People only listen to the charts when the whole country unites to pat themselves on the back to congratulate ourselves on a job well done. Today, for the first time since Christmas 2009, was one such occasion when we wanted to listen to the charts. I won't go into the fact that I predicted this way back in 2007, before people knew what I was talking about, but today was an interesting one for tuning into Radio 1.
The BBC chickened out of playing 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead', opting instead to play an explanation as to why it would be wrong to play it. It was a disgrace as the BBC are funded by us, and as licence payers we are entitled to watch and listen to their output without censorship. If they screen The Wizard Of Oz at Christmas, and don't edit the song out, then I will be complaining to them pointing out that Thatcher has only been dead eight months, and with it fresh in our minds, it is an insult to her memory. I will also leak the email to The Daily Mail, and see if they're silly enough to take the bait.
I'm not sure about tonight's listening figures, but there was a lot of hype surrounding the fact that I was going to go where the BBC feared to, by playing the song to open The Sunday Alternative. Of course I managed to make a comedy situation out of it by actually starting the show with Eva Cassidy's version of 'Over The Rainbow'. This was followed by my innocent pondering about why the BBC were refusing to play songs from The Wizard Of Oz, as I have just played one and nobody has complained. I had been planning this introduction all week long, comedy is all about the planning. I followed this with the Klaus Nomi version of 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead', Morrissey's 'Margaret On The Guillotene', and John McCullough's 'I'll Dance On Your Grave Mrs Thatcher'. There was also 'Tramp The Dirt Down' by Elvis Costello but I didn't want to milk it. At the time of writing this blog, I am unaware of any complaints made towards the station. I imagine that the newspapers will ignore this story, because it shows that there is still such a thing as a broadcaster who does his own thing.
Listening to some of the old editions of The Sunday Alternative, the live music sessions were a bit of a mess. I interviewed the artist, with the songs acting as an interval. Of course, I am always learning when it comes to radio, and I'm constantly striving to be better and better. If you start off by thinking you're perfect, then you're fucked from the start because you aren't open to critical suggestion. I make a point of listening back (only once if I can help it) to every show I do, and can pick faults that the listener won't even spot. Anyway, tonight as I was presenting the show solo, I needed a better way to introduce the live sessions. On NottinghamLIVE, we have been doing a clumsy signalling system of prompting the bands to start, which isn't perfect but we didn't know how else to do it. Tonight I think I mastered it. I announced that the band were on after a particular song, and then switched the faders up about twenty seconds before the song ended. Then I signalled the band to introduce themselves and kick off. It worked a charm.
The first time around, I asked for the show to be extended to three hours. This was accepted but we had to pre-record the final hour before doing the live show. I found this difficult, (as did Penny and Andy Haynes on one occasion), as we never knew what we'd already mentioned and it totally fucked up the continuity of the show. Doing two hours is a challenge, but so far, (and it is only two shows in) we have produced a tight and entertaining two hours to listen to on a Sunday evening.
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