapism as I plan to see the Drama Society's performance of a play called "Daisy Pulls It Off". I'm not sure if I'll recognise that many people this time round but I'm sure they'll continue in the vein of very witty and entertaining performances that they've given since I arrived here, and probably long before that as well.
Even better is that they'll be performing the play in the main auditorium of the Harrow Campus which I don't think they've done since I was in the first year.
It may mean that for the second night running I'll miss the goings on in the jungle although I'm pretty confident that either Simon Webbe or Martina Navratilova will be the next to be eliminated.
Speedily Solitary
Once again it's barely a productive day although I'm hoping to get an interview later on with one of the fellow presenters on the station who happens to have an interesting solitary activity which I hope will go OK.
The basic structure I have in mind is to start off searching through people that I know and their interests, then moving back to Canterbury which is where I will get my interview with Concha on Friday and then move onto how solitary actvities can be done socially which is where my audio from the caporeira class will come in useful.
Whether Matthew will appreciate it is another thing but overall I don't want the feature to be boring like most of the examples he played to us a few weeks ago.
On coming back from Canterbury on Saturday, I may be heading into Central again as Steven's invited me to go with him to see a recording of Marcus Brigstocke's
"I've Never Seen Star Wars" for BBC Radio 4.
Basically the series involves a celebrity guest coming in to try a selection of things they've never done before such as eating things they've never tasted or wearing a certain type of clothing so it should be a good laugh.
Amy also happens to be having her birthday do on that night so hopefully we'll get back in time and there's bound to be quite a few people there who will be really out of it.
All these goings on mean that I'll miss this week's X Factor semi-final and more importantly the 2008 British Comedy Awards, so I'll need to make sure I tape them and avoid finding out the results before watching them back which will be quite a challenge.
It should be good fun however.
The basic structure I have in mind is to start off searching through people that I know and their interests, then moving back to Canterbury which is where I will get my interview with Concha on Friday and then move onto how solitary actvities can be done socially which is where my audio from the caporeira class will come in useful.
Whether Matthew will appreciate it is another thing but overall I don't want the feature to be boring like most of the examples he played to us a few weeks ago.
On coming back from Canterbury on Saturday, I may be heading into Central again as Steven's invited me to go with him to see a recording of Marcus Brigstocke's
"I've Never Seen Star Wars" for BBC Radio 4.
Basically the series involves a celebrity guest coming in to try a selection of things they've never done before such as eating things they've never tasted or wearing a certain type of clothing so it should be a good laugh.
Amy also happens to be having her birthday do on that night so hopefully we'll get back in time and there's bound to be quite a few people there who will be really out of it.
All these goings on mean that I'll miss this week's X Factor semi-final and more importantly the 2008 British Comedy Awards, so I'll need to make sure I tape them and avoid finding out the results before watching them back which will be quite a challenge.
It should be good fun however.
Monday, December 01, 2008
"Just Let Me Hear Some Rock And Roll Music"
Tonight's goings on at the Undercroft were pretty good in terms of the people who I was with, which included Matt and Rob, Jade, second years Lottie and Sophie, Lynne from Lee and Lynne and Phil H along with Denis and the rest of the Irish lads.
Although VKs were only a pound, the only flavours that they had were apple and ice so I didn't drink too many. Hopefully by next week they'll have a few more especially as they're relaunching Happy Mondaze so it really will be an excuse to drink myself stupid as part of the proceedings.
Mattie from YHIHF was DJing again where for part of the night he was playing some really good classics from the likes of Martha and the Vandellas and James Brown which I had a boogie to, as well as the song about "rock and roll music" that Status Quo used as the first song on the second "Anniversary Waltz" medley back in the early 90s.
However in the last hour before closing time he was playing more obscure noisy dance to give it a better description that I wasn't too keen on although it finished off with a bit of Rage which went down well as always.
Next week will be even better I can guarantee, judging by the amount of promotion that's taking place with stickers just about everywhere on campus.
As a result of spending tonight at the Croft, I didn't see the goings on in tonight's edition of "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" where the Brian Paddick was the next in line to leave the jungle. Although I wouldn't see him as an overall winner he's definitely been a good sport although I'd never assume that he was actually a fan of the band Blue and has a few of their videos on his mobile.
This resulted in Ant & Dec making jokes about being unsure about having "blue videos" on his mobile phone which had me chuckling to an extent.
As I write this I'm having a listen to the Jiva album that I brought on iTunes earlier today and four tracks in, I like what I'm hearing so far.
That's mainly because a lot of the tunes contain chord structures that would be associated with either elevators or soulful pop records of the early 90s such as Alison Limerick or the Brand New Heavies.
Whether it would have cheered me up on it's release date back in late 2007 would be another thing, as back then it was difficult to find anything that would lighten me up at all.
Definitely the magical ingredient of soul jazz records that seems to work for the likes of Shakatak and Incognito.
Although VKs were only a pound, the only flavours that they had were apple and ice so I didn't drink too many. Hopefully by next week they'll have a few more especially as they're relaunching Happy Mondaze so it really will be an excuse to drink myself stupid as part of the proceedings.
Mattie from YHIHF was DJing again where for part of the night he was playing some really good classics from the likes of Martha and the Vandellas and James Brown which I had a boogie to, as well as the song about "rock and roll music" that Status Quo used as the first song on the second "Anniversary Waltz" medley back in the early 90s.
However in the last hour before closing time he was playing more obscure noisy dance to give it a better description that I wasn't too keen on although it finished off with a bit of Rage which went down well as always.
Next week will be even better I can guarantee, judging by the amount of promotion that's taking place with stickers just about everywhere on campus.
As a result of spending tonight at the Croft, I didn't see the goings on in tonight's edition of "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" where the Brian Paddick was the next in line to leave the jungle. Although I wouldn't see him as an overall winner he's definitely been a good sport although I'd never assume that he was actually a fan of the band Blue and has a few of their videos on his mobile.
This resulted in Ant & Dec making jokes about being unsure about having "blue videos" on his mobile phone which had me chuckling to an extent.
As I write this I'm having a listen to the Jiva album that I brought on iTunes earlier today and four tracks in, I like what I'm hearing so far.
That's mainly because a lot of the tunes contain chord structures that would be associated with either elevators or soulful pop records of the early 90s such as Alison Limerick or the Brand New Heavies.
Whether it would have cheered me up on it's release date back in late 2007 would be another thing, as back then it was difficult to find anything that would lighten me up at all.
Definitely the magical ingredient of soul jazz records that seems to work for the likes of Shakatak and Incognito.
"N-N-N-N-Nineteen"
As expected, I headed over to someone elses house to make my iTunes purchases, that being Chris, Phil, and Stoobies, where when I arrived I had a chat with Chris, Denis and Barry whilst downloading both Jiva's album which I plan to feature on my show this week and Incognito's latest remix album.
I didn't stay for too long as I wanted to get back to the flat to see tonight's edition of
"It Takes Two" where Christine and Matthew were being interviewed. It was definitely worth it as they also had a feature on the unsung stars of the show, them being the singers who do a really good job each week especially male vocalist Tommy Blaize who I never realised came from the UK.
Tommy's been on since the very first series and has the ability to sing anything from a classic standard such as "The Way You Look Tonight" to anything bizarre as
"The Final Countdown" as proved in last week's show. Tommy's voice really stands out amongst all the other singers despite the fact they take a backseat during the show itself.
One of the singers they had in the earlier series happened to be Carol Kenyon who's probably best known for perfoming the female vocals on Heaven 17's "Temptation" and also performed on Paul Hardcastle's "Don't Waste My Time" in 1986.
It was when they performed that song on Top Of The Pops that producer Michael Hurll came up to Paul after the show and said that he really liked his number 1 hit "19" and asked if he would like to compose the new theme tune to the show which ended up being used for the next five years and for me is the definitive theme tune to TOTP.
As for tonight it looks set to be a good one for drinking if the VK offer goes ahead although before that there's an interview with popular indie band Cage The Elephant on Jade and Ana's show on Smoke at 8pm.
Definitely one to add to the list of bands and performers we've had on the station such as Natty and The Hoosiers.
As for next week it turns out that Smoke Radio will be hosting the end of termer at Area 51 and the good news is that Chris and Phil will be DJing at some point within the evening.
And of course there's the Undercroft night next Monday as well, although they'll be locking the doors to outside the bar after 11 so we'll see if anyone can manage having a bit of a boogie before 1am without needing a cigarette break.
It may be a case of ordering multiple VKs.
I didn't stay for too long as I wanted to get back to the flat to see tonight's edition of
"It Takes Two" where Christine and Matthew were being interviewed. It was definitely worth it as they also had a feature on the unsung stars of the show, them being the singers who do a really good job each week especially male vocalist Tommy Blaize who I never realised came from the UK.
Tommy's been on since the very first series and has the ability to sing anything from a classic standard such as "The Way You Look Tonight" to anything bizarre as
"The Final Countdown" as proved in last week's show. Tommy's voice really stands out amongst all the other singers despite the fact they take a backseat during the show itself.
One of the singers they had in the earlier series happened to be Carol Kenyon who's probably best known for perfoming the female vocals on Heaven 17's "Temptation" and also performed on Paul Hardcastle's "Don't Waste My Time" in 1986.
It was when they performed that song on Top Of The Pops that producer Michael Hurll came up to Paul after the show and said that he really liked his number 1 hit "19" and asked if he would like to compose the new theme tune to the show which ended up being used for the next five years and for me is the definitive theme tune to TOTP.
As for tonight it looks set to be a good one for drinking if the VK offer goes ahead although before that there's an interview with popular indie band Cage The Elephant on Jade and Ana's show on Smoke at 8pm.
Definitely one to add to the list of bands and performers we've had on the station such as Natty and The Hoosiers.
As for next week it turns out that Smoke Radio will be hosting the end of termer at Area 51 and the good news is that Chris and Phil will be DJing at some point within the evening.
And of course there's the Undercroft night next Monday as well, although they'll be locking the doors to outside the bar after 11 so we'll see if anyone can manage having a bit of a boogie before 1am without needing a cigarette break.
It may be a case of ordering multiple VKs.
Early Xmas Purchases
It's December, and that's evident because it's very chilly, and the TV listings magazines have started to come out earlier than normal in the run up to the Christmas deadlines.
As planned I went all the way down to Soul Brother in Putney where I couldn't actually find the records I had planned to buy but did manage to find two albums that I've been meaning to get hold of for a while. One of them being Ronnie Laws' "Every Generation" that was re-issued a few years ago and the other being Carmen Lundy's most recent album "Come Home" which features her usual superb team of musicians including
Anthony Wonsey on piano, and brother Curtis Lundy on bass.
The CD of the latter was a bit damaged but luckily I got a £2 discount and I doubt it will sound that bad when burning it on to one of my external hard drives.
As I type I am up in the radio rooms attempting to download the records I wanted to buy off of iTunes although the application is being a bitch as always so I'm hoping it will start behaving itself before too long. Especially as one of the records I want to get happens to be this month's featured album on the soul show from this Wednesday.
If worse comes to worse, I may end up having to go to someone's house and borrow their internet but it would make a lot more sense if the internet providers on campus could get their act together for once.
Whilst I was on the tube I read todays Metro and was impressed by their music reviews as amongst the new singles released this week from the likes of Enrique Iglesias, and Oasis was the Reel People's "Outta Love" which contains more remixes than Trevor McDonald has said he's going to retire.
In the album reviews alongside Take That and Britney Spears's latest releases was a review of the latest album by little known German nu-jazz performer Lars Bartkuhn who is absolutely stunning.
I first came across him when Mike Chadwick played "First Friendship" on his Cutting Edge show on the old Jazz FM on New Years Day 2005, and that guaranteed the year was going to be superb. The tune itself sounded very similar to a well known Isley Brothers tune but considering Ron's still in prison for tax dodging it's not too much of a big deal.
I haven't heard the album yet but it got a three out of five star review with the reviewer saying that it's low points were instead of providing "spirtual music" gave "elevator muzak" instead.
For me that's not negative at all, it's more of a selling point.
Hopefully it's in the same sort of style as the Rippingtons in the mid to late 80s.
As they'd say, "that's jazz".
As planned I went all the way down to Soul Brother in Putney where I couldn't actually find the records I had planned to buy but did manage to find two albums that I've been meaning to get hold of for a while. One of them being Ronnie Laws' "Every Generation" that was re-issued a few years ago and the other being Carmen Lundy's most recent album "Come Home" which features her usual superb team of musicians including
Anthony Wonsey on piano, and brother Curtis Lundy on bass.
The CD of the latter was a bit damaged but luckily I got a £2 discount and I doubt it will sound that bad when burning it on to one of my external hard drives.
As I type I am up in the radio rooms attempting to download the records I wanted to buy off of iTunes although the application is being a bitch as always so I'm hoping it will start behaving itself before too long. Especially as one of the records I want to get happens to be this month's featured album on the soul show from this Wednesday.
If worse comes to worse, I may end up having to go to someone's house and borrow their internet but it would make a lot more sense if the internet providers on campus could get their act together for once.
Whilst I was on the tube I read todays Metro and was impressed by their music reviews as amongst the new singles released this week from the likes of Enrique Iglesias, and Oasis was the Reel People's "Outta Love" which contains more remixes than Trevor McDonald has said he's going to retire.
In the album reviews alongside Take That and Britney Spears's latest releases was a review of the latest album by little known German nu-jazz performer Lars Bartkuhn who is absolutely stunning.
I first came across him when Mike Chadwick played "First Friendship" on his Cutting Edge show on the old Jazz FM on New Years Day 2005, and that guaranteed the year was going to be superb. The tune itself sounded very similar to a well known Isley Brothers tune but considering Ron's still in prison for tax dodging it's not too much of a big deal.
I haven't heard the album yet but it got a three out of five star review with the reviewer saying that it's low points were instead of providing "spirtual music" gave "elevator muzak" instead.
For me that's not negative at all, it's more of a selling point.
Hopefully it's in the same sort of style as the Rippingtons in the mid to late 80s.
As they'd say, "that's jazz".
"Lorry Driver, Lorry Driver"
James Corden isn't just one of the funniest people currently on television but his opinions also seem to make sense, especially in this article from Digital Spy where he sheds light on his thoughts on Britney Spears' overhyped performance on last Saturday's X Factor.
His comments are absolutely spot on as the judges really can't give negative comments on the contestants trying their best performing live in front of an audience, and then actually give a standing ovation at the end of Britney's rather uninspiring peformance involving her walking back and forth across the stage and miming for fucks sake.
Then again as myself, Steven, and Denis talked about not long ago, The X Factor seems to be one of the only shows on TV where pop performers can come on to promote their new single to a big viewing audience and these are the biggest audiences you're likely to get on terrestrial television.
It turns out that both James Corden and co-star Matthew Horne are to present the
2009 Brit Awards, possibly alongside another more respectable and likeable female performer, Kylie Minogue who really isn't looking bad for 40 years old.
As both Britney and Take That have new albums out this week with similar titles,
I think it's safe to say who I hope gets the top spot.
His comments are absolutely spot on as the judges really can't give negative comments on the contestants trying their best performing live in front of an audience, and then actually give a standing ovation at the end of Britney's rather uninspiring peformance involving her walking back and forth across the stage and miming for fucks sake.
Then again as myself, Steven, and Denis talked about not long ago, The X Factor seems to be one of the only shows on TV where pop performers can come on to promote their new single to a big viewing audience and these are the biggest audiences you're likely to get on terrestrial television.
It turns out that both James Corden and co-star Matthew Horne are to present the
2009 Brit Awards, possibly alongside another more respectable and likeable female performer, Kylie Minogue who really isn't looking bad for 40 years old.
As both Britney and Take That have new albums out this week with similar titles,
I think it's safe to say who I hope gets the top spot.
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