Piss off, Galloway
BBC Introducing in Scotland is going to be undergoing changes in the new year. It was announced a while ago that Ally McCrae from Detour will be taking over from Vic Galloway, who had been doing the job for something like ten years.
BBC Radio 1 is aimed at a yoof market, and I suppose this kind of transition was inevitable at some point, even though it seemed a little abrupt when it finally happened. I’ve only really met Ally once or twice, and I hardly know the guy, but he’s always seemed like a really sincere, decent bloke so I am sure he’ll do a cracking job, and this post is in no way supposed to be a slight on the new regime, just a quick salute to the old one.
The first time I ever really came across Vic was when he was in a band called the Khartoum Heroes with Kenny Anderson, who I loved when I was at university, although I only found this out much, much later. The first time I knowingly encountered him was at Homegame quite a few years ago when his band, Deaf Mutes, played a set. I cynically expected it to be shit, ended up really enjoying it, and I remember thinking ‘Oh right, so he can actually walk the walk, unlike most of the rest of us doing media-based stuff, who generally just talk a good game’.
Anyhow, since then I have bumped into Vic and his producer, Muslim Alim on a number of occasions (Scotland is just not that big a country) and honestly, they are two of the loveliest guys you could hope to meet. They’ve also given our label and the bands we work with an absolute ton of support, not least in the absolutely crucial role they played in getting Meursault their BBC Introducing set at Glastonbury, which resulted in a playlist slot on Radio 1 and all sorts of other stuff. They haven’t always played everything we’ve sent them, but they’ve been generous with advice, honest about what they haven’t played and why, and just massively encouraging in a way that means an awful lot to a startup record label with no idea whatsoever what the fuck it is doing.
More to the point, though, they are not dicks. That may sound like a stupid statement, but it actually isn’t; the music industry is full of total pricks. Whiney pricks, slippery pricks, backstabbing pricks, fairweather pricks, snotty pricks, status whores, fashion whores and attention whores. The number of times I have been dismissively ignored by people who think what we’re doing might not be fashionable enough for them to be associated with, or by people who have themselves been treated like shit and realise that, given our respective positions on the status ladder, now it’s their turn, is just plain depressing. In fact it is one of the most wearing parts of being involved in music.
So when you meet people like Vic and Muslim who are just absolutely straight down the line, genuine guys it is a complete breath of fresh air, believe me. With those two I have never once felt like they expected me to try and impress them, like they were evaluating us, or like they were anything other than just plain good lads who enjoyed what they did and wanted us all to do as well as possible.
So no slight on the new team intended at all, but I did think it worth saying this: cheers fellas, you’ll be missed.
Aye Vic’s one of the good guys. He’s always really welcoming when I bump into him in Leith and his enthusiasm for all types of music is astounding. He played us twice in one week recently which was great of him. I just hope the new young blood that’s coming in doesn’t go all ‘Haircut Music’ on our asses or we’re fucked!
We fear change
*hammers robotic hand repeatedly*
Seconded!
I don’t fear change, I am sure the new guys will do just as good a job, and given the target audience of Radio 1 this was probably an inevitable change at some point in any case.
Still going to miss the silly old fucker though.
I’ve got a really stupid haircut now. Will that work?
Vic is indeed a legend. The week Scott refers to recently was a good one for both The Last Battle and 17 Seconds Records, being as he played two different tracks by the Last Battle in one week and on his radio one show, played both the Last Battle and X-Lion Tamer on the same show.
Sure he hasn’t played all the stuff we’ve sent him as a label, but he’s given us a hell of a lot of support. Is his Radio Scotland show going to stay put?
I was going to just going to ponder as to what his next move might be…
Spinning bird kick? That’s a good move. HIYAA!
As I myself am facing redundancy (I am assuming this is kind of what it is that’s happening here) I feel great empathy. Not met him myself properly but I hope he finds another job/station that he enjoys!
I hate recession.
Yeah, I have a lot of time for Vic. We sent him a copy of the Calvin EP ‘International Spy Club’ too many years ago to count, and he didn’t like it, didn’t play it, and was totally upfront about why. We didn’t agree with him, but huge props for honesty.
He has played The Stantons though, and we really appreciated it – there’s a lot of ‘oh, said DJ didn’t like my song, I’ll take it personally and never bother sending anything ever again because obviously they’ll never like anything we do’ but that clearly isn’t the case with Vic. Hope he’s going on to bigger and better things. And that the new guys do half the job he did.
It’s worth pointing out that the BBC Radio Scoland show will remain – the only change is at Introducing.
That’s something, I guess, I haven’t listened to the Evening Session properly in years but I always try and catch his Radio Scotland show.
Radio Scotland should give him more airtime (yeah, I know they repeat the show on Fridays but that’s nto the same thing!)
Vic’s a real good cat. This is the first I’ve heard of this and I was on the blower to Muslim just the other night too. I hope good things come Mr Galloway’s way fo’ sho.
He aint no Tom Ravencroft. I find his show irritable, and his hair is bad. As for his coverage of T in the park?. if I was head of BBC I would of kicked scottish radio in the beard at birth.
Well see I’d have said nice things about Tom Ravenscroft too, and his voice ‘takes a bit of getting used to’ as well, but given he played Cold Seeds once a night for a whole week when he was covering for Gideon Coe I won’t have a bad word said about him.
Ditto Vic actually, so you can fuck off, ya cunt. Mind you his hair is bad, you have a point there.
It’s a difficult call with things like regional programming though. Get rid of it and you end up with homogenised, London-centric rubbish with no character whatsoever, and you end up with lots of interesting stuff being completely marginalised because it doesn’t have well paid advocates shouting in the ears of the appointed gatekeepers, and takes place too far away for them to stumble on it themselves.
But if you encourage it, then there’s always a danger you end up with inward-facing parochial stuff. And of course where do you stop. If Scotland and Wales deserve their own dedicated channels, what about the North West, or the Midlands, which are actually more populous areas and presumably have a pretty decent argument of their own.
So I don’t know about kicking it in the head at birth, but it’s certainly a difficult thing to get absolutely right.
I was drunk when I said that sorry. Dont mean a word of it. I bet he is nice.
Im a cunt
Now I feel like a bad person.
Not as bad as I feel
I am not enough of a hypocrite as to judge someone just for saying something stupid on the internet. No worries at all. I’ll give Vic a cuddle from you next time I see him.