Originally published in The Hullfire.
We interviewed BBC Radio Humberside presenter and local music maestro Alan Raw in the new live space at the BBC open centre, BBC radio Humberside.
This new space means that bands can play live sets at the radio station and right in front of the studios. We did the interview in a café style area next to this where presumably guests and artists can come and sit. Tonight the session was from Of Allies – you can read about that in Max’s article.
Alan, what made you want to be a radio presenter and what got you into it?
It was a complete accident; I was talked into it by people who should know better. I was a session drummer and using the contacts I had as that I organised festivals. The BBC were looking to do some work with a festival in each of the areas where there was a BBC [radio] show, across the country, and it was called BBC music live. So they asked if they could get involved with it and see how it all worked. I got chatting to them and obviously I was introducing the bands on stage myself and seeing that I could do that kind of thing and that I knew loads of bands, they asked if I would do the radio show. They had done a survey and found that John Peel’s shows were probably the most listened to in our area of the radio 1 shows, but there wasn’t anything like it regionally. They thought north of England was the best place to start because it was furthest away from where the other show was. I told them loads of people who would be really good for presenting it, people who were used to talking to the public and they decided ‘nah, it’s got to be me doing it’ because I knew the bands personally. So I gave it a go and they said it would be a six week project. Fifteen years later…
So Hull was one of the first introducing shows then?
I’ve been told numerous times that we were the first. It was called BBC Raw Talent originally and it was managed by Radio 1 and Radio Humberside as a partnership. I remember going to various regional meetings with the manager from Radio Humberside and explaining to them what we were going to be doing and they were quite surprised, thinking it risky. But now they’ve all got one. It started as Humberside and then it was Humberside, York, Leeds and Sheffield and then it just spread from there. And we dropped the Raw Talent name and shortly after BBC Introducing was born.
Have you got any favourite artists on the introducing scene at the moment?
Yeah, I have. I get asked this a lot and the thing is we get sent masses of music and every single week and we listen to it all and choose our favourites and that’s the playlist every week because we’ve already narrowed it down to about twenty. So it’s difficult to say. I have my personal taste because I’m human and a drummer, so I am kind of beat orientated. But I try to not let that influence what I put on the show too much. I try to go on what I believe has got merit and that could be that the lyrics are brilliant or it could mean that the musicianship’s of a particularly high standard, or its composed in a way that moves us. We have to vet it all obviously for not being oppressive. I do have some favourites, I just try not to let it influence what goes on the radio. But if anyone wants to know what our favourites as a show are – tune in 8-10 on a Saturday night.
Have you been to any gigs recently who you think are worth checking out?
Yes I tend to go to quite a lot. It’s quite a big area that we cover and so a normal evening out for me would be to catch the first band in Scunthorpe, the second band in Grimsby and get back for the last band in Hull if I’m quick enough! It’s that kind of evening out; needless to say no one wants to come with me. I sort of skulk about in the dark at the back quite a lot. I have a bit of an issue with gigs where I get ambushed the minute I walk in because the promoters want to talk to me and the venue want to talk to me and then someone in the audience is in a band and they want to talk to me and I really want to listen to what’s going on on stage. I don’t want to be rude either and I really do want to hear what they’ve got to say but I really want to see the band. So quite often I stick to the dark and hope no one notices. I also like to pay as well, especially as a drummer in bands, it all goes round in circles. So I do see a lot. There’s a few at the moment who in a live sense are extremely entertaining and I would see them again and again. Really hoping they get to play more gigs around the country. That is bands like Vulgarians, Cannibal Animal, Fronteers, and there’s some really interesting stuff going on, like with Square Waves who will struggle to fit what they do on a normal sized stage in a touring venue. They need to take up the whole place really. Kid Trench and Emily Molton… gosh there’s so much. The difference touring around the country makes to the bands as well makes them really really good. And we have got bands going out and doing that like Life.
How important is BBC Introducing to the music industry?
I don’t really know but personally I know that it has great value. In this area I know that it’s had a big impact. The uploader has been a big deal for us having such a wonderful tool that the BBC have built, because it’s just as easy to upload your music to that as it is to say Soundcloud or Youtube. It’s an easy process and it all gets listened to, which is pretty important. What we’ve got is a music industry which is full of organisations outside of the BBC who have different business models to the BBC. They are generally commercial and they have radio pluggers who plug stuff to them and they’re plugging what they’ve been paid to plug. If you haven’t got the money to pay the radio pluggers then you are not going to get plugged. Whereas BBC Introducing you can just post it from your bedroom as an mp3 and the radio have got it. People ask does it matter how many plays someone has got on Youtube or how many likes they’ve got on Facebook but it doesn’t matter at all. Makes no difference to whether or not we’re going to listen to it and play it. We make sure it’s done fairly. Then we have the BBC Introducing stages which we started 11 years ago at Leeds fest. That’s had about just over thirty bands every year for about 11 years. And they get to play Leeds and Reading which is really good.
One thing we get asked a lot is who have we ‘discovered’ but we don’t really do that. We’re more like super fans. We may have had first plays and things like that but how important that is I don’t know. We’ve been lucky enough to have been sent music by people like The 1975 before they have become a really big name. Sometimes we get them onto sessions and recommend them for things and then cheer loudly when other people like it too. That’s pretty much it. What is happening is we’re levelling the playing field, so that anybody doing anything creative, as long as they’ve got access to the internet, should be able to get us a piece of music and we can share that, without any physical connection at all. Whether we can then put them on a stage is another matter because they then have to be able to perform, but we can gauge that through sessions. It gives us a chance unlike anything else that I know of in the country to air that music, which may not have a penny behind it, but it’s got a creative person who’s able to get it to us.
How have recent developments with City of Culture etc. helped to resolve the issue of Hull not being seen as a musical area?
It can’t hurt to invite a lot of big mainstream names to come and play [at Big Weekend] because I suppose there is a certain stigma attached to Hull. At one time I would say it was geographically a little out on a limb but it depends on which way you’re looking at it. Being from Hull and having spent all my life here, it’s really nice being close to Europe and being a gateway to Europe. It’s actually been cheaper for me to go and do some work in Rotterdam than it is to go to London. If you live here, it doesn’t seem to be that cut off from the rest of the world. But maybe from outside it would be. A little bit down the pay scale from Katy Perry, bands that are doing European tours , they really ought to consider stopping in Hull before they get on the ferry and using that as a good way to get over to Holland and Belgium, and play some gigs here on the way there and back! And it does happen; especially the Adelphi has had a history of that. I just can’t imagine the really bigger bands even being on the ferry. But then I can’t imagine people like Katy Perry doing very much at all, other than being on the television. I don’t know how their world works really. The promoters in this area are very hard working promoters and do a great job of filling up the venues. When Steve Lamacq was last down, I took him to the Adelphi and the Sesh and he was genuinely very surprised to find these venues were heaving with people. The beer garden outside was rammed as well and this was on a Tuesday night in January or something. There is a lot of local support. But yeah I do hope that Big Weekend does help. For some maybe it will just erase any belief they had that Hull wasn’t a place where that would happen. Then we can move on.
Tim Goodfellow 