The road to Ruen

Last November, Radio One's head of music George Ergatoudis promised on his Twitter account that "Guitar music is definitely on the way back". He gave a more nuanced version of his argument to Digital Spy in January - saying Radio One's audience research showed people are "beginning to tire of the formulaic sounds that make up much of the Top 40 singles chart" but that he doesn't think "we'll see the important guitar acts of this decade really smashing it until 2015."

Still, if the man insiders call George Egg-And-Two-Chips says guitars are coming back, it's probably true. And if we're going to have to have planks spanked and strings twanged, I'd like to nominate the Ruen Brothers to do it.

They're called Henry and Rupert, but before you write them off as tweed-jacketed toffs reluctantly forced to play "the pop" music to save Downton Abbey, bear in mind they hail from Scunthorpe and would probably do you in a fight.

According to their official biography, the Ruen Brothers "write almost everything you hear" (what, even birdsong?) and have been given two enthusiastic thumbs by Paul Gambaccini, of 'someone has died, quick find me a pundit' fame.

'ACES stunned me. The instrumental introduction made me think of the
Black Keys ... then in came the vocals reminiscent of Brandon Flowers.
Dare I say it, this sounds like a commercial single.' Paul Gambaccini

So now you know.

Ruen Brothers - Aces

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Jessie Ware's playlist of excellence

You were probably in bed at the time, but Jessie Ware was left in charge of Radio 1 for two hours on Sunday night. Now if it was me, I'd have changed all the locks, put Annie Mac in charge of the playlist, moved Scott Mills back to drivetime and sent garrulous weekend idiots "Dan and Phil" in a metaphorical and literal elevator to hell.

But Jessie was content to spin a few tunes and talk utter nonsense until her allotted time was up. As you might expect, the music was sublime: A perfect late-night dose of chilled soul. She was a natural behind the mic, too. Talking about her upcoming gigs at Shepherd's Bush Empire, Jessie noted: "I’ve been to see Another Level there... and now there’s me".

You can hear the whole programme on the Radio 1 website or the BBC Radio Player app until Sunday. But if you are accessing this page FROM THE FUTURE (hello, Busted!) here's a Soundcloud playlist with all but three of the songs she played...



If you're interested the full tracklist was:

Jessie Ware - If You're Never Gonna Move (aka 110%)
HAIM - Don't Save Me
Sampha - Indecision
Disclosure - I Love... That You Know
Nautic - Fixxx
AlunaGeorge - Thinking Bout You (1Xtra Live Lounge)
Polica - Dark Star
Twigs - Hide
Zero 7, Sia & Sophie - Destiny
Lauryn Hill ft D'Angelo - Nothing Even Matters
Aphex Twin - Tha
Nuyorican Soul - I Am The Black Gold Of the Sun (feat. Jocelyn Brown)
The Maccabees - Pelican
Brandy - Slower
BenZel - Fallin' Love
The Notorious B.I.G. - Juicy*
Miguel - Adorn
Lauryn Hill - Ex-Factor*
Destiny's Child - Say My Name (Cyril Hahn Remix)
Santigold & Diplo - I'm A Lady (feat. Amanda Blank)
Jessie Ware - Strangest Feeling (Instrumental)
Rhye - Open
Redhino - Stay Together*

tracks marked with an asterisk are missing from the Soundcloud playlist

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Stuck on repeat

Nick Grimshaw, who is turning out to be a witty, inclusive breakfast show host on Radio 1, was expounding his personal theory of music this morning. The best way to have a hit single, he explained, is to repeat the title as many times as you can in the body of the song.

I can think of a few huge exceptions - Bohmeian Rhapsody and Unchained Melody, for example - but it chimes with something Benny Anderson of Abba once said: "The title of the song should always be the first line of the chorus". True enough, it applies to all but four of the tracks on Abba Gold.

Grimshaw illustrated his theory by playing a supercut of Rihanna's new single, Diamonds, in which she repeats the title 32 times. That's 30" of the song's entire duration. I've put together my own version here:



By contrast, Bruno Mars has just released his comeback single Locked Out Of Heaven, a spiky pop tune with more than a little nod to The Police. The title crops up a paltry six times. He is simply not trying hard enough.



Has he doomed himself to lower sales that Rihanna? Only time will tell...

Still, the song's not bad - although the wishy-washy chorus doesn't quite gel with the kinetic energy of the verses. It's from Bruno's second album, Unorthodox Jukebox (love that title), which is out next month. The full track premiere is below.

Bruno Mars - Locked Out Of Heaven

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The Staves talk harmonies

About once a year, I get an overwhelming, unrelenting bandcrush. This year, the object of my obsession is The Staves – three sisters from Watford whose closely-woven harmonies are quite simply supernatural.

The proof is in the pudding, and in this case the pudding is Mark Radcliffe's BBC 6 Music show. The trio turned up in his studio on Tuesday for a bit of a chat, and Mark goaded them into an impromptu, acapella performance of Wisely and Slow. Take a listen to what happened next. It's good. Too good. I'm thinking witchcraft was involved.



Afterwards, Mark asked the band how those harmonies came about. "We've always sung together," said Jessica. "We were annoying people to live next door to!"

"Our mum and dad have got really nice voices as well and they always sang around the house when we were little, and would sing nursery rhymes and Beatles songs to us. We just absorbed it as we grew up."

And, asked how they decide who sings which part, Jessica replied: "Our voices seemed to have a weird thing were they fall in order of age. Emily is the oldest and she's got the bass-ier voice. I'm in the middle and I've got a mid-level voice (at which point Emily chips in: "a really average voice") and Camilla is the high one."

So there you go.

The band are currently getting ready to release their debut album, Dead & Born & Grown, but you can already get their two EPs (Mexico and Motherlode), which I’ve had on near-constant rotation since April, on iTunes right now. And you’d be daft not to.

The Staves - Icarus

Photo credit: Rebecca Miller. Check out her photoshoot with The Staves on her blog.

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Here is the new single by The xx

I'm not going to ruin this with my clumsy words. Just close your eyes and let it wash over you, like a sexy wave of gloom-pop (damn - couldn't resist).

The xx - Angels


This is also a great excuse to roll out the clip of 5 live newsreader Rachel Hodges announcing the winner of the 2009 Mercury Prize. Rachel was handed a script while she was live on air, but hit the abort button when she got to the band's name, thinking it was just a placeholder (ie: "xx have won the Mercury Prize").

As she later explained, it was an easy mistake to make if you don't like "trendy music
bands".

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We will be fine, Jah 9

Every now and again, I like to tune in to Dave Rodigan's reggae show on Radio 2. Informed but informal, Rodigan has a vast knowledge of roots and ska and dancehall, but he wears it lightly. In common with Gilles Peterson on 6 Music or Pete Tong on Radio 1, it's one of those specialist programmes where you can feel the passion seeping through your speakers.

Last night's show ended with a track by a new artist hailing from Kingston, Jamaica - via Falmouth in the south of England. 29-year-old Janine Elizabeth Cunningham goes by the stage name Jah 9, and her nimble, jazz inflections breathe new life into the genre's chukka-chukka rhythms. If Erykah Badu converted to Rastafarianism, she might sound something like this.

Check out the track Brothers below (it's taken from the fantastically-named Silly Walks Discotheque compilation) and keep an eye on Janine's Twitter feed for details of her debut album, due out later this summer.

Jah 9 - Brothers

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Sound Bank: 5) Doreen and Mavis

In 1992, I blagged my way into presenting a radio programme.

The newly-established Belfast Community Radio had no money and no audience. It barely had any CDs or presenters. But it was on the air, and it needed staff, so I'd been coming in at weekends and answering the phones. Sooner or later, I was given access codes to the building - and that's when I hatched my diabolical plan.

One quiet Thursday night, I sneaked into the building with Neil Archibald, my lab partner in A-Level biology. We commandeered the off-air-studio and recorded a demo tape, live onto cassette. Goodness knows what it must have sounded like, but I remember two things: First, we started it with INXS's New Sensation which, after careful consideration, we had decided was the most perfect radio record of all time. Second, we were especially proud of a sketch that ended with both of us shouting "there's plenty of room around the crotch" (I have no context for this punchline any more).

Amazingly, station management comissioned a show. I think this was largely due to the fact that we were willing to do it for free but who cared? We had two hours of radio a week, and we could do what we wanted with it!

The programme was given a title, "The Near Side" (ripped off from Gary Larson in a moment of panic) and we hit the airwaves, full of ideas and completely lacking in experience.

To listeners, the show must have been  a complete mystery. We broke all the sacred rules of radio - talking over each other, playing b-sides, making stupid in-jokes. And the playlist was a mess. I was firmly rooted in planet pop, picking out top 10 hits by George Michael and Madonna. Neil, who was basically the coolest person I knew, would bring along L7 or The Charlatans. We never quite found a happy ground, but we never fell out over it, either.

The Near Side lasted about a year - but I continued to work for BCR in the school, and then university, holidays. Which is where today's soundclip comes in.

By the second year of uni, I was President of the student radio society and making ridiculous "zoo"-style programmes (this was the era of The Big Breakfast and Chris Evans, so we thought we were achingly cool). Again, I was surrounded by infinitely more talented people... Andrew Carter and Steven Finer were the comedic geniuses, whereas I held the show together technically - making sure that the levels were correct and that we went to the news at the right time.

Basically, I was Lauren Laverne on 10 O'Clock Live.

One of Andrew and Steve's comedy segments saw them assuming the voice of two old hags called Doreen and Mavis and perform an impromptu, unscripted link. To the casual listener, it must have sounded like they'd ripped off Monty Python's Pepperpot ladies - but they swore on their mother's lives that they'd never seen or heard Python... despite attending Cambridge and, in Andrew's case, auditioning for Footlights.

To this day, those sketches make me laugh milk out my nose. Even if I haven't been drinking milk. I should get that checked by a doctor.

Here's one of their finer moments.



Sound Bank is a series of blog posts I'm running in August while I'm on holiday. If you want to know more about it, there's an explanation on this page. Normal pop blog service will be resumed around 25th August

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Glastonbury: A top 10 from behind-the-scenes

Working at Glastonbury is hard going - 18-hour days, 20 bands to interview, 20 live inserts on 6 Music and Radio 2, covering the death of a politician, and producing eight or nine other radio segments across the weekend.

But let's face it: I'm a lucky pup. I get to see and do things that only a privileged few will ever experience. The lack of sleep is a small price to pay.

So... Here's my top 10 moments from the behind-the-scenes at the world's muddiest festival.

10) The Joy Formidable. Not only did they ROCK the John Peel stage, but they started a rumour that Beyoncé would have a "giant inflatable clitoris on stage as a symbol of female empowerment". We didn't broadcast much of that interview...


9) Jo Whiley getting her umbrella stuck in a door, but still looking inconceivably glamorous.

8) When the MC on the West Holts stage implored everyone to lower their flags, and everyone obeyed.


7) U2... I didn't get to see any of their set, but this stripped-down version of Stay was a highlight of the TV coverage. It's not one of their best-known songs, but it was a subtle and tender moment in a blustering "biggest band in the world" headline set.

The song's subtitle, Far Away, So Close, reflected the general feeling that U2 had fumbled their big moment - thanks in no small part to the weather.

U2 - Stay (Far Away, So Close)



6) Watching Jimmy Cliff at the side of the West Holts stage as he got ready to perform. The 63-year-old reggae star limbered up by spinning his arms like a human windmill, dressed in a chain-mail tracksuit with gold lamé shoes. And what an incredible set he delivered...


Jimmy Cliff - World Upside Down



5) When Plan B went AWOL 30 minutes before a live interview on Radio One. We had to scramble the emergency phone lines to find another guest, ringing anyone who might have their hands on a pop star. Kaiser Chief Ricky Wilson eventually came through (and was brilliant on air) but not before Steve Lamacq wandered past, laconically noting: "It's ironic that you need a Plan B for Plan B".


4) Sneaking out into the audience for 15 minutes of Elbow - just as they performed my favourite song, Mirrorball. Guy Garvey gave the most affable performance of the weekend, holding the crowd in the palm of his hand with some perfectly-judged bandinage between the songs. I got to be part of his "reverse mexican wave", a beautiful moment of communion between band and audience.


Elbow - Reverse Mexican Wave / Neat Little Rows



3) Standing next to Beyoncé as she waited to speak to BBC TV. She was totally buzzing from her spectacular set on the Pyramid Stage, glowing like a gorgeous R&B firefly.

We were stood as close as the first "W" and the final "E" of this sentence and, if she hadn't been ushered onto the set, I might have gone all Alexandra Burke and started weeping like an idiot. The interview was incredibly sweet, though. As Olly Richards said on Twitter afterwards: "Beyonce seems lovely. I bet she & Jay-Z just sit at home being brilliant and not feeling a need to make it a big thing."


Beyoncé chats to the BBC after her Glastonbury performance



2) Everything about Janelle Monae. The pin-sharp choreography, the stunning voice, the monochrome stage set (everything was black and white, right down to the string section's instruments)... even the bit where she brought out an easel and started painting in an unexpected tribute to Rolf Harris. Possibly the most gifted and individual performer of the weekend.


Janelle Monáe - Tightrope



1) Interviewing Robert "Kool" Bell of Kool & The Gang. Our chat ended like this...

Me: "You're on stage at the same time as Beyoncé. Do you feel any competition? Who's going to be more funky?"

Kool: "It's interesting that they've put us on at the same time, but I think we have enough people out here. And we gonna get down".

Me: "How do you get down?"

Kool: "We get down... on it."

There were other moments, too... Getting to stand in the wings as Cee-Lo played his set. Having to ask The Vaccines to write their names on a piece of paper, because I kept getting them wrong on air. And the backstage catering, which was of an unfairly high standard compared to the falafel vans on the main site (a special shout-out to whoever made the sticky toffee pudding).

I have an amazing job.

If you listened to our coverage on 6 Music, thank you! And if you missed any of it, here's a round-up of everyone I saw and spoke to at the John Peel stage - which was my main home for the weekend.

Glastonbury 2011 - From the John Peel Stage by mrdiscopop

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Noah and the Whale and Peter Frampton

Last week, I got to spend an hour in the company of Noah And The Whale at their rehearsal studios in East London. Charlie Fink, the band's charming frontman, gave me a chatty tour of the facility (a converted synagogue), which I taped and put on the radio. Here it is.

Noah & The Whale - Studio tour by mrdiscopop


The band's new CD, Last Night On Earth, is out on 7th March and it's a right little corker. Considerably more breezy than their last effort - gut-wrenching break-up essay The First Days Of Spring - it hitches a lift with Springsteen, Tom Petty and Lou Reed across the musical highways of the USA. Charlie also noted that the album, his third, clocks in at exactly 33⅓ minutes. Now That's What I Call Unnecessary Attention To Detail.

First single, L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N., is both ear worm and tongue twister. It's accompanied by the following eye candy.

Noah And The Whale - L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

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Jo Whiley's last daytime show

About three hours ago, Jo Whiley wrapped up her last daytime show on Radio One. I know a lot of people couldn't stand her, or her taste in music, but I always found her a disarmingly warm and human presence in the middle of Radio One's never-ending parade of shouty bastards.

The fact that this talented broadcaster is being replaced by a girl whose vocabulary consists of 22 words, eight of which are "amazing", only makes her demotion all the more depressing.

The case against Jo seemed to be that she championed a great deal of indie drivel - from Badly Drawn Boy to The Wombats - but she also introduced me to The Killers and Gnarls Barkley and Lupe Fiasco, so it all evens out in the end.

In the end, her last show wasn't exactly the rousing valedictory I'd expected, partly because of the bizarre decision to play an hour-long Coldplay concert in the middle of it, but the presence of Jay-Z - who played basketball on Jo's driveway - was radio gold.

I've put together a two-minute highlights package in case you missed it.



Oh, and there were a couple of great new Live Lounge tracks for the last show. The Jay-Z ones in particular are worth 10 minutes of your time. Links below:

:: Jay-Z - Encore (acoustic live lounge)
:: Jay-Z - Roc Boys (acoustic live lounge)
:: Dizzee Rascal - Holiday (flamenco version)
:: Coldplay - Shiver (live lounge)

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Nneka - the new Lauryn Hill

That's according to The Times, at least, who called her 2006 release Victim Of Truth the year's most criminally overlooked album.

The Nigerian hip-hop singer is hoping to overcome the critics' cold shoulders with her second CD, No Longer At Ease, which is trailled by the insanely funky single Heartbeat. It scores a commendable 95% on our booty jiggleometer.

Nneka - Heartbeat

Nneka - Heartbeat
by FourMusic

Radio One have playlisted the following club remix of the song - apparently because their audience now consists solely of the sort of person who swears by wet look gel and thinks foam parties are "sexy".

It doens't completely rip the heart out of the song, but it certainly dials the subtelty meter all the way down to zero.

Nneka - Heartbeat (Chase & Status remix)

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Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris: New single

We fully endorse Dizzee Rascal's decision to abandon hardcore grime in favour of ridiculously overblown dance music. He sounds so much better on a big, bouncing pop tune than he does mumbling about knife crime over the top of the Transformers soundtrack, don't you think?

His new single, Holiday, received its first play on Radio One last night and its essentially a re-working of The Vengaboys' We're Going To Ibiza, only, you know... credible.

Although the track features Calvin Harris and Chrome, its not quite as good as Dance Wiv Me. But that's like saying bacon isn't as good as bacon butties. They are both brilliant in their own way.

You can hear the song inside this BBC iPlayer gizmo, We nicked it off popjustice, who in turn nicked it off Hattie C's blog.

Third with the news, as always.



Top marks for rhyming bikini with scenery, too.

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Dolly Rockers: Good or evil?

I don't know what to say about the Dolly Rockers.

Their single, Je Suis Une Dolly, is mega-annoying. Imagine Jeremy Clarkson and Germaine Greer standing over your bed debating the merits of feminism while Timmy Mallet sounds a klaxon and flashes a laser pen in your eyes. It's more annoying than that.

On the other hand, the trio exude the same sort of deranged genius that made the Spice Girls so exciting back in 1996. When they auditioned for the X Factor last year, Sophie Dolly stared straight into the camera and deadpanned: "We live, sleep, eat, breathe and make toilet for the X Factor".

But the TV talent show wasn't big enough to contain the nascent popsters - and Louis "Potato" Walsh chose big haired no-hopers Bad Lashes and Girlband over the Dollies and their irrepresible, but potentially troublesome, sense of humour.

Step in EMI, who are helping to promote Je Suis Une Dolly, and have wisely decided not to interfere with the band's Red Bull-fuelled, DIY publicity campaign. The video, filmed on the fly on the streets of London, is bursting with personality (and not because the metropolitan police tried to beat them to death with truncheons). Have a look.

Dolly Rockers - Je Suis Une Dolly


I suppose there's a sliver of hope that the song is a Wannabe-style trashy introduction to an effervescent (alco)pop phenomenon, but the involvement of Ray Hedges (B*Witched, Donny Tourette, Big Brovaz) hardly instils us with confidence.

This is a terrible shame, because the girls are madcap stars-in-waiting. Just listen to the interview they gave on Radio 1 yesterday morning. It's all over the place (picture Sarah Harding with caffeine injected into her eyeballs, to the power of three) but a thousand times better than any number of Leona Lewis corporate robot radio appearances.



Poor old Scott Mills, eh?

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Ed Byrne and Piers Morgan cross swords

This shabby piece of photoshop "magic" serves to illustrate the captivating moment when comedian Ed Byrne had a big fight with talent show judge Piers Morgan on Five Live earlier today. Topics covered include X Factor, Pop Idol and, er, the political system of Dubai.

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Quantum of Solace - the musical

While I was away, a colleague sent me the lyrics to the Jack White / Alicia Keys Bond theme. I took one look and thought "fake".

Turns out I was wrong, and this terrifically incompetent bag of balls is the genuine article.


JW: Another blinger with a slick trigger finger for Her Majesty
AK: Another one with the golden tongue poisoning your fantasy
JW: Another pill from a killer turn a thriller to a tragedy
AK/JW: Yeah, a door never open, a woman walking by, a drop in the water, a look in the eye, a phone on the table, a man on your side, someone that you think that you can trust is just another way to die.

(snip...)

To fade: Just another, just another, bang bang bang bang.

To be fair, the words work a lot better in the context of the down and dirty bombast of the song - which you can buy now on iTunes. But I still prefer the two spoof themes performed by Adam and Joe of… er, Adam and Joe fame. Here's a sample of Adam Buxton's chorus:

I'd like a quantum of solace, but no more than a quantum
I know they do big bags of solace... but I don't want'em
I only want a teeny, tiny slice of solace
Before I shoot you

Much, much better, I'm sure you'll agree.

Adam Buxton - Quantum of Solace


Joe Cornish - Quantum of Solace


Perhaps we could collect together all these themes, and the ditched Amy Winehouse one, and put on a show, Kids of Fame-style, right here, right now.

I'll call Bruno. Can you text LeRoy?

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Radio One "redefines pop"

George Ergatoudis, the improbably named but highly influential head of music at Radio One, has done an interview with the Guardian where he heralds the "return of pop music" on the nation's favourite radio station.

But before you take to the streets, cheering and letting off party poppers from the back of a decorated pony, take a minute to read what he says.

"There's something of an increase in pop acts that I think are making really strong, quality new music. Ones doing really well for us at the moment are the Hoosiers, Scouting for Girls, the Wombats ... "

Now wait just a minute.

Scouting For Girls? The fucking Wombats? These second-rate unimaginative indie pissants are nowhere near the vast citadel known as pop. They're not even in the suburbs. They're about 500 miles off the coast, next to a sewer outlet on the seabed, slowly evolving into double-celled organisms.

In fact, when it comes to real pop, Ergatoudis admits he's only really ready to play Sugababes and Girls Aloud, who - great though they are - are getting a bit long in the tooth.

He glosses over the fact that Radio One chooses not to add similarly talented, quirky pop acts like Roisin Murphy, Alphabeat and Dragonnette to its hallowed playlist?

The Guardian also points out that Ergatoudis refused to play this week's (admittedly terrible) number one, Basshunter's Now You're Gone, until it hit the top of the charts and he was forced into an "embarassing climbdown".

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for the return of guitars in pop (and I'd have classed the Hooisers and Kaiser Chiefs as pop long before Ergatoudis had his Damascene conversion) but pretending that you're championing a genre by retrospectively re-categorising bands you already play is cuntery of the highest order.

Cheerio!

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Arctic Monkeys - the people speak

So last night on Fabulous Rrrrradio One Eff Emm they played the new Arctic Monkeys single. Taken from their forthcoming sophomore album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, it's called Brian Storm (do you see what they did there?). It has since been played on the station every two hours or so. There's a law about it, apparently.

As we all know, Arctic Monkeys are the biggest band on the planet. "They're like this generation's Oasis" is what well-known rock critic Dizzee Rascal said.

We also know that Arctic Monkeys are popular because of the internet, which allowed their fans to come together and say "crikey, I quite like this music", except using typing and modems.

So the online response to this hotly anticipated new record is bound to be stellar, isn't it?

Erm... no.

A total of three (count 'em) bloggers have written about the single. "I heard it. It's good, yeah", says Imdagger with unique insight into the creative process. Meanwhile, Pillaged Prose is more effusive, but slightly more cryptic: "Damn what a follow up", he writes. "But not the sort of thing to listen to when trying to do finicky seam work". An important health warning for all of those kids listening to the Monkeys in a third-world sweatshop, there.

And what of the response on the group's fabled myspace page? Similarly poor,I'm afraid. Just five of the band's 62,989 "friends" felt moved to make a comment. One of them, Mikey, wrote "your new song is the sex", which makes me wonder if he has ever actually had sex (hint: no). But, apart from Mikey, no-one seems to be wetting their pants over this much-feted record.

Come on, guys, the song's not that bad. I mean, the words are clever. And the guitar riff is pretty ferocious. Yes, the tune just repeats itself every two bars and there's no chorus - but what do you expect? They are this generation's Oasis, after all.

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RIP Alan 'Fluff' Freeman

You made the Top 40 countdown the single most exciting piece of radio in the UK - every week for thirty years.

You said Not 'Arf and Pop Pickers rather a lot.

You genuinely loved the music you played. Unlike, say, JK and Joel.

Speaking of whom, you would never have spent a cringeworthy five minutes trying to chat up Nelly Furtado - every single bloody time she was on the show.

But then, she probably isn't that into wooly jumpers.

You were the only Radio 1 DJ who was simultaneously friends with John Peel and Noel Edmonds.

You pulled off the feat of making a piece of swing band music the calling card for the world's most exciting rock and roll music chart.
Proof:

You will be missed.

PS: Read a proper obituary at No Rock and Roll Fun.

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Quality control

Sometimes, in the course of my day job, I get asked to provide voice-overs. Nothing you're likely to have heard, mind you, just the occasional programme trail or narration for a news pacakge.

Today, I was asked to pop into the recording studio for a piece on the BBC 's website. I dutifully obliged, recording two lines of translated dialogue for a piece from Japan.

At the time, I didn't pay much attention to the script. My lines were quite simple: "It's really fun - both the way it looks and the way it smells. It's the first time I've bathed in curry and my daughter loves it."

Hang on just a cotton-picking minute, there... Bathing in curry?! My daughter loves it? Had I really considered what I was lending my voice to as I sat in the recording booth?

Looking at the video now [click here] it feels like I've been sucked into a disappointingly nudity-free edition of Eurotrash.

Perhaps in the future I'll exercise a little more caution over the jobs I accept. Unless there's payment involved, in which case I'll dress up like a monkey and pretend to be the second coming of Jesus. It's not like I have standards.

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"Fame" at last

Oh dear. Being on the radio isn't as glamorous as it's cracked up to be...

Last night, thorough a combination of weak-will and idiocy, I was roped into appearing on the BBC World Service. They billed me as an 'entertainment reporter and composer', which is technically true even if it does sound a little bit grand compared to "writes about music and plays the piano".

My mission was to be Simon Cowell for five minutes on the World Have Your Say programme in a feature they called "Your-o-vision".

Although, clearly, that pun doesn't work on radio.

So I put on a tight black vest, pulled my trousers up to chest height and set about my task, judging music from podcasts and blogs around the world.

The majority of the 'entrants' were actually very good - and I ended up exaggerating my minor quibbles with the songs to avoid saying "yeah, I quite like that, actually" after every track.

It was all over very quickly (or, perhaps, the vest cut off the blood supply to my brain and I blacked out). I gave my douze points to a creole-style song from Colombia, but the other judges overruled and British punk band Itchy Tits won the contest.

I've put a link to all of the songs featured on the programme below, because I don't feel any of them deserved to be judged in this cruel manner. Certainly not by me, anyway.

There's also an MP3 of my appearance, which I've provided out of sheer vanity.

If only I'd asked for a fee...

King Elio Boom: Il Fulo is available at WFMU

Nathan Asher: Turn Up The Faders is available on myspace

Itchy Tits: Videophone is available on Xan Phillips podcast
(Xan was also on last night's show - so read his blog too!)

Hear the whole shameful episode on this short mp3

By the way, if you want my opinion on this year's actual Eurovision contest, I say it's Lithuania all the way. This country either has a fantastic sense of humour or appalling taste in music. Or maybe it's both...

The song is utterly devoid of any tune or progression, and the band, LT United, would appear to consist of six blokes they found waiting for their wives outside the changing rooms in Lithuania's equivalent of Debenhams.

But their lyrics are superb: "We're the winners of Euorvision," they repeat, "Vote for us / vote for us". The band's official website even redirects you to www.winnersofeurovision.com!

If this brazen attempt at mind-control doesn't work on you, then you're not human and I claim my five pounds.

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