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        Not Pete Atkin >> Off-topic >> School of Rock
        
(Message started by: Jan on Today at 11:44)

Title: School of Rock
Post by Jan on Today at 11:44

I just caught half of this on Radio 4 this morning (Sat 10.30, 1 of 3). I hoped that I wouldn't need to post it in the off topic section :( . The blurb implies that its about Leeds University but it isn't, its much more general.
For the present its available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/radio4/int/-/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/schoolofrock
Its all about college gigs in the 60s and 70s, folk, jazz and rock. I didn't hear a mention of Pete but I didn't manage to hear it all and there are another 2 episodes.
Jan
(P.S. I'm not sure why there's a space in the above weblink in the forum, it isn't in the message itself and clicking on it works OK)

Title: Re: School of Rock
Post by S J Birkill on Today at 19:16

on 06/10/06 at 11:44:26, Jan wrote :

Its all about college gigs in the 60s and 70s, folk, jazz and rock. I didn't hear a mention of Pete but I didn't manage to hear it all and there are another 2 episodes.

If it covered the early '70s from the perspective of that period it'd just have to mention Pete. But I imagine it'll try, like most retrospectives, to appeal to (the producer's idea of) today's audience, with the result that those players since celebrated or notorious loom disproportionately larger than the then-familiar and now-distant. Kershaw would have been about 13 when Pete was on the college circuit, wouldn't he? So in my simplified cosmology he peaks further down the decade: his preferred folk should be political, his jazz funk and his rock punk, and it's on these we'd expect him to be most erudite. But one's jaded expectations may yet be confounded... Is it chronological? We should listen.

on 06/10/06 at 11:44:26, Jan wrote :

(P.S. I'm not sure why there's a space in the above weblink in the forum, it isn't in the message itself and clicking on it works OK)

Yes, that is annoying. But it's a feature, not a bug. The Forum software breaks display of long words (including URLs) at 80 characters (I'd already upped it from the default of 72), reportedly because not all browsers wrap text correctly leading to the display window being stretched and running off the screen. For this reason I'm reluctant to 'fix' it.

SJB

Title: Re: School of Rock
Post by Kevin Cryan on Today at 20:45

Today at 11:44, Jan wrote:

Quote:

:P.S. I'm not sure why there's a space in the above weblink in the forum, it isn't in the message itself and clicking on it works OK

Jan, if it irritates you, then, with a little bit jigging with Word document, followed by judicious testing with the 'preview' facility on this site, you can always embed your weblink into this Name of Link (https://http://www etc) and end up with something like this: School of Rock (http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/radio4/int/-/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/schoolofrock)

Kevin Cryan

Title: Re: School of Rock
Post by Jan on Today at 21:17

Thanks Kevin,
I hadn't realised I could hide the link that easily although I did notice someone (perhaps you!) doing something similar a few weeks ago but I'm afraid I didn't investigate!
Jan

Title: Re: School of Rock
Post by Kevin Cryan on 11.06.06 at 14:07

Yesterday at 11:44, Jan wrote:

Quote:

Its all about college gigs in the 60s and 70s, folk, jazz and rock.

Having listened to the first programme, I can tell you that while it is about college gigs in the decades you mention, it is more specifically about college gigs sponsored and organised by student unions, with emphasis, as you might expect, on Leeds, which Mr Kershaw, with some justification, claims has a a long and excellent track record in this area.

The gigs the programme deals with were almost always sponsored by student unions and they were ivariably staged in the student union refectories or ‘buildings’ as they were often called. They were not in the University Arts Centres, which were even then, if I recall correctly, were administered by professional staff employed by the university who more often than not offered their audiences what was perceived - by the students and student unions, at least - to be more mainstream fare.

This means to at least some of Pete’s gigs - I’m thinking of Warwick University (Coventry) gigs in October 1973 & in April 1976 – probably would not qualify for inclusion. Both of the Warwick gigs, if I recall correctly, had no student union sponsorship.

So before we finally decide whether or not Pete should be included, we probably need to know a little more about where the bookings came from. Over to you, Pete

Kevin Cryan

Title: Re: School of Rock
Post by Jan on 17.06.06 at 12:16

As Kevin says the programme is about the Ents secretaries at the student unions with their large NUS budgets which had to be spent, union membership being compulsory in those days as far as I remember and the fees being paid by local authorities as part of your undergraduate grant, if you qualified for one.

There was one good quote in this week's programme from Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction). Its about 11 minutes into the programme and after mentioning the discerning qualities of student audiences she says:

You felt you were reaching people (who) if they took you to their hearts would keep you in their music for the rest of ther days, from vinyl to CDs to iPods.

Jan