Good Morning Nantwich: Adventures in Breakfast Radio by Phill Jupitus

Author:Phill Jupitus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

As the tracks of my tears dried on my cheeks I remembered that the very show I had left nearly three years ago was currently in the hands of a fine broadcaster in the shape of Shaun Keaveney. A former alumnus of XFM, Keaveney was a laconic Northerner with a soothing voice and a snappy line in banter. Not for him the early morning histrionics of his peers. No, Keaveney had, if anything, an even more laid-back style than I did. I have to admit that when I was told he would be taking over the show I hadn’t heard him. But when I did tune in from time to time, he was funny, he knew his music, and was a cracking listen. As a member of the audience, my breakfast radio future would be kept safe in the bosom of the station I had launched, BBC 6 Music!

Then, just two months later, my inbox pinged with the arrival of an email from my mate Celine who worked at Guardian Online. ‘Hey, wanna do something for us on 6 Music? Gimme a bell…’

To be honest I wasn’t all that keen. I’d left and the station had taken a new direction. An ambitious young man called George Lamb had been given the mid-morning show. He was dead set on a television career but for some reason was approaching it via niche radio. He was an absurdly handsome West London hipster, whose interest in music seemed secondary. Despite this he picked up a whole new chunk of listeners whilst simultaneously drawing the extremely vocal ire of old regulars with his shouty shenanigans. He rapidly became 6 Music’s first Marmite deejay and was even regularly lampooned in the pages of Viz. You have to wonder at the logic of following the breakfast show with what was ostensibly another breakfast show, but to be fair if I knew how to run a radio station then I’d be doing that instead of writing this book.

In the wake of ‘Sachsgate’ and Lesley Douglas’s controversial departure from radio and 6 Music, Lamb’s employer and principal advocate was gone. He was quietly moved to a weekend show and the sassy and bright Lauren Laverne was given his slot. This went down very well with the majority of the audience as she was not only someone with a broad musical knowledge, but had been in a band, was a regular on BBC2’s Culture Show and the main host of the corporation’s annual Glastonbury coverage. The high points of her show were always when she strayed away from the playlist and introduced us to new sounds. Her obvious enthusiasm for the job is infectious. When I heard Lauren was joining 6 Music I couldn’t help but laugh as I had suggested her to Lesley Douglas as a presenter back at my very first meeting in 2001.

But I didn’t really understand why the Guardian wanted me to write about 6 Music, so I called Celine. After two rings she picked up.

‘Alright, girl, it’s Jupitus.

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