Today was mostly a travel day for Team Red. After the usual ‘don’t leave your seat when on your own at the breakfast buffet as everything you’ve left gets cleared away before you come back’ dance, the three of us checked out to catch a flight due south from Hamburg to Stuttgart where we will commentate at Germany v Hungary on Wednesday.
Given that today is Monday, my only personal concern was whether a delay to the flight would put a spanner in the works of my ability to ‘live host’ my regular Planet Rock show at 7pm (8pm here). There WAS a slight hiccup in getting on board as it turned out, but by 5pm local time we were ensconced in our latest hotel about 10 minutes from the stadium, and I could plan my musical evening on the wireless with time to spare. I did notice upon checking in that the vending machine in the hotel lobby sold beer right next to the Haribo and the Kit Kats…that would make for an interesting broadcast from someone who is most definitely “2 pints p**sed”!!
Sometimes I’m asked “why don’t you mention your Planet Rock work on talkSPORT?”. Or indeed vice versa - well, mostly it’s my own common courtesy to my respective employers. Alan Brazil might like to blurt out on talkSPORT Breakfast that he likes a bit of Classic FM or Ken Bruce, but that’s not for me (Beeky). After all, these two radio stations I do stuff for are run by two entirely separate companies who wouldn’t really appreciate their rivals getting free advertising either way.
Not only that, but over the years I’ve noticed that most Planet Rock and talkSPORT listeners don’t tend to land in the centre of that particular Venn diagram. In other words, whilst I meet some PR punters at, say, Steelhouse Festival who want to ask me about Arsenal’s latest signing, most just want to talk rock music - similarly I get the odd question about Foo Fighters’ new one in the press box at Chelsea but most often it’s the merits of 4231 over 442. So why muddy the waters on either station when it really isn’t necessary?
Cross promotion between rival radio stations is somewhat frowned upon really. It can be done sometimes depending on circumstances, but it’s better to avoid any twinky twanky in my book. I even remember going to check with talkSPORT programme director Steve Morgan whether it was ok for me to do shows on Planet Rock when PR approached me just less than a decade ago. Do it properly by the book and don’t assume! LOL
Even though I’m not at home with my usual studio setup to host “Monday Night Rocks”, technology now means that if I have my nice microphone with me and a quiet room without too many reflective surfaces, presenting a national radio show can be done “in quality” as they say. I also had to record vocals for my weekly parody song in my Hamburg hotel room when I had an hour of spare time on Sunday.
That was to try my best Scorpions impression to record a version of “Rock You Like A Hurricane” about England’s chances out here. And you shouldn’t need 3 guesses for what I used instead of “Hurricane”, right?…RIGHT????
An absolute tap-in. I do enjoy doing parody songs-always have done from my BRMB and Heart days through til now. I even did one in very short order for talkSPORT in 2007 after the “Wally with the Brolly” incident at Wembley Stadium with Steve McLaren - I did a version of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ in homage to him.
More need for umbrellas than sunscreen so far out here as we approach day 5 for me. But I’m told temperatures around 25 degrees are possible here tomorrow. Slip slap slop it shall be then…
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