BRMB: 45 years ago today, a station came out to play

Sedate? Pah. I was expecting big fun, tidal waves of emotion and mawkish sentiment. Why? Well some of us old originals at BRMB Radio threw a bash last Friday for staff members, to mark the 45^th anniversary of the launch date, February 19^th 1974. That's today. And the day after Friday's bash...I felt distinctly fragile. 

I'm one of the BRMB originals. They'd hired me the previous November, along with the great John Howard; we were the first jocks on board. John left, quite early, to make his way to Radio 4. I stuck around for twenty years, ten on them on air as, mainly, a rock jock.

A dig around in my scrapbook.

 

Stuff to be proud of! And deeply embarrassed about too...

 

In a couple of weeks, on Thursday 24^th May, I'll be perched on a stool, trying to get a word in edgeways in between the Ross brothers, Les and Tom. We'll be at the Kitchen Garden Cafe, Jenny Wilkes and John Slater too. 

We're doing a benefit gig: a shamelessly nostalgic BRMB night honouring our colleague Ed Doolan. It's a tiny venue; you'll be able see the whites of our eyes. So if you want to go, get your skates on. There's really not that many tickets left. Full details are at the bottom of the post; here's the link for tickets... 

However, do read on: I have some corking stuff to tell you about.

Disposable? Sure. Remembered? Oh, yes.

We don't always realise what we're doing when we're in the thick of it. 

Next February, it will be 45 years since the old BRMB went on air from Radio House in Aston. Of course, a get-together is planned with as many of the old crew as we can summon up. It's not just to celebrate; we had a knees-up for the 40th birthday, after all. But, increasingly, we're losing some of our old colleagues. So we're not going to risk leaving it to the 50th anniversary in 2024.

Now, while everyone can still actually walk, these old work bashes are brilliant fun. But they're for us. There's quite another dimension: the audience. The listeners, the people who listened to and engaged with the old station.

WOLD? Not quite. And if you don't know what that means, this isn't for you.

I'm not claiming that pop radio of the 70s 80s and 90s was the be-all and end-all of broadcast milestones, far from it. We were disposable, like everything else. But it's easy to ignore the relationship the old BRMB built with its audience. If you dig back on Facebook's frankly lovely Old Pics of Brum pages, you'll find, somewhere around mid-March, a shot of a young Les Ross at the BBC Birmingham studios, where he had registered a solid impact (amazingly, considering the early restrictions imposed on BBC Local Radio), before eventually making the jump to BRMB. You'll note well over a hundred comments on that Facebook page, all brimming with warmth and nostalgia, mostly for what Les cooked up back in the day once he moved to Aston Cross.   

Radio House at night, back then. Photo Andy Wint

  

I read all the comments. The affection that Les's work still commands is touching. It's just as touching for me when I get letters to this blog from people who used to listen to me playing rock music and local bands as they revised for their A levels, back in the day.

It's amazing when you think about it. But a lot of those 70s and 80s stations had a curiously effective impact, emerging as they did in a pretty restricted radio field. You only see that when you look back; it's often the way. But there is a powerful sense of nostalgia among a certain age group: boomers.  And nobody's stumbled on it, in my town at least, until now. 

Most pop radio reflects the time it is part of; then it's gone, instant ephemeral fun. But that entirely disposable entertainment plays a part in our lives. Sadly, the people who take it too seriously are often the jocks themselves. That's a mistake in my view, considering how the role of Radio DJ – a bringer of music, bathing in that music's reflected glory – was tenuous at best, and has now been massively undercut by the arrival of web services. 

I really think that that Radio DJ role belongs in the past century, when it still mattered. And there is a deep well of affection and nostalgia among many people for what the old BRMB managed to achieve, in its bumbling and well-meaning way, from the 70s onwards, in its 40 years. So memories spark, here and there. Maybe it's time to see if there's something more tangible.     

Come say hello...

Valk, Wilkes, Ross (T) in back, Ross (L) & Slater upfront

May 24th sees a gathering of old BRMB presenters at the tiny Kitchen Garden Cafe in King's Heath in South Brum. I'll be there, along with John Slater, who inherited the rock shows from me when I became a backroom boy. That alone, in terms of Brum rock history, is an interesting combination; it's well-suited to the venue too. But that's by no means all. Les Ross will be there. Jenny Wilkes, who still presents a Northern Soul show at BBC WM is coming. And the most passionate sports commentator I've ever met, Tom Ross, will be there as well.

... and raise a bit of money.

We're not making anything from the event. The night will raise funds for both Dementia research and the Ed Doolan Memorial fund, honouring our old colleague. That's very important to all of us; it was a joint decision.

So this is new: a first public night of BRMB memories and tales with some of us who were there at the time. A first face to face Q and A with old Birmingham radio hands. Tom never ceases to remind me that he was the longest-serving BRMB employee; I can respond by reminding him that I was the very first DJ the old station hired. We've all got stories to tell.  

This is an experiment, and it is slightly skewed towards the rockist end of BRMB's listenership, what with me and Slater, gassing away at the Kitchen Garden Cafe. I expect Les, Tom and Jenny to redress that. It's going to be a lot of fun. There will, I hope, be a bunch of other old hands in attendance, but what really tickles me is the prospect of talking to listeners.

But think beyond that, to the other events that were sparked by BRMB: events like the Walkathon. Think of some of the other presenters that you might remember with affection. Think of events like the creation of XTRA-AM, hands down the most successful Gold station this country has ever seen. Think back to Trevor Francis being merrily lambasted by Tony Butler when he became the country's first million pound footballer. Or the Villa fans walking past BRMB studios of a Saturday afternoon, raining down fruity abuse on Butler's head. I could go on.

This implies that we might see more events like this; I hope so. It all depends on how this one goes. 40 years of radio action doesn't, can't, completely fade away... until the people who listened fade away too. 

Links

The BRMB gathering is at the Kitchen Garden Cafe, York Street, King's Heath, Birmingham B14, on May 24th. Advance tickets are £10 from We Got Tickets; more on the door.

The gig is organised by Music Majors who run monthly music Q and A sessions at the Kitchen Garden Cafe.

Ed Doolan - an appreciation on this blog; other associated posts here.
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Ed Doolan - an appreciation

Thoughts on the passing of an old colleague 

News broke on Tuesday that Ed Doolan had passed away. Immediately, the web bristled with stories. BBC WM devoted, rightly, their afternoon schedule to his work. Ed's passing made PM on Radio 4 with the great Eddie Mair - there is no higher broadcast accolade in my view - and the evening news on BBC1.

Ed started to develop the style that worked so brilliantly for him at BBC WM while still at BRMB. He had a clear idea of what to do, but he had to do it without any staff or support system at BRMB. If I remember rightly, his major tool was a Psion - remember those? - stocked with numbers of Councillors, MPs, traders and influencers. That, and his wits.

Ed used his airtime brilliantly. Time, space and presence were part of his armoury. That approach doesn't always sit well in commercial radio, where we were told to keep it moving, moving, moving, avoid dead air at all costs. But traditional 'speech' radio and tv greats - Cooke, Mair, Garrison Keillor, Martha Kearney, Kuenssberg, James O'Brien, Victoria Derbyshire and dozens of others - know to take time to let ideas sink in, to let the audience breathe after something intense, to regroup, to shift gears.

So Ed's decision to jump ship to WM was logical. His move propelled that station back up in the local ratings war, and WM's then news-oriented agenda sat well with Ed's style.  

Ed was a colleague way back in the day, joining me and a handful of other recruits at BRMB in late 1973, before the station launched in 1974. He'd made a risky career jump, joining from Deutsche Welle, and settled into mid-mornings while I held down the mid-evening rock shift. We all keep in touch, the early BRMB crew. Sadly, our numbers are slightly fewer these days. We knew Ed was unwell. And at a reunion prompted by a return visit to the UK of colleague Terry Griffiths, Ed shared his condition with all of us. It was courageous and honest. 

I last worked with Ed quite recently, when he still hosted his live Sunday show. He would have me come in once a month to do the newspapers slot. Now, I tend to the left, and I suspected that Ed held rather more conservative political views than mine. I didn't really know, of course, and I never will now. So I would occasionally adopt a peppery leftist position on air. Ed responded gleefully, sparking into action with an equally peppery but contrary view, and we would have at it, live.

The particular discussion over, Ed went to music, took his cans off, looked over and grinned. 'That was good, wasn't it?' There's nothing like a bit of on-air jousting on a Sunday morning; Ed was a past master at that sort of thing. Good times.

Thanks, Ed for amply demonstrating, once again, that all you really need for compelling radio, no matter what the format, is clear thinking, good ideas, an awareness of your audience... and a sense of time and space.


Old BRMB hands might also like to see these thoughts on the launch PD John Russell.
 

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The Mailing List is the best way to follow topics on this blog. You get a short Monday email with each post, with the big recent topics, and once in a blue moon, an offer or an exclusive freebie. I won't pass your address on, promise. 

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