An Insiders Guide to the DaveO Prog Rock Show

Well, the first show of 2007 is now done and dusted, so that’s a huge relief. A big thanks to all who listened, both on air and over the Internet.

They say that one of the most important parts of a radio show, outside of the content to broadcast, is preparation. And it makes sense, I suppose. I must have spent about two weeks planning the play list, the order to play the tracks in and the information to give out between each track. Once I knew what I was going to play I then worked out my timing schedule to the last second, back timing from the end of the show so that I knew when to put on my last track. I don’t know how long I experimented with the tracks to see how they would fit together, trying to ensure that the mix was balanced and enjoyable.

Lee Abraham, the bassist from Galahad, one of the featured artists on the show, created a show jingle for me and also what are called music beds for announcements as well. A bed is just a bit of music that stays pretty even in the middle for a set length of time so that a presenter can do a voice over and Lee, as a favour, made me about four or five of varying length. So, being prepared again, I blew the show jingle and a thirty second bed onto a CD, along with a couple of tracks I was going to play for the show, grabbed the rest of the play list CDs and set off on the thirty minute drive to the studio.

So, did all this preparation pay off? Did it hell! During the handover from David Bishop, who incidentally put on a great two hour soul show before mine, the CD player with the jingle in decided it couldn’t read my disc so I went straight in with Magenta’s new single Speechless and then had to jig the whole running order while I worked out how to get the music off my CD. I can’t blame the gear in the studio as I checked the CDs surface under a light and it looked a bit like an ice rink, so how it copied in the first place I’ll never know. Anyway, there went my jingle and the musical beds. Ho hum. But, not to worry! Had I planned for some problems? Yes, I certainly had and out came the emergency plan. However, I managed to get the CD to work enough to get the main music off it even though I couldn’t get the extras to play. So the show went on albeit in a different play order. And what of the carefully prepared notes to read between tracks? Well, they didn’t last long in the heat of battle as I soon realised that I had over prepared and had far too much information to give out.

And the careful timing? Out by over three minutes. Luckily there wasn’t a show following mine!

Okay, so there are lessons learnt for me and the next show will only be better.

What did I play on the first show? Well, here’s the list, though the order shown isn’t what happened on the night as was mentioned.

Band : Album : Track

Magenta : (Released as a single) : Speechless

Sylvan : X-Rayed : Fearless

Shadow Circus : Welcome to the Freakroom : Shadow Circus

Galahad : Empires Never Last : Termination

Alan Morse : 4 o'clock and Hysteria : Cold Fusion

Touch Stone : Mad Hatters : The Mad Hatters Song

The Reasoning : Awakening : Sacred Shape

The Tangent : The World That We Drive Through : The World That We Drive Through