Just in case you were bemused at how Pop In The Real World seems to operate smoothly every week - and I am - the preprations for last Sunday's show were a case of everything going wrong that could go wrong. First I had s heavy cold that made me sound like a monster from the swamp. Recording the show was a caralogue of mishaps. The timings mysteriously went badly awry. Songs that were there in the mornign. had disappeared by tea time. Other songs planned for the show revealed previously unheard swearing. Sainsburys delivered our weekly shop in the middle. Links were fluffed time and time again. And the moment where i could decide to laugh or howl primevally at the moon came when, after several retakes of one link, the microphone and its table collapsed, bringing an element of chaos to the end of the link in question.
Some of you have asked "What's going on with the scheduling at Royal Borough Radio?" Well, skip this part if you're not bothered by the intricacies of radio scheduling but it's good news - for Pop In The Real World at any rate. In brief, the two hour programme will generate up to six hours of air time each week.
Each programme will broadcast in full on Royal Borough Radio on Thursdays between 12:00 and 14:00 and in its usual slot on Sundays between 18:00 and 20:00. On Thursdays between 19:00 and 20:00 a one hour extract of the show will play on the sister station Roadhouse Radio UK, with a second one hour segment to be slotted into the Roadhouse schedule in due course. (I'll still be regarding the Sunday show as Pop In The Real World's l;ode star. It feels the most comfortable slot for the show.)
I'm recording the programmes in one hour segments rather than a two hour block. After a few weeks that will give us a set of one hour programmes that can be pick and mixed together to create new two hour programmes out of existing materials if there's ever an unexpected gap in the schedule, for example if a live producer falls ill. It makes it unexpectedly tricky to prepare as they have to be generic for that to work, So, no "Coming next...." call outs, no "This is for everyone sitting exams this month" forms of encouragement and no references at all to "How was your Sunday?" They would just sound odd.
Anyway, that's enough detail. These were the songs played lasy Sunday.
Bluebird - The Cocteau Twins
Take It All In - Saint Etienne
Scratch - Hannah Georgas
Close To Me (Extended Remix 1985) - The Cure
Eus Keus? - Gwenno
Hearts On Fire - Better Person (This one may be out of sequence because I had to change the running order at the last moment and forgot to make a note of it)
Imitation of Life - R.E.M.
Pretty (Ugly Before) - Elliott Smith
When You Wake For Certain - Lavender Diamond
Curve of Love - Andy Jenkins
Midnight on the Earth - St Paul and the Broken Bones
Ain't Never Been Cool - Lucky Soul
The Rust - Bitw
Pale Blue Sky - Leah Weller
Caminhos de Avis - Rodrigo Leao
Sara - Fleetwood Mac
Through Joke - Spencer Segelov and Great Paintings
Where Dreams Go To Die - John Grant and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Kid Dreams - Guster
Unintended - Muse
Home (Edit) - Joe Goddard
Liberation - Pet Shop Boys
To The End (La Comedie) - Blur and Francoise Hardy
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