7 March 2010

First the good news… Last night I saw one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. Beth Nielsen Chapman and support act Marcus Hummon are coming to the close of their UK tour and I caught up with them at the wonderful Llandudno theatre last night. I came across BNC by accident several years ago at HMV during one of the company’s January sales. The CD cover and artist’s name were interesting for me to take a gamble, and when I played the album I was more than impressed. The album was created after the death of the artist’s husband and is called SAND AND WATER. It is now one of my favourite albums and I couldn’t pass up the chance to see the lady perform live. It was a magical performance in front of a capacity audience of 1,500, my only regret was that there were not more young people who availed themselves of the opportunity to see one of the truly great American singer/songwriters. Now I’m always complaining that people buy albums on the strength of one song heard on radio. Well, I did exactly that last after seeing Marcus Hummon perform a song called ‘Rosanna.’ It’s a narrative tale about forced prostitution and deportation based on a true life experience. And I didn’t really care if the rest of the album was pants (fortunately it wasn’t) because I wanted to play it on my radio show tonight.

Back in the late 90s The Sunday Times was obligatory reading for me to establish the best new music around. I discovered new, quality acts through The Culture Section including Ani DiFranco, Belle and Sebastian, and many other ‘underground’ artists. But in the last five years it’s become unbelievably mainstream, even hailing the likes of Gerry Halliwell, Sugarbabes, Girls Aloud, and today Ke$ha. The writer is Dan Cairns who a  couple of years ago gave the worst press trashing of a record I have ever read when he condemned the Frames album, THE COST, which included the Oscar-winning song ‘Falling Slowly.’ It wasn’t the band’s greatest album, but even a so-so record from the band is better than most. Anyway, today the headline today read: “Party girl, crank or professional provocateur, Ke$ha demands to be listened to without prejudice, says Dan Cairns.” I recently watched a Ke$ha TV interview and live performance, and was horrified that this untalented individual, who can’t sing, can’t dance and can’t talk is getting this level of positive press attention. Lady Ga Ga she isn’t. But that wasn’t all, oh no. DC was also responsible for the Gorillaz album review which ended with the words: “Oh, for more albums as strange, unpredictable and jaw-droppingly good as this.” Now I have not heard the album yet and I’ve yet to experience a ‘jaw-dropping’ episode; billiant, moving, entertaining and inspirational, yes;  and would never use such vernacular [jaw-dropping] in a review. In both instances, it could be perceived that DC is not being objective and is being coached… I remember some time ago a reviewer in one of the magazines claiming that Beth Orton’s album would be album of the year, and if it wasn’t he would eat his vinyl record collection. It didn’t even figure in the magazine’s top twenty of the year. What one says and writes can come back and bite… ‘Falling Slowly’ was hailed by the Times after Hansard and Irglova won the Oscar.

5 March 2010

Two great acts, David Ford and Europe, shared something during their respective live shows - they proved popular enough to sell out their shows. They also share something else which is less attractive - BBC radio and TV don’t broadcast them. During 2009 it was commonplace to witness sold-out shows, full to the rafters with passionate fans of all ages, featuring acts that can’t get arrested on the BBC airwaves. Week in, week out, I play songs on the Shakenstir FM radio show (mostly album tracks) which should be standard fodder for the BBC (and others), but never see the light of day on the Beeb, and for reasons I cannot understand. The current furore over the closure of 6 Music is, thus far, successful in masking the major problem with BBC radio; it’s utter failure  to provide a showcase for the very best music during hours that people actually listen, and its huge operational costs. There are 123 Community Stations and around another 40 College/University Radio Stations, some of which use highly talented presenters playing great music. So here’s a suggestion that will cost the Beeb a big fat ZERO, but requires that this expensive and cumbersome public, national monoploy uses a little imagination. Now the Beeb is supreme at pinching good ideas and therefore believe the corporation’s intelligence unit is fully functional. So why not listen in to what’s going on around the airwaves and select shows for inclusion on their mainstream stations? My wonderful producer, JJ, spends his listening hours researching the airwaves and we measure our shows against others, and guesss what? We’re better and manage to marry the highest quality with accessibility - even more so than the so-called BBC ‘tastemakers’ (a misnomer if ever I’ve heard one). We’ve been told by industry people we respect that on paper what we do shouldn’t work, but on listening to our broadcasts they come back to us with nothing less than respect, admiration, and not a little surprise at just how good the shows sound.

Our show is about music, great music; we don’t chat endlessly, we don’t ask listeners to spend fortunes texting or phoning in. We just play great music. This Sunday night’s show will be no exception. In it I have featured artists and albums that we on Shakenstir were the first to champion, many months ahead of the rest of the music media. They include Imogen Heap’s 2005 album, ‘SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, an album of the year for us but ignored by everybody else. Moby’s PLAY, David Gray’s WHITE LADDER  and Damien Rice’s O were highly acclaimed by us a full 12 months before each were played by the BBC, and subsequently sold in their millions. David Ford has also been ignored by the BBC since 2005 and the release of his brilliant debut album. He is now on his third fabulous creation which should be blaring out from Radio 1 and 2 right now, but of course isn’t. CONTENT IS KING, so my message to the BBC is stop the distracting, misleading announcements and take a magnifying glass to MUSIC CONTENT, and take a look at what’s right under your cash-rich noses. Hell, you may even find some desperately needed inspiration, the very thing that has kept us going for the past ten years, and will do so for many years to come.