Every now and then I pull an
all-nighter in my office, as I have always worked better at night and have a
lot of work on at the moment. Last night I managed to get a load of songs for The Sunday Alternative uploaded and sent across, while at
the same time figuring out the music for this week’s American show. I then got
on with little tasks that I hadn’t had the time to do properly such as the
radio blogs and uploading to the Mixcloud archives; when I saw how far behind I
was with the Mixcloud for The Sound Of Nottingham UK
I realised that this is one of those jobs it’s better to do a bit at a time as
I have months worth of shows to catch up with. All in all I should have been
happy with what I managed to do last night and this morning, but I’m never
happy really and always feel that I should have done more, recording the
remaining episode of Steve’s LP Box
for example.
As always when I’m working, I
had two tabs on my computer open; one with Twitter and one with Facebook
(remember Facebook? It’s making an inexplicable comeback) and would
occasionally have a quick look at. Maybe this is why I don’t get more done? A
lot of employers don’t allow access to the Internet during work time, so
perhaps I should do the same until I give myself a designated break? I remember
a few years ago I organised this idea with Mandi where I woke up with her and
had breakfast, and she texted me when she arrived at work, which was my cue to
start myself. She texted me when she had a break and when she had lunch, and I
would have the same breaks at home until she texted to say it was time to go
back to work. During that experiment I managed to get a lot done, although
looking back I realise that I didn’t have the workload that I have now. Or
maybe I did have the workload but thought I had all the time in the world to
work at a more leisurely pace?
Thanks to having the
Twitter/Facebook windows open, I saw my old friend Wayne Bavin was doing the
breakfast show on Norwich 99.9FM so decided to listen online. Once again I was
struck by how ideal he is for this kind of radio. I first met him in the mid-1990s
when he was a club DJ and even then he had a DJ’s mentality. His musical
offerings this morning weren’t to my taste (although he throws in a few good
tracks so he can’t be entirely bound by a playlist like most commercial
stations), but I like to listen to him when I can because of his skill. He’s
writing an autobiography of his nomadic life of wandering between stations as a
freelance stand-in called Radio Gypsy,
and I am writing the foreword to it, one of the things I refer to is the very fact
that he still hasn’t got a permanent radio home yet. I would recommend
listening to him but it’s hard to know where he’ll be next. Perhaps best to
follow him on Twitter.
It made me wonder if I could
do what he does. A lot of people close to me tell me that I shouldn’t be on
Trent Sound and that I should try and get in at BBC Radio Nottingham or some
other station, and although I agree to some extent I have always resisted
attempting it. Not because I’m not good enough as I do believe I have the
skill, but because I have never wanted to compromise my musical output. On the
other hand I do feel as if I might have painted myself into a corner by somehow
becoming known as a cool, serious broadcaster rather than a “let us know the
funny things your goldfish did today, we’ll have more after a couple of songs
followed by the traffic” type. I didn’t set out to be this type of presenter,
it just sort of happened. Could I take a job with a bigger station and play
music I have no say in? I’d enjoy the fun aspect of it, and I’d also enjoy
being able to interview none-music guests, I’d probably even enjoy representing
the station in a shopping centre doing some dopey Saturday afternoon ‘fun day’.
Would people take me seriously at gigs though? Would I have to say goodbye to
my credibility? Maybe if I carried on doing what I do at the same time, after
all John Peel presented Top of the Pops
and nobody complained.
===
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