Steel City Blues

SHEFFIELD!Jarvis Cocker’s Musical Map of Sheffield, Radio 2, 10.30pm

We don’t often preview radio here, but every now and then, a little (potential) gem stands out. Tonight sees one of those, as Jarvis Cocker takes us on a musical tour of his home city (and mine - well my adopted home, anyway) of Sheffield.

Now, Sheffield may not have the prestige of Manchester or London as a hotbed of musical energy, but lots of amazing acts have come from the city, including ABC, Pulp, Richard Hawley, The Arctic Monkeys, Cabaret Voltaire, The Longpigs, bits of Moloko (sort of), Heaven 17, Reverend and the Makers, The Long Blondes and The Human League (whose first EVER gig was held at the place I work, fact fans). The city’s trade is essentially in cheeky pop-synth-indie-dance with a wry sense of humour and it’s something worth celebrating, especially as many of these acts have influenced some of the indie/dance/pop we have today.

Cocker himself is always a welcome presence on telly and radio, and you could do a lot worse than give this hour-long show a whirl. Bonus Sheffield bingo points if he mentions Henderson’s Relish, WARP records, the Peace Gardens, Threads or the Kellvin flats.

Music Makes the People Come Together

MUSIC! Radio 1’s Big Weekend, Radio 1, all weekend; BBC Red button, from 4pm today onwards, BBC Three, 7.00pm, 9.15pm, 12.15am today, 7.00pm and 11.15pm tomorrow, Radio 1 Online, all weekend.

This weekend, Maidstone will be hosting the biggest free festival it’s probably ever held (I am willing to be proved wrong, Maidstone festivals are not my specialist subject), as Radio 1 hosts its Big Weekend. There are four stages over the weekend, although how much of each will be broadcast, I don’t know.

The weekend is taking advantage of the SHINY! NEW! possibilities the digital age offers us, by not only broadcasting on the traditional wireless, but also on the internet, BBC Three and via the red button (by the way, what happened to red button voting? I voted several times in Fame Academy because of that little innovation. Alex Parks, and, er, Sinead Quinn, owe their careers to me… oh.).

There are lots of acts across the weekend, including Robyn, Hot Chip, Goldfrapp, The Fratellis, Duffy, The Ting Tings, Vampire Weekend, The Futureheads, The Zutons, Pendulum, The Raconteurs, Adele, Usher and The Kooks (Scouting For Girls are also on, though. Run!) However, the main draw is undoubtedly Madonna. It is rare for her to appear at an event of this type, and cynics would say it shows she is a bit unsure of how well Hard Candy is going to go down, but it could just be that she wants to attract a younger audience. Or just, you know, for the craic.

Madonna live (9pm tonight) is always worth a gander. She will probably play mostly stuff from the new album and perhaps one or two old faves (it will be a reasonably short set). And being Madonna, she will no doubt cause controversy. I still remember listening to her Blond Ambition tour live on Radio 1 and my mum getting very upset with all the lewdness. A whole new generation of parents could be about to get offended…

Waking up is hard to do

One of the most difficult tasks that faces any Londoner is picking a radio breakfast show to listen to. I’ve been through ‘em all after five years here, arriving during the dying days of Sara Cox on Radio 1 and quickly deciding that being shot in the ears would be more pleasant than listening to Chris Moyles at the crack of dawn.

Since then, all possible options have been considered. First, there was Bam Bam on Kiss (nightmarish at that time of the morning), then six months of Terry Wogan on Radio 2 (spectacularly enjoyable, but too sedate to prompt actual getting up).

Salvation came in the form of Capital Disney, which offered a particularly bewitching breakfast experience in which a long-suffering bloke had to endure the constant idiotic twitterings of a work-experience girl called something like Cack. Sadly, this golden age came to an end when Cack “went off travelling” – and then, just to put the tin lid on it, they closed the whole bloody station down.

So the knob had to be twiddled again, but my flirtations with Neil Fox on Magic (same songs EVERY SINGLE DAY) and Jamie Theakston on Heart (too many competitions featuring horrible children) were mercifully brief.

It finally got to the situation where it was either Johnny Vaughan on Capital or the birdsong station, so Johnny it was. And fuck me, if he isn’t actually quite good – especially since the addition of his old Big Breakfast sidekick, Denise Van Outen. There have been several amazing mornings when he has been quite clearly still pissed*, leading to entertaining discussions on the lifestyle choices of certain South London gentlemen (”I drove past Fire on Sunday morning at about half ten and there was a big queue to get in. And you know what? I don’t think some of those boys had been home!”).

Johnny and Denise are offering Londonally-challenged fans the opportunity to catch up with all the things they are saying, in podcast form. It’s available here for your downloading pleasure.

* Lawyer’s note: Unless he wasn’t pissed at all, of course.

 

It’s okay, you can get radio through the telly these days

AUDIO! That Mitchell and Webb Sound, Radio 4, 6.30pm

Yesterday on the messageboard, Ceeb noted: “If this isn’t the first ever radio pick of the day on the front page of LowCulture tommorow I will be a bit sad.” We’re fairly certain we must have already had a radio pick at least once, back in the annals of time, but all the same we’re happy to oblige. Besides, after our much-detailed moving house experiences, we now have enough plugs in our bedroom to have a working radio again so it’s sort of a double celebration for us.

Anyway, we’re pleased to say that season four of Peep Show was back to its usual glowing form, and we’ve been getting serious Mitchell and Webb withdrawal symptoms since it finished on Friday, so hooray for the new radio series of That Mitchell and Webb Sound. Apparently there are new characters to come including the rally driver and his navigator who fight like an old married couple, and some Stone Age men unsettled by the advent of bronze (for some reason, Mitchell and Webb sketches with a historical bent are often our favourites - the prehistoric CSI sketch they did on TV was hilarious).

Of course, there is the slight disadvantage that it’s on during Hollyoaks, but then aren’t gut-wrenching decisions like this what life is really all about? Plus, you know, the other has an omnibus on Sundays. Choose radio! It’s fun, you can pretend you’re in the 1950s…