Recently in Radio Category

Armitage did Show and Tell on the magnificent Radcliffe and Maconie on Monday 29th October. As his Show and Tell, he chose the Comsat Angels, his boyhood favourites from the deepest darkness of the '80s. If you've got the time, listen through to the end of the interview for the Comsat Angels song, Sleep No More. It's a fine tune!

There were more bits of Armitage at the end of the show, but I couldn't be arsed editing them down, and instead I've replaced them with a drunken rhetoric about how good my hair looks and what a miraculously gorgeous complexion I have.

The Scaremongers had their first radio play in America last week. The Cleveland-based radio station, WRUW - More Music, Fewer Hits - were good enough to spin You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) on their Thursday morning indie programme, stonecoldbikini:

WRUW 91.1 FM is the campus radio station of Case Western Reserve University, located in the University Circle section of Cleveland, Ohio. WRUW is a non-profit, commercial free, all volunteer staffed radio station. WRUW operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year.

Thanks to Christine, the DJ, who kept the songs going, and a huge shout-out to Mark from the Bristol-based collective The Hi-Life Companion, who recommended us to them. Very, very kind of you.

Maybe for other people it would get tedious, but I'm still thrilled to hear myself on the radio. Maybe it's vanity, maybe I'm like narcissus staring into a pond at my own reflection, but so what: The Scaremongers were on Radcliffe and Maconie, again, and I couldn't be happier.

Because we'll never be a real Sunday night run-down, Gallup poll-style chart band, for our own amusement we've invented our own screwed-up version. For us, where we are in the charts is dictated by the radio station we're being played on. So when we appeared on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery, we were on Radio 6, which is a glorious place to be and we're still indebted to Marc and his team for that. Then this Thursday, that great arbiter of taste, Mark Radcliffe, and the writer of the greatest book about the north published this year, Stuart Maconie, played and discussed The Scaremongers on their show on Radio 2. So, like seedings in a tennis tournament, we joke that we have moved up four places.

I'm sure we'll never reach the coveted Radio One spot, but when I think about it, it's only because I'm a child of the seventies that makes me want to be on there. Back then, Radio One was pretty much the only place to listen to music on the radio, and though you might have had to timeshift your listening patterns to pick up the music you really liked, you still ended up listening to Radio One all day in cafes, school playgrounds and the workplace, and pretty much knew what was where in the charts of the time, by osmosis as much as anything. Back then if it wasn't on Radio One, it was nowhere, and nothing could redeem it but to get onto the hallowed airwaves of the Breakfast Show.

Radio is different now, and I'm glad to say that the focus of the whole panoply of pop music isn't focused on the charts or on Radio One anymore. You can make a respectable name for yourself yet never get anywhere near Radio One, what with the many other quality stations that abound and the wonderous wonderland of the World Wide Web. I wouldn't sulk if we ever got played on Radio One, obviously, but I'm ever so proud that Marc was the one who played us first, and I'd be thrilled if he ever decided to play us again. And I'm giddy that Mark and Stuart played us on Radcliffe and Maconie, (and gave me my first namecheck!), and I'll forever be glad that they did. I'm very pleased to take a stand next to these fine broadcasters, and if that's where we prove to remain, I would happily settle for that.

Anyway, I did the usual of shoving a microphone (which itself is hidden in the aluminium of my Powerbook) to the speakers of my PC, and recording the Listen Again function of the BBC Radio Player. Once again, I hope they don't mind us steal a little bit of their show. There's some glorious bits where they discuss the song, culminating in:

Mark:   Now he's officially a recording artist, Simon can come on the show and do a Show and Tell.

Stuart: He can come on and do a set.

Mark: Hang on a minute, we've only heard one song. The rest of them might be bobbins. Let's not get carried away.

Thanks to Mark, Stuart and their team, and to my pal Neil who emailed me to tell me we were on!

Smith was straight on the blower to Armitage on Friday night after Marc Riley played You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) for the second time on his magnificent Brain Surgery show. Neither Armitage nor Smith had caught the show as it went out on Wednesday, so they didn't get the chance to witness their first radio appearance as a band as it was happening, (and all hail the Listen Again feature, otherwise they would never have heard it at all). So on Friday night, they were positively giddy to hear it live:

"Did you hear it?"
"Aye. What did you reckon?"
"It sounded alright!"
"Did you hear the email request?"
"Eh? No. When was that?"
"At the top of the show."
"I only got home about twenty minutes into it."
"Then you missed it."
"So it seems. What did they say?"
"They asked for it again."
"Who was it? Anyone we know?"
"Someone called Petra."
"Petra? She left a comment on the site."
"She's a bit of an early adopter, eh!"
"Smart girl, that!"
"Aye. Smart girl!"

In honour of the outstanding Superfan Petra, we grabbed the audio of Marc reading out her request as well as The Scaremongers bit from later on. Thanks again to Marc and his team, and once again I hope it's OK to borrow a few minutes of Friday's show.

Wanting to get a copy of The Scaremongers brief but (for me!) thrilling inaugural radio appearance on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery on Wednesday night and without all the connectors that would have made the job easier and that would have ensured a pristine recording, in true 1970's fashion I propped a microphone against the front of the computer speaker and pressed play. It took me back to Top of the Pops during the heyday of the Glitter Band and Mud: the two things missing from the experience was my Big Sister pushing me to the side, pressing the off button and saying 'The Scaremongers are rubbish, and you'd best not be taping over my David Cassidy' and my mum ruining the fidelity of the recording by opening the Room door and calling me through to the Living Room for my tea. (Calling the two downstairs reception areas The Room and the Living Room - was that normal or was it yet another of those inexplicable quirks unique to the sub-genus of our family, like calling dessert 'finish off'?)

Anyway, I hope Marc and his team don't mind me half-inching four and a bit minutes of their show, which I only caught on Listen Again. It's what is known in the trade as a 'ropey copy', so I don't think it's going to put anyone out of business. I just wanted to record it for posterity! It's my first time on the radio, don't you know!

To mark the first day of Autumn, The Scaremongers will be played on Marc Riley's Brain Surgery again tonight, (21st September, 2007). That makes two nights in one week. It really is thrilling, but scary at the same time: as the guy who organised the manufacture of the CDs, I live in perpetual fear that the radio copies we're giving out don't work when they're played on the radio.

As for the song - which I'm guessing will be You Can Do Nothing Wrong (In My Eyes) - it sounds different every time I hear it. I still don't know what to make of it. I'm proud of it, sure enough, but I keep listening for flaws and mistakes and things that aren't quite in time. I keep telling myself the best thing is take what we've learned and use it on the next song, but that's easier said than done.

Anyway, should you ever read this, thanks ever so much, Marc: you and your team have made two middle-aged men very happy.

Let it go down in the history books that the great Marc Riley was the first person to play The Scaremongers on the radio. All hail the Mighty Marc!

And all hail Marc's mighty team, who not only made the latest show available on their site, which is particularly useful for those who missed it - eg the whole of The Scaremongers who, instead of being crammed around their transistor radios tuning in to Marc's show, were stood in the middle of the roundabout by Highbury and Islington tube station having their photographs taken - but the team also listed the tracklisting for me to stare at in amazement! It's a triumph of technology and librarianship, it really is!