You can make it happen

My friend Jo makes fabberlous T-shirts and you can see her new website here.

She does other things too, not just cool-as T-shirts. Jo is fabberlous and her website is fabberlous and not at all raah. Go visit.

Misadventures in sound #6

>Crop circles

I go round and round so aimlessly and so often these days, I have crop circles in my carpet. I'm worried I may attract aliens, although the chances of intelligent life living in my house seem quite distant.

Why aimless? I have been sweating over a website for The Quite Early Show for the best part of seven square-eyed days, but I can't get certain elements to work. It's the second and final week at Refresh FM, so now the idea is about as useful as a knitted nutcracker.

Still, not all my planning has been pissing in the wind. I have playlists ready for Monday and Tuesday as well as scripts for the news.

>Darts and balloons

Following on from my last post about my two week excursion into the world of community radio, I am pleased to announce Mull Historical Society did escape the chop. (On our playlist, we have 16 tracks we earmark for definite play. We then have another eight tunes labelled as 'C' tracks, which means we chop them because we have waffled too much.) MHS's Colin McIntyre is a bit of a bloomin' genius and it's good to play geniuses. Genii. Geniupotamuses.

We also had a lot of fun with darts and balloons. And we played Joy Division and the Stone Roses in honour of Manchester Passion.

>Gunshots

Dan Dexter, the brilliantly monikered Refresh FM presenter, cunningly sabotaged our show by piping sounds on air with a hidden minidisc player. It was only when we kept hearing random gunshots that we hauled Dan and radio director Andy Bell on air to apologise and lick our shoes.

Tonight, we are back on the air from 9pm. I'm aiming on sticking in a bit of Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Bon Voyage and Shonlock.

One week down and one to go. Get that radio tuned into 87.7FM, and if you can't get a signal, stay tuned to the Fat Blog. If you could tune your computer, that is. Which you can't.

See also Bunnies Waggle Better Than Woof-Dogs

No half naked romps for Boards Of Canada

I am more astonished than a sack of potatoes in a chippy's kitchen. I have discovered Boards Of Canada have always gone without music videos. Take That tramped off to the beach for Pray, Michael and Janet wore white and shot into space, but BoC have stayed untanned and grounded throughout. No visuals for the Boards, they're purists you know.

Their warm chunkiness has finally made it to celluloid, however, although admittedly it isn't a half naked romp on a desert island in the style of our Manchester boys (why didn't Pray make it into the Passion on Friday?). Davyan Cowboy is a beautiful track and will feature in their new Trans Canada Highway EP out on June 6th.

The extra exposure from a video plus its Massive Attack-esque mass appeal will encourage it into the environs of Moby-style TV exposure, maybe as backing music for those million pound BBC idents.

See BoC's first ever official video by clicking your plastic handmouse here [link now broken].

My Sad Ventures in sound #5

Winston Churchill once said "crikey, the day drags when your trousers chafe", but my days seem to be tumbling from my grasp at an alarming rate. I've hardly got time to fart, which means a potential gas build-up followed by an extravagent explosion of guts and pies and toes, which would be no good in polite company.

Last night's full-mooned show was our fourth, admittedly a bit wibbly, but it was a chance to use the Pixies' Debaser to prompt a discussion about French surrealist cinema. I missed out on Sometimes Records' exellent Volume night, so I played Pachuco's The Night in their honour. After slipping in a bit of Johnny Cash by the back door, I then spent 12 hours and £65,000 in a random taxi home.

>£65,000 later...

So it was time for a lie in this morning, a smattering of touring cars on the tellybox, then back to the playlists. Tonight I'll spin the following artists in no particular order: Dashboard Confessional, Canton Jones, Violet Burning, Charity Von, Charity Empressa and 4th Avenue Jones. And maybe a bit of Madchester in honour of tonight's Manchester Passion.

I'm hoping my evil twin grandma co-presenter Lee will play Mull Historical Society. Then again I'm trying to grow a third elbow with mind power, but you can't have everything you hope for, not in this life.

Miss Adventures in sound 4

Back once again with the renegade master, people damager with the ill behavour. Theatre Of Noise spilt itself over the airwaves last night after two years hiding in a cupboard from complaining Christians.

I have fondness in my gills for this particular show, in the same way you would be more than a little thrilled if you had a little pixie living in your handbag. We played Christian guitar bands including Mae, Norma Jean and, um, Arctic Monkeys, but the show really came alive with our regular games.

1) Wax Lyrical

The beautiful Dan Dexter, radiant in his halo of hair, was pitted against me in a battle of Christian music knowledge. Because I had sold such music professionally for a number of years, I lost. Shurely some mistake? I had my leg waxed on air, which was more painful than expected because some dolt replaced the wax with gaffer tape.

2) Chainsaw Challenge

In an upside-down Jukebox Jury stylee, which I shall henceforth call Yruj Xobekuj, we voted for the worst Christian music from a beggar's choice of sub-standard CDs. Daniel Courtney, resplendent in lovely red shoes, did a great job damaging the losing CD with a power saw. Incidentally, the offending item was an album by Phillips, Craig & Dean. On their website, they ask the question "Are you enjoying life right now?" I suppose our metaphorical reply was "take this, you mother", which PC&D have done nothing to deserve other than spurn death metal in favour of their own brand of traditional snooze.

Theatre Of Noise returns on 87.7FM Manchester next Wednesday at 9pm. It's back to the Quite Early Show tonight, which is lame in comparison, but it is good training: we are like little chicks learning to fly, jumping out of our radio nest into the bird flu of the great beyond.

Misadventures in sound #3

Winnie the Pooh wibbled something about Tuesdays once, or maybe I'm thinking of Owl who couldn't spel Teusday...

Anyhoo, my wife Lee and I survived another night of radio hamming, and in my continuing efforts to blog about it, I'm blogging about it. Tusedeay, that is.

>Masochism

We interviewed a lovely raving mad person called Alan Saunders, who is leading the Big Deal with more enthusiasm than a wasp has stripes. I say he was mad because he seemed to put up with our inept attempts at unpresenting with a weird kind of masochism. We played Jenga with him, which wasn't sexual or anything.

>Gloopery

Technical gloopery put paid to our computer - it crashed because it thought our music was crap. The playlist went to buggery (radio term, look it up) and we made lots of mistakes. Actually, we didn't really enjoy the whole evening, but when you're getting texts encouraging us to "carry on the jolly japes", then we shall continue to jape our jolly until it's... erm... jelly.

>Whales

So on to tonight, Captain Ahab. Theatre Of Noise is our whale and Lee is the Moby to my dick. Um. Maybe I should have put a capital D there. We're both very excited about tonight's show. It will run something like this:

1. Play loud music. With guitars.
2. Wax hairy men.
3. Destroy bad Christian music with a power tool.
4. Go home.
5. Deal with all the complaints.

Last time we did this, I was "working" at Wesley Owen in Manchester. A customer sidled up to me to complain about a radio show that damaged CDs with a nail gun. Naturally, as a representative of the UK's leading Christian wotsit, I listened gracefully, nodded at all the right moments, then caved her head in with a lectern.

On a lighter note*, these are my favourite types of bulbs:

a) Screw-cap
b) Bayonet

See you at 9pm, kids.

*sorry

Misadventures in sound #2

Following my first post on my imminent radio fame, the debut Quite Early Show went off with a fizz, a pop, and I dare say a bang.

After spending a heinous number of hours co-ordinating the playlist, scrawling script for the news segment, planning questions for our Jenga-based interview, split-polishing our spats and gobbling Cadbury's Creme Eggs, we successfully hit the airwaves at 9pm last night.

>Small holes

Running a radio show is a bit like being on Oblivion at Alton Towers, the bit in between the initial drop ("don't look down") and reaching the unnervingly small hole in the ground. 4.5g and sweaty palms for two hours, trying to fit everything in and pretending my co-presenter Lee and I are friends even though we hate each other because I am a fat James Bond and he has a fluffy white cat. Having said that, Lee did a fantastic job running the desk, twiddling knobs with parts of his body I didn't know he had.

We had a news slot, A List tracks, egg curling (curling with eggs), 'The Leviathans of Christian Cheese' and I dedicated a track to my friend Jules. So one out of ten shows done, and more to come at 9pm tonight.

>Injuries

Our debut broadcast did had a sting in the tail. Kolyn Amor couldn't join us because he injured himself (a condition he doesn't want to publicise, but nowhere near as embarrassing as my friend Lev who cut his ____ while he was ____ing). And even more worryingly, Darren popped into our studio because it was his birthday and got attacked after departing, leaving him cut, robbed and shaken. Both of these have upset me because I want my mates in one piece.

So like Icarus, it's onwards and upwards into the midday sun, which kind of messes with the Oblivion metaphor and leaves me feeling rather queer.

Misadventures in sound #1

Ah, good to be back. Not blogging has been like Snoopy without his kennel, Travis Bickle without his mirror, Anne Widdecombe without her heroin.

>The plan

Later on today, I will present the first of ten radio shows for community station Refresh FM. This will be the first of many blogs as I record, for the anus of hustory, the experience of clattering together ten radio shows on a budget of sixty two pence, a button, pocket fluff and a used train ticket to Hazel Grove.

Here's the explainy bit. Refresh FM operates under a Restricted Service Licence to the good people of Manchester. It is broadcasting now and will continue to do so until April 23rd. The aim is to promote Christian music, which may not fill your britches with glee, and neither will it fill your ears with electronica... but it does mean I have a show at 9pm on weekdays for the next fortnight.

>The shows

It all happens on 87.7FM in the Manchester area, and here are the show times:

Monday April 10th 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'
Tuesday April 11th 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'
Wednesday April 12th 9-11pm 'Theatre Of Noise'
Thursday April 13th 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'
Friday April 14th 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'

Off to nanas for pies and tea. Then...

Monday April 17th 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'
Tuesday April 18th 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'
Wednesday April 19th 9-11pm 'Theatre Of Noise'
Thursday April 20th 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'
Friday April 21st 9-11pm 'The Quite Early Show'

>The licks

If your eyes have been freshened with cucumber slices and dog licks, you will have seen there are two different shows. The Quite Early Show includes music, chat and vague silliness, while Theatre Of Noise involves a lot of loud guitars, waxing hairy men, destroying bad Christian CDs, and lots of complaints from concerned Christians.

Both will be presented by me and twin brother Lee Moore, but it is I, dear reader, that shall be updating this blog as the two weeks progress.

Happy reading (here) and listening (on t'wireless)...