LEITH FM - THE BROADCAST!!
A Meeting Of Minds......
Leith FM broadcasts on 87.7 and serves all of Edinburgh and surrounding areas - it's applied for a full time licence but up to now has been granted short term licences to broadcast in the interim. One of these periods came up around Christmas time 2005. Electra had previously been invited to do a few one hour programmes focusing on unsigned music an these had become quite talked about, with Taylor from Taylor Made Music sitting in as guest on one such broadcast. Up for grabs this time, however, was a two hour slot. It was on a Sunday, half way through promoting an Isis concert at the Post Office Bar, that my mobile rang - it was Electra
"Hi Hunny, fancy doing a radio broadcast with me?"
I thought about it for all of two seconds.
"Yeh - when?
and that was the start - for the first time ever, Electra and Andy Garibaldi presenting a radio show focusing on unsigned music, with me specifically showcasing the great music coming out of Dundee.
About ten days later, it was the day of the show. I had the idea to take Michele McLaren of Mr Spider with me, to do a short interview and play a track, but I'd not heard from her for a couple of days. Turns out she'd got this wretched cold that was going round and couldn't make it. So, on my own, it was time to troll up the road to the fair Capital.
Via snow and a rather unfortunate accident that involved me dropping my mobile phone, face down, slap in the middle of a pizza, I found the place. The HQ was at the top of a club located in the heart of Edinburgh. I found Electra inside, chatting to the two guys who presented the drive-time show, and we went into the bar - as you do - for a bevy and a chat.
Broadcast time - and off the two of us toddle upstairs to the nerve centre. I'm sitting right across from, at a slight diagonal to, Electra, who's operating the faders and ads and stuff. On go the headphones, and off goes my first radio broadcast in 20 years since the glory days of the Signal Radio shows in Stoke-On-Trent.
The first track I feature is "Scavenger" by SAZ. In my intro, I forget that, being on the radio, you should breathe properly so as not to run out of breath half way through a sentence or be heard to be laboured - I had forgotten this, so I probably sounded like I was smoking 40 a day on this first link as I mentally winced at what I was hearing. But we got through it, played the track and things ran fine after that. At one point a lot later on, I did do one rather lengthy sentence where I completely for got to breathe and it probably sounded terrible on the radio - but for a two hour prog and my first in ages, I did pretty well.
Electra was superb - she is soooooo professional with a voice that is just designed for radio - and you have to admire her as she sounds just so darned natural to all of this. Still, give me another go and I daresay I'd be up there too.
The Doghouse offered tickets to gigs in Dundee as prizes in a competition - only trouble was, we couldn't do it as the station had their own comp running, as I found out when Electra asked me to read out the prize list on the wall poster behind me, which I duly did while trying to manipulate the microphone AND twist my head at right angles at the same time - the results will be interesting when I get to hear the recording.
However, the night belonged to the Dundee bands - the playlist is below but we got the main people on the radio and several people who heard it have said that there is definitely some seriously interesting music coming out of Dundee - now all we have to do is put it in front of a wider audience - the trek to get on even more radio stations in Scotland, and promote the best music Dundee has to offer, starts right here!!
In addition, I played a track from the seriously fine Leather Zoo, about which you can read more on this site, a rather superb track from an American unsigned band called Blow Up Hollywood, and, just to prove that there are other cities with talent that deserves to be heard, a fantastic indie-rock track from a band local to Derby whose CD I picked up from a "local bands" section in a prime indie record shop, in Derby, at the end of November, the band being Tobias.
Electra's 'UNSIGNED' LeithFM Playlist from 2-hour show on 20-12-2005 with Special Guest Andy Garibaldi (Mr Dead Earnest):
'Scavenger' SAZ, 'Lady of Rage' SAME DIFFERENTS, 'Aeroplane' STARVATION BOX, 'Oceans' BLOW UP HOLLYWOOD, 'Stare At The Floor' SANS TRAUMA, 'I Am Your Leader' THE RISE, 'Dirty Fun' DEAD EASY, 'Ficca' WILDHOUSE, 'Alright' ISIS, 'Sometimes' LORDS OF BASTARD, 'Being Ghost-less' SINDOLOR, 'Bellis Coldwine' LEATHER ZOO, 'Crossroads' (our only cover of the night) MR SPIDER, 'Better Change' DEAD EASY, 'Reality' TOBIAS, 'Take What You Want And Leave' WHITE LIGHT, 'Primordial Soup' JIMMY MILLER, 'Gotta Get A Grip' SAZ, 'American Pornography' LAST GREAT WILDERNESS, 'Quiet Life' JIMMY MILLER.
Leith FM - Tel 0131-553 5304 Text 07821-882587
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