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In Our Time – the future

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Melvyn Bragg has announced that he’s stepping down from presenting In Our Time, a programme much admired, if not loved, by quite a few of us in this online community. I am fairly sure that the programme will continue, given how prestigious it is and its listenership, not just here in the UK but worldwide. The BBC would be stupid not to continue with it (though today’s BBC leadership seem prone to acts of gross stupidity, so there are no guarantees). My question to you all is “Who could possibly step into Melvyn’s shoes?”. One thought that occurs to me is Dara Ó Briain. He seems to be a polymath with an inquisitive mind and a strong personality. I think they could do worse. Please make suggestions below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewnllp1de8o

Disco: The Sound of A Revolution

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In the ongoing repeats repeats repeats approach that is the Beeb’s current music programming they can occasionally still knock it out of the park. Disco: Sound of the Revolution is a three-parter tracing the rise and fall of one of the sounds of the seventies. Like all such programmes it sets out why said sound has been criminally under-appreciated and why said sound was more important than you ever thought.

Episode One in particular is one of the most insightful and entertaining hours of music television I’ve seen in many a year. The makers have rounded many of those who were involved in the New York gay club scene of the late sixties, the ground zero of disco as it evolved from soul and funk. Because this is music that grew out of dancing at clubs – and the footage of The Loft or The Gallery is wonderful. It roots disco in two wider social developments: the post-Stonewall emergence of clubs where same-sex dancing was allowed, and the catastrophic state of New York itself, which meant that there were abandoned buildings that could be repurposed as clubs. Uptown black promoters were using just about anywhere people could meet as discos: » Continue Reading.

They Get Paid How Much???

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Salaries of the BBC’s top presenters have been made public.

Some of them are quite good at their jobs, but seriously, are the BBC not able to get others who could do the job just as well, if not better, for a fraction of these salaries?

The BBC’s top earners 1. Gary Lineker – £1.75m 2. Zoe Ball – £1.36m 3. Graham Norton – £725,000 4. Steve Wright – £475,000 5. Huw Edwards – £465,000 6. Fiona Bruce – £450,000 7. Vanessa Feltz – £405,000 8. Lauren Laverne – £395,000 9. Alan Shearer – £390,000 10. Stephen Nolan – £390,000

I don’t know who Stephen Nolan is, but for me the most incomprehensible salary is that paid to that candidate for The World’s Most Boring Man, Huw Edwards. Close to half a million for his capacity to send the nation to sleep. It beggars belief. It really does.

What to do about the Beeb?

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I’ve always been a big fan of the Beeb, and have argued in support of the licence fee many times. There should be a reliable broadcaster with balance and no agenda, reliable, honest, trustworthy. And no frigging adverts.

But….but. I’m losing my faith. Their election coverage was pretty poor, their support for the two party solution, that awful debate where Jo Swinson was crucified where it turned out the tickets were allocated in proportion to current parliamentary seats (for the next parliament election….). The vox pops with angry pensioners in Stoke shouting about “we should be out” with never a follow up question, never some exploration of why it matters to them so much. Question Time, which is unwatchable. The Today Programme which is often unlistenable with their habit of inviting (e.g.) a scientist and populist nutter and give them the same airtime and the same patina of respectability. Thought For The Day. The bloated website. The adverts for their own programmes. The over-paid presenters. The senior management cost (cars from the station to the office as obviously they can’t get the tube). Allegedly the Beeb team at major sporting events is multiples of 10 bigger than commercial stations. » Continue Reading.

Bert Jansch at the BBC – box-set crowd-sourcing…

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I’ve been asked by Earth Records to curate a Bert Jansch BBC (audio) box set, likely to be 4 discs, the great majority of which will contain master-quality audio direct from the BBC or individual producers It’s very early days indeed but I’m sticking this notice up to get the word out to anyone who might have anything recorded off-air, for bonus tracks. People may be unaware that they recorded something in the 70s or 80s that no longer otherwise exists.

I’ve got several things myself in this category, the earliest being a couple of tracks from a duo Night Ride session in 1968 that are uncirculated, plus bits from the 80s and 90s and from regional BBC stations that will almost certainly not be extant at source.

Some years back, essentially pre-internet, I was amazed and delighted at a word-of-mouth appeal for material towards a Duffy Power BBC set on Hux – a lot of master-quality and off-air goodies were acquired, enough for us to be selective with the finished content. Perhaps something similar will happen here?

I feel sure that somebody out there will have taped Bert’s 1973 ‘Sounds of the 70s’ session, or a couple of » Continue Reading.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone

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There’s lots of interesting archive stuff on iPlayer including this – which has the BBC Everyman documentary revisiting the hippy ideals of 1967 and seeing how they play out in 1978. The opener, with the hippy Cult member turned dead-eyed IT student is straight out of Scarfolk/Ghost Box and quite chilling. Then Vashti Bunyan crops up. Much talk of ‘Selling Out’ or ‘Copping Out’ which in my lifetime was always levelled at Punks – so it originated with the Hippies. Great bit of 70s TV where they point a camera at something and and unlike today you’re not really being shoved in any particular direction but you’re given enough information to make your own mind up about what became of the ideals of 1967. The eyes and body language tell their own story. Lots of nervous shifting in seats and furtive glances…Felix Dennis for instance, mid-interview visibly seems to become jarringly aware of how far he’s moved from the land of Oz. Timothy Leary, strutting through NYC and waving at everyone like they’re an old acquaintance is priceless at the end. And of all that in just 35 very watchable minutes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04ch9n9/everyman-where-have-all-the-flowers-gone

Wonderful radio, marvellous radio

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I just came across the “First Time with …” on the iPlayer, a series of programmes that appeared (appear?) on 6Music in which musicians talk about their musical milestones. Is this only new to me? Clearly, I should have paid more attention as they are six series in.

There are 26 episodes still available to listen to on the iPlayer. I have just finished listening to the Loudon Wainwright prog (available for another 5 days only) and will follow up another day with Elvis Costello, Terry Hall, Peter Gabriel and others.

Is anyone else a fan of the “Soul Music” series? For those that don’t know, each episode is about a song or a piece of music and people talk about why the song or piece is important to them: it’s sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but – I think – never less than engaging. Last week was “Boys Don’t Cry” and included Lol Tolhurst talking about how the song was written. As is always the way, some episodes are better than others – the “The Way You Look Tonight” one sticks in mind – but, they are always worth a listen and there are plenty to choose from.

Finally, I » Continue Reading.

Laibach on Storyville

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Anyone else see this? Slovenian art-rockers play North Korea and seem to be engaged in a competition to see who can take themselves more seriously, the band or the hosts. It’s a curious documentary, but typically excellent for the Storyville brand and well worth your time. Although there is a variety of nationalities involved most of the dialogue is in English.

@black-celebration mentioned the gig when it was played back in 2015 and I’m sure there are other fans on here. I must confess I had heard of Laibach but never paid much attention to them. They play cheesy songs while looking very solemn so you’re not sure if it’s meant to be a laugh or not, with some rather lovely back projections. Is that the gist of it? North Korea wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them either.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09hx3x0

Just out of interest, does anyone care how much Gary Lineker is paid?

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The imminent BBC report of how much its highest paid front of camera people earn seems to be generating more media furore than anything since, well, the announcement of of a new Doctor Who who has two hearts but not X and Y chromosomes. I kind of get that they are effectively on the payroll of every license payer, but isn’t this manufactured outrage from the usual suspects (for which read anyone who is convinced the BBC is biased against their own common sense political views)?

Is this an issue on which anyone has strong opinions, or is it just another case of the media loving to talk about themselves, and a useful stick with which to poke the comments boards? I suppose the second is exactly what I’m doing here, but I am a bit baffled that it seems to be such a huge deal. Any thoughts?

So.,.. Does anyone else here find they’re addicted to “Uncle”?

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I missed most of the first series and thus had to catch up on the iPlayer after I discovered I was hooked. It’s got better and better over series 2 & 3. A fair bit of darkness in there, which appeals to me. I like Andy’s songs, even though they’re pretty crap. I suppose they’re meant to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hliQfuzG5BM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b052ql4f

Brian Matthew not returning to Sounds of the Sixties

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The BBC claim that the production company Unique and Brian “agreed” that it was the right time for him to step down, after a period of ill health (see link), but Brian refutes this, calling it “balderdash” (link in comments). At 88 years old it seems he’s still raring to go.

A damn shame to lose him from the programme, and rather a shoddy way to ditch him, in my opinion.

http://radiotoday.co.uk/2017/01/brian-matthew-leaves-radio-2-sounds-of-the-60s/

Bowie At The BBC

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I am disappoint.

There were loads of tantalising clips of live performances from TOTP, OGWT, Later, Parkinson and so on. None lasted much more than a minute. Other than that, we had a fair amount of official videos that we can all view elsewhere. And news features. Nothing makes more excited than a news reader making an announcement. Bowie provided a voice over, cut from a variety of interviews, some of which looked, when pictures were shown, very interesting.

I expecting to see full performances of songs at various points of career. As an example, I’ve added one in this post. Sadly, that did not happen. I would happily buy a DVD of all of his performances at the Beeb but I won’t be watching this again.

There was one astonishing moment. Jools Holland asked a good question!

https://youtu.be/WCRXt6Zstf4

Planet Earth II

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In these dark times it’s never been more needed. It gets my son off his ipad, daughter off snapchat and all of us screamin laughing and generally enjoying every thrilling minute of Planet Earth II. I am not a nature doc type of person, but it’s just television of the very best order. Didn’t see I but like all sequels its got a bigger budget, there’s space marines and a glass office – ok maybe not the last two, but the HD camerawork from the microscopic to the epic is astonishing. The ‘breakout moment’ I believe they say was baby iguanas v snakes in the first episode. You can find versions on Youtube cut to Messi scoring, William Tell, boss scenes from video games and so on. I’ve included it in the comments, but there’s been several gob-smacking moments every episode – this week the see-through kung-fu kicking wasp attacking micro frog, the eagle fight in the mountains, leopard v crocodile, the crazy surfing penguins, the incredibly sad blind crabs – catch up right now if you haven’t. I’m imagining a version recut with Adam Curtis’ voiceover from Hypernormalization….

Bowie At The Beeb vinyl bargain

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The 4-disc Bowie Radio Sessions vinyl box set is currently at the bargain price of just £29.99 on Amazon UK. I snagged one a couple of hours ago with a gift voucher, and have just checked and it’s still the same price, so probably not a mistake, just a good bargain. It’s £75 on HMV!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bowie-Radio-Sessions-68-72-VINYL/dp/B019PJII6O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476520184&sr=8-1&keywords=bowie+bbc+vinyl

The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson – BBC iPlayer

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I can’t see that anyone else has posted this (apologies if I have missed something), but the latest Julian Temple doc was part of the Imagine series on BBC this week.

I always enjoy his films but I think this one is above excellent. The subject matter is a little dark, but the way Wilko talks is inspiring & it has been on my mind since watching it.

It is still on iPlayer & well worth a watch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06qqrk9/imagine-autumn-2015-5-the-ecstasy-of-wilko-johnson

Adele at the BBC

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Did anyone watch this last night? As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, her music, although admirable, isn’t my cup of tea, but this mixture of live performances, an interview with Graham Norton, plus a couple of pre-recorded skits made for great Friday night telly. She came across as warm, down to earth, modest and very funny, which I suppose we already knew, but it was nice to see it confirmed. Best of all was this sketch, where with the help of makeup and latex she posed as Adele-wannabe ‘Jenny’ and joined half a dozen others to audition as a tribute act.

Have you heard Andrew Neil’s rant?

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Oh dear. Basic stuff.

I admire the passion, but the content is risible. I’m guessing his dad’s bigger than their dad, too.

Come on, Mr Neil, things are much more complex than you care to mention. If you have a platform on national television, you should take your responsibility more seriously. You’ve had a week to get it together.

Poor.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34877683