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Born in Brierfield, Lancashire, when it was still the centre of the known universe, Steve soon became attached to future lost causes in becoming a staunch Burnley FC fan. He's now amongst the endangered species of those who held a season ticket in t'Clarets glorious Championship year - 1959/60, when football was still football.
After a promising start in journalism, interviewing Jimi Hendrix and Yoko Ono in the same week, his ambitions receded only to be recruited to Radio Blackburn in 1978 to work on the music review show RPM. In 1980 RPM begat Spinoff which in 1984 mutated into On The Wire, now the longest running alternative music show on UK radio.
Many bands and performers who were to become musical legends passed through the show including U2, REM, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Joy Division etc. Over the past three years Steve has been contributing to the show from Beijing where he works for the British Council. But he promises he'll be back..
The Smiths
U2
About 'On The Wire'..........
On The Wire was first broadcast on 16th September 1984. Check Radio 1's playlists for that month – compare and contrast. Way back then there was no such thing as 'dance' music, hip-hop was confined to NYC and LA and the UK was in the grip of the New Romantics. Smashy and Nicey still ruled at fab FM and the London dance mafia were still with their mums shopping for shells. Reggae was apparently dead.
Depeche Mode
R.E.M.
Joy Division
On The Wire’s first guests were Adrian Sherwood who provided its now legendary theme tune and collaborator Keith le Blanc, who had earlier launched ‘Malcolm X’ on the world via Tommy Boy. The week after it was Depeche Mode and in the December a three hour live special with Mr. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry still fresh from torching the Black Ark a couple of years earlier.And so it went …… through the eighties as On The Wire slowly built a reputation beyond Lancashire and the North West, throughout the UK and onwards, before the internet, via cassette to the outer reaches, Greece, Sweden, Australia, Italy, USA ….. The show was fairly expansive: releasing a compilation ‘Bugs On The Wire’, putting on The Fall free at Clitheroe Castle when 2,500 people turned up, an Xmas party at the Ritz in Manchester including Sherwood with Gary Clail, 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, Little Annie and a heavily pregnant Neneh Cherry absconding from a Bomb the Bass gig. First radio plays for in the UK for Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson and the radio premier of 808 State’s ‘Pacific State’.
Adrian Sherwood
Keith le Blanc
Lee 'Scratch' Perry
Neneh Cherry
Mark E. Smith of The Fall
As the Nineties turned OTW was under threat from the BBC as new leaves were turned – but at the last minute the show was saved by the BBC board pegging the show as a ‘unique BBC product’. But the heady days of three hours on a Sunday afternoon were over as in the BBC speech and sport ruled. And so OTW has wandered the airwaves within the BBC schedules ever since, freeform radio before the term was invented.
Little Annie aka Annie Anxiety
Kelly Joe Phelps
In the last few years there has been a reduced flow of luminaries through the OTW studio. Those listeners with us at the start whilst at college are now in their forties with families. Many friends have come and gone over the years but the show is ‘trodding on’. Quieter guests in the recent past have given us wonderful studio sessions, including Kelly Joe Phelps, Alvin Youngblood Hart and Jeb Loy Nichols – as the show developed a quaint obsession for Americans using two christian names.
Lately Jim and Fenny in Blackburn have helmed the show whilst Steve contributes from Beijing with the invaluable help of Christiaan Virant, American exile and co-founder of the China-based nu electronic unit fm3. Andy ‘Madhatter’ Holmes and the big man, Pete Haigh, have provided years of peerless effort on the once-a-month Funkology. Jimbo, the current engineer and techno-wiz, took over from the eminent Jethro known on the net as ‘Culf’ who in turn took over from Mikey Martin who started in his early teens as the original studio wizard. Big shouts must also go to Dom and Bob, the Blood and Fire boys, and the Baked Goods team who have both blessed us with a regular supply of great tunes in their guest appearances, and lastly respect is due to Alex Fenton for his wonderful work on the website without which OTW’s inexorable march to world domination would prove impossible. After three glorious years of commercial webhosting, The On The Wire site is on the road again from whence it came - but it will never die!
On The Wire was 20 years old on 16th September 2004.
Personally speaking................
I discovered On The Wire totally by accident. I was tuning in my radio, and heard what I later found out to be 'Bop Bop' by Fats Comet. It was the track that spawned the 'sample' for Depeche Mode's 'Are People People? (On-Usound Remix)'. It's fair to say that finding Bop Bop changed my musical future.
Week after week I listened to Steve, week after week my thirst for music grew.
Truely an inspiration, to the point that, when I had the chance to present an on-line community radio show I named it 'Down The WIre'. Enough said.
TGC
'Click' here for the On The Wire website where you can listen to podcasts of the show
'Click' here to listen to On The Wire on Radio Lancashire
Previously featured:
Mum and Dad
Martin L. Gore
John Peel O.B.E.
Andy Payton
Peter Sellers
Salvador Dali
Tommy Cooper
Adam Ant
Steve Barker
