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The best radio show on the planet becomes the best television show on the planet: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXya_2K4nMY] This is what bittorrent is for. Can't wait. UPDATE: Is Ira Glass the new King of All Media?

I was on Kim Hill's programme on Saturday Morning, talking about a range of things. Not entirely sure what the agenda was for having me as a guest, except that I'm a New Zealander in a far off place. Since it was that broadly focused, we skittered from topic to topic, taking in things as diverse as the peculiarities of British 'Committee Society' and the value of vinyl over CD. On listening back, it struck Bobbie, then me -- and some other people who even emailed me to let me know -- that I say 'kind of' rather a lot. It's a bit of a crutch phrase. Like 'umm...'. I've had a range of them through my life. It used to be 'y'know...' and before that it was 'basically'. Normally, I don't resort to them if I've prepared a presentation well -- but if I'm being interviewed, they just fall out to fill space while I think of what I'm going to say next. In other words, if you hear me say 'kind of' more than a few times, I'm having a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights moment. One correspondent suggested Toastmasters as a place to learn how to circumvent my public speaking challenges. I'll give it some thought. I mean, I don't really have difficulty with public speaking in the terrified and seized-up way that some people seem to -- but it's always nice to improve. Listen to me say 'Kind of' on Kim's programme. Here's the mp3. In other news, I finally got down to London to visit my new baby nephew (Zac Dawson). That'll be the last time we go down to stay with them before my sister, her husband and their two boys take off back to live in New Zealand again. It was sunny, 'kick-the-ball-around-in-the-park' weather in Wimbledon all morning, and then -- on arrival back in Birmingham around 5pm -- a snowstorm. Where did THAT come from? Nice again this morning, and the snow's melting. Back to work.

I'm off to visit my sister's family in London this weekend, and see the new baby. But before I do, I'm going to be chatting to Kim Hill on her Saturday morning radio programme in New Zealand. I'm in good company. Joe Lindsay (aka Hopepa from Fat Freddy's Drop) will be 'Playing Favourites' and there's the usual variety of interesting Saturday morning guests that go to make up a good bit of weekend magazine radio. It's Mark Cubey's last show as Kim's producer. He's been filling in for a year for Chris Bourke who has been off researching his new book about music in New Zealand. Whatever it contains, it's liable to be great. I was on Mark's first show for Kim, and I'm on his last. It's nicely circular and it's always lovely to be asked.

Tonight I'm speaking at the Moseley Creative Forum. I'm quite looking forward to it, though I have no conception whatsoever as to who goes to such an event. Here's the info from the flyer:

‘Is now the best time ever to be in the music industry?’ Thursday 15th March 2007 7.00 –8.45pm In the bar at the EPIC Skate Park The Old Bus Depot Alcester Rd Moseley B12 9AA Join us to debate the question and to hear the views of experienced music industry professionals – it should be lively! Chair: Steve Harding, Moseley Community Development Trust Guest speakers/ debaters: John Mostyn, artist manager and record company partner, best known locally for managing The Beat and Fine Young Cannibals and a long time active developer of Birmingham musical talent. Andrew Dubber, degree leader for Music Industries at UCE, is a senior lecturer, researcher, radio broadcaster, producer and author with a particular interest in online music, radio and new media technology. Andrew will give his view and tell us about digital and online strategies for independent music businesses. ‘Spotlight’: Oliver Grassi is a partner in Jibbering Records, primarily a vinyl and CD shop specialising in hip hop, funk reggae and world music. Within the hub that is the shop and at various events and promotions, Jibbering exhibit and sell local music and art whist also tapping into the creative industry from further afield. Oli will tell us more about Jibbering’s activities and will give the retailer’s perspective. And after that, mingle and chat.

I went on the radio today. It's my usual thing with Ed Doolan on BBC WM, where I talk about 'new media' and answer phone-in questions for an hour once every 6-8 weeks. You can listen to it here. I'm on in the second hour, so you'll have to click ahead on the SKIP 15 MINS button a few times. But I think you've only got 24 hours before it's replaced by tomorrow's show. Less, probably. Ed has ideas about global warming that even the Bush administration have backed away from as being a bit 'lunatic fringe', so it was fun to argue the toss with him about that stuff. But we also talked Windows Vista, HD formats, gaming consoles, mp3 players and mobile phones. If I manage to record it in time (ie: while it's still available), I'll upload it here. Funny story though... I don't know if you remember, but there was a case of mistaken identity a little while back, when a guy called Guy who had turned up for a job interview in tech support at the BBC was brought onto the News 24 channel to talk about online music, Apple computers, digital downloads and the like. The guy they wanted was a different Guy, and it was all very embarrassing. He hadn't been expecting the cameras, and his rabbit-in-the-headlights bluff led him to become something of a cause celebre (the urban legend about him being a cab driver or 'some guy off the street' turned out not to be the case). Most people still think he thought that this was part of the job interview process. [youtube="http://youtube.com/watch?v=KOpLG7fyw3U"] Well, the same thing ALMOST happened to me. I was sitting in reception waiting to be taken down to the studio to go on Ed's show. It was already 11 o'clock and the news was on, so there wasn't much time to get down to the studio, set up and get on air. An out-of-breath BBC worker ran up the stairs to the main reception, and asked if I was Andrew. I told him I was, so he had me follow him. Halfway down the stairs, he hesitated and said 'Gardener's World, right?' I assured him that it would be a grave mistake to put me on Gardener's World, and that the other guy sitting up in reception must have been the Andrew he was looking for. So rather than go on the telly and tell you which way up to plant your bulbs, I ended up on the radio talking about iPods, digital telly, energy saving light bulbs and global warming. Which is a bit of a relief. Later on this evening, I was also interviewed over the phone by Alice from 95bFM (in New Zealand) for an upcoming series of Inside Track. It was kind of cool, as Alice is a former radio student of mine, and has since developed into a good all-round broadcaster -- by which I mean she can interview, present, produce and (perhaps most importantly) drive a production studio like the Stig drives a car. We spoke for 40-odd minutes on online music. Hopefully there's some worthwhile stuff somewhere in that lot. She's interviewed a few other people, and she has a 15 minute programme to make. Here's where the editing skills will come in handy.

Sugababes vs Girls Aloud - a cover of 'Walk this Way' (for Red Nose Day)

Yusuf (the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens) - something dreary but nice;

James Morrison with some generic Americana that didn't even touch the sides;

Former Blue member and current Dancing on Ice favourite Duncan James

Christina Aguilera, who was channelling the Andrews Sisters.

Simon Grigg predicted it (or rather, observed it long before anyone else noticed), but the much-touted 'renaissance' in NZ music seems to be unravelling. A fairly unscientific browse through the top 40 singles charts reveals a steady decline in local music's representation over the past couple of years: from a quarter of the list this time in 2005 (most of it in the top 20), to barely 10% of the chart -- and all it below the number 25 mark -- two years later. There are all sorts of things we could attribute the decline to. I have a couple of theories of my own, and at the risk of causing a flame war (so much is at stake for so many here), I'll give you an indication as to what those might be. First, it's not as if it's not getting airplay. Perhaps not quite as much, but still, historically speaking, a lot. There's even a whole nationwide radio station entirely given over to the music of NZ. I still have fundamental issues with Kiwi FM as a concept, but they make up for a great deal of that in the execution and the passion. And it's not as if it's not any good. Technical production is no longer the "issue" it was 20 years ago, and the songwriting and playing is easily as good as the (predominantly) American popular music so much of it is modelled on. Perhaps that's the problem. When we were finally allowed to hear decent quantities of NZ music, we embraced it. These were our songs and our stories. But after a time, I think we started to notice that our songs sounded quite a lot like those of other people. Identity and 'New Zealand-ness' in music is such an elusive and contestable quality, that even raising the idea that you may favour it over more obviously derivative musics is problematic to say the least. After all, what music isn't? But I think it's something that needs to be looked at more closely. I really think that we respond to something that carries that flavour -- the sound of our collective experience, and an honest musical response to the geographic, political, musicological, cultural and social environment -- and now that the novelty of hearing ourselves on the radio and watching ourselves on TV (in some sort of culturally diluted form) has dissipated , we can now move on to more concentrated doses. This is not a call for NZ On Air to have some sort of authenticity-o-meter installed, but a challenge for the popular songwriter and producer to consider the local and export benefits of such a move. Here in the UK, what interests people about NZ music is not the extent to which it mimics American & British global cultural output, but the extent to which it doesn't. And I think you're starting to see that appreciation grow at home too. I think the record industry, buoyed somewhat by a brief period of local chart action, could see real economic benefits from a greater degree of contextual awareness. That said... if only the West Midlands could have some of the same problems. We still think we're enjoying local success when a Birmingham band (say... The Twang) get relocated to London and are absorbed into the mainstream.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/CfXj5BdMVnk] Back when I used to run a jazz record label, I became friends with an Australian drummer by the name of Nick McBride, who used to play a lot with the music scene I intersected with. For all practical purposes, this meant that he and his fellow Aussie jazz musicians crashed at our place when they were over in NZ for gigs and recordings. Nick lives in Shanghai these days, and sent me this link to a live video recording (colourised and processed) of JR, the band he's working with at the moment. Thought it was nice, and something a bit different, so I decided to post it here. Nick's playing in this context is more restrained and polite than I'm used to hearing it -- he trained with a Kenyan master percussionist, and there's usually some African influence in there -- but he's very much the jazz drummer. Here's a link to his 'Bandika' album, and he has a few of his own tracks available at his MySpace page.