Awarding Innovation

So the Mercury 2007 nominees have been announced and there's a great selection of nominees. Included are Dundee rockers The View who have grabbed my attention with their witty numbers as well as Amy Winehouse who's second album has definitely grown on me over the last year. Ken Bruce on Radio 2 earlier was playing the brilliant "Tears Dry On Their Own" based on "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and that's definitely my favourite on the album.
Also nominated are The Young Knives who I have Adam from the Shuffle show at Smoke to thank for introducing me to their 70s punk esque tunes.

However this reminds me in 2002 when a local radio station made this quote on the day of the awards "Yes today's the Mercury Music Awards, Good luck to Miss Dynamite"
Just pathetic really and it shows how in some places people just aren't listening or expanding.
Lonnie Liston Smith was definitely right about "expanding your mind". I must buy more of his LPs as he's one of the pioneeers of jazz funk.

"It's Just Coming Up To 12:45!"

I can't keep it to myself for any longer, this Thursday I'm returning for a short visit to London where on the Friday I'll be visiting "Britain's Favourite" radio news team.
Yes I'll be making a visit to BBC Radio 1 and having a look round to see how the pros do everything and retain the role as the UK's foremost pop music station around the UK and more specifically at the goings on at Newsbeat with a certain Ross T!

I'm just going to look at it as any other visit but I know it's something very special and will keep in mind the old phrase "you don't mess with a winner!"
This is one of if not the longest running news programmes on radio and whilst there's fresh talent on board such as the stunning Georgina Bowman, there are also established pros including the chief Rod McKenzie, who I can remember seeing an awful lot in the BBC's Fast Forward magazine when he was part of Simon Mayo's Breakfast Crew in the early 90s.

For the record it's definitely going to be a much anticipated visit.

As for today I've brought some delicious (well I don't know for sure because I haven't tried them) rye and sultana scones or whatever they're called from Morrisons and have been busy with all sorts of other things too. I've now got more of an awareness to be careful of brands, especially when it comes to CD-Rs.

Below The Duvet

I know now that the lecturers on the AVCE course really meant that any television programme could be analysed academically within reason.
This even extends to long forgotten animations including one that I probably haven't seen since it was shown on Channel 4 15 years ago. Doctor Snuggles a really cute little animation with the voices the late Peter Ustinov as the main character and
John "Boycie" Challis providing a few of the others. Looking at one particular episode with a tree thinking it can fly, there's a scene where the professor and his companions land on a planet with rather evil caricatures of sunflowers and other plants initially percieved to be pleasant but on finding that they are actually evil I start to think "woooah this could give children nightmares...".

On a similar note I can proudly say that I've never had any nightmares over any of the rather unpleasant types that appeared in Doctor Who. Although to be fair my introduction to the series was when Sylvester McCoy was in the role and I know people give him a lot of stick but the character really did develop from the rather bumbling persona in his opening episode "Time And The Rani".
However now I've come to asscociate the series with it's established Saturday evening timeslot rather than a Wednesday evening after Wogan.

Trying To Stay Smiling

I reckon it was Dad's slightly spicy spag bol that's resulted in me being less perky than usual. That and the continuing inconistency of the wireless router that I have to keep restarting. Gives me a bit of exercise I guess, running up and downstairs to sort the blighter out.

As I write this post however, things are pretty stable and in my aural journey I've now appeared to have reached my 22nd birthday. Chris Jones' guest that day was none other than "The Tudor" which turned out to be even more bizarre and random than my stint the previous day.
This was illustrated to a slight bias towards the rockier tracks on the station playlist and the French version of the A Team theme.

I'm now realising however that it's not negative people that result in my creative mind going blank. However I reckon a visit (well it certainly seems like a visit) to my bookshelf will solve a few things.

Dead Man's Steps

I've had this on VHS for quite a while but was really pleased to find on Youtube
an example of great television and great radio rolled into one.
DLT's Gotcha from 1992 where his patience is put to the test by Noel Edmonds and his ever reliable team including the man who would later go on to don a pink spotty suit that would piss off so many viewers.
I'm pretty certain that they had to film the ending again because DLT ended up unleashing more four letter words than can be heard here (bleeped of course) in this clip!

The meaning behind this clip is that you have to be prepared for anything on air and deal with it with fun, which DLT does albeit unintentionally! However he's not the sort of person who likes to be wound up from what I've heard as a few loonies at a motor show decided to "decorate" his car in toilet rolls. Once again he didn't see the funny side which proves that even off air you have to be yourself and not be afraid to put yourself up for a right old ribbing.
If you make yourself look or sound stupid then people will well and truly ridicule you.

A Fine Tuneout

As promised I've posted up a few of the cuts from one of the worst re-sung jingle packages I've known. Wyvern FM by MMI also based in Worcestershire from 1996 along with the original cuts from Belfast station Cool FM preceeding each one.
In all fairness MMI were never that original with their jingles as the ones in this montage are clear rip offs of the Steamroller cuts by Century 21 that were in the Invicta FM package I uploaded a few days ago. Sometimes it could sound great but in Wyvern's case it's very much a rush job with badly sung and badly positioned vocals for the station name.
In fact Jon Wolfert at JAM had a few words to say when the company did a very obvious rip off of his Xmas jingle from the Turbo Z package for Birmingham's BRMB!

They're not the only ones as this example from Edinburgh's Radio Forth
(RFM as they were known then, why?) in 1991 will either resort in collapsing the chair you're sitting on, or being in tears when thinking "how could they sink so low" after hearing this.

A more recent, dare I say rather good example would be Chris Moyles after starting at Radio 1 in 1997 where he commisioned a set of piss-takes of much loved classic Radio 1 jingles although in some places, especially the last one I think they're even better than the originals. Where on Earth is Glasgow Square anyway?
It's all a bit of fun though and I know that both him and Jon Wolfert are on good terms getting his permission to use the original JAM jingles when resurrecting Simon Bates' "Golden Hour" a couple of years ago.
An anorak in denial if ever there was one.

Kicking Off With A Storm

The weather outside is at it's most insane this year. It's throwing it down like mental but at the same time it's bloody boiling.
It doesn't feel like a Sunday night however as the date on my calendar is still in the third week of May and the continuing excitement of S04S which could be
pretty dangerous at times.
Especially during Goodlass and Marshall's show where "LA reporter" Miles Blayden-Ryall came out with some of the most cutting remarks live on air which can't be repeated on this blog!

Earlier on I was the first of Chris Jones' special guest presenters which had been put into the schedule as a result of Dan P walking out at the last minute.
I can remember Chris being gutted when he found out, but the first show went really well and he had no problem with me driving the desk and having a more dominant role than him.
Later on I got sent down to the Undercroft to provide a series of live reports for Goodlass and Marshall and drank a few things I wouldn't normally drink.

However whilst all the excitement was continuing there were still a few evening presenters who hadn't turned up to record their shows for that week and two of them happened to be the lovely Dry Ice girls who ended up ringing me at around 5:45pm
that day just over 3 hours before air!
We agreed however that it would be best not to go ahead with recording the programme which was a shame but at least it prevented any disruption to the proceedings going on that evening.

I'm confident that if people "pull their fingers out" then we'll be able to provide a consistent service throughout the whole of 2007/2008 and because I have a question for every move made then my essays shouldn't be a problem neither.

The Wow Factor

I've finally reached the high point of my aural journey at the beginning of the phenomenom that was "Smoke's Out 4 Summer". First links really do count and getting Phil Harris and Chris Chilvers to kick things off with "The Wake Up Call" was the right idea with their enthusiasm coming out right from the beginning. The show evolved throughout the week with help from Matthew and the rest of the team but this proved that we'd come a hell of a long way throughout the year and the rest of the schedule was to follow in that same way.

I'll probably write down a few more anecdotes in future posts but one thing that I'm really glad we achieved was that we got everyone and I mean everyone involved.
And to prove it a selection of calls from the "Cash 4 Cash" feature where Phil and Chris would ring up their mates and they'd be expected to sing the trumpet riff from
"Ring Of Fire" as soon as they lifted up the phone. Some of the voices include a certain newsreader from Edinburgh and a former co-host of the hairy member of the team!

I'd love to do my own take on that feature "Cash 4 Cog" where the victims would have to sing the brass riff from the band's hit "Everyday" which I'm going to get in the heads of everyone round campus next year!
Seriously we really don't need to make any drastic changes in September but continue reinforcing and reworking ideas, keep evolving and never lose the passion.
It's that easy to stay focused.

"You'll Be Lucky If The Undertaker Turns Up!"

First it was Bob Monkhouse and now Bernard Manning has been brought back from the dead, in an obituary recorded by the man himself and shown on Channel 4 earlier this week.

This was a very well put together programme and I'd imagine Bernard was behind the concept himself revealing his true inner self and that his British heritage of the 1930s was responsible for his rather risque act. I started to realise rather worryingly how much I have in common with the Man City supporter as he seemed to live on constant happiness and always put the people first wherever he went. I've also noticed that he's slightly toned down his act in the last decade or so, mainly by sitting down to perform his act which for me made it even more initmate and was one of the key factors of the comedian.

When he told a joke he was telling it to you and not at you. There was very little use of the N-word as well as he'd altered his act so that word wasn't included and the only utterance was in an extract from the infamous World In Action documentary "Black And Blue" in 1995 where an undercover reporter recorded him doing his act at a policeman's party organised by Derek Hatton.

Another positive part of the documentary was that it made me want to be in Blackpool again! Well I've never been there before to be honest but it's somewhere I'd really love to go but not really in the weather we've got outside. Actually I said in an earlier post that there was something comforting about being in a seaside town on a rainy day.
It just goes to show my idea of being able to stay happy in all circumstances which is what Bernard lived on.

"If We Could Just Tinker With The Format..."

I've just sat through the second in the series of ITV1's "Sing It Back" where contestants have to sing back the lyrics of songs on the spot in your typical pressure cooker atmosphere that is apparently one of the vital elements of a gameshow these days.

JK and Joel are competent as presenters but they are let down by a format which could be resolved by just a few minor changes. For instance there's no tension for two reasons, firstly because before we see the contestant go up to the mic they show a VT interview of them reflecting on how it felt "well I used to listen to Pulp loads when I was in school so I knew I'd get this right".
And we know if a contestant is going to be right because the noise signifying a correct answer starts off with a drone building up in the background removing the immediate excitement.

JK and Joel hosting the show reminds me that Ant & Dec are probably an example of the category of being great on television but not so great on radio. They've never had a regular show but I've heard them do one offs for both Radio 1 and Capital FM and they sound even more scripted on t'wireless.

But when it comes to television they've definitely come a long way and I can understand a bit more now why they won a lifetime achievement award at the National Television Awards in 2002! To be honest though I nearly did break down at the time mainly due to the montage using Bill Wither's "Just The Two Of Us".
Seeing Ant getting shot in the eye with a paintball however causes reactions of a different sort!

The "C-Word"

I'm in a ranting mood again, and I'm sure many you have been in the same situation as I have throughout life.
Whenver a hand out is given in a radio lecturer Matthew always asks a member of the class to read it and without naming names, most of them read it in a monotonous manner.
Come On! This is a radio course for goodness sake and communication is a vital element of the business.

To be fair though I'm starting to understand that when reading things out loud,
don't overdo it or show off but sound like you are interested what you are reading even if you aren't neccesarily. It's not difficult to do if you have a passion for communication.
And people are going to know when you're bulshitting or not, all through the tone of your voice.

If I was to do the Introduction To Broadcasting module next year I reckon I'd be a lot more passionate than in the first year although from a beginners point of view I do think it was rather intimidating. Hopefully they'll take the motion made in one of last year's course comittee meetings to allow the radio lot to get to know each other at least a month before practical lectures commence.

I know how it felt to be left out in the first year and there's no fucking way I want people starting this year to feel the same.

Annunciation Anarchy!

I've decided to re-read my copy of Essential Radio Skills and I reckon I may have started another new obsession, reading the text aloud and trying to realise the delivery the author wants it to be percieved.
By next week I could be fluent in the complete works of William Shakespeare!

I've also realised that I need to make sure that my words are pronounced correctly in the right manner by elaborating on consonants and making the vowels roll off the tounge.
That's what I noticed when comparing the Invicta FM jingle package from 1990 with one of their later packages from 2003.
The 1990 package shows how the singers based in Dallas really understood how to deliver the name of the station "InviC-Ta F-M" whilst the 2003 ones recorded in Los Angeles have it annunciated a lot softer. You know you've got a great jingle package when you take the opportunity to use it in so many different ways as the station even just used accapellas on their own as they were that strong.

Also, the fact that lots of listeners to the station can still remember the 1990 package and will sing them melody logo back proves a point as to how succesfull it was and that goes for any radio station with a succesfull jingle package. Nobody I've spoken to can remember any of the spoken liners from around 2000 "Who plays the best music?
WE DO! (we do!)".

As originally recorded by Pete Wilson, a jingle collector from Barmy Bracknell here's an interview with the man behind that great jingle package David Arnold not to be confused with the man who worked with Bjork and Moby. No, this man was responsible for quite a few catchy TV themes as well such as The Big Breakfast, Live And Kicking and the CBBC idents used from the late to mid 90s well into 2001.
It shows that they've taken what's worked in the past and adapted it for what was then the present day adding the excitement to radio.
In fact I'd say that my copy of the CD with the 1990 jingles as sold at the studios, and my Invicta FM T-shirt from around the same time are two of my proudest posessions.

I'll have to find an example of one of the most badly sung jingle packages in comparison for a later post.

Learning From Further Mistakes

Following on from my last post and Tudor's anecdote, it's all very well to laugh at synth music in this day and age but I'm starting to realise that the people who composed the tracks themselves are actually very talented musicians and orchestra leaders who have been composing music right back to the big band easy listening sounds of the 1960s.

This goes to show that if you want to get on in any industry you have to adapt and move with the times and that's exactly what these composers did and it goes for more established musicians too, such as Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, and even TV and Radio presenters such as Simon Mayo, Phillip Schofield and Noel Edmonds.
The list is endless really but every one of those names I've mentioned has had a low point in their career and they're more than happy to either gloss over them or laugh back at them as they can learn from their errors and that's what quite a lot of people around me need to understand.

Then again I've been told the exact same thing by teachers, lecturers, people who want others to do well basically. There will always be critics, and there will always be cynics but it's best not to let their pearls of bullshit get in the way of positive circumstances.
As long as you don't overdo it and are understanding of others who might not be having a good time then there are no problems whatsoever.

Looks like I'm going to need another lie down.

Learning From Mistakes

Well my radio reminiscing is almost reaching it's end as I'm now in April or to be more specific the first week of April.
That week half the station staff including the three main editors were in York for the
Student Radio Conference which I'm not too gutted about missing now to be honest.

This gave us the excuse to muck about really and it's probably the only week that all the shows were specialist shows which included the Live Variety boys who used their last show of the semester to tie up a few loose ends. Later on in the clip, although I haven't included the song itself they played Ray Lamontagne's stunning cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy".

The reasoning for this was because a few weeks earlier they recorded a show for the 24 hour broadcast with all the songs aiming to be on a comedy theme.
Halfway through however, Ross decided to slip in a cover of "Crazy" by The Kooks as done on Jo Whiley's Live Lounge on Radio 1 and myself and Paul agreed that it didn't fit the mood of the show alongside the other tracks by Bill Bailey and Tom Lehrer.
However that particular incident reinforced my understanding of why songs are programmed in a particular way on radio for specific shows and it was really useful to learn overall.

Around this time most of us were getting our podcasts done and having a gander through the selection of music that we could use for them and myself Paul and Ross were having a bit of a laugh at a CD that contained some very dodgy synthesizer pieces.
What Paul described as "80s music gone wrong" and when Tudor arrived to do his show that evening I immediately asked him to play one of the tracks during his first link and
here's the result!
Not a rant as such, but that taught me that you should never use such music seriously!
I can remember when first listening to the station and Ali on the Sports Show,
where instead of the guitar theme that's become synomynous with the sports show there was a Casio version of the Match Of The Day theme and I knew that we had to make a few changes! I was just too nervous to admit it.
Unfortunately that's even more toe curling for me to upload here.

This week also saw the departure of Smoke International after nearly two years and it was rather sad partly because Fabian and the guys hadn't found anyone to take over the show from them from in Autumn next year.
Once again here's the well produced chronology of the show, for which one of the beds happened to be used for Thames Television's 21st anniversary in 1989!

That was such a great night followed by glasses of wine whilst I presented my final soul show of the semester playing a selection of soulful ballads. This happened to be the final show overall on Smoke Radio that week bringing it to a nice, relaxed and forward looking end with "People Get Ready" by the Impressions.
I think everyone by now had reached the point that they really cared about their shows and making them meaningful and that's a great way of how we progressed throughout the year whilst having a good laugh at the same time.

"Saturday Night At The Movies, Who Cares What Picture You See"

Two things are wrong in that title, i.e it was Friday and at the Orange Street Music Club seeing jazz trumpeter Steve Waterman performing alongside the Frances Knight Trio.
What a cracking gig, a selection of really lovely jazz standards mostly composed by Benny Goldsten with one of the highlights being "Destination Unknown" which Steve himself described as "Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty meets Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock".
The musicians themselves caught my attention not just for their performances but their quirks such as drummer Vince Clark having a rather unfortunate (depending on your point of view) namesake and the bass player looking similar to either Jonathan King or Simon Bates.

I was at the gig with both dad and John, a friend of the family who teaches CDT at the girls Langton school and we managed to bump into one of his former students who's just graduated.
I was determined not to drink but both Dad and John prompted me into indulging in a WKD and two Smirnoff Ices, whilst they savoured pints of Guinness and booze free Becks along with two helpings of Bombay Mix.

As we were going back I found out that Olly's managed to blag himself a role as an attendant for Lounge On The Farm taking place near Canterbury this weekend.
I was thinking of going but realised I need to be careful with my bob as I may be making a visit back to London next week.

I'm hoping to go to a few more gigs in Canterbury especially as most of them are free.
Make the most of what you've got in these sorts of circumstances.

Music Is The Best Medicine

I now know what people mean when they say they can't live without music. Provided that it's in the right place at the right time.
I had a listen back to another edition of Paul and Ross's "Live Variety Show" from March this morning which included a track by Bob Dylan's backing band simply known as
"The Band" which was called "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".
I immediatley thought "where have I heard this before" and I then remembered mum used to have a C90 with Joan Baez's version of that and many other Bob Dylan compositions.
Also included on the tape was Linda Ronstadt and Edith Piaf although it ended up having the infamous "John Kettley Is A Weatherman" by a Tribe Of Toffs as a result of Dad accidentally taping over after hearing the song played on the radio.

The soundtrack to many a dreadful car journey which elaborates about music in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've now learnt not to let bad scenarios get in the way of good music even if it does involve making bizarre moves.

Not least since I got a call from ASDA this morning asking me if I would return and I politley said no explaining that I thought the time was right to move on and in honesty because of the obnoxious nature of my co-workers who put me off the job and life overall.
However I did wish them well for the future and it has helped me to learn a bit more about myself as a person.

Well it's Friday and that means Grooveline with Stephen as always and a cracking line up including two more tracks from July's album of the month by Moses Mayes.
Listening to this made me think more about wanting to focus more on the soul show when coming back to London in September but I reckon after watching a bit of television will make me think "no I want to do daytime!".
I'll admit it when I say that television's responsible for me wanting to get into radio especially as some of my favourite broadcasters have started off in and returned to radio.
It's definitely worth having a look at these interviews I found with Andy Crane and
Simon Parkin which are very enlightening and open.

I definitely know now that asking questions does help.

Mobile Inspiration

I've been having a listen back to the podcasts we did earlier this year and I feel the need to analyse them in heavy detail.
Listening back to my own which were about the NAS and autism I have a terrible habit of repeating myself or what my interviewees are about to say.
For example:
RB: "Susan Sayer runs the autism unit at the Abbey School in Faversham. Has it been sucessful?,
SS: "It's been very sucessfull..."

Whilst the interview itself gets a few points across I've now realised that Charles Carroll was right in making a good cue stand out and not repeat itself and he had every right to give me a low mark on the newswriting module at the beginning of the course.

But it's not enough to just make sure that the script is spot on. If you plan to add production you must think about how and why you are using that sound effect or impact, in a particular point of a podcast.
This is illustrated through PodPod which as a concept is brilliant but the mix between dry interviews and produced links can be unnerving with an whoosh coming in and catching you off guard when least expected.
But then again isn't Garageband a wonderful thing?
That may convert me to buying a Mac.

In Need Of Liquid

I'm physically feeling really bad this morning but mentally I'm still the same as I have been in the last week or so. I've been feeling how I normally do when I've had a few VKs so I reckon this could be a sign of good potential and saving money so when I next go to the Undercroft bar I'll be able to live of just Sprite and Fanta!
Then again quite a few people do owe me a few VKs but that's not really for me to say!

I've started to realise even further that most of the songs I like have meanings that make sense. One of instance being underrated jazz vocalist Carmen Lundy and the opener of her 1985 debut album called "Time Is Love". I initially liked it because of the really nice instrumentation and piano chords and of course Carmen's stunning voice but I've had a listen to the lyrical content in detail and it actually means something;
"time will tell if your dreams will all come true, yes they do".

During S(4)S, Sam was telling me how she couldn't listen to any songs with words at night as it stopped her from sleeping and opted for Classic FM. I can understand perfectly where she's coming from and what the guys from the station at the Gcap visit were saying about the station back in January. People who dismiss it, comparing it with Radio 3 do not know what they are talking about as both stations have completely different aims.
Classic FM's aim is to bring classical music to a wider audience and that's why it's programmed in the same way as a pop station with presenters who don't live and breath that particular genre of music. This is why you've got people like Myleene Klass and previously Mark Goodier, as the man himself says that it's important to have eclectic tastes if you want to get along in the media.
I've still got the CD with the original jingles from 1992 somewhere which are still being used in one form or another!

The Mentality Continues

OK, so 4od is set to download tonight's documentary on Bernard Manning and I'm almost near the end of completing my playlist page on the Soul Expression website.
41 shows, whooo!

To be honest I haven't done a proper show since the night before I ran away back to Canterbury as there was the two hour "Spring Fuelled Soul" show in place of
Smoke International that week, the "Slow Jam Special" to round off the semester and a
6 week break before my final show "Sun Sea And Soul". That just proves that I've gone crazy since escaping from the Studio 4 fiasco.

Having just listened back to the first extended special there are quite a few tracks that I've forgotten I've even played which is a good thing I suppose. These included a cover of "Waters Of March" by Akiko and Corrine from Swing Out Sister, a Jobim standard which ended up being used by Coca Cola for their "Coke Is It Campaign".
Some of the vocal elements ended up being used on Swing Out Sister's subseqent album in 2004 on a track called "La Source" which was played on the Sun Sea and Soul show.

Back to the Spring special and "Harvest For The World" covered by Ronnie Laws, probably the only version of the song to have orchestra hit noises similar to that on the BFT clip from earlier or The Krypton Factor.
I have a dreadful fetish for the Orchestra Hit voice on a synthesizer mainly because of it's use on many theme tunes throughout the 80s including Top Of The Pops when they used Paul Hardcastle's "The Wizard".
Who cares if it's cliched in the present day, I still love it.
Please tell me I havent written the last sentence in an earlier blog post.

I'm still rather embarrassed about my show ideas but even if they don't meet the approval I won't be too worried. For what I know Phil L and Sam can drop me from the schedule completely if they wanted. Then again the circumstances in the long term may result in me in tears after a while. There's another thing I'm asking myself, what could the potential circumstances of an action be?

I need to lie down, honestly.

Phase Of Mentality

I don't know what's come over me. (Make your own jokes)
After being "chimed" by co-editor of programming Sam on Windows Live I felt the need to reveal this ridiculous idea that I have for a show together for Freshers after we both presented the soul show during S(4)S. The title, please don't laugh: "Blammy and Sami".
The way I see it would be a show broadcast during the daytime daily during Freshers and then we would both go down to whichever Fresher's Fayre is taking place on what campus and meet the newcomers at the Smoke Radio stall. One feature I have in mind would be "The Specialist Spotlight" where we'd get a presenter from a specialist show in and ask them to tell them about his or her show and play a track that would be featured that night.

Logically it would work but it's up to the lady herself and Phil L what goes ahead and
I fully accept that. If I ended up with just doing the soul show I wouldn't be fussed as I've got tons of ideas for that as well. Arrrgh!
I may as well list them down too as I want the show to be an introduction of all the sub-soul genres I play on my show with two from each being played, so for Jazz Funk we could have one from Light Of The World followed by the Players Association or for Gospel (yes I do play a bit of Gospel occasionally) I'd play something by the Winans followed by a more modern track by someone such as Kirk Franklin.

Overall one thing I don't want on the station next year is musical snobbery and this even resorts to presenters giving negative opinions about songs or bands on air.
This can be done as during the 24 hour broadcast both mine and Tudor's show had us both in as presenters/extra voices respectively for each show and it really blended in well together.

Whatever happens I'll be happy but nothing can stop me being bloody happy at this rate!