Enjoyable show (BBC Radio) online

ifconfig

I saw this listed in the days best picks a day or two ago on BBCR2.
Show is called "Martin Freeman's Great Unknown". Presented by
Freeman (the actor who played the Tim character in the UK Office
comedy) he's devoting each of six weekly shows to overlooked
stars of the past which receive less airplay on radio than perhaps
deserved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/martinfreeman.shtml

This week was Gospel group of Civil Rights era "The Staple Singers"
He's covering Boz Scaggs, Ramsey Lewis, Traffic,The Band, Roberta Flack
over the coming weeks.

RealAudio link here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/documentaries/

mike65

Traffic - great band. Ramsey Lewis only had one tune!

Mike.

DMC

Radio 2 is great, full stop. Mark Radcliffe's Monkees bio a few weeks ago was a fantastic insight.

And the Dark Lord presenting "the best time of the day" show.

What would make it even better would be a) hang Chris Evans and b) more grains of valium for Steve Wright.

ifconfig

DMC wrote:

Radio 2 is great, full stop. Mark Radcliffe's Monkees bio a few weeks ago was a fantastic insight.

And the Dark Lord presenting "the best time of the day" show.

What would make it even better would be a) hang Chris Evans and b) more grains of valium for Steve Wright.

I'm embarrassed to ask (demonstrating my ignorance here)
.. but who is the "Dark Lord" on BBCR2 ?

mike65

Lord Tel?

Mike.

Wertz

I can never bring myself to listen to R2, really....guess it's got to do with me finally admitting I'm not in the "yoof" market anymore.
But Mark Radcliffe is great, Mark Lemarr is pretty good and all in all they have some quality presenters. Just not enough dance music for my tastes, but I enjoy the odd listen of a sunday morning when the rest of the airwaves is the same poppy crap.

DMC

ifconfig wrote:

I'm embarrassed to ask (demonstrating my ignorance here)
.. but who is the "Dark Lord" on BBCR2 ?

mike65 wrote:

Lord Tel?

Alex Lester, 3am-6am show. He has a slot called Lester's Library, at 1/4 to each hour. He plays some fine stuff from his spare bedroom, I can tell you. Very good, dark, audience interaction too, especially with The Odd Couple, a quiz that links two quite diverse characters. He asks the question why was it a good/bad year for them in a certain year, and in the last hour, you guess what connects the two. Normally the correct answer doesn't win, but the most off-the-wall! Thats why he calls it the best time of the day show!
I heartily recommend a "listen again".

Wertz wrote:

when the rest of the airwaves is the same poppy crap

Indeed. Thats the key thing about Radio 2. Its not that playlist driven a station and are not afraid to play anything. For instance, Ken Bruce can play a soul tune or two on his daytime show. Where else would you get that?

ifconfig

Excellent stuff DMC. I look forward to giving Alex Lesters shows
a try. I'll checkout the weekly archive on the Beeb website.

You have obviously sought out some of the "sanctuaries" within the
world of radio (online and otherwise)

I'm tempted to ask if you have other pointers to other playlist free
nooks and crannies available on the Beeb, online or elsewhere ?

Also out of curiosity do you download podcasts and play them
back later or do you have some software to capture streamed audio
for later listening ? I'm just thinking of schemes to be able to
have some listening material during the week ... when a lot of the
time the daytime radio is so mediocre and lacking in substance.

-ifc

mike65

Alex Lester, 3am-6am show

You listen later then? Not even England thrashing the Aussies at the MCG would have me awake at that hour!

As for choice musical nuggets in obscure locations - I just use the internet (shoutcast/365live).

Mike.

DMC

The joys of working shift, dear Michael. I'm sure if England are 2-0 up going into the MCG test on Christmas night you'll have no problem staying awake!

ifconfig, I do browse around the BBC Radio site, at home I do listen to some Radio 4 on long wave. BBC 7 for comedy is great, especially for ISIHAC, and BBC 6 Music occasionaly. But Radio 2's documentaries and main music programmes such as Ken Bruce, Tel etc are radio excellence, in my book.

When the DAB tests were ongoing, WRN was a good station, for all the news from international broadcasters, not just from an western perspective.

ifconfig

Greatly appreciated DMC. I wouldn't have known my Ken Bruces from
my Alex Lesters until late this week .. hopefully its the start of
a beautiful relationship (listening with Alex & Ken ... I mean )

Mike - you mentioned "yoof" culture and BBCR2 .. Did you mean
BBCR1 ? I'm not youth/yoof enough to be plugged in to know
what "yoof" really means. I assumed it was kinda dumbed down
radio with wall to wall hits and a lot of crowd pleasing indy stuff
thrown in. From what I've seen of BBCR2 it's a much more broad
and mature approach to programming...

I'm just turned 40 just to set a context.

-ifc

mike65

ifc, Wertz mentioned yoof not me! I'm 41 to put that in context!

Mike.

ifconfig

mike65 wrote:

ifc, Wertz mentioned yoof not me! I'm 41 to put that in context!

Mike.

Apologies Mike. That was sloppy of me. I meant to check who mentioned
the "yoof" aspect. I just mentioned 40 because I figured that a lot
of R2 listeners wouldn't be too shy of that age (and beyond that)

I just don't know what really the term yoof refers to generally.
I would have thought Radio 1 was more the youth/yoof market
target segment.

DMC

I think you misinterpreted what Wertz said. He said that by admitting to listening to Radio 2, he's not a young fella anymore, and so wants to continue to listening to Radio 1 because he's in denial Some people think that when you turn a certain age, you have to automatically have to change station. Not so. Its like getting grey hairs, tbh. Wogan's TOG's and TYG's are a result of this.
I won't mention what age I am, suffice to say, that if you recognise my avatar image beside this post, when it originally was on TV... then you're old enough!

Wertz

Hell I'm only(!) 32, but am definitely reaching the age where at least day time youth oriented radio can tend to grate on the ears a little...but like I said I still enjoy the electronic end of what radio 1 output so I still listent to it for the most part....but you'll find DJ's like Radcliffe cut their teeth in R1 (and what a great afternoon show it was) so I tend to follow some of those DJs across to the sister station. I've always listened to R4 as it's always been on in our house.

As for "yoof"? It was a term coined for the output of a certain genre of programming , mainly on channel 4 in the mid to late 80's by that horrible English woman with the double barrled name which currently eludes me....basically it defines programming aimed squarely at the 15-25 age demographic, that attempts to be horribly trendy and with it and most of the time falls flat on it's face.

ifconfig

Wertz wrote:

As for "yoof"? It was a term coined for the output of a certain genre of programming , mainly on channel 4 in the mid to late 80's by that horrible English woman with the double barrled name which currently eludes me....basically it defines programming aimed squarely at the 15-25 age demographic, that attempts to be horribly trendy and with it and most of the time falls flat on it's face.

Ah ok. I have to admit I had to google for "yoof" and it was indeed
Janice Street Porter who is associated with that media marketing concept.

Who are the electronic genre DJs on BBCR1 ? I must browse the Beeb
site a bit more. I'll check out Radcliffe - I'm not familiar with his
programmes at all.

Are any of you guys listening to any of this Beeb stuff in timeshift
mode.. i.e doing something smart with PCs and iPods ?
My dream machine is something like TiVo for radio where I can
listen to radio shows I like whenever I want.

-ifc

Apologies again Mike - My declaring my age wasn't meant to be
a put down or anything smartassed. I was just trying to understand
where the "yoof" market segment was meant to be ...

Aside: I think Ray d'Arcy's show is in this yoof genre. Real lowest
common denominator stuff.

Wertz

ifconfig wrote:

Ah ok. I have to admit I had to google for "yoof" and it was indeed
Janice Street Porter who is associated with that media marketing concept.

That's the very woman.

Who are the electronic genre DJs on BBCR1 ? I must browse the Beeb
site a bit more. I'll check out Radcliffe - I'm not familiar with his
programmes at all.

Ah where to start....has to be with Pete Tong on friday evenings, across the baord, house trance techno; a bit of everything...our very own Annie Mac, right after Tong's show, she likes breakbeat, DnB, electro and some techy stuff....Drum n Bass with Fabio and Grooverider after that.
Annie Nightingale is a breath of fresh air with her chillout show (they've changed the schedules lately so I don't know what slot she's been moved to), Rob da Bank does laid back eclectic electronic, Mary Ann Hobbs' Breezeblock does grime, dubstep, UK hiphop and big beat
Dave Pearce, Judge Jules and Eddie Halliwell I tend to avoid....cheesy trance and hard house....a little too young for me these days....still good shows for who they're aimed at...

Are any of you guys listening to any of this Beeb stuff in timeshift
mode.. i.e doing something smart with PCs and iPods ?
My dream machine is something like TiVo for radio where I can
listen to radio shows I like whenever I want.

I listen live on FM...on a very odd occasion I'll use the listen again feature but the bitrate is quite low which I find hurts bass heavy music.
You can rip the streams in a variety of ways...but the low bitrate will remain evident.
I do d/l essential mixes which people in the UK haved ripped from DAB cards on their PCs and uploaded to file hosting sites and lsten to those on my mp3 player.

As for the TiVO system? It's doable if you have digital satellite and a way to get the DAB broadcasts into the soundcard on your PC...but I don't know how you'd go about automating that...

Aside: I think Ray d'Arcy's show is in this yoof genre. Real lowest
common denominator stuff.

Well when you take an ex-kid's TV presenter and put them in the mid morning slot, I think that more or less defines yoof.
I don't mind D'arcy per se....I vehemently dislike his "team" and the feel of his playlist and overall don't really like the show...but it's still the best of a bad bunch IMO, if all you can get is Irish FM broadcasts...

DMC

Wertz wrote:

but you'll find DJ's like Radcliffe cut their teeth in R1 (and what a great afternoon show it was) so I tend to follow some of those DJs across to the sister station. I've always listened to R4 as it's always been on in our house.

Ah yes, the hapless boy Lard. I go back further with Radcliffe, as a fan of the old Radio 5 (before 5 Live, Danny Baker for breakfast), he had a programme on Wednesday nights called "Hit the North" (after a night of football) As he crossed over to Radio 1, I followed him. I was in college in Dundalk when he and Lard did the breakfast show after Chris Evans walked out, and while looking back Radcliffe doesn't like it, I thought it was ****ing ace. The afternoon show, when I got the chance, was most excellent too.

He's settled into Radio 2 after a shakey start. There was rumours that he might go, but its a well received show now. Always listen when time allows.

Janet Street-Porter brought DEF II to BBC 2 in the late 1980's.

And Antoine de Caunes.

And Normski.

Nuff said, m'lud.

ifconfig

Through my life so far I've never been in an area where BBC Radio
reception has been particularly good. I'm on the West coast now
so I suspect that the best way for me to listen to Beeb is either
on the net/BBCRadio Player or if I bring along the old Pace Sat
receiver I've had since around 1997 when I lived in North Kildare.
The FTA radio stations on the channels 800+ on the Sky platform
are great. I'm only getting to enjoy the Beeb stuff now that I
have broadband and the BBC radio player is pretty user friendly
and the content is superb.

I might keep this thread alive. It has been very useful. I'm
constantly seeking better radio listening compared to what's
on the regular car/kitchen/clock radio dial !!

-ifc

Wertz

DMC wrote:

Ah yes, the hapless boy Lard. I go back further with Radcliffe, as a fan of the old Radio 5 (before 5 Live, Danny Baker for breakfast), he had a programme on Wednesday nights called "Hit the North" (after a night of football) As he crossed over to Radio 1, I followed him. I was in college in Dundalk when he and Lard did the breakfast show after Chris Evans walked out, and while looking back Radcliffe doesn't like it, I thought it was ****ing ace. The afternoon show, when I got the chance, was most excellent too.

He's settled into Radio 2 after a shakey start. There was rumours that he might go, but its a well received show now. Always listen when time allows.

Janet Street-Porter brought DEF II to BBC 2 in the late 1980's.

And Antoine de Caunes.

And Normski.

Nuff said, m'lud.

Def II lol....I remember that now....I preferred that Network 7 on Ch4 meself, although my memory of either isn't very clear. Rapido was f*cking great....:D

Mark and Lard was legendary stuff in the afternoon....I was pissed at R1 for ages when they rescheduled the afternoon show....I think they lost a lot of their older listeners that day. I vaguely recall them in the morning slot...recollection of Evans is a lot clearer, although I can't say I ever really liked Evans....but the show itself was fun to wake up to..

mike65

Rapido - forgot about that. DEFII - blugh! Who was the other dude? Shaktar Donetz or something.

Mike.