Blog: Brentwood's Only Alternative

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I went to Liverpool Street after work and caught the Shenfield Train - not that unusual an occurrence, as it goes through Stratford (two stops from Leytonstone) so I've often used it as a shortcut home but this time I was going NEARLY all the way, for LO! I was heading out to distant BRENTWOOD to do a session for Phoenix FM.

For the second time this week I had the strange feeling of remembering a route I hadn't walked for YEARS, as I strode through town to the radio station's offices. As Mr Paul Golder aka Eddie Curry, the host of the show "Brentwood's Only Alternative", said it must be at least a couple of years since I was last there, although I still maintain the record for MOST SESSIONS. I am, basically, The Fall to his John Peel. It was lovely to be back there anyway, especially to see it THRIVING. When i first started doing sessions for Paul the station was running on various temporary licences, usually broadcasting from a TINY little room above a Community Centre - i distinctly remember one time having to SQUEEZE three of us in there to do some recording, and constantly having to shut doors and/or wait for quiet moments in the ROWDY TEENAGE PARTY downstairs. Nowadays they've got a permanent licence, their own offices and studio and are in fact MOVING to larger premises in a few weeks. It's brilliant!

Paul produced some BEER for me, which got things off to a very pleasant start and then we nipped back in to the studio to get set up while he cued a series of songs. Once we were on air I kicked off by doing THREE songs from the album, as follows:

Theme From Dinosaur Planet

A Little Bit

Please Don't Eat Us

I LAUNCHED into the first one a bit too loudly, going by the PANICKED RESETTING of volume controls, and messed up the start of A Little Bit, but otherwise it all seemed to go over all right, though I'm not entirely sure how well my attempts to do the CHILDREN'S CHOIR sections in Please Don't Eat Us worked on the radio. After that we embarked upon a LENGTHY chat, during which we discussed where the story came from, how it's developed, what we're going to do NEXT and my appearance in Judge Dredd Magazine. Towards the end we veered perilously close to SPOILERS, also CONFUSION when Paul asked "What's all that stuff about a Moon Horse at the end?" and I had to very carefully explain that there IS a moon but not a Moon Horse without divulging any further details. It was HARD!

After we'd finished we shook hands and I stomped off back to the station, leaving Paul to continue doing his show on the station that he a) runs b) loves, with me promising to come back a lot SOONER this time. I certainly intend to - it's lovely to go off and see a right proper COMMUNITY PROJECT doing so well, especially one that gives you BEER!

posted 24/11/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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