Saturday 18 December 2010

The weekend's here

Well, it's really cold out there today, and even though I only went out for a short while, I'm glad to be back in the warm.

Tonight's another big Cambridge night what with the Cambridge Soul Collective Christmas Party. I'm looking forward to playing in front of this crowd tonight. I've been to a few of their events since I moved here, and they're usually well attended with people who are really knowledgeable about their music.

However, before that I've got to record tomorrow's Sunday Shake Up show. In fact I'm doing that while I'm writing this blog.

There's some really nice tunes in this week's show, and as it's the last one before Christmas, I'm even playing a Christmas song. Anyone that knows me, will know how much i dislike Christmas songs, so it has to be fairly special for me to even contemplate playing one. This year however there have been two Christmas songs that I haven't felt uncomfortable playing. The first being Eugene Wilde's "I Love Christmas" which I played in yesterday's Pure Grooves Show, and the one I'm playing in tomorrow's show. I won't tell you what it is yet. You can hear it tomorrow.

Lots of great songs are in tomorrow's show including a great new cover version of Bill Withers' "Lovely Day" and I'm even going to play a bit of reggae as well.

After I've done the show, I'm going to go through some tunes to play tonight. It's always harder to work out what you're going to play when you're sharing the stage with other DJs as you may know what you want to play, but the others that are playing before you may have already played some of them, and so you always need to have some songs in reserve.

I don't generally like to go with playing those classic songs that everyone expects to hear. I'm a great believer that with so many songs available to us, there's no real need to be predictable and go with what I think are safe songs. Sure they always work, but I also think there are so many really class songs that never get played.

I always like to see people's faces when I play something that over the years, theye have forgotten. Don't get me wrong I do play the ones people expect. I just like to put something a little different into the mix.
Tonight though, is slightly different. I'm still a newbie to the Northern and Modern Soul Scene, and I'm in the position where a lot of the attendees know more about the music than I do, so it's important that I get it right. As a DJ trying to find my way in a new area, I have to prove I'm up to the standard that's already here. Possibly I have to be better in order to be accepted. But hey, I do love a challenge! I have to say I am looking forward to it.

I am looking for people to send me their "Tracks Of My Years" - a list of ten songs that mean a lot to them, from which I'll choose five. Now if you're new to the blog and haven't really heard my shows, you need to know that my Sunday Shake Up show is based around Soul and its associated genres, so the songs have to fit the format. If you feel you'd like me to play yours, please feel free to email me at james@ontheradio.info or contact  me via one of the facebook pages.

I've also got to do a bit more to the web mag today. Just a reminder, that after next week's issue, we're going to be taking a short break and the next issue will be out on the 10th January. I'm going to be adding more stock to the Pure Grooves store over the next week or so. As you may know, we've linked up with Amazon to provide you with quality products, that are backed up with all the guarantees you would expect from a company such as Amazon. The payments we get from Amazon help contribute to the time and expense in producing the web magazine and also the radio shows, so if you use Amazon anyway, I'd be really grateful if you could use our store. If we don't have what you're after, get in  touch and we can easily add it. One quick thing, the price you pay is exactly the same as you would pay on their web site.

That's about it for now - see you next time!

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