My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 1/8/03 - BBC 6Music Studio

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One afternoon, shortly after "This Is Not A Library" had been released, I got a call on my mobile phone. "Hello, is that Steve Dresden?" asked the voice on the other end. I wasn't sure what to say.

Artists Against Success was run by three of us, but we had an ENTIRELY FICTIONAL extra board member - if we needed to blame someone for something going wrong, or email a band we didn't want to release, it was Mr Dresden who got the crappy job. This was very handy, so when I did the press releases for "This Is Not A Library" I got him to sign all the accompanying letters for me. I thought this was a good idea - it always feels a bit WEIRD writing a letter saying "I am GRATE! My record is AMAZING! MJ Hibbett (me) is FANTASTIC!" but if Steve wrote it instead then it all felt OK. Unfortunately I'd not worked out what to do if someone tried to RING him, so said "Er... no, this is Mark... sorry, MJ Hibbett, I have his phone."

The caller had obviously dealt with pillocks like this before, and said "Ah! Hello Mark - Henry here from 6Music - love the album!" I said "Oooh! Er... thanks?" for LO! it turned out he was the producer on 6Music's afternoon show which, in a week's time, The Journalist And Broadcaster Steve Lamacq would be taking over while the regular present was on holiday. Mr Lamacq, apparently, LOVED the new album, would be playing songs from it every day on the show, and wondered if I'd like to come in and do a session one day.

WOULD I? ZANG!!

I spent the next week in PANIC in case anybody changed their mind, and EXCITED at the prospect of Actually Meeting Steve Lamacq properly! I'd met him IMPROPERLY a couple of times - drunk, at The Bowlie Festival, shouting "AAWUUUGGHAAAGH STEVE!" (me, not him) and, AS IS TRADITIONAL, in the bar at The Bull & Gate, saying "Er... I've got a demo tape for you" (again me, not him). One night over tea The Frequency Of My Radio asked me if I'd given any thought to what I'd actually say if he interviewed me.

Only every day. For the past fifteen years.

And so the week of The Broadcast dawned and I huddled EXCITEDLY around my digital radio on the Monday afternoon... and DIDN'T hear any of our songs played.

DOOM! FEAR! DESPONDENCY! The next day: SAME THING. By Wednesday I was a quivering wreck, not least because I had told THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UNIVERSE that Steve Lamacq would DEFINITELY be playing our songs all week - possibly several times a day, and would quite probably be renaming the afternoon slot THE HIBBETT SHOW. I got so worried that I ended up RINGING Henry The Producer, trying to sound confident by saying "Hi! Just checking we're still OK for Friday?" but probably sounding more like "BOO HOO! ME FRIGHTENED!"

He was very nice about it, said of course it was all still go, and that he was looking forward to it. Again, I think I may not have been the first Terrified Band Member to get The Jitters before such an auspicious occasion. By Friday I was in a state of HIGH NERVOUSNESS - if ever I had had The Fear before, it was as NOTHING to this, THE KING OF THE FEAR which had descended upon me. I set off for Broadcasting House (wearing my best shirt - RADIO) a bit earlier than necessary as I thought I might need to have a bit of a sit down and some deep breaths on the way.

When I got there I was WHISKED up to the 6Music Offices and then into the studio itself, and there was Mr Steve Lamacq looking EXACTLY like he does on the telly. Amazingly, once the track before me had finished, he looked up, mouthed hello, then leant into the microphone and SOUNDED exactly like he does on the radio!

It was GRATE! Suddenly we were chatting away and I was IN a situation I had IMAGINED about a million billion times, and it was all going FINE. He was being very nice, I wasn't (I think) sounding ENTIRELY like a drunken yokel who's been bonked on the head with a lump of firewood, and the chat FLOWED. "Are you going to do a song then?" he asked. "SURE AM!" I replied, "This Is 'Things'll Be Different (when I'm in charge)'!"

I began to play! I got to the first line, and thought "Hang on - what ARE the words?" The intro went on slightly longer than normal and I realised I had NO IDEA AT ALL. So, live on air, I stopped, turned to a STUNNED Mr Lamacq and said "Do you know what the words are?"

He looked TERRIFIED. Somehow the situation had been reversed, as I was quite calm and relaxed - despite being on the very brink of cocking up the entire thing - while he was thrown into CONFUSION. "Er... I'm not sure", he said. "No, hang on! I've got it!" I said, as my brain realised it was an EMERGENCY, and off we went again.

I did a couple more songs, had a bit more chat, and it was all LOVELY. Soon the show was over and Henry The Producer came back in, producing a bottle of WINE which we drink from out of plastic cups. "THIS" I thought "is how it SHOULD be!" We stood around and had a bit of an OFF-AIR chat and I discovered that in real-life Mr Steve Lamacq is PRECISELY as Decent and Amusing as you'd hope he would be from hearing him on the air i.e. a LOT.

Pretty soon it was time to go, as I was playing a gig in Islington that night. I said my goodbyes and then popped across town to my office, where I'd left some of my gear. "A gig straight after playing live on The BBC?" I thought. "Surely this is going to be AMAZING, right?"

Have a wild guess!

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