There are several things that I love in life. Pizza, tattoos, writing, flamingos, woodland animals…..and radio.
Since January I’ve been presenting a show called The SRA Selector, and had interviews and guests such as Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, The Amazons, The Pale White, Counterfeit and many more, including local heroes HECK,the gloriously named Taco Hell and The Varletts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1VsQMjEDA/
In November I was picked to present the SRA Selector, a student version of The Selector Radio show. The Selector is presented by the wonderful Goldierocks and created by Folded Wing and The British Music Council, broadcasting in 40+ countries around the world, and 6 of us were chosen to create our own version of it.
There’s a video here about the SRA Awards (I’ll do another post about that soon) and a bit more about the SRA Selector.
The show specialises in British new music, and at least 50% of our playlist each week was chosen from their playlist. Mine was more like 50-75% each week as I loved the songs!
In January we headed down to the Folded Wing HQ in Hackney for two days of training. There were Q&A’s with Goldierocks and Monki from Radio 1, as well as learning about live sessions, planning our shows, creating sounds and much more. It was a brilliant few days, getting to see performances from Otzeki and Happyness, before pairing up to present a live show on the last day.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BO7pedODh4_/
I started my show the week after, on January 15th, and I genuinely have no idea where time has gone! 11 shows in total, and interviews with: Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, The Amazons, The Pale White, Counterfeit, Vukovi and Into The Ark.
There were special guests in the studio most weeks, with some of the best musical talent the East Midlands has to offer: Matt Reynolds from HCBP/HECK, Rich List, Taco Hell, The Shrives, Eva Plays Dead plus live sessions from The Varletts and Rob Green.
Dean Jackson from The Beat/BBC Introducing East Midlands dropped in for a chat about the scene and share his wealth of knowledge.
The show was initially one hour long, but halfway through I was able to get an extra hour so was able to showcase even more great music. Have a look for the hashtag #SRAselector on Instagram and Twitter to see what we’ve all been up to!
WIN a signed @counterfeitrock poster. To enter: follow me & retweet this. Winner announced 8pm Sun on #SRAselector https://t.co/UL6yT0zHS7 pic.twitter.com/zmLe1j6hTX
— Jen Thomas (@JournoJenThomas) March 21, 2017
Every week I tried to include some of the incredible local musicians we have in Nottingham and the East Midlands, as well as some of my favourite new rock and metal bands that I felt were a good fit alongside the Selector and Folded Wing’s playlist.
I discovered many brilliant new artists, and invited my studio guests to do a “take over” and pick some of their favourite new bands too as they often have friends in bands and have an ear to the ground to find the best talent first, from playing gigs with them.
It wasn’t all heavy rock though, with the beautifully soulful sounds of Rob Green in session, to interviewing reality tv stars Into The Ark who made it to the final of The Voice with their incredible vocals, I made sure to mix things up.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQV89bLFFy5/
It was often eclectic, but I’ve had a fantastic three months and I’m sad that it has finished! The final show was a hectic one, with the Counterfeit interview and giving away a signed poster, with hundreds of tweets and messages coming in from their dedicated fanbase.
It’s been a wild ride and I’ve learned so much, a huge thanks to all at Folded Wing, The Selector and The British Music Council.
See below for links to every show that I did, as well as the full tracklistings for each show.