Attic Lights, Wickerman Festival 2008 - by edinburgh photographer on flickr

A lot of up and coming bands come through our door.  A lot of those bands show a massive amount of talent. Naturally I prefer some bands sessions to others, but I have begun to start noticing a theme running through all my favourite sessions… they have all been well mannered bands who aren’t big headed and are genuinely appreciative of the support we’ve just given them.

Favourite sessions include The Little Kicks, Frank Turner, The Red Light Company, Mia Riddle and our most recent session… the Attic Lights.

Attic Lights are an up and coming indie band from Glasgow who have had a fantastic 2008 and by the looks of things are going to have an even better 2009. Their debut album “Friday Night Lights” is one of those albums that you can listen to from start to finish and not skip any track, something I find very rare these days.

When they came in on Sunday, Andrew spoke to them about the recent news that they had been asked by Channel Five to perform the theme tune for the newly recommissioned 80’s comedy drama Minder… they then performed the theme for us.

A bizarre but rather enjoyable session.

[See post to listen to audio]

You can download the session (including an acoustic version of Wendy) and the interview on Episode 52 of the Sunday Showcase podcast.

That’s me meeting Noel Gallagher, all thanks to work.  It still seems like a bit of a dream.  I’m just a normal member of joe public and next thing I know I’m sitting in a room with one of the Gallagher brothers.

Thankfully my colleague Neil was doing the main part of the interview which meant I got to sit there enjoying the moment without getting too nervous.  You can hear the interview on episode 51 of the Sunday Showcase podcast.  I ask Noel about his favorite tv show, Seinfeld… a bizarre moment.

It was that night I realised I have one of the best jobs ever.

David

I am contemplating pulling an all nighter and watching it… or at least listening to it on 5 Live. Richard Bacon and Rhod Sharp in America should be a good listen.

What I have been glued to most of the day though, is the Election 2008 minisite on Twitter.  Twitter is a social networking tool that allows users to follow other users and see what they are up to through text updates.  You may have occasionally seen posts on this blog that have come through my Twitter updates (or Tweets as they are known).  The folk behind Twitter have put together a minisite that follows all the users of Twitter who mention the American election, and it is very interesting to watch.

From being glued to it for a few hours, I’d say as far as the Twitter vote goes, Obama is in the lead.

One man who is qualified to speak is Noel Gallagher who appeared on Russel’s radio show nearly every week. Noel summed it up pretty well…

“It’s so typical of the English in general - 10,000 people get outraged, but only five days after it has happened.

“You know what? There’s now a massive divide. Them and us,” he added.

People like Conservative leader David Cameron, who waded into the row, were on one side and should not get “involved in something that doesn’t concern him”.

“Then there’s us.”

Once again Noel says it like it is.

I quite like Jonathan Ross. I’m not bothered that he gets £6 million a year (incidently he is making £16,000 a day of our money for doing nothing at the moment as he is suspended - thankyou Daily Mail). And while I quite like Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, I’m quite pleased to see it has been replaced this Friday by the film Speed.  What a fantastic if some what poorly written film.

That is all.

Really nice bunch of guys too.  Hear their session on the show this Sunday from 6pm, www.originalfm.com

They played Drummonds in Aberdeen last night. Would have gone had I not been up for work at 5am this morning.

They also performed at the Electric Proms recently, click here for more.

David

Secondly, Oasis at the Electric Proms on BBC Two and Radio 1 last night, easily the best piece of broadcasting to come out of the BBC all year.  I’m going to see Oasis on Sunday night. I really wish they’d bring the Crouch End Festival choir with them.

You’ve got till next Sunday to watch the gig on the IPlayer here, or listen to it on Radio 1 here. If you listen to the Radio 1 version you’ll get the whole gig rather than just the highlights but being radio, naturally, you won’t see it!

David

I’ve been meaning to post this clip since it surfaced on the internet last Monday but over the course of the week it slowly got pushed down a list of things I needed to do… so now it is old news.

It’s an interview with Hardeep Singh Kohli on BBC Radio West Midlands.  The presenter doing the interview is a local legend called Les Ross.  It’s car crash radio at its best.

Hardeep is supposed to be answering questions on his new book but Les clearly hasn’t done much research, if any at all.

If you have a remote interest in this sort of thing then you’ve probably already heard the audio, but the reason I’m doing this post is to allow you to compare two interviews with Hardeep.  The interview with Les on BBC WM, and an interview my colleague Andrew did with Hardeep last week which went out on air on the Sunday Showcase (the show I produce).  The clip with Andrew is only small, you get the idea from it pretty quickly.

Les has won multiple Sony Awards… Andrew hasn’t… yet.

Les Ross meets Hardeep Singh Kohli:
[See post to listen to audio]

Andrew meets Hardeep Singh Kohli:
[See post to listen to audio]

… bake cakes for charity!

Emma is going white water rafting for charity in a couple of weeks and needs to raise some money, and we decided that everyone loves cakes.  I used my skills from once working in a bakery to help Emma in the kitchen this evening. And before you all comment on how I probably just stood there while Emma made the cakes, I will have you know that I was single handily responsible for the chocolate crispies you see in the picture above.

I don’t like to boast. I don’t like to brag. I don’t even like to take credit for anything but I think you’ll agree that I’m basically the Bob Geldof of the cake world.

Don’t go to the pub tonight, buy some effing cakes instead.

David

I’ve been back from holiday now for 2 weeks and only today did I finally take the last of my photos off my camera (this is what has reminded me of my new fear). I’m impressed with the photos from the air, however after spending 2 weeks in Bergen, photos of Aberdeen are quite bleak and dull.

You can click on these photos by the way. They will take you to my Flickr page.

The last photo would confirm that the flight path is indeed over work.  In fact, the last turn the plane makes to line up with the runway is over work (hence the funny angle the picture is taken at). Surely that is a very dangerous part of the approach?  Saying all that though, maybe I should be more concerned that winter is approaching and from the air I can clearly see my work has a grass roof.  Nice in the summer, not in the winter.