Sounds of the Sixties . . . what are they thinking of?

[robgul]

Last prog with - "Good Morning avids" - Brian Matthew today after 27 years.

We've had to put up with the boringly dreary tones of Tim Rice for the past few months while Brian was ill - but what are they thinking of by:  a) putting Tony Blackburn into host the prog, and b) putting it on from 0600 - 0800?

Rob
a.k.a.  VERY DISAPPOINTED of Stratford-upon-Avon

[ElyDave]

Yes, heard that this morning as well, Jonnie Walker  would be my choice if he wasn't already doing a seventies show.

[robgul]

Yes, heard that this morning as well, Jonnie Walker  would be my choice if he wasn't already doing a seventies show.

At least it's not Noel Edmonds.   

AND I'm taking bets that the first record Blackburn plays will be The Move's "Flowers in the Rain"

Rob

[vorsprung]

oh come on tony blackburn was a real pirate dj of the 60s

"sound of the 60s" the recent rate show with Brian Matthews (mate) wasn't all Kinks and psychedelic sounds.  There was loads of crap

[LEE]

Sounds of the Sixties was a Radio program designed specifically to remind people that the music of "The Swinging Sixties" was 95% shit.

[Exit Stage Left]

Different shows remind me of different things. Desmond Carrington was something we got into when we were decorating our house in 2006, and we couldn't be bothered retuning the radio. Mark Radcliiffe and Stuart Maconie followed that period.

Brian Matthew is about hedgelaying competitions, trips to Yad Moss to ski, and walks in the Lakes.

Anneka Rice is associated with Audaxes and hedglaying competitions further away. I especially like Anneka's assumption that everyone is either walking a dog or mucking out a stable. It's surreal enough being up at that time, and it somehow adds to it.

Sounds of the Sixties was a bit boring though, after 27 years it should be up to the mid 80s by now, but do we really want Bros at that time in the morning?

Good Morning Sunday is a bigger problem. Some of the Gospel is alright, but the cracker barrel philosophy is a bit much.

[robgul]

Sounds of the Sixties was a Radio program designed specifically to remind people that the music of "The Swinging Sixties" was 95% shit.

To some extent yes, it really was all of a sudden "different" but you had to be there  . . . were you?   

To me it's all about memories and association - different tracks affixed in my mind with various girls, events and milestones in my life.

Brian Matthew for me started for me in 1959 when he was doing Saturday Club - I was still at school but with a Saturday morning job at the local printers.

Rob

[Redlight]

Anneka Rice is associated with Audaxes

If that were true, I suspect that in the early-90s Audax UK would have had more members than the CTC

[Exit Stage Left]

You're reminding me of various encounters with Triathlons.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Sounds of the Sixties was a bit boring though, after 27 years it should be up to the mid 80s by now, but do we really want Bros at that time in the morning?

No. No, we definitely don't.

[Jaded]

Which ones are Bros, are they Jedward?

[Torslanda]

Sounds of the Sixties was a Radio program designed specifically to remind people that the music of "The Swinging Sixties" was 95% shit.

Amen, Reverend!.

Saturday radio (for me) will not start until 10am. Whilst SOTS was tolerable, the 'Saturday Breakfast Show' presenter will be Dermot O'Dreary. Audio anaesthetist . . .

[LEE]

Sounds of the Sixties was a Radio program designed specifically to remind people that the music of "The Swinging Sixties" was 95% shit.

To some extent yes, it really was all of a sudden "different" but you had to be there  . . . were you?   

To me it's all about memories and association - different tracks affixed in my mind with various girls, events and milestones in my life.

Brian Matthew for me started for me in 1959 when he was doing Saturday Club - I was still at school but with a Saturday morning job at the local printers.

Rob

I was there man*

I'm definitely not saying that the '60s didn't produce some of the finest pop music.  Quite the opposite in fact.  The pop and rock rule-book was written in that decade (plus a bit of the '70s).

It's just that most radio stations, and TV documentaries, play the "classics" from the era, filtering out Max Bygraves, Ken Dodd, Des O'Connor ..etc.

SOTS doesn't seem to have such a filter.

*for 8 years, but I did have a plastic Beatles guitar.

[ElyDave]

Sounds of the Sixties was a Radio program designed specifically to remind people that the music of "The Swinging Sixties" was 95% shit.

Amen, Reverend!.

Saturday radio (for me) will not start until 10am. Whilst SOTS was tolerable, the 'Saturday Breakfast Show' presenter will be Dermot O'Dreary. Audio anaesthetist . . .

personally I give up on R2 on a Saturday morning  - Graham Fucking Norton - no thank you. 

R4 until the afternoon for me, that Reverend Wossname is far more gentle on the ears and brain

[Vince]

Saturday morning radio hasn't been the same since John Peel died and Home Truths was canceled.

[robgul]

 . . . does Uncle Mac still do Children's Favourites on a Saturday morning?

Rob

[Torslanda]

I believe the real reason for Toady Blackbum taking over SOTS is the beeb don't want Brian Matthew carking it 'in harness'. It's probably bad for ratings or some bollox.

They did the same with Desmond Carrington and (prolly) Terry Wogan. When he didn't appear for Children In Need the stated reason was a 'bad back' - not 'he's dying of cancer . . .'

[Legs]

Sounds of the Sixties was a Radio program designed specifically to remind people that the music of "The Swinging Sixties" was 95% shit.

I've been saying this for years 

[clarion]

I think that the 'real reason' for Blackburn getting it is that he was rather unceremoniously dumped off Pick of the Pops for making some stupid comments.  Now he's being rehabilitated, he's being given a show suited to his era (though I think he would prefer Johnnie Walker's 70s, from which he would extract Eagles etc and add disco).  And it's at crack of dawn to show him who's boss still.

All entirely supposition, but I am really sad to have heard, so close together, MC Desmo and Brian Mathew do their final regular broadcast shows.  I enjoyed Sounds of the Sixties.  It was just right for that time of the morning - eclectic, interesting, sometimes appalling, but never offensive.  And Brian's warm voice with the intelligent and slightly jokey chat was ideal.  Waking up to Tony Blackburn's manic mid-atlanticisms is a nightmare.

[Exit Stage Left]

Blackburn's an interesting character.

When the miners went on strike in 1973, it interrupted his pantomime performance – the lights went out mid-show – so he told them to get back to work. “It probably wasn’t the best thing to say. Yes, I was reprimanded for that. I was taken off the air.” He was given a two-week ban. But it would be simplistic to pigeonhole him as a reactionary. He is also a vegetarian (he stopped eating meat at five because he liked chickens), a militant atheist, and a pacifist with a radical bent. “I believe everybody from different races should sleep with one another, and so eventually we’d have children who couldn’t be discriminated against, which would be wonderful.”

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/aug/10/-sp-tony-blackburn-john-peel-looked-upon-me-as-the-devil-for-some-reason

John Peel admired Tony's contribution to soul music. I was a prog-rock fan at the height of the Northern Soul scene, so dismissed soul as anathema, but there's actually a lot of crossover. 'Booker T and the MGs' were quite capable of being mistaken for 'The Nice'.

[Redlight]

I remember in the late 70s Blackburn had a slot on his R1 show called the National Pop Panel, in which he'd get a bunch of random listeners to sit through a couple of new records and choose which one they preferred.  On one occasion, I recall John Peel, on his 10pm-midnight show, following the first playing of Devo's "Jocko Homo" with: "Well, I wonder what the National Pop Panel would make of that."

I suspect the antipathy between the two was largely superficial though. Peel reserved his real ire for Noel Edmonds, whom he once described as "a man who plays records for a living but has no music in his own home".

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Swap Shop was great.

[robgul]

The two things I remember about Noel Edmonds were Flynn the milkman on his show  . . . . . and the brilliant 1 April stunt in about 1973 or so.

He announced that he was doing the show from an aeroplane (background noise sounded authentic) - and gave the route that the plane was taking from London via brief appearances at I can't remember where and then touching down, IIRC, in Edinburgh - by the time the end of the show came there was a big crowd waiting at the airport.  All a spoof of course, but very well executed.

But he was/is total crap on TV.

Rob

[LEE]

Swap Shop was great.

Tiswas was greater.

[mattc]

Swap Shop was great.

Tiswas was greater.

Imagine telling today's kids that in our youth we had a choice of Noel Edmonds or Chris Tarrant to entertain us. They might even feel sorry for us!