TONIGHT, 6pm to 8pm, the whole of the Dr. Rock Show on BBC Radio York (and online for 7 days afterwards; this show claims to be one of the 10 most online-listened-to BBC shows, including national networked ones).
TUESDAY AUG 1, 10pm-10.30pm, a Dylan Special taking up the whole of Steve Harley's Sounds of the 70s, BBC Radio 2 (also online for 7 days afterwards).
MON AUG 7, noon & 8pm, the whole of the literature show Between the Lines, OneWord Radio (a Channel 4 station). Can be heard on DAB Radio by tuning to 'Oneword', on Sky channel 0127, Freeview channel 717 & ntl channel 893.
Tonight's Dr. Rock Show, pre-recorded on Thursday, but done "as live", with no stops or re-takes, was the first radio I've done during this now month-long promo stint where someone has drawn out the multiplicity of musics written about in the book - this whole 2-hour show is centred around people with entries in the book, including: Little Richard singing a Johnny Cash song, Fats Domino live, George Harrison, Howlin' Wolf, plus "minor" figures like Curtis Jones, plus Bob singing Harrison, the 1970 Bob & Earl Scruggs . . . it was such a pleasure to have the book's range emphasised, instead of it being assumed that it's some ultimate Dylan trainspotter's novelty item.
How do you approach these radio slots? I just heard the Radio 2 (Steve Harley) show and it was pretty bland - Harley gave you no opportunity to really discuss the book and certainly no opportunity to express the wide range of subjects the book covers under the 'Dylan' umbrella. Do you just bite your tongue and think "hey, it's great publicity"?
ReplyDeleteMore like "Hey, it's some publicity." I feel his heart's in the right place, though I agree, it didn't allow much discussion. In my experience it's hard to achieve depth or detail at the moment. Look at the rock mags. Uncut has scrapped book reviews. Q has just reviewed the book - a book of 750,000 words - in 60 words. What can you say?
ReplyDelete