An old-fashioned Chart Ding Dong

Well the whole saga of That Woman’s Funeral continues, with not only Glenda the Good Witch speaking and poking the hagiographic bubble, but 8 million for her funeral in the midst of austerity? When the likes of Atlee and Bevan (invented that NHS thing, you might not have heard of it?) never had a funeral that? Craziness.

And now as Judy Garland’s Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead rushes up the charts, the BBC refuses to play in full the song on the chart show tomorrow. It’s a minor protest compared to the rest, but it shows the strange deference and forelock tugging that has been going on about Mrs T’s legacy, when they’ve always known that the majority of people hate her (I agree with Jarvis Cocker’s comment that it would be strange for such an intentionally divisive politician to not have any negative protest at her death).

There is a vocal minority praising her as Saint Margaret but most people don’t either care or actively hate her. How else can you explain the really low figure that ‘tribute’ programs about her death that Monday night only pulled in 2.6m (10% of that night’s TV audience) – a damn squib and says that the people don’t care? The rich Tories do, but the mass public don’t – which again questions why she’s getting a full military funeral, Queen on tap, and a £8-10 million pricetag which should be paid in full by her estate since the public mandate isn’t there.

So even if the Cowardly Lion BBC doesn’t play the full song, the mashups & remixes are rolling in. Here are two from Ban This Sick Filth (aka Jez CMP) and oki – tempted to add one of these to the already recorded ‘Witch Is Dead’ Radio Clash show ;-)

oki – the witch is dead (vintage remix)

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Story of Pop on Sampling and Remixing

If you’re in the UK (or have access to a UK proxy) I really recommend these two BBC 6Music shows as part of the Story of Pop series which I’ve been listening to – I have an old cassette tape of the It’s A Steal – Sampling show of Coldcut talking through all their samples for Paid In Full from the original; Radio 1 broadcast in 1994! You only have a few days to listen, so do it now!

The one on remixing is called Re-Make Re-Model – covering the likes of Tom Moulton, Double D and Steinski, Coldcut, Augustus Pablo, Trevor Horn and interviews with Norman Cook, Bruce Forest, Shep Pettibone, Arthur Baker, David Morales, Brian Eno and David Dorrell. Interesting to hear about the History of remixing before mashups and the start of the rise of the ‘bedroom producer’. Wish I could embed them but BBC has to block anyone embedding their content…feh.

BTW tonight’s podcast/live broadcast is related to the Story of Pop – I’m creating the Story of Queer Pop because it’s missing from this series – in fact the series although very good is mostly coy about drugs and sex in the series, which is strange since it was devised as a late-night R1 program and has rock stars happily swearing in it (although oddly the only program to get the ‘Explicit’ tag was the hip-hop one…which didn’t seem to have anything rude, or even parental advisory in it. Strange).

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Happy Birthday BBC – The Listeners Archive

Forgot to say Happy Birthday BBC – a stately 90 as of a week or so ago – and with all the Savile & DLT stuff (sadly used as a hammer to beat the Beeb with by Murdoch et al as revenge for Levenson & Hackgate) it seems rather muted celebration. Apart from a song by Demon from Blur (woo! err…) there hasn’t been much about it.

That changed this week with two shows about the Listeners’ Archive. The BBC had an ‘amnesty day’ (as if it’s like guns or knives!) for tapes of BBC radio shows back in October  - and uncovered recordings going back to the 1940s, which unlike nowadays where everything is recorded/podcasted etc. a lot of shows weren’t preserved and it’s a rare resource. I hope BBC takes better care of it than they have their archive previously. Nice that Trevor Dann was behind this, he’s one of the Beeb that got podcasting too, met him at a Podcamp aeons ago.

So for the first time in about 2+ decades I listened to a Radio 2 show (I listen to all the other numbers but Radio 2 is verboten from my dial, err, iPlayer) as well as waking up to the 6Music Listeners’ Archive music show. There was plenty of Peel, and even some Kuddly Kenny Everett, Chris Morris’s evil take on Tony Blackburn, and I’d forgotten about the likes of Jack Jackson whose cutups were very much copied by the likes of Jon Holmes and was always on Radio 2 last time I listened, and Chris Evans’s first R1 Breakfast show which I remember listening to. Also Gert & Daisy & Max Miller – OMG!

As you might have guess by the name and many blog posts over the years I’m a complete radio geek, I don’t own a television but I still listen every day. And still record radio and keep shows to answer the comment at the end of the R2 show. It might not be cassettes and microphones now, but get_iplayer and other related systems make it far easier to keep the BBC legacy for future years. Because Auntie might be brilliant, but like any 90-year old Auntie she does seem to lose and forget her marbles, well, shows.

Amazing that even shows back in the 90s weren’t recorded, whereas I hear now there is an open source system that records everything put out in real time. About time! Let’s hope it continues (I’m not holding my breath).

(image from profilebrand.com)

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John Peel’s Record Collection

It’s been floating around the blogotwitfaceosphere since Monday, but only really had a look now at the John Peel’s Record Collection site. Love the videos and photos, and small peek into his amazing collection. I hope at some point they allow access to the entire archive as a database, I’m sure some really good uses that could be put to (even if the site just goes and finds tracks off YouTube that would be good).

The downside is obvious – I think fans (well myself, extrapolated ;-) hoped to be able to look through the whole collection, although obviously lack of funds means that’s quite a big ask (BBC? Hello?). Also the lack of info about sessions and shows – it’s rather incomplete, for that I’d suggest the John Peel Wiki, which also has full shows that were lovingly taped by fans back in the day.

The lack of complete Peel shows reminds me – I wonder if with all the frequency/bandwidth that the BBC et al now has with the switchover, will they start nichecasting – ie. creating small stations about one subject or show, with maybe subscription basis. I think a good one to start with would be John Peel – I could imagine a station made up just of John Peel shows from different eras, I’d subscribe, and I think a lot of people would. Really the future isn’t a few main channels, or making them all 3D/HD, the idea of  a monoculture is dead –  it’s a lot of niche digital subscription channels serving everyone.

Oh and if you’re interested in his record collection and John Peel in general, and his famous ‘star’ system, watch this documentary for his 60th birthday where he explains it:

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