picture from BBC

Although it might seem like I am moaning self-indulgently at the injustice of it all, I still genuinely can’t understand why BBC 6 Music never took up the option to broadcast The Sunday Alternative. I’m not suggesting that the BBC owe me a living but why ignore a show that couldn’t be more suited to their remit? If you listen back to the radio shows I will echo your view that while some of the shows were below par, (especially when there was no live band) when it worked the show was one of the best things on air, and I’m not just trying to sound boastful. I might sound arrogant but I am fucking proud of that show and its legacy; after all it was referred to as both “the reason computers have speakers” and most tellingly, “the best BBC 6 Music show that isn’t on BBC 6 Music, yet”.

One of the reasons I am so proud of it is the fact that it seems to have led the way to a small extent. It might have been seen by some as a local radio show (Fiona Sturgess of The Independent who I doubt even listened to it) because it wasn’t broadcast from London, but it was a worldwide show. Many is the time that I would play a new song and beat 6 Music to it by a few weeks, or I would hear a topic of conversation that we had previously covered. When Andrew Collins and Richard Herring stopped doing the Saturday 10am-1pm slot, (covering for Adam and Joe), I approached them as at the time I was doing the show with Erik Petersen and we would have been ideal in what was a light hearted comedy slot. I’d have been knackered when Erik decided to quit the show without mentioning it to me, or before that when he would randomly not turn up, but I didn’t know that at the time. Instead they gave the show to Peter Serafinowicz. This turned out to be a massive blunder because all it did was prove that the multi-talented actor, writer, comedian, director, and voice artist could not present a radio show and ended up looking stupid. The Sunday Alternative must spring into the heads of a lot of people when they hear the Sunday afternoon show on 6 music, I still want to call it Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service although he is on sabbatical and leaving it to a series of guest hosts. I did offer to keep his seat warm, they ignored me.

One of the things people remember about The Sunday Alternative on radio was my propensity to play a cover version or two. My collecting of the songs ‘I Love Rock & Roll’, ‘Louie Louie’, and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ formed the popular weekly feature Louie Smells Like Rock & Roll, and we came up with something resembling a game centred on covers of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. We featured punk/ska covers of pop songs and all manner of weirdness. Listeners were even invited to choose their favourite and least favourite cover versions.

BBC radio, under their new ‘BBC Music’ umbrella, is running a poll to find the greatest cover version of all time. You couldn’t make this shit up could you?

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Listen to The Sunday Alternative here

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