I played clips of Cramm by Three Trapped Tigers, whose brilliant debut album is out next week, and Bridges by Fallulah, in honour of my trip to SPOT Festival in her home country Denmark, where I’m writing this from now. I also played Push It Away by Seerauber Jenny in full, which is a track I first heard as a demo years ago, before it was spruced up by Mint Royale’s Neil Claxton.

You can hear me jabbering on via the iPlayer until 3rd June, here. You’ll find me an hour and 23 minutes in, but I’d recommend listening to the whole show; it was a Nick Cave special and the whole playlist is excellent.

The show aims to merge different digital media, and amongst various ongoing channels is an excellent blog, which I was also asked to contribute to. For that, I selected what I think are the three music industry news stories people on the street need to know about (or at least might be interested in). You can read that here.

Noel’s Funny Phone Calls

These days, Noel Edmonds pisses about on Deal Or No Deal pretending to talk to an imaginary bank manager on the telephone. Back in the late 70s he actually phoned real people and messed with their minds. This is the sort of hilarious shit he got up to:

The Paul Daniels Magic Show

Yes, that’s right, the Paul Daniels Magic Show audio book. It’s an audio book of a magic show. Actually, there’s a very simple explanation for how this record came to exist, but it ruins the illusion that it’s an audio recording of a man doing magic tricks. Therefore, I’m keeping it to myself. Instead, let’s just stare down the Daniels tunnel this cover creates and forget I said anything.

And there have been a lot of emotionally charged calls for the BBC to save 6music. But I am a cold and unemotional creature. I was quite happy for Abbey Road to be turned into a kebab shop and I don’t think any band should reform ever. If something’s done with and served its purpose, it should be allowed to die. But 6music is not done with, and it’s still very much in the process of serving its purpose. So, for that matter, is the Asian Network, which is also earmarked for closure.

The BBC tell us that it wants to make cuts in order to focus more on “high quality programming”. Which sounds nice, but actually says very little. You might as well say you want to make programmes that feel more sticky. Plus, you could just as easily find money for more high quality programming by cutting the budgets and number of staff on things like Chris Moyles’ Radio 1 show, which have far too much of both. It makes no sense to completely cut services that are both high quality and incredibly important to their listeners, who are underserved elsewhere in broadcast media.

Also, we’re told that the BBC needs to give its commercial rivals a chance. If that’s the case, why aren’t they closing down Radio 1? And since when is competition a bad thing? Yes, the BBC receives its funds in an unusual way, but that doesn’t mean commercial services can’t produce better material than they can. If the entire BBC shut down tomorrow, would Sky suddenly start making programmes that were actually watchable? Somehow, I don’t think the BBC’s existence is what’s holding Sky back in that area.

And who exactly are these rivals who would thrive if 6music closes? Xfm and NME Radio are cited by some, but these stations do not serve the same audience. Because they’re funded by advertising, they have to go for the more lucrative youth market, with 6music’s listeners more likely to be in the thirty-something bracket. In fact, even Xfm’s Eddy Temple-Morris has called for 6 to be saved (see here).

While it’s true that the BBC could make significant savings in a variety of areas, and use the licence fee more efficiently, the cuts put forward just do not, er, cut it. But all is not lost, the BBC Trust still have to approve these proposals. You should tell them why they shouldn’t, and you can do that right here.

Okay, lengthy rant over, sorry. You can follow CMU’s coverage of this story as it develops here.

This is my editorial from this week’s CMU Weekly, which you can read here. I wrote something similar for the Remix Update, which you can see here.

Here’s an interview he did with NME Radio’s Jon Hillcock earlier in the evening, when he was a bit more sober:

http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=10596161-4af

But, being able to drink dangerous quantities of alcohol is not Shane’s only talent. The group of musicians he managed to pull together for his cover of I Put A Spell On You, which includes Bobby Gillespie, Johnny Depp, Mick Jones, Glen Matlock and Paloma Faith, makes an impressive list. And the song itself is fantastic, as well. A charity single you could actually listen to? That doesn’t happen so often.

The single’s released on 8 Mar. You can pre-order it at 7Digital, here, or by texting SPELL (all in capitals) to 78789 (texts cost £1.50).

The ‘Marsha Meets…’ podcast sees Xfm DJ (that’s the music bit, I wouldn’t want you to miss it) Marsha Shandur interviews one of the world’s very finest stand-up comedians each week, with each giving interesting and amazing insights into their craft. So far Marsha’s met Richard Herring, Brendon Burns, Kevin Eldon, Isy Sutty, Rich Fulcher, Marcus Brigstocke, Chris Addison, and Milton Jones to name but a few.

This week is the perfect week to start listening, as she speaks to the excellent Jim Jeffries, who’s always a great interviewee (further proof of that here). He talks violent reactions to his jokes, getting away with saying “cunt” in America, and his love of musical theatre.

www.xfm.co.uk/onair/podcasts/marsha-meets-the-podcast

Producer Nigel Godrich videoed the chat for posterity. Take a look:

‘Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses/The Hollow Earth’ will be made available by Radiohead’s W.A.S.T.E. online store on 21 Sep.

Now, when Wizard broke that record back in May, we pretty much gave up on the idea of it being broken any time soon. We thought it would take years. The competitive element, we felt, had been removed, because he’d just set the bar too high. Even though Wrongtom still claims he could do a 1000 track ten minute mix. We’ve advised him not to try, for the sake of his health.

But when Akira announced that he wouldn’t be with us in time for the usual 10.30pm slot, things started looking more interesting. He’d been working on the mix almost up until the point we went on air and he’d managed to cram a few more tracks in. So, when he finally arrived in the studio brandishing alcohol and a large grin, we knew something good was about to happen. And happen it did.

Yes, we have a brand new record – 210 tracks in ten minutes. Actually, it was more than that, but it was 210 recognisable tracks with many, many more tiny samples tucked away filling out any space there might have been left.

Akira has put together this YouTube video to accompany the mix:

Here’s the current leaderboard:

1. Akira The Don – 210 tracks
2. Wizard – 204 tracks
3. Wrongtom – 100 tracks [download]
4. Stereo:Type – 64 tracks
5. Slyde – 54 tracks