by Chris Evans
10 Cinderella Rockafella
9 The Dance Factory
8 Legends
7 Peppermint Palace
6 Rotters
5 Placemate 7s
4 Mr Smiths
3 Thursdays
2 Fridays
1 Saturdays*
The main Piccadilly DJs went by the collective name of The Magnificent Seven and often went on the road as a group, touring the local nightclubs, performing party nights and appearing in the same order as they did on the air. For no more than approximately half an hour’s spot each they could earn hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of pounds—I had been right, DJs really did have the easiest life—ever.
Sometimes in return for a few quid or a drink I would tag along and play the records in for them as they messed around with the crowd. It was great fun and all more experience.
Then there were the continuing live roadshows. During these, I would work as the warm-up guy, another sweet, sweet job. I would wind up what was already a very excited and lively crowd for the big, first on-air cheer of the day; after that I just had to keep them interested and vocal for the rest of the show, nothing that a few free T-shirts and the odd CD couldn’t sort out.
As with everything in life, though, the more you do, the more you should become good at things, but at the same time the more chances there are for something to go wrong. The two most renowned mushroom experts in the world were a married couple, they met through their passion for mushrooms and they both died of mushroom poisoning, what more do we need to know?
I was due a mess up soon and I was going to get one—in fact I was in line for two.
The radio station was appearing at a local summer festival along with what was now a full roadshow rig. Things had moved on from the funbus days and this piece of kit was state of the art for its day. Until, that is, I was let loose on it.
The Piccadilly Radio stage was to have an ongoing programme of events throughout the afternoon, including the live show. This was a much longer stint than usual and was to last in all for around six hours, as a result of which we were given a supply of props to do ‘stuff ’ with. This ‘stuff ’ could be anything as long as it engaged enough people to make it look like Piccadilly Radio had something going on.
The ‘props’ were made up mostly of promotional freebies we’d been sent over the last few months, including several boxes of disposable barbecues that were new on to the market. I took one look at these intriguing new inventions and immediately thought we could have some fun with them—we’d also been supplied with with trays and trays of raw chicken legs ready to be roasted and enough of them to feed a small army. ‘I know,’ I thought, ‘I will hold an hourly cooking competition, free food, the new throwaway barbecue and, most important of all, fire! The kids’ll love that,’ and they did, all afternoon. I felt like Robo-redcoat. I was getting bigger crowds than any of the other attractions, even well after the live show was over.
At one point I had such a good crowd that I decided even if I took a break they would probably stick around. So I lit the latest row of barbies and announced that I would be back soon and looking for some new contestants.
The crowd cheered and gave me a round of applause as I went backstage and climbed aboard the support bus for a quick drink and a change of shirt.
It could only have been five or six minutes when the crowd started to chant for my return. This was fantastic, I felt like a rock star. None of the named DJs were still around and yet here was the crowd shouting for the warm-up kid.
Although secretly I was gagging to run out there and soak up the applause, I decided to play it cool and wait for a while. Cool has never been my thing—I should have known better. After a few more moments, the cheering became literally manic, I could have sworn I even heard the odd scream.
I simply couldn’t resist any longer. I had to get back out there, so that’s what I did: I ran out back on stage for the first encore of my show business life.
‘What’s the matter with you lot—are you crazy? Can’t a guy have a quick break and a drink, for heaven’s sake?’ is what I was about to say, but I couldn’t even see the crowd for huge plumes of black smoke which were now filling the stage. The six barbecues had all burnt through their bottoms and set alight to the floor. The only reason anyone was screaming or shouting was for the idiot with red hair and glasses to get back out there and do something about this before the whole truck was razed to the ground.
When I went into work the next day, it was not a pleasant experience.
‘Did you here about Nobby? [People still called me by my original character name—and on this day with good reason.] He only set the OB truck on fire.’
This particular ‘day in the field,’ continued to be the source of much merriment between my colleagues for the remainder of my days in Manchester.
The management, in their wisdom, also decided I was to be charged for the damage I had caused. A little unfair I thought—not that it bothered me that much as I had so little money anyway another bill I couldn’t afford wasn’t going to make any difference.
* * *
*Seven different dance floors, seven different DJs including the one and only ‘ooh Gary Davies’.
Top 10 Stars Recognised by a Single Name
10 Jesus
9 Moses
8 Cher
7 Bono
6 Prince
5 Noddy
4 Morrissey
3 Madonna
2 Sweeney
1 Umberto
Having created a near disaster outside of the radio station, it was time for me to retreat back to the comparatively safe confines of the studio—or at least that’s what I hoped. But it was not to be, a much bigger and altogether more career-threatening gaff was heading my way. Mike Sweeney, a salt-of-the-earth, gravely voiced Mancunian, was presenting his Sunday-morning show that he co-hosted with a big gay man, camp as a row of tents, who went by the name of Umberto. Both are still around, both still very good at what they do. The duo were an odd pairing but one that worked like a dream. I wish I could still listen to them now. Someone should put them back together, they were brilliant.
Sweeney (I’m not being impolite—that’s how he used to refer to himself) like most DJs had an unending need to talk, whereas Umberto just sat back and picked his moments, a skill even more impressive when you consider the fact that Sweeney controlled the microphones.
The show was a huge hit, the fact that it was Sunday morning served as a perfect platform for Umberto’s obsession with the tabloid newspapers and celebrity gossip along with Mike’s passion for sport and music.
The key to their success was that neither of them was remotely interested in what the other one had to say—about anything. It was this beautiful irony that made them a total mismatch but a compelling formula. It was hilarious to listen to. Sweeney was such a ‘bloke’ and here he was being forced to get on with one of the most overtly gay men in the world—priceless. Of course in real life they loved each other, I think.
I was answering the phones for them one Sunday morning after completing a Saturday overnight shift. I loved working on their show so always volunteered to stick around for phone duty. After my night shift this particular morning, Sweeney had started on another one of his sports conversations to which Umberto had pretended to fall asleep, it was already funny. Sweeny then looks through the glass to me for some support.
‘See, our Chris in there likes his sport. I bet he saw the fight last night ’cos he would have been up. He was workin’ ’ere all night…’
Sweeney was referring to a world title fight that had taken place in the States in the early hours of the same morning which I had indeed managed to catch on the telly.
‘Come in ’ere kidder and let’s talk about the fight like real men…’ All the time Umberto audibly snoring at the mic.
‘Wow,’ this was now my favourite show and Sweeney really wanted me to go on the air and for the first time ever as me, not as
a character, something I’d never done before. I was filled with a mixture of nerves and excitement.
Sweeney announced that he would play a record and then he and the kid on the phones would talk big man’s sport—boxing. Umberto humphed his disapproval.
I had three minutes to set myself with something to say, beginning-middle-end—never forget. I also had the same three minutes to find a cassette to record what was about to happen—I had to get this down on tape.
There was a facility in our control room called a snoop. This was a recording device that when set to ‘on’ via a large red switch would record but only when the microphone was live. The snoop was mostly used for monitoring purposes by the management because it meant they could just hear the links without the music. It was also used from time to time by some of the DJs to listen back to their shows or for preparing on-air demo-tapes, if they were after other work.
The snoop would automatically record the next link that I was to be involved in—if, that is, I could find a cassette in time. Cassettes were much harder to come by than the big spools of tape we usually used, as there was little call for them except from the newsroom where the journalists might take out a portable cassette recorder to cover a story.
So to the newsroom it was. I rushed in to find it deserted as it was the weekend skeleton shift and the one journalist that was on duty had nipped out for a break. Seeing as I had no idea where they kept their cassettes and it was nearly time for the link I decided to cut my losses and instead just focus on what I was about to say, after all I could always listen to it later on the log. But then just as I was about to dash back to the studio, the fickle hand of fate once again tapped me on the shoulder.
‘You will mess up my son, you will mess up.’
As I brushed past the locker section, I noticed one of the locker doors was open, it was the locker of my best mate Gatesy—another tech op. As long as I’d known him he’d never kept his locker locked—there was never anything important in there as he was never given anything important to do but as I looked, sure enough, sat on top of a load of his old rubbish, like a shining light, was one brand new, glistening, boxed C-90 TDK cassette.
‘Perfect, Gatesy, you are a saint, I love you, always have, always will.’
Gatesy, real name Michael Gates had been my best friend for the last year or so, I had lived with him and his mum and dad at their house in Bolton, we ran a stall together in Bury market to make extra cash and we even placed an advert in the The Lady magazine to try and get some work as private investigators. As well as being a very gentle man and very funny, he is also the most intelligent human being I have ever met—an ex-Oxford graduate who plays classical piano for fun—and sometimes completely naked, regardless of who may be looking on. He is an old-style true intellectual eccentric and how he became a technical operator at a local radio station instead of a top professor somewhere none of us could ever figure out, not that any of us cared—we all loved him.
To this day I have never heard anyone say a bad word against Michael. He’s an all-round good egg. He once went to the airport to drop some friends off in a mini bus they’d hired when, during the time it took him to say goodbye and see them off, a group of old people got onto his bus by mistake—they thought he was there to pick them up and that this was their bus.
‘So, what did you do?’ I asked him.
‘Well, I just took them to where they wanted to go,’ he replied, without the slightest shred of irony. Truly gorgeous.
Anything that was mine was his and vice versa, so I knew there was no way he would mind me using this cassette. Into the snoop it went and seconds later I was on the air, desperately trying to remember the beginning, middle and end of what I’d prepared to say.
When it came to my bit ‘it was all so fast’, as they say, but Sweeney seemed to think it was funny enough. Umberto had kept up his snoring, we had ignored him, he had ignored us and somewhere along the line the listeners had found out some more about the big fight.
I was so chuffed I wanted to listen back to the sequence straight away but I was busy with the phones. As a result the cassette stayed in the snoop and the big red switch remained set to record, during which many, many more links came and went easily enough to fill up the whole side.
After the show was over Sweeney and Umberto would go their separate ways, although I often fantasised that they were actually secret lovers who met up again in the car park and went off together to their Trafford Park penthouse full of soft furnishings and other fru-fru. After they had left this particular morning my attention turned back to the snoop. I’m sure what I had said hadn’t made much sense but it was all part of the learning curve. I would retrieve the cassette, listen back while driving home, make my notes and put them in the memory bank for next time.
Little did I know I was oh so close to there never being a next time.
The snoop machine was over the other side of the control room behind the switchboard. I walked over to it, clicked off the switch which released the tape and out it popped. Now literally, at this second, who walks into the control room but none other than me old mate Gatesy. I was riven with excitement at my latest radio appearance. Michael on the other hand was full of the fuzziness of his habitual Sunday lunchtime hangover.
‘Gatesy, how are you, ol’ lad? Did you hear me with Sweeney and Umberto this morning? They asked me on the show to talk about the fight last night.’
‘No, I didn’t actually—to be honest I only got up half an hour ago.’ He was a little vacant but no more than I’d come to expect. He often stayed out until all hours, usually securing the company of an unbelievably attractive woman in the process, always a source of wonder to the rest of us.
‘Er, I don’t suppose you have seen a cassette, have you?’ he asked, now appearing distracted, almost worried.
As he said this, I was holding the cassette in my hand, but he obviously hadn’t noticed…
‘Er, well there’s this one that I found in your locker.’
‘What do you mean, the one that you found in my locker?’ As he said this, it was almost as if he began to crumple in front of me. He suddenly turned grey and he sounded like he cared. He never cared about anything.
‘I was looking for a cassette for a snoop and I was in a rush and this one was in your locker, on the top of your things. I didn’t think you’d mind.’
Michael’s face now contorted into an expression I didn’t think was possible for a human being. His mouth went all wavy like a cartoon character’s and beads of sweat started to form on his forehead. I thought he was about to faint. What the hell was wrong with him?
‘Yes but you haven’t used it yet, have you?’ He was now beginning to shake.
‘Yes I have, I have used it, I used it to tape my link on Sweeney’s show.’
I don’t know how to spell the next phrase he uttered but it was something between a gulp, a squeal, a whimper and a scream, I think there may have been a yelp in there too.
‘I used it to tape me talking about the big fight last night.’
‘Oh my God, my God…my God, my God my God my God. How long was the link?’
‘I dunno, about four minutes maybe five.’
‘So that was it—just that?’
‘Well no, because it ran till the end, I left it in, so it’s used up a whole side.’
Gatesy now began to weep, I promise you, he was actually crying real tears.
‘Which side has it used?’
‘Er, the whole of side A.’ I offered with a pathetic inflection of optimism.
At this point Gatesy fell on to his knees and started to sob, like a young child who’s just been told their pet hamster has died—died in a really bad and horrible way, maybe squished—something like that. He cried and snorted and blubbed. There was snot everywhere but at no point was he angry. As I said he didn’t do angry, this was the mark of the man.
Eventually after what seemed like for ever but was probably no more than a minute he just
about managed to utter the words.
‘We’re both going to get killed.’
When Gatesy was finally able to conjure back the powers of speech, he explained to me what the problem was.
It turned out the cassette in question was not brand new at all, its label may have been blank but the cassette most definitely was not. It was in fact full of an exclusive recording of Bob Geldof in his first big interview since Live Aid. He was the hottest thing in the world at the time and this was an interview conducted with him at the venue of his next big charity concert entitled Rock Around the Dock. Somehow Piccadilly had bagged the exclusive and now everyone wanted to buy it off them.
Though the cassette wasn’t worth more than a couple of pounds itself, the rights to the interview on it had been syndicated to the commercial radio network for a considerable sum, over £40,000. It was to be Gatesy’s job that afternoon to dub off the master, the now redundant little cassette we were both staring at.
It didn’t take a genius to realise the gravity of what I’d done.
Michael was right—we were both going to die.
I told him I would take the blame and tell the boss it was all my fault, which of course it was entirely. Michael said that he was grateful but he was sure we would both be fired on the spot regardless. He was already considering his options and he advised me to do the same. The thing was I didn’t have any options—this was it for me, radio was my world and as I’d only just survived setting fire to the OB truck. I now feared the worst.
The man in charge of our fate was a chap called John Clayton, senior producer and deputy programme controller. I went to see him on the Monday, first thing in the morning. For a good few moments at least he was too angry to speak to me—unlike Michael, John did do anger and he did it very well.
Eventually John gave me the benefit of what he was thinking.
‘If I’d have been able to get hold of you yesterday afternoon you would both be dead by now. Last night, I would still definitely have killed you Nobby, but probably not Michael. As it stands if you ever do anything like that again, I will kill you but I am calmer now and…we all make mistakes, so I’m going to let it pass…But…please please do not take any tapes from anywhere ever again unless you know exactly why you’re doing it and exactly what’s on them. Now piss off and carry on doing whatever it is you do for us.’