6 Feet Under

by Harry

So, it’s true.

Erstwhile home of The Steve Show and favourite radio station of everyone who likes music, 6 Music is to be shut down by the BBC.

In a strategy report released today, the BBC announced that 6 Music and the Asian Network are to close, along with cutbacks to their website and various other tinkerings.

I fell in love with 6 Music the first time I turned on my brand new DAB radio and heard them playing Husker Du.  No-one plays Husker Du.  I woke up to the grumpy mumblings of Phill Jupitus, I nodded off to Marc Riley in the evenings, and often considered throwing a sickie just to tune in to the brilliant Gideon Coe.

And then, incredibly, we got the gig!  Where else would a bunch of utterly unqualified hangers-on like us be allowed to broadcast for two hours a week on national radio?  Apart from talkSPORT, maybe?

Now don’t get me wrong – 6 Music isn’t perfect.  I’ve never understood the point of 6 Music News Music News, the playlist can be a bit annoying during the week, and then there’s George Lamb.  Also, it took them ages to sort out our passes for the building, the security guards on reception were useless, and finding a pair of headphones that worked was always the toughest assignment of the afternoon.

6 also had a big part to play in the rise and rise of ‘landfill indie’, the dreary corporate alterno-fodder used in the trails for every E4 show.

But by playing interesting, often challenging stuff that you really don’t hear anywhere else, by giving a platform to hundreds of lesser-known artists to play live sessions, and by having some of the most musically articulate and passionate DJs around, 6 Music really is unique.  Maconie’s FreakZone?  The Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show?  The aforementioned Coe and Riley? Garvey, Cocker, Robinson?

And yet it has to go.  The BBC is shutting down a station that could not exist in the commercial world.  We sometimes received bleating emails from unhinged listeners carping on about how playing something that they didn’t like was somehow against the remit of the station, which was obviously bollocks, but at least proved the passion of the station’s supporters.  Today’s decision, to me, flies in the face of the remit of the BBC.  

If they’re going to shut anything down (in what is, let’s face it, a pre-emptive strike against a BBC-hostile Tory government which may not even be voted in), it should really be Radio1 – there are countless commercial stations that replicate the output of Radio1, and the cost saving would be off the scale of anything announced today.

Of course, everyone should join the Facebook group, but frankly, once businesses make decisions like this, they tend not to change them.  You might as well join a group appealing for the return of New Coke, or the abolition of Tuesdays. 

If I’ve learnt anything over the last 12 months, it’s that no matter how inept a business decision, the individuals responsible will fall behind it and defend it to the death, and hope that people eventually just give up the fight.

But wait – what’s this?  The chairman of the BBC Trust has said that the decision could be overturned if there is ‘massive public concern’.  And absurd shadow culture spokesman Ed Vaizey is now apparently a huge 6Music fan.

So take to the streets.  Daub pro-Nemone slogans on your duvet covers and hang them from motorway bridges.  Don Shaun Keaveney facemasks and storm the town halls of this fair land.  Raze the studios of XFM to the ground and dissect the corpses with sharpened Fall CDs. 

Let’s save 6Music.

2009 – Ten Tiny Dan opinions

by Tiny Dan

I was online the other day and thought – you know what this web thing needs? A list of stuff that happened during the past 12 months! Yeah!

Well, in order to provide one and thus complete the internet, here’s Tiny Dan’s sideways take on the lousy good-for-nothing complete and utter annus that is 2009…

A LIST OF TEN 2009 THINGS

10 Most unexpected bout of tears
Oh yeah, Tiny Dan is tough. I got locked out of my house once – didn’t even think about crying. At an Indian Restaurant, I’ll always go for the lime pickle. Drinks? ‘A half?’ ‘No sir! Tiny Dan will have a PINT!’ – that’s the sort of level we’re talking. A Tiny, Tiny condensed ball that will not yield – I am possibly the densest matter in the universe (apart from this).

All the more wonder then, that during that opening bit of the Pixar film ‘Up’, a watery substance – later diagnosed as ‘cry’ – began to leak from my eye ducts. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know why. Near the start of the movie is that incredible animated montage of two lives passing by – it’s so simple, yet utterly beautiful and totally heartbreaking.

9) Most complete demise of the final vestiges of any interest I retained in a particular genre of TV: Reality
Perhaps it was the horribly overblown coverage of the tragic death of Jade Goody that did it. Perhaps it is the ongoing media portrayal of Susan Boyle as some sort of ‘wacky celeb’, rather than a troubled woman struggling with an intense media spotlight which is utterly out of proportion with her talent. Perhaps I’m just jealous of Ant ‘n’ Dec. Whatever, I extracted no joy whatsoever from reality TV this year and couldn’t even tell you who won what.

Except the Apprentice. I bloody love the Apprentice.

8 ) Best hip-hop album you didn’t hear in 2009: Doom – Born Like This
Brother, I would like to know why all of you haters be sleeping on this one (kindly inform me with a comment at the end of the article). I’ve already bored most of my chums telling them how brilliant Doom (AKA MF Doom AKA Metal Fingers AKA Danger Doom AKA Madvillain) is. This album is by turns leftfield (Thank Yah), inventive (Lightworks), dubious (Batty Boyz) and intense (Cellz) – you basically need this.

7) Tiny Dan’s Glastonbury break-out moment: The XX
I’ll front up. I wasn’t there. I watched it on the telly.

Now, I was aware that there was some kind of ‘buzz’ around new music combo The XX and lo and behold, they were about to do one of those little backstage performances that you get on BBC Three. I dunno why but I expected it to be some overblown pompous load of old crud. Turns out it was all like early ‘80s Cure B-sides and New Order done gone be playing up in my head. Cue big Tiny Dan grin and XX on heavy rotation from thence onwards.

6) Best Me Nearly Getting Harry off of Stephen Merchant’s 6Music Radio Show into Big Trouble Moment of ‘09
It’s a toss-up. Either
a) Bumping into him at the Oval during the World Twenty20 cricket and discussing the event using some pretty robust and earthy language – only to subsequently discover that the older types nearby were in fact his girlfriend’s parents, or
b) Having a delightful summer pint at the Thames-side pub the White Cross in Richmond and using the exceptionally high tide which cut us off as an excuse to stay out for several more (even though, really, we could have escaped with little danger to life and limb despite claims to the contrary) when he was already overdue a return home to get the dinner on

5) Best hip-hop album you may have heard in 2009: Mos Def – The Ecstatic
Basically, when hip-hopsters start getting into acting, that’s pretty much the end of their useful musical output. Mr M.Def, who you might remember from such films as The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Be Kind Rewind, bucked that trend in style with this little beauty which featured thunderingly good grooves alongside some hefty messages. If you haven’t got this yet, go and get it now and come back and read the last four when you’ve done it.

I can wait….

Still waiting… Here’s a bit of the album to pass the time…

Got it… No? Then go back and get it….

Got it now? Good. Well done. Here’s number 4.

4) Show I slept on until 2009 then couldn’t get enough of – The Inbetweeners
I smashed down both series of this on DVD over a handful of very enjoyable days in autumn. It’s tremendo. You either already know this ‘cos you watched it or you don’t because you haven’t – in which case go out and get it immediately and watch it. Done it? Good.

Am worried for the future though (no spoilers, don’t panic). The main characters are at that difficult age – surely the show will quickly need them to leave school (but we don’t want them to mature or grow up) or it will look increasingly unrealistic and go a bit Luke Perry Beverly Hills 90210. Hey! Why not Twitter how you think the show should continue?

3) Best song from the second series of Flight of the Conchords: Sugalumps
Also the best song Prince never recorded.

2) Most unexpected emotion/event combination of the year (apart from crying at a kids’ film (see number 10)): Medium pleasure/England regain the Ashes
Back in 2005 I went what is commonly referred to as ‘nutbag’ for the Ashes. This time around it was ‘meh-bag’ at best. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, it just wasn’t quite as, you know, vital. Why? I’m not even motivated enough to tell you. Just google it (surely ‘googly’ it – cricket pun ed).

1) Most premature cancellation of a radio show just when I thought the hilarious ‘posse’ behind the main star were really hitting their stride: Stephen Merchant’s 6Music show on Sundays 3-5pm (latterly 3.30-5.30pm)

It was a sad day indeed when the mics were hung up on this broadcasting instiution in May. If I was capable of writing emoticons I’d probably do something like this :O( here.

Mind you, I was never really all that into the deservedly-unpopular Dan. His attendance was appalling and his contributions perfunctory. Still at least there’s this website, where you can log on and abuse him.

Did anything happen to you in 2009? Why not let a very, very small percentage of the world know about what happened to you in 2009, by writing about it underneath here! It’s the perfect way to pay tribute to 2009! It’s what 2009 would have wanted. 2009! 2009!