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 was going to put this on the Blogger Takeover, but didn’t, so I’ll mention it here: series 6 of Incredible Women, which I heard over Christmas. Incredible Women is a spoof-documentary by Jeremy and Rebecca Front about the life of a theatrical dame, Cicely Leyland. It contains some good running jokes, a great one liner about a gynecologist and Front Row’s and Mastertapes’ (another AW-friendly programme) own John Wilson as himself.
This has been a public service announcement. I have no connection with the BBC.
Thank you @pajp – I did wonder why everyone gets billed under their own name except John Cale, whose programme adds “of the Velvet Underground”. Still, they could have said “out of”, a la Viz, I suppose.
Yes, you’d have thought that those at 6Music would have enough confidence in the level of music knowledge among the station’s audience not to have to add the VU reference.
Thanks for that. I just did the Loudie one too. Could have done with more interview, and less music.
Can you remember when a 1hr bbc show lasted an hour? With a break for the news and 2 or 3 6music adverts, it almost sounded like a commercial station.
@bigstevie yes, I was struck by the breaks and the station ads too.
Well done for managing to listen to 6Music and not be aware of “The First Time..” it sometimes seems like they play the trailer for, not only next weeks programme but the one that’s just been on that’s on the iplayer at least once an hour! It’s good show though most of the time.
Ah, the thing is that I don’t listen to 6Music very much at all. I do like Shaun Keavney in the mornings but, more often than not, he gets bumped in favour of the Today programme. If I am not doing anything at work that requires particular concentration, I sometimes have Radcliffe and Maconie and/or Steve Lamacq on in the background.
It’s funny, because when I was in my teens I’d listen to music radio all evening*. I was thinking just the other day how my musical tastes were influenced by late 70s / early 80s Radio 1 evenings – Annie Nightingale, Mike Read, Kid Jensen.
* – all evening” is a bit of an exaggeration, because I was never a John Peel listener. I was put off by the noisy stuff.