My Exciting Life in ROCK (part 2): The Shed Anthems Radio Tour

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One of my FAVOURITE parts of putting out a new record is when you get to go on the RADIO to talk about it. It doesn't happen to me that often, to be honest, but when it does it's GRATE.

Most of the reason for this is that, in general, people who work on the radio are LOVELY. It's by no means UNIFORM across the professions but I HAVE found over the years that there are significantly less PILLOCKS doing RADIO than people doing Written Down Press. My SECRET THEORY is that if you're doing RADIO stuff you're more likely to START doing it because you're enthusiastic about MUSIC and want other people to hear it, whereas when you start WRITING about music it's because you want other people to hear your opinions about it. Is that fair? I have met several LOVELY people who earn their living writing about music, especially recently, and it may be that I've just managed to avoid SHOW-OFFs off of the radio, but it has GENERALLY seemed like that. Maybe another factor is that, in PRINT JOURNALISM, you can rave and HYPE something up safe in the knowledge that your readers will probably never HEAR what you're talking about or weren't AT the gig you're reviewing. On radio you pretty much always have to PLAY the song you're banging on about DIRECTLY after the banging on has concluded, so have to have the MATERIAL to back it up.

Anyway, like I say, getting to go on the radio is ACE, and I had TWO lovely visits to mark the RELEASE of the new EP. The first of these was for the now defunct b3ta Radio Show on Resonance FM. Back then their studios were based on London's Famous Denmark Street, where all the music shops are. Swaggering down the road with my guitar I felt like a fully fledged member of The Rock Community, setting off to meet Mr Rob Manuel in the 12 Bar Club. As we'd never met in real life before and I said "You'll recognise me because I'll be the one with a guitar". This was perhaps a bit of a daft thing to say, when meeting in THE Musician's Bar on THE Musician's street, so I ended up looking for the only person there WITHOUT a guitar, and that was Rob.

We went over the road to the studio and did a pretty LENGTHY interview and some songs, during which I FORGOT the words to "Hey Hey 16K". Luckily Rob was wearing one of the first batch of "Hey Hey 16K" t-shirts which had the LYRICS written in full, so I performed the whole thing STARING at his chest. I also did the RADIO PREMIER of "The Lesson Of The Smiths" and realised, not for the last time, that trying to take out all the swearing as you go along isn't quite as easy as it seemed before you began. There's so many choices of MINOR SWEARS to put in instead of BIG SWEARS, you tend to get a bit distracted!

I introduced "The Fair Play Trophy (again)" by saying "And this is my new single", and then felt a) like a bit of a ROCK WHORE and b) slightly GUILTY when I realised I was singing a song about THE FOOTBALL on what was, loudly and proudly, a HARDCORE GEEK show. I mean, it's not like I'm NICK HANCOCK or anything, and YEARS go by without me going to see a proper match, but by the time it was over I felt like an INTERNATIONAL HOOLIGAN, FRIGHTENING local shopkeepers. Still, we finished with "Easily Impressed" and all was well - it's good for sorting things out that song!

The other appointment was a week later when I headed out EAST to ESSEX, to do a live session for Phoenix FM in Brentwood. It's a proper fully fledged Community Station now with Offices and a Wall Of Presenter Photographs, but back then it only had temporary licenses and was broadcasting from the top room of the local community centre. The night when I rolled up there was a TEENS DISCO going on downstairs in the hall, so I had to be ESCORTED in through a HORDE of surly looking 14 year old boys, LURKING around trying to look as if, at any moment, they might smoke a cigarette. Inside was a HELLISH NIGHTMARE OF SCREECHING, as all the 14 year old girls danced together and, well, SCREECHED.

We were grateful for the sanctuary of the (mostly) soundproofed studio, where I drank some Complimentary BOOZE (bought by the station, a.k.a. Steve and Paul) before doing an interview and SESSION. It was fun, if a little CRAMPED, as the room was so TINY that the other two had to sit VERY STILL while I played, otherwise I would have had an EYE OUT with my GUITAR. They also took a Publicity Picture, for the ANNALS, so I pretended I was playing a REALLY COMPLICATED JAZZ CHORD. Even though it's pretend, you can tell that I'm doing it wrong.

The MOST exciting part of the evening though was getting a lift back from The Station Manager (Paul again), as he had GPS in his car (Global Positioning, I mean, not a selection of local doctors). It seems strange now but back then, FOUR YEARS AGO, I had never SEEN a GPS system and it was still a massive novelty, so I spent most of the half hour journey back to Leytonstone LOOKING at it, saying excitedly "LOOK! It knows we've turned the corner! AND THAT'S MY HOUSE!!!"

See, lifts home from the station manager - that's the sort of thing you GET with Radio, it's LOVELY!

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