On The Wire – 25th Anniversary – press release

From:  Steve Barker
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009
Subject: On the Wire – 25th Anniversary

ON THE WIRE

On Saturday 19th September 2009, between 10pm and 2am, BBC Radio Lancashire’s “On the Wire” show will celebrate 25 years of continuous weekly broadcasting as the longest running alternative show on British radio.

For the past 25 years Steve Barker has produced and presented On the Wire,
which was first broadcast on 16th September 1984. (Check Radio 1′s playlists
for that month compare and contrast).  Way back then there was no such thing as ‘dance’ music – hip-hop was confined to NYC and LA – and the UK was in the grip of the New Romantics. Smashy and Nicey still ruled at ‘Fab FM’ and the London dance mafia were still with their mums shopping for shells. Reggae was apparently dead.

On The Wire’s first guests were Adrian Sherwood – who provided its now legendary theme tune – and collaborator Keith le Blanc, who had earlier launched the ‘sampledelic’ hip-hop classic, “Malcolm X” on the world via Tommy Boy. The following week Depeche Mode turned up in the studio, and  then in December a three hour live special was broadcast with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – still fresh from torching the Black Ark a couple of years earlier.

And so it went through the eighties as On The Wire slowly built a reputation beyond Lancashire and the North West, throughout the UK and onwards – before the internet – via cassette to the outer reaches, Greece, Sweden, Australia,Italy, USA. The show was fairly expansive: releasing a compilation, “Bugs On The Wire”; putting on The Fall – a free gig at Clitheroe Castle when 2,500 people and one policeman turned up; a Xmas party at the Ritz in Manchester featuring Adrian Sherwood with Gary Clail, 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, Little Annie plus a heavily pregnant Neneh Cherry absconding from a Bomb the Bass gig.

On the Wire saw the first radio plays for in the UK for numerous artists and bands, including Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson as well as specific tracks such as 808 State’s “Pacific State” and A Guy Called Gerald’s “Voodoo Ray”. As  the nineties turned, OTW was under threat from inside the BBC, but at the last minute the show was saved by the BBC board pegging the show as “a unique BBC product”.

For the last 7 years Steve has contributed from Beijing with the invaluable help of Jim Ingham co-producer in Blackburn, the indefatigable local  commentator Michael ‘Fenny’ Fenton, plus American exile and co-founder of the China-based nu electronic unit fm3, Christiaan Virant. Steve now DJs out in Beijing and Shanghai, and recently played the Big Chill festival in the UK. Steve has been the dub columnist for The Wire magazine for the past decade.

On the Wire’s celebration show:

The celebrations for the show will include mixes from friends far and near who have contributed to the show over the years, including:

• Mick Sleeper from Toronto, controller of the net-based show Radio Scratch, exclusively featuring the work of the legendary Lee “Scratch” Perry both as artist and producer (http://www.upsetter.net/)
• Pete Holdsworth from the world’s premier reggae revival label Pressure Sounds based in the UK and Japan (www.pressure.co.uk)
• Alan Bishop from the Seattle based label Sublime Frequencies (www.sublimefrequencies.com) a collective of explorers dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers via film and video, field recordings, radio and short wave transmissions, international folk and pop music, sound anomalies, and other forms of human and natural expression not documented sufficiently through all channels of academic research, the modern recording industry, media, or corporate foundations.
• Stephen Hitchell from the Detroit based label Echospace (www.echospacedetroit.com) one of America’s finest imprints currently setting the bar for dub-influenced techno worldwide.
• Steve Goodman aka the London-based DJ Kode9, and owner of the influential Hyperdub record label. Steve holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Warwick and recently worked at the University of East London as a lecturer in media production, and course tutor for a master’s programme in sonic culture April 2004 (www.hyperdub.net)
• Steve Hardstaff aka Jahcuzzi, the North West’s most prolific creator of record album art. He recently had his work collected in a book published jointly by the University of Chicago and John Moore’s University in Liverpool, he was one of the Peter Blake’s assistants for the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album artwork.
• Rob Ellis aka Bristol’s DJ Pinch, and owner of the label Tectonic Recordings, will be presenting a history of drum and bass music from the city that spawned so many artists who based their music and success on dub and reggae (www.myspace.com/tectonicrecordings)
• David Toop author of definitive books on both rap and ambient music (Rap Attack and Ocean of Sound) and musicologist extraordinaire will taking time off from writing an opera to offer a special mix (www.davidtoop.com/)
• Steinski aka Steve Stein and his pal Doug DiFranco (aka Double Dee) were hip-hop producers who achieved notoriety in the early 1980s for a series of underground hip-hop sample-based collages known as the Lessons. Although they never had a hit record, they proved highly influential for hundreds of subsequent artists both in hip hop and wider field of sound art. (www.steinski.com)
• Noel Hawks is perhaps best known for his authoring of hundreds of well informed sleeve notes since the start of the revival reggae business. A long time collaborator of On the Wire, Noel will be contributing a mix of personal favourites.
• Ashley Beedle is the man who introduced house music to the Notting Hill Carnival, founder of the Black Science Orchestra and The Ballistic Brothers, record-label owner of Soundboy Entertainment, Afroart, and Ill Sun. He recently recorded an album with reggae legend Horace Andy.
• Beijing-based Yan Jun, works in the realm of sound and language manipulating feedback, drones, voice and field recordings for site-specific sound installations, improvisations and environmental sound. He founded the Sub Jam and its sub-label KwanYin Records. He has run the weekly event Waterland Kwanyin and annual festival Mini Midi in Beijing since 2005 and published five essay collections on Chinese new music and three poetry collections.

For more information please contact Steve Barker steve.barker@bbc.co.uk or Jim Ingham jim.ingham@bbc.co.uk.

Update 5thSep: Now confirmed, legendary producer Adrian Sherwood from On-U Sound will be live in the studio to join the celebrations.