Tag Archives: Radio

Value of things in a Digital World

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

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So I’ve been catching up with a pile of podcasts that I have been accumulating, including the BBC Radio 4 documentary series the Digital Human presented by Aleks Kotoski (twitter:@aleksk).  In series 4 (Autumn 2013 – yes I’m ashamed to say I’ve got that far behind) Alex presented an episode called Value, which was rather special, in a series that is already fascinating.

Why special, well in under 30 minutes the programme explained brilliantly a couple of ideas that I have periodically tried to answer.  As a music fan, I’ve often gotten involved with the arguments about which format is better, MP3s, CDs and vinyl. This argument has raged for a longtime and will continue for a long time (long passed when the music industry has collapsed through its inability to understand the end user). But, through trying to describe how our perception of value and its manifestation is affected (and perhaps changed) as result of the ease of access and gratification the internet offers us (no more finding specialist record stores, routing through piles of vinyl or CDs to find that 1 jem – see Vinyl Junkies).  At the essence of the idea idea is that the investment of physical effort or emotion results in us imbuing the item with value.  In the programme the idea of the effort to find something (hunting through stores etc) or the importance of a piece of music as it says something to us or about us.

But rather than me trying to repeat what the programme brilliantly explained – go invest 30 minutes of listening time.

 

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Good Morning Nantwich

03 Monday Jan 2011

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I’ve been reading Phill Jupitus’ Good Morning Nantwich, an autobiographical book about how he arrived to do the Breakfast show on BBC’s 6 Music, with a look at how Breakfast Radio arrived in the common form it is today, and listener behaviours.  If you love music, or radio then you’ll enjoy this book.  Given Phill’s standup comedian roots there is plenty of humour in here as well, it has had me laughing out load.

 

There are some great quotes as well,  one of my favourites so far is (with reference to DJs):

The more of the record that is playing that they talk over, the bigger a tool they are

Each chapter of the book is completed with a playlist,  I hope Phill and the publishers dont mind, but I thought I’d share some of these with you.

 

Chapter 1 : Workers’ Playtime:

  • Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend – John Cale
  • Theme from The Godfather/Al Capone – Jazz America
  • Get A Job – The Chordettes
  • Start – The Jam
  • Good Morning – The Beatles
  • Hitsville UK – The Clash
  • Rez – Underworld
  • Train Song – Holly Cole
  • What Do I Do Now? – Elvis Costello
  • A13, Rrunk Road To The Sea – Billy Bragg

 

 

Keep checking back as I’ll post more of the lists 🙂

Pirate Radio

28 Monday Sep 2009

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I’ve just finished reading ‘Radio Caroline: the Pirate Years‘ but Ralph Humpries. Although the book is in many ways old school history with lots of dates and facts, it proved to be a rather engaging and interesting read about the history of Radio Caroline which sounds like an ever running series of dubious deals and running battles with the then GPO (responsible for broadcasting in the 60s) and the weather not to mention the odd conflict between other such stations which really justified their private name.

If you’re interested to know how Pirate radio took off, or background to the formation of Independent Radio stations (which are generally tragically poor siblings) and Radio 1. Then this is a worth while read.

This leads me nicely onto ‘The Boat That Rocked’ – the film by Richard Curtis based loosely on the radio Caroline story. A brilliant cast from Philip Seymour Hoffman to Bill Nighy and including Curtis regular Rhys Ifans, and rising names such as Rhys Darby (from Flight of The Conchords). Film feels more like a series of sketches linked together a very basic narrative, than a complete story in the Notting Hill or Love Actually is, although this isn’t the first time this approach has been applied – just look at four weddings. Although not Curtis’ best work, there a enough hilarious moments to warrant a viewing or to.

Oz Music

31 Tuesday Mar 2009

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When I travel, I like to hear local sounds, and have to visit a record shops to pickup some decent local tunes. In Oz they really do a good job of promoting music, and local artists in an unadulterated way. On the radio there is Triple J (funded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) who dont waste hours of time blathering on like Chris Moyles or Terry Wogan, there is chat but a lot more music without falling back to the over hyped boy and girl bands or the safest of safe choices; I mean Wolfmother got an interview during peaktime breakfast show. The musc is pretty varied within a show as well – no fear of going from Lily Allen to Nine Inch Nails to Nouvelle Vague doing an acoustic cover of the Sex Pistols God Save The Queen.

Then rather than having songs editted, cut or bleebed for language, the DJ will quickly warn of language, and let the song go.

The really surprising thing is despite the promotion of local bands, the amount of British music played is amazing, Lily Allen, The Prodigy, Coldplay and the list goes on.