by
It is Tuesday, 19th November 2001. My day of masochism is entering it’s final run. It’s in the evening that Radio 1 finally shrugs the weight of the playlist that dictates the make-up of the station’s daytime musical output. But just how radical is ‘Night-time’?
The Evening Session with Steve Lamacq ~ 8.00pm - 10.00pm
Steve Lamacq, a former NME news editor, took over the reins of the Evening Session from Mark Goodier after being hired under controllor, Matthew Bannister‘s indie-friendly recruitment drive in ‘93. After four years, co-presenter, Jo Whiley, was given her own mid-morning show and ‘Lammo’ was left to go it alone in the student-freindly, cider fuelled, cherry red Doc sporting programme.
8.00: The Strokes ‘Last Nite’. I feel a bit left out in the whole Strokes ‘debate’. They are, supposedly, the band to either love or hate of 2001. With strong opinions being raised on either side I’m beginning to wonder just how many music fans who, like me, are left in the middle, shrugging shoulders with a ’they’re alright, I suppose. If you like that kinda thing’ as their only viewpoint.
‘Last Nite‘ sounds good enough, especially after the tiresome safeness of the Dave Pearce show, the song’s sparkiness and spikiness appropriately heralds the rough n tumble, nu-indie sound that goes up to symbolise The Evening Session. No more of that pop pap - now it’s time for the scrawly guitars to ring out. Yeah? Thing is, ‘Last Nite‘ is played throughout the day anyway. So, although ‘the Sesh’ isn’t under the heel of the playlist, I wonder just what kind guidelines are laid down for Steve Lamacq to follow. Does he have total freedom, like John Peel to play whatever he likes? I doubt it, it seems as though the music he compiles for the show has to be in keeping with the show’s ‘brand image’ (indie-flavoured rock, mainly). It’s unlikely, therefore, that The Evening Session will ever kick off with Autechre, for example (though it may well have done. Correct me if I’m wrong). The Strokes, then, are both a safe choice to start the show with, and have the right amount of hipness required. As if the station is tentatively leading it’s audience into the darker realms of indie-dom by first giving them something they already know, something that won’t scare anyone off, necessarily.
I get a bit bored of the song about half way through. Yeah, it sounds like the Stooges rehearsing some old Velvet Underground track, as always - which is fair enough - but there’s nothing special here. But generally I can forgive them as, previously, on the single ’The Modern age’, they delivered us the monster line: “rolling in the OCEAN / tryina’ catch your EYE“ - one of my favourite pop moments of the year.
8.13: 100 Reasons. Typical fuzzy-racket TES fare.
8.25: A listener phones in to humiliate himself in a curious manner: he’s going to impersonate Matt Bellamy‘s singing voice. Lammo plays in a Muse ditty, and the contestant has to join in, matching his voice with the voice on the track. He miserably fails to do this, his voice is terrible. Just awful. Sadly though, it isn’t quite as awful as Matt Bellamy’s and so Lammo remains unimpressed.
8.27: Green Day ‘Scumbag‘
8.35: Lostprophets
So far, so Lamacq. Head down, no nonsense, no frills, straight-up, straight-ahead, workmanlike, meat, potatoes, nothing fancy. That’s our Lammo. Of course, he might be tired of being seen as the champion of noisy, workmanlike indie-punk, and, given the chance, he would point to his many and varied record collection as proof that he has wider tastes than his radio show makes out.
Somehow I doubt it, though. His love of uncomplicated schmIndie-rock, and innate distrust of any ’pretension’ in music is, now, [semi] legendary. In 1991 he interviewed the Manic Street Preachers for the NME. He loved their single ’Motown Junk’, but the provocative posing and preening by the ’glimmer twins’ Richey and Nicky and their clumsy (dated) androgyny, the situationist slogans... well, it got up his nose. Why couldn’t they just dress normally and tell it straight? As he tellingly explains in Simon Price‘s book, ’Everything (A Book About The Manic Street Preachers)’, “‘Motown Junk‘... couldn’t be more of a Steve Lamacq record if it was called ‘I’m Steve Lamacq’s Best Friend‘! But I couldn’t tally that with all the make-up and attention seeking tactics. I thought the way to get attention was through songs.“ So when he interviewed them he confronted them on this issue, telling them that people might not think that they were for real. Soon after being interviewed, an annoyed Richey slashed ’4 REAL’ into his arm right in front of Lamacq. Two opposing ideologies clashed with bloody results.
Even so, I bet he prefers ’This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours’ to ‘The Holy Bible’. And now, in his Evening Session show, he generally serves up a meal to his favoured no-nonsense tastes: all stodgy kiddie-punk dumplings and a thin gravy of trad-indie. Jumpy-jumpy, shouty-shouty, lager-lager anthems all the way. Hey, ver kids love it! or so R1 hopes.
8.38: The White Stripes session track. Fuckin’ A! 2001’s most astonishing band play a typically rough-hewn, raucous cover of Robert Johnson’s bloooze classic ’Stop Breaking Down’. Somehow, with their usual weird alchemy, they manage to turn the dusty and old into something singularly unique, vibrant and utterly vital. Marvellous.
8.54: British Sea Power ‘Remember Me‘. Wow. 80s indie-tastic.
9.00: The ‘Classic Alternative’ for tonite is ’Molly’s Lips’ by Nirvana. Unsurprisingly it sounds like the template for most of the show’s output that it undoubtedly is, and as such, renders most irrelevant.
9.07: ‘Movie Lounge’ with the dull Mark King who says he wants to talk about the Disney ‘toon ‘Dumbo. ‘We’re not really gonna do Dumbo, are we?“ asks Lammo, understandably. Mark does indeed ‘do’ ‘Dumbo‘, in a meandering, go nowhere fashion. At the end, Lamacq mutters “if that’s the best you can do, God save us“.
9.13: Il Nino ‘God Save Us‘. Ahh, it was just a DJ segway! You seeee???
9.20: A repeat session from Embrace. It’s no good though, it’s just as eye-bleedingly boring as it was the first time round.
9.25: Yesss! ‘Total Job’ by early 90s nutjobs World of Twist. Classic!
9.37: I pour myself a generous helping of Jack Daniels as some, pleasant but forgettable indie from Last Day in April plays. actually, I can’t remember if that’s the name of the band or the track... who cares?
9.39: ’Introducing’ Rodney P. Rubbish.
9.49: Elastica ‘British Meat Scene‘. I wonder where my copy of ’Elastica’ is, I wouldn’t mind listening to ’Stutter’ - a rare thing: a great ’Lastica song!
9.51: Land Shipping ’Deep Water’. Archetypal twee, sad-indie. The song mentions trains, the Independent newspaper, stars coming out, the whole lot. This lot have corduroy running through their veins.
9.55: “For EastEnders fans out there - ‘Pauline’ by Weasel“
And with that, another show is in the bag for nice guy Lammo.
The Evening Session used to be on earlier, more or less in the slot now occupied by Dave ‘Dave’ Pearce. This was in the Bannister era, when R1 took risks, and supplied diversity. In the 9.00pm slot, between the Session and Peel/Radcliffe came a wide diversity of programmes which ranged from Radcliffe‘s ‘Out On Blue Six’, documentaries and comedy shows from Alan Parker - Urban Warrior, Harry Hill, [very] near the knuckle skits and phone pranks from Victor Lewis-Smith (his finest hour) and the brilliant, now notorious and (natch) controversial show from Chris Morris - who got R1 in trouble for his remark about ‘bringing the news of Michael Heseltine’s death, should it arise during the show‘. It’s difficult to believe that R1 would risk transmitting such shows now, maybe because they don’t bring in the same audience figures as today’s tame mix of back-to-back dance hits and the emo/skate/ska/punk shows in the early evenings of Andy Parfitt‘s Radio 1. Maybe, but it‘s a shame to see R1 now chasing listener figures, not least because it compromises the station and narrows it‘s scope.
John Peel ~ 10.00pm - 12.00am
10.00: “Too long, too slow“. Spake the venerable John Peel. I can’t work out what he is talking about here, the final track on the Evening Session? The show itself? Or the track he’s about to play, which is by...
The Rock Show with Mary Anne Hobbs ~ 12.00am - 2.00am
MAH once worked at the NME alongside Steve Lamacq, in fact they both resigned the exact same day, for the exact same reason - the unpopular hiring of Melody Maker’s Steve Sutherland as the new editor. Other writers, such as, Stuart Maconie, Andrew Collins, David Quantick soon followed and went on to have succesful careers in different parts of the media. Lamacq and Hobbs though settled for radio. In 1997, the show she helped devise, the excellent The Breezeblock, was supposed to continue on from the Graveyard Shift after it’s hosts, Mark & Lard were moved to front the Breakfast Show. Good as it [still] is, it’s hardly compensation for ’The Best Show On Radio’. Still, in ’99 Hobbs was given The Rock Show, broadcast in the ‘specialist’ slot of after midnight. Not exactly prime-time then. Radio 1 clearly realises that there is a large enough metal audience to justify it’s own show, but not big enough to risk in a reasonable slot. Hmm, is dance/garage/r n’ b that much more popular that it deserves almost blanket weekend coverage whereas rock/metal gets a single two hour show on past midnight on a Tuesday night?
Sooooooooo. What have we learnt? Bugger all? Probably. Okay, certainly. But what the fuck? Y’know?
Next year the BBC is launching two new digital stations. the first, to start broadcasting in the Spring is Network Y which will be playing “influential and iconic artists... album tracks and classics“, a kind of radio Q or Mojo, if you will. Then in the summer comes Network X, concentrating on black, ‘urban’ and roots music. Well, fair enough, but it looks like we are headed for the same ‘segregated’ radio that they have in America. Specialist stations playing one kind of music. Network X and Y: one playing black music, the other white. And ne’er twain shall meet. I hate this idea, it sucks. What I like and have always liked about Radio1 is it’s diversity. Hip-hop followed by rock followed by pop followed by indie, that‘s the way it is and the way radio should be. That’s why my favourite show is the John Peel show where happy hardcore goes back to back with folk music, and so it should cos I want to listen to IT ALL, I don’t want separate fucking smug music ghettos, that is death to me. That’s the end to all that is best about this countries radio.
10.00: Picassio. Doesn’t have a title, but it’s one of those salvage tunes where - in this instance, anyway - ‘Axl F‘ is bolted onto “I’m lovin’ it, lovin’ it, lovin’ it / I’m lovin’ it like that“. It kinda works.
John Peel, then. He’s been around forever. Literally in Radio 1’s case, he was part of the original line-up when the station started in 1967. Four years previous to that he worked as a DJ in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated, and he was still there a year later when Beatlemania struck the US. Being, not only an Englishman, but a scouser meant that he could enjoy the attentions of many young females who had suddenly acquired an interest in all things ‘Bridish’. Nevertheless he soon returned to Blighty (rumour has it he was ‘chased out’ of Dallas by the angry father of an underage girl with whom Peel is said to have had ‘relations’ with). Once home he hopped on board the ‘pirate’ radio station Radio Caroline, an illegal station which transmitted from a boat bobbing about the North Sea. It’s existence was due to the fact that the youth of the 1960s were being starved of a decent music station, and instead being patronisd by the still stuffy BBC ’Light Programme’.
The Beeb soon saw the way the wind was blowing and created Radio 1 directly in the style of Radio Caroline, and then, waving it’s chequebook, hired it’s best DJ’s, among them Tony Blackburn and John Peel - two more dissimilar DJs you’d be hard pressed to find. It was considered a ‘sell-out’ to leave the radical, rebellious Radio Caroline for that epitome of the establishment, the BBC. But it was a canny move for John, Radio Caroline soon began to flounder on the sea of listener apathy as the bright, new Radio 1 began it’s stranglehold on the nation.
‘The Perfumed Garden’ was the name of an early Peel show, psychedelia and folk-rock were the order of the day, and hippy musings filled the gaps between the Caravan and Jethro Tull wig-outs. There’s a great recording of a hush voiced Peel interviewing Mark Bolan of Tyrannosaurus Rex (the early, full-name incarnation) where Mark recites some of his far-out, gobble-de-gook ‘poetry’. It is truly from another age, I can’t see Peely having much truck with such flighty nonsense today. “I genuinely thought flower-power was going to change the world“ he said a few years ago, with some sadness and surprise at the naivety and idealism of his younger self.
Not to worry, the John Peel show has, of course, gone on to influence and, dare I say it, ‘educate’ a whole generation or two of those seeking to explore the fringes of music, the underground. Unlike most DJs - most people, in fact - he hasn’t just gripped onto the music of his youth or his 20s, instead he remained - and remains -open to the changing styles of music, thus he went from prog to punk to new wave to indie to house to electronica and all points in-between, both retaining love of old genre’s whilst still embracing new ones. As such he has remained forever relevant. Way to go.
10.04: Proud Daddy, don’t know if that’s the name of the band or the track but, just four minutes in, and there is the first ‘what is going wrong here?’ moment, which will be familiar to all regular Peel listeners. Temperamental equipment and records played at the wrong speed remain a constant to the John Peel show. Forty years in the bizniz, and his show is still as shambolic as it [probably] ever was.
10.08: He tells us he is searching for some “death metal monstrosity“ with which to end his show with. But now though he gives us some ‘jangly-indie monstrosity’.
10.09: Tompaulin are today’s lucky racket-merchants, following in the path of the illustrious likes of Joy Division, The Smiths and Bang Bang Machine, by taking part in the prestigious John Peel Session. Their first song is ‘My Life as a Car Crash‘.
10.19: An e-mail is read out from a listener requesting information on the first track of the show, “it was bangin’“ claims the listener. John tuts, “young people, what are they like?“
10.23: Some 60s folk-hippie/choral singing from Judy Henske. Diversity is all on this show.
10.31: John tells us an anecdote, for no reason in particular, about going to his sons graduation ceremony where he “shook hands with someone with cold hands who had been listening for 21 years“.
10.39: Damn long dance track.
10.44: Tompaulin cover the wonderful 80s Strawberry Switchblade classic, ‘Since Yesterday‘. Not entirely successfully, it has to be said.
10.58: ‘Pig’s 78’. Where John‘s wife chooses an ancient song - presumably from the Peel-Acres own archives - to be played amidst the madness. It’s a feature that’s as hit and miss as any on the show (or the station), but now and again unearths something wonderful from a distant era. tonight it‘s ‘I Walk Alone' by The Vocaleers. Not a great.
11.04: A gorgeous, ambient, shoegazy track, the end of which is interrupted by John talking over it, seemingly unaware he can be heard, saying “what’s happened there... I’ve taken us off the air... “ Then the track finishes and he realises everything’s okay, it’s just another bumbling moment in the absent-minded DJ’s show. “You don’t get this on the Breakfast Show“ he chuckles, “that’s why it [the Brekkie show] is so popular I suppose“.
11.08: Reads an e-mail from a nurse who wants something “trashy and loud“ played.
11.09: Request denied. Tompaulin ‘Short Affairs‘.
11.26: A long moan about the Nashville Country Awards show. Why can’t this award show recognise the likes of - Peel favourite - Laura Cantrell, he wonders.
11.44: The final track by Tompaulin.
11.50: Blimey, a good old fashioned DJ handover. Mary Anne Hobbs comes in for her weekly bemused chit-chat with the Peel.
He asks what is on her show tonight, “a band who you will loathe“ she says, “Jimmy Eat World“
“Jimmy World?“
“Jimmy Eat World“.
John has heard of Merzbow and Melt Banana but not Jimmy Eat World. What a strange planet he inhabits. I want to go there.
11.56: Here’s the promised finale: the ‘death metal monstrosity’ in the ungodly form of Norway’s Gore Lord and their popular chart smash ’Force Fed on Human Flesh’. It is utterly magnificent, and a good taster for the following programme.
Still, John Peel, God bless his records played at the wrong speed.
12.02: AC/DC ‘Back in Black‘. A classic for sure, but someone always, always plays this on the jukebox in my local, so I wish it had been a different ‘DC track, really. But that’s just me.
12.10: Vex Red. As far as I’m aware, this is my first experience of this band. In my notes I’ve scribbled: ‘angsty, emotional indie metal’. Which kind of covers it, I think.
12.15: Will Haven ‘Carpe Diem‘. Sounds like he‘s impersonating Kat Bjelland. A bit one-note.
12.23: I lie on my bed and listen to the mighty Napalm Death. In my sleepy state it makes me imagine I’m in a cauldron of boiling blood, surrounded by shadowy, cloaked figures who have what looks like sheep skulls for heads. It’s good stuff, I particularly like it when the vocalist decides to ‘sing’ in the style of the demented barking of a rabid dog. Fantastic!
Listen, I was born on a council estate in the West Midlands, this stuff is in my very marrow.
Onwards and... downwards.
12.32: Phil Alexander ex(?) editor of Kerrapp! magazine. What an idiot this bloke is, Mary Anne does her best to give half-hearted giggles to his painfully unfunny ‘Colin Hunt’ style puns. He witters on about something or other untill he is told to stop.
12.48: Competition, we are asked a question about Limp Bizkit. A joke obviously, what has that fat boy-band got to do with this show?
12.54: OTEP described by Hobbs as being the “debut of the year“. I beg to differ. It’s shit.
1.00: Rock Show faves Slipknot. Heh heh heh. Clowns are funny.
The jump-suited one’s next single is played. As usual it’s great, delivering the all-important sonic punch with a pop sensibility. Plus, I think it should be said that the lead singer clown has one of the best ‘rock’ voices in, uh, rock Odd lyrics though. One line seems to be: “come and see my cage / built upon my grave“ and another goes: “I’m just keeping myself alive“, well, we’re all doing that, pal. Still, if the crime is making me laugh - they‘re all guilty!.
The single is apparently going to be released on Valentines Day, next year.
1.04: A plug for the 4-hour Xmas show. The R1 belt is being loosened this Xmas, more freedom is being awarded some of the shows - as a special treat for us all - even Mark Radcliffe is being given a ‘no playlist‘ daytime show, which he clearly seems thrilled about. Pity its just a one-off
1.05: Pink Floyd ‘Another Brick in the Wall‘, a bit of a diversion. Again, did it have to be such an obvious choice?
1.10: Marilyn Manson‘s tepid, lifeless cover of ‘Tainted Love‘.
1.15: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club ‘Love Burns‘. Tame, ‘Psychocandy‘ era-Jesus and Mary Chain. Even a tame JAMC should be worth a listen, but this is weaker than weak tea weakened with weak water. Nah.
1.18: Mary Anne Hobbs‘ album of the year, she tells us, is by Headcharge. It doesn’t seem we see eye to eye on many things, Mary and me, the Headcharge track she plays isn’t very good at all. It’s all becoming much of a muchness, in fact. When did metal become so fucking weedy? Bring back Extreme Noise Terror and Skinny Puppy to show these knock-kneed, bed-wetters how to ROKKKK!!
Far from invigorating me, like I thought it would, the dull burr in these songs is actually sending me off to sleep.
1.25: Sometime during Lostprophets I finally drift away to the land of Nod (Nod = drummer in Fields of the Nephilim, hurray!!). I’m sure they have the same effect on most people. While I sleep I dream I’m wandering across a scorched, barren, post apocalyptic wasteland, wearing a big, dusty hat. I arrive at a tumble-down shack, the sign on the door: ‘Radio One (97-99 FM)’. I take a match to the dead wood and burn the place down, freeing the souls in torment within. I turn around and continue walking. I don’t look back.
I won’t take too long in ‘summing up’, you are, of course, as capable of drawing your own conclusions as to the state Radio 1 is in as I am. I just think that the station is in need of - is overdue - another big shake up. One similar, but perhaps not quite as drastic, as the ‘big purge’ of the early 90s. So much of it is stale, homogenised and bland, crap like the Dave Pearce show is just a disgrace, and the uniformity of most of it is wearying.
Yes, R1 has more new music than any other radio station - even in the daytime. Yes, it should be chart-friendly, and they cover the chart intelligently - the likes of the Tweenies, Westlife and the more stupifiyingly dull boy-band balladeering all gets short-shrift, pushed out in favour of UK garage, r n’ b, nu-metal and pop. R1 has more live music than anyone else. All the main shows have had guests playing live at some point, Jo Whiley, the Evening Session and John Peel make a regular habit of it. Everything from unsigned bands to the biggest bands and stars in the world. And, no, it can‘t be all things to all people.
All that. But still there’s something missing. Personality? Individuality? Risk taking? Yes, but only ever within the constraints placed upon the presenters, and the more willfully obtuse the presenter the more original the show. Twas always thus, I suppose, but the thing is, how many at the moment are wiling to give something different? The good thing about the early 90s intake - yer Radcliffes, yer Whileys, yer Lamacqs - was that they never wanted to be DJs! They merely fell into it after thier previous jobs ended. Radcliffe wanted to be a drummer in a successful band, when that fell through, instead of playing music he played music. He took the job of DJ because there he could still be involved with his first love - music. The likes of Moyles and Mills on the other hand, had only ever wanted to be ‘disc-jockeys’. And that’s a big difference in ideology.
Mark Radcliffe‘s current contract ends in April 2003. Some have wondered that if things at R1 stay as they are, will he a) want to leave, b) be forced out of the station or c) stay where he is, doing what he is doing now? It seems ‘c’ is unlikely, he obviously is getting irritated and bored by a lot of the music he has to play, and there are only so many times you can laugh an irritant away. His behaviour is becoming more erratic, a few weeks ago he played a Sugarbabes single six times in full during a single show as a deja-vu ’joke’, one wonders if the ’management’ saw the funny side (afterwards Moyles got in on the joke by playing the track as the first song of his show - but he stopped it after a couple of seconds, saying “only joking“. Coward.). Then there’s the fact that during the Morris Dancing feature, the words “fuc(beep)king shite“ were repeated everyday. Is this the work of a rebel, a cheeky wind-up scampateer, or a man who feels he doesn’t care anymore, because he knows the end of his stay is drawing near? Maybe it‘s for the best, like DLT in the early 90s, he has just outgrown the station.
But if, for whatever reason, Radcliffe goes, who is there to replace him? Will a younger version of Radcliffe be found and bought in, or will it be some say-nothing, sit back, link the records, ’guess what I got up to last night / did you see EastEnders?’ DeeJayyy like Nemone?
It’s unlikely that any controllor will now fire John Peel, who is equally happy to stay, as long as his format remains untouched, which it probably will be, though his show has been shunted around, reduced in size, and all sorts before now. His eventual departure will probably be newsworthy. The original nuttah has left the building. But his leaving, for me, will be like the ravens leaving the tower (Peel‘s real name is John Ravencroft, read into that what you will, if you are so inclined), with him and/or Radcliffe gone, I would no longer see any point in tuning in again. At least not unless they award more freedom to the presenters and bring in some intelligent, music loving talent.
It comes down to ratings in the end, though. Forces outside and inside the station are making it watch it’s own success carefully. To guarantee the ratings are kept high, therefore, risk taking is out. Radio 1 used to be known as The Nation’s Favourite. No more though - that sobriquet now belongs to Radio 2 - the stations listener figures have dropped since the highs of the 80s. It isn’t necessarily changes in the station that have done this though it is choice, we have more choice than ever now, and Radio 1 is being made to feel it has to kick harder to keep itself afloat. For a station that is paid for through the licence fee, you wouldn‘t think that it would have to desperately keep itself populist like the local, independent radio stations who rely on pleasing the advertisers, but there you have it. Sinister forces are at work. Radio 1 is on it‘s knee before His Majesty the Ratings, and the great God, Lowest Common Denominator must be appeased at all times.
Our choices are about to expand, but our radio is about to get smaller.
