MUSIC

Julian Owen discovers how BBC Introducing in Bristol really is putting local music onto a bigger stage. Pics: Ellen Doherty.

“I’ve made my decision,” said Chris Moyles on his breakfast show a couple of weeks back. “Going on the Radio 1 playlist next week will be... Out Like A Lion.” And thus, as we write, the local aces are being spun right round, baby, right round, by Fearne Cotton, Scott Mills, and all. The group had been played on Moyles’s show as a shortlisted BBC Introducing act, part of an ongoing primetime strategy to raise the profile of both new bands and the scheme itself. “I hope that some of the winners follow in the footsteps of previous BBC Introducing stars such as Chipmunk, Marina & The Diamonds, and Florence & The Machine,” said R1 head George Ergatoudis.

The evening prior to Moyles’s announcement, Venue was visiting the Radio Bristol studio where Out Like A Lion’s journey to national prominence began. “They’re a band we picked up two weeks after they formed, when they sent a demo through the Uploader,” explains Sam Bonham, co-host of BBC Introducing In Bristol (Uploader is the mechanism whereby any act can submit MP3s for the show’s consideration). Richard Pitt takes up the story. “In December 2009 they got the BBC Introducing Christmas gig in London – first gig they played, and they were supporting Florence & The Machine and the Temper Trap in front of all these big cheeses. It stood them in really good stead and showed us, right from the start, what BBC Introducing could achieve.” They also went onto record a live session and play Glastonbury’s Introducing Stage.

Rich, of course, has been airing local bands on radio – hospital, university, Star FM, BBC – for years, the majority alongside Gary Smith. The latter left 16 months ago, shortly after the show’s suspension for airing a naughty word had been completed. “When Gary left we were one thing, and now it’s almost like a different show,” says Rich. “We’re playing a much broader range of music, and I think a lot of that is down to the Uploader – people who are more media-savvy tend to be dance or beats acts; they probably didn’t think the show was for them before.”

Once upon a time, a live band session meant crowding into the broadcast studio, fighting over mic space, strictly acoustic music only. This evening, in a studio across the car park, brilliant dance music pliers Dub Mafia are in full beat-dropping, multi-membered effect, overseen in the control room by Toby Field and proper-job engineers. “We talk about me and Sam being together for 16 months,” says Rich, “but Toby came on board too. People might know him as a musician in Bristol, but he’s a man with a lot of fingers in a lot of pies within the BBC, and knows how to get the best out of the show. I’m an old fart who does this because I love playing new music, but Sam, Toby and broadcast assistants mean we’ve done stuff we couldn’t even have contemplated. Geoff Barrow came and asked specifically if BEAK> could do a session, mainly because it would mean he didn’t have to go to London to do one for the Freakzone on 6 Music.”

“It elevates the sessions to quasi-Maida Vale standards, and gives the show an edge I don’t think many of the other local Introducing strands have,” says Sam of the new live room. “With Teenage Rampage we had six bands in there across two days. For young acts that was an amazing, momentous occasion.” It’s time we properly introduced Sam. Rich? “We knew Sam as the singer from Let’s Tea Party. At Glastonbury 2009 we broadcast live, and he asked to sit in. When Gary said he was leaving, Sam put his hand up, and I said ‘OK’, thinking he’d last a month...”

“Obviously Gary and Richard are staple Bristol music,” says Sam. “They’ll be there on the memorial for Bristol music legends.” His own enthusiasm can be measured in miles, journeying from London each week to record the show. “Who wouldn’t love coming back to the place that they love every week, chatting absolute tosh about music? I get access to fantastic music I wouldn’t otherwise hear, get to hang out with all the kids. Gary’s shoes were quite difficult to step into but, as Richard said, it just became a different thing.” As another example, the show now provides pieces for daytime transmission.

“What helps daytime,” says Rich, “is if they’ve got a bit of background. Sam did a whole package on Lady Nade, for instance; not just a song where the presenter doesn’t know it before it’s aired, but accompanying interview and full background.” And there’s more. “Introducing have asked us to nominate people we think would gain from a masterclass at Maida Vale and Abbey Road, meeting people within the music industry: promoters, artists, songwriters.” Or, possibly, primetime national playlist setters. Best Introduce yourselves.

BBC INTRODUCING IN BRISTOL GOES OUT ON SATURDAY MORNINGS (REPEATED SUNDAY) FROM 1-3AM AND IS AVAILABLE ON IPLAYER. FFI: WWW.BBC.CO.UK/BRISTOL

Copyright Julian Owen 2011; pics copyright Ellen Doherty 2010 www.duchessphotographic.com 

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