Radio 1:It's just Son Of Smashie &Nicey these days isn't it?

Actually lukey you two Resonance Review chappies should be doing the Top 40 rundown. I always thought that "Peaches En Regalia" was a theme tune waiting to happen.

I think Paul Gambaccini must know most, because he starddles the world of Radio 1 and Classic FM. And I think he does some of the bird whistles on Temp or whatever it's called.

Wasn't it Matthew Bannister's MO to do away with the Smashy & Nicey's in favour of DJs who knew their stuff reg music: Radcliffe, Lamacq, Mary Anne Hobbs, Jo Whiley, Peel? (as well as getting rid of chuckleheads like Adrian Juste in favour of Chriss Morris, Victor Lewis-Smith and overall a generally more 'edgy/yoof' feel. And yes, now it's all the other way and the chuckleheads are back).

There's a great documentary from the BBC2 Blood on the Carpet series about the culling of the Radio 1 dinosaurs which is superb viewing. See also The Nation's Favourite by Simon Garfield, which includes many choice observations from John Peel about his former colleagues.

Breezeblock is no way near as good as it was when they first started the show. However there are still moments of greatest very occasionally.

Not really. The Smashy and Niceys were just daytime DJs past their sell-by date. You still need daytime-style DJs for Radio 1, unless you really want to turn it into Resonance FM or something. None of the people in your list apart from Radcliffe were brought in for daytime in the great cull.

As se3_uk says, less-folksy, more smart-arse metropolitan types were brought in, but it wasn't really anything to do with being music buffs. Playlists carried on, y'know.

Well even Radcliffe wasn't bought in to do 'daytime' originally, he did Out on Blue Six a few other small things then the 'graveyard shift' show. The point is those that Bannister considered clearly long-in-the-tooth were made less welcome and, yes, the playlist continued but Deacon Blue, Genesis and Annie Lennox now had to make room for Faith No More, Nirvana, Utah Saints, The Prodigy and so on - after months of hysterical ranting against the music he had to play and other "unnaceptable changes" the Hairy Cornflake took up his flask of tea and fucked off (2B replaced by Danny Baker IIRC) before, like Simes and Ready, he would be axed. Daytime was now Simon Mayo, Jacqui Brambles and Steve Wright. Brambles moved to Hollywood, and Wrighty, perhaps in solidarity with his mate Simesey, left. Jo Whiley was moved down from The Evening Session and Chris Evans was brought in.

When i first started listening to the Top 40 in 1985, they only played the top 20 in it's entirety, songs from 21-40 were only played if they were new entries, climbing the charts, or non-movers*. If a song fell in position, then it didn't get played.

*IIRC

But was Radio 1 ever about the music?

Oh whoopee.

Resonance, Resonance, bloody Resonance.

OK, so I can't hear it (and won't until they get their mp3 show archive working again...)

Billy Jenkins should have been the new John Peel though...

Another bugbear was that they gave free reign to the rantings of Adrian Juste, a horrible bitter little man who was allowed to bad-mouth Danny Baker without contradiction(presumably Baker declined to take part). Juste even claimed he had to "pick the station up off the floor" after Baker's first show. No hard feelings then, Ade?

The Simon Garfield book was a top read, even though it could've done with more Peel anecdotes and less management guff. I always sort of half-hoped there'd be a follow-up volume, especially given events in the last couple of years. But I have a feeling Garfield would never have the same freedom as he did for the first book.

It came as no surprise that he was the most pompous of them all, on that doc.

"knowing about music" isn't a guarantee you'll be a good radio broadcaster, still less knowing lots and lots about a narrow tranche of student-approved rock

In other words when the BBC took the decision to move from broadcasting to narrowcasting, Radio 1 was doomed to become unlistenable, since everything an ILM reader might like was shunted to Radio 2 (presenters with some warmth, personality), 1extra, Radio 3 or 6 music (specialist music shows). Once Radio 1 became 1 thing and that 1 thing was the 'new music' branding (i.e. message to listener = 'you are YOUNG!') then the story ends.

The lunchtime show under Bannister, for example, was Emma Freud with no music whatsoever which really ought to have stayed on GLR or gone to Radio 5.

The slow death of R1 has the same cause as the slow death of TOTP; both were hijacked by the cool police instead of the mass-audience-with-Trojan-entryism policy which actually made either listenable or watchable.

viz a thumbnail chronology
pre-67: BBC radio = home, light and third (no pop) while OFFSHORE RADIO provides pop (esp.caroline)

1967: radio one invented --- many pirate DJs brought on-board (ha) inc.esp.peel and blackburn

20-odd years later: OLD SKOOL = v.tired formatwise

bannister introduces MAGIC NEW INGREDIENT (= gaggle of nme-head and ladrock DJs) plus ousts the smashey&nicey faction

MAGIC NEW INGREDIENT works well as part of an interim mix BUT this is not recognised: R1 gradually turned into narrowcast of nothin but MAGIC NEW INGREDIENT (and NEW now = OLD)

1967-71: under pressure from BBC governors, R1 compelled to play pop-lite and pre-rock-sounding MoR as they figure housewives will be scared off by any MAGIC NEW INGREDIENT, also viz. "no more pirates their residue will not be permitted to corrupt our pure 45-year-old Reithian ethic," thus singles charts during this period weighed towards Engelbert/Donald Peers/Frankie Vaughan whereas Doors/Love/Jefferson Airplane/G Dead/F Zappa have zero hits.

yeah, i think this is basically right -- even then, while john radcliffe may have been a bit 'nme' in orientation, that's nothing next to, say, colin murray, and his taste was broader than that. and if chris evans seemed a bit laddish then, chris moyles is a lot worse. i think the decline of dance pop might be a factor here: it lead to the dangerous "return of rock" illusion that R1 has really gone for.

marcello what wz the million-selling retro jazz hiot of the 1940s: my brane is sayin red nichols and the five pennies but google will not confirm this

Oh? Bannister needs to be burned then....

the radio one decision to ignore history also ignores the fact that many Radical Breaks w.the Rotten Present have gazed fondly back beyond the Rotten Present to some Lost Golden Age (which they try and recreate, and in the miscreation, innovate)

True that, the twin cultural tsunami that was britpop/laddism fucking obliterated almost everything (mainstream popculture wise).

unfortunately its credo wz "history is for gurlz"

ladrock didn't obliterate pop music, but because "we" have rock-attuned ears, being nme-reading types, "we" felt the victory of ladrock more deeply, because it was in some ways a victory of nme values. without the huge pop-dance thing, which was kind of 'one-nationey', radio one's identity has turned to regressive rock again (because it provides 'personalities'?).

Distinguishing rascist critique from musical is indeed quite easy. I see a lot of rascist criticizm of hip-hop and I no problem recognizing it as a see it, as rascist critizism of hip-hop will usually attack the entire hip-hop-culture, i.e. accent, lyrical contenct, clothes style, politics, often also the fact that most rappers are black, while pure musical critizism of hip-hop will stick to musical reasoning, usually either critizing the lack of melody/harmony (my stance) or the lack of proper conventional intruments (the typical "rockist" stance, and also the most usual one)

Yeah, Loaded's pieces on Mozart really impressed me...

While it wasn't quite as much as before Bannister, the old music would get played. It was only when Parfitt took over that these features fell by the wayside, and the old music was junked almost completely.

(yes, listened to Radio 1 almost every week day while at university in Manchester. And had a pint with Radcliffe himself!)

It was updated in 1999, with a postscript section that lasts for about four pages. It doesn't really add much, although it does notice the beginnings of the shift to what we have today. The book is worth a read; John Peel's contributions are excellent, and you get the Secret Origin of The M&L Breakfast Show as well. Oh, and lots of the old guard being bitter, especially DLT...