Lives in Music: a new Radio To Go Podcast series

When you've played for ever, you've got stories to tell

I'm launching Lives in Music, a podcast series. The first episode dropped this Sunday, October 6th. 

You can get all the published podcast episodes on Spotify, iTunes and all good podcast directories. Series 1 episodes are currently arriving weekly.

I've been working on this for some time; I've thought about this for even longer. The series will feature musicians and music workers from our patch who have put in some serious time. These are people who have literally spent their lives making, or supporting the making of, music. Some are very well known; others less so. But they're all pretty damn fabulous and/or interesting. After hundreds of gigs - maybe even a thousand or more - which have brought me great pleasure, I want to try to give back just a bit. Hence this series of interviews. It's a tip of the hat. And the stories I'm hearing are amazing.

So many people, so little time. 

I have a list as long as your arm of people to talk to. I've recorded quite a few, aiming to complete an episode a week. That doesn't mean I'll be able to drop a podcast every week. There's editing, polishing, illustrating, and all the podcast gubbins to do. That takes time. So Lives in Music Series 1, kicking off this Sunday, will be a ten-parter, with an episode dropping each week. Lives in Music Series 2 will kick off after Christmas, all being well.

Nailing some people down can be a challenge, too: after all, some of our outstanding musos are out playing five or six nights a week with different outfits, making money – at last - through their versatility. You can't begrudge them that when some were barely scraping a living forty years ago. 

Free your mind and your music chops will follow

I've long felt that musos can go in one of two ways in terms of creativity and craft as they get older. They can stick with what they know, playing the steady, the safe and the familiar; there's a market for that, and good luck to them. 

Or - and this is where it gets interesting and wondrous - they expand and blossom as they grow older, embracing more styles and experience, for the love and the exhilaration of it all.  Often you find those guys tearing it up with huge smiles on their faces, in tiny places. Those guys interest me, and they're the ones I want to feature.  

Not forgetting the enablers

But there's also a host of people who work in and around the industry, who love the business of making music: promoters, instrument makers, managers. They also help to make all this possible. I'm talking with several for the series; several more have agreed to chat. 

The joy of small venues where the magic happens

These days, I spend more gig time in small venues, close up to the artist, than ever I did in enormodomes back in the day. The attraction? Well, apart from cheaper drinks and free parking, it's the music and the musicians, naturally. Especially the sheer craft of people who have been playing forty years or more. 

I get more out of it, whether it's places like the Hare and Hounds in  Birmingham, or the Kitchen Garden Cafe across the road for Jazz and Folk, or any of the venues where the peerless Lisa Travis has been in charge, including her newest perch, the Prince Of Wales. There's plenty more - space prevents me listing everywhere. But I should mention, and give a tip of the hat to, the wonderful Paul Murphy. Paul ran his second Songwriter's Cafe for several years from his treehouse venue; I did online continuity for him. He was one of the people who showed me just how powerful great music, crafted from deep experience, could be in a tiny intimate venue. He was in no small way responsible for my thinking in this area, especially since he passed on.  

So... who's on the menu?

Ah, that would be telling. Series 1 will be an interesting mix. I'll have a fresh blog post, with all the relevant details, to go with each podcast episode. You'll be able to keep across who's in the series by following the Lives in Music podcast once the first episode drops. On top of that there'll be the usual Facebook and Tweetage. 

But there is one stalwart, who I recorded with, who won't be going up as a podcast. Sadly, the audio quality just wasn't good enough. But not all is lost; I will transcribe, and it will be worth it. Steve Gibbons and I talked for two hours straight about growing up in Brum, where his first gigs were, who looked after him, and how he got started. He was meticulous. So that episode will see the light of day as a Radio To Go blog post... and I will be spending a lot of time researching pictures of the locations. It's making for brilliant Birmingham rock history. 

The Lives In Music podcast is on Spotify, iTunes and all good podcast directories. Series 1 episodes currently arriving weekly!

________________________________________________________________________

Subscribe to the mailing list!

* required field

Email Address * 

First Name 

Last Name 

Email Format

• html
• text
• mobile

BBC DG Tony Hall detonates a small but positive earthquake at Local Radio. Good man!

At last, a solid and sensible move at Local Radio level!

                         Are the clouds about to lift? Very possibly...                Photo Ariane Hackbert

Last Wednesday, I was with some terrifyingly excellent Institute of Professional Sound peeps. They handle all forms of audio: film, TV, recording, live, and radio. A pet peeve was sloppy audio standards at TV (David Attenborough's Blue Planet 2 voice track got a mention...). 

Falling standards was a big topic. The web came in for a pasting. Realistically, clickbait-driven web practice is bad news for old-school craft skills, in radio as elsewhere. Ten years of web audio shout-outs have drowned out a century of good practice, and twenty years of broadcast networking has shrunk learning opportunities.

So it was an absolute joy to learn, that same night, that the Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall, has announced he is putting a stop to the ghastly decades-long policy of cuts at BBC Local Radio. It is hugely promising on many levels. 

The great BBC Midlands underspend: the Birmingham Post and Mail wade in

Wow. FINALLY.

On Birmingham streets this week

I've written about this before. You may have already seen the posts; if so, I thank you. There are links to my main blog outpourings on this at the bottom of this post. 

Some background: the Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands have been lobbying hard about this for some time now; they are absolutely right. But there has been little or no serious response, let alone attempts to address the issues raised. 

I'll sum it up: The BBC Midlands region sends more money down to headquarters in London that any other region, and gets an insultingly small amount spent back locally, way less than any other region. 

This has led to a collapse in the regional broadcast sector. It has done damage. It has stunted careers and jobs growth. 

Frustrating. How do you reverse arrogant and remote corporate mindsets and actions which have, very deliberately, crippled job prospects and hobbled creativity in the region?

Diva! Sarah-Ann Cromwell spells it out

Brutal competition, monastic lifestyles, getting nekkid on stage - Opera's not what it used to be...

Sarah-Ann tearing it up at MAC last month    

There's been an interesting ruckus this past week. Critics focused on the size of an Irish singer making her Glyndebourne debut; singers hit back, hard. The central issue is that a singer is a singer, first and last, and appearances are secondary. A further issue is old-school sexism. 

But then again, Opera is also all about the show. It's hard to buy the idea of a willowy Rhine Maiden, or a dashing athletic Siegfried hero, when the person singing tops 20 stone. 

I talked with Sarah-Ann Cromwell this week. She was furious at the critics. Cromwell is building twin careers: Opera... and comedy cabaret. She tried comedy out at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival to rave reviews, following up with a sellout at MAC in Birmingham, which was a total hoot. And by all accounts she played a stormer at Birmingham Pride 2014. 

Ruby Turner: keep your eyes on the prize.

I’m excited. Ruby’s got a hometown gig coming up. 

Ruby.  For people, not just midlanders, who know her and love her work, that’s all you need to say: Ruby. One word for one of the finest soul singers the UK has ever produced. She really is that good. 

For those who don’t know her, well, this is Ruby Turner, with a career that puts her all over Radio 2, on the bill at the Queen's Jubilee, as one of Jools Holland’s featured vocalists, on the bill at the 1999/2000 Millenium Dome launch, world tours, the lot. She's recorded with everybody, had hits worldwide, and for some time has very deliberately and calmly steered her own career with some hand-picked advisers.

So now we have a Ruby Turner band tour this autumn, with a hometown gig set for October 16th at the Crossing in Digbeth, Birmingham. I’m pleased. It’s been a long time…

The Wonder Stuff's Erica Nockalls: attitude with violins

A solo album at last, playing in three separate outfits, Nockalls talks rock violin at music school, session work, doing it right, persistence and perseverance...

Birmingham has a School of Music. I've had dealings with them down the years, from when the old BRMB ran classical shows - really, they did - and I presented. That was all some thirty years ago, when the place was resolutely classical. I always felt like a hooligan scruff around them, probably because I was a vulgar commercial radio person trespassing in the groves of academe. 

Things change. I don't know who leaves the Birmingham Conservatoire to build a classical career these days - and by the way, I'd love to know who does -  but I'm constantly delighted and impressed by the range of musicianship the place has spun out into the local scene. I love the folk stuff encouraged by Joe Broughton; a mighty eight Conservatoire graduates have graced the Destroyers. There are many others, of course; I haven't even touched on the jazz guys. A common factor is a sense of adventure, a willingness to up-end apple carts, and blazing musicianship. 

Erica Nockalls is part of this: a terrific fiddle player with a brand new solo album. She tells a story of musicianship, multiple bands, attitude and application.