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| Back Street Girl |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4323345.stm
DJ Tommy Vance dies after stroke
Vance worked at Radio 1 before leaving for Virgin
Former BBC Radio 1 DJ Tommy Vance has died in hospital three days after suffering a stroke.
Vance, who was 63, died in Kent at 0400 on Sunday, his agent said.
The DJ, best remembered for his gravelly voice, started out on US radio before working at Radio Caroline and Radio 1.
"He was a great bloke and he was held in very high regard for his knowledge of rock which was unsurpassed," said his agent Jon Roseman.
"I had known Tommy for 35 years. He certainly had one of the most recognisable voices on radio," he added.
Vance, who has two children, also presented the Friday Night Rock show on digital channel VH1 and more lately had his own show on digital radio station Virgin Classic Rock.
Top of the Pops
Last year he took part in ITV's Hell's Kitchen reality TV show but pulled out after only a few days, saying he could not bear the verbal abuse dished out the show's celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.
Born in Oxford, Vance got his big break on Los Angeles radio station KHJ.
The Rolling Stones were interviewed by Vance
He then returned to the UK to work on pirate station Radio Caroline.
He was then signed to Radio 1 where he worked for 15 years. He was also a regular presenter of Top of the Pops.
Fellow DJ Dave Cash worked with Vance at Radio Caroline, Radio 1 and Capital Radio and was a friend of his for 40 years.
"Once you became friends with Tommy you were friends for life," Cash told BBC Radio Kent.
"He was a very private guy, but to his friends he was great, you could always rely on him.
"He's a bit like John Peel and Kenny Everett - he's irreplaceable, he was a total professional.
"Tommy was part of the group that actually cared about the music he was playing."
'Seminal rock show'
During his career Vance interviewed more than 10,000 guests including Prince Charles and the Rolling Stones.
Controller of Radio 1, Andy Parfitt, said: "Tommy Vance was a great broadcaster.
"He presented for many years on Radio 1 the seminal rock show which a whole generation of music fans remember very fondly.
"He will be sadly missed by listeners and fellow DJs alike."
Vance's distinctive voice also landed him voiceover jobs and he also worked as a continuity announcer for BBC Two.
[Edited by Back Street Girl] |
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| Gazza |
Sad news indeed. He was quite a character and a fine broadcaster.
With John Peel going too, the old BBC Radio DJ's we grew up with are really dropping like flies. I can't imagine too many of the current crop being remembered so fondly in years to come. |
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| Scot Rocks |
Very Sad 
R.I.P. |
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| Monkeytonkman |
Whoa, this is a real bummer man, tommy Vance rocked. He really flew the Flag for rock music in the UK. He was an old school rocker. He's gonna be missed.
God bless ya guv'nor!
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| Sir Stonesalot |
Guys like Tommy and John Peel are not out there anymore. Decent radio is dying along with these people if it wasn't already dead. It's very sad.
Todays crop of "on-air personalities" are nothing more than talking heads. Button pushers for preprogrammed playlists. They don't give a fuck about what they shove down John Q Public's throat. They care about the paycheck, they care about getting promoted up the corporate ladder. Fuck them.
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
Sir Stonesalot wrote:
Todays crop of "on-air personalities" are nothing more than talking heads. Button pushers for preprogrammed playlists. They don't give a fuck about what they shove down John Q Public's throat. They care about the paycheck, they care about getting promoted up the corporate ladder. Fuck them.
For sure. But the same principle is at work in "journalism" too. That's even scarier. |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
Oh agreed TTM.
Jounalists are much more dangerous. They have the power to help inform millions of voters political opinions. Their loyalty is to whomever pays them, and damn whatever "truth" is. Truth to them is whatever they can get the public to believe. And what they want the public to believe is whatever their employer wants the public to believe. It's terrible.
I've reached the point where I don't believe ANYTHING I hear on the news anymore. What you have to do is watch like 3 or 4 different news programs on different networks, and then find the point where those 3 or 4 stories intersect. That intersection is what is probably true. The rest of it is just spin and propaganda and opinion passed off as fact.
The sad part is that a large portion of our country take their fave face at their word. "Oh, he has such nice straight white teeth, and what a snappy dresser....he must be telling the truth!"
Makes me ill just thinking about it. |
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| Riffhard |
quote:
Sir Stonesalot wrote:
Guys like Tommy and John Peel are not out there anymore. Decent radio is dying along with these people if it wasn't already dead. It's very sad.
Todays crop of "on-air personalities" are nothing more than talking heads. Button pushers for preprogrammed playlists. They don't give a fuck about what they shove down John Q Public's throat. They care about the paycheck, they care about getting promoted up the corporate ladder. Fuck them.
Uhh,hmmmm. I take exception to that SS. While I would tend to agree that many jocks are just "liner jocks" with little or no real knowledge of the shite they spin. That is certainly not the case with me. I have been in the bussiness for twenty three years now and I have always found some very very talented folks are still in it for all the right reasons. People who slam radio jocks just aren't listening to right ones. My show is loaded with personality and my numbers back that fact up. Number one on the Jersey Shore for eight years in a row. It's not the radio bussiness that sucks these days. It's the record bussiness. As I have stated before,when the same people that are shilling the records also sell the cd players to play them on you know the "realness" of the music suffers. It's all about the bottom line these days and has effectivly killed all artistic development. For example,back in the early sixties Motown groomed their artists. These days? Not a chance! Get a hit,sell a few million disks and then dump the artist if the numbers start to trend down. Pathetic. Bob Dylan would never be signed to a "major" if he came out today. The Stones' career would have been over at least twenty years ago had things been done back then the way they are now.
I take great pride in my job and have developed a large listening audience because my love for good music comes across on air. Even if I have to play shit that I may not dig I can still find the radio bussiness very rewarding. Don't paint with such a large brush Essy.
Riffhard
[Edited by Riffhard] |
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| Gazza |
Riffie
There is now a vacancy on UK radio for a knowledgeable DJ with a throaty, husky voice. Lots of TV voice-over work, too!
(Whatever did happen to Emperor Rosko, anyway?) |
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| Riffhard |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
Riffie
There is now a vacancy on UK radio for a knowledgeable DJ with a throaty, husky voice. Lots of TV voice-over work, too!
(Whatever did happen to Emperor Rosko, anyway?)
LOL! Gotta love that gallows humour. You know Gazza I'd love to work in the UK,but alas,the taxes in England are insane,and I could never afford it.
Riffhard |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
>Even if I have to play shit that I may not dig<
And that's my point Riffy. John and Tommy didn't play anything that they did not dig. That era is over. You can't fight it. You need your paycheck. I understand that. This is nothing personal.
But guys like Peel and Tommy....for the longest time they got paid like next to nothing. They played what they played because they loved doing it. It was all about the music.
You can't say that. It's NOT all about the music for you. I know you have a love for music, but you STILL have to play shit that you don't want to play. And you have to sound happy about it. It's bullshit. I could never EVER do what you do. I'd be fired within a week, if not after the very first show.
It's not your fault Riffy. I know that. But like it or not, you are wrapped up in it. I mean, you have been around a long time and have a following, and you STILL have to suck cock. You can't get above it. I feel bad for you. |
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| Riffhard |
Well I can honsetly say that I have never sucked cock! However,the fact is that when I play stuff that I may not dig I'm not playing it for me. I am playing it for those who do dig it. There is no station in the USA that allows their jocks to play what they want. Excepting,ofcourse,college stations. If I were to play only what I dug then the continuity of the station would go out the window,and so would the ratings quite frankly. The bottom line though is that I have absolutly no problem sharing my opinions on the music I do play. I make no bones about the fact that Greenday sucks for example. I also tend to give the audience a rather strong indication of where my listening tastes lies. They know full well that I am a big Stones' fan. I have even gotten Stones' memorabilia from a few listeners. About a year ago someone gave me a 1975 tour program in mint condition! I also got a box of twelve Stones' tongue air fresheners. I also got an autographed copy of Mick's She's the Boss album. It's authentic too. I checked it against the autograph that Mick signed for me at the Free Jack wrap party back in 1991. A party that I would not have been invited to had I not worked in radio,by the way.
Some people think that if your on the air that you pick the music that you want to play. That has never really been true of major market radio. It is a bussiness afterall. If we can't get listeners we can't get advertizers to buy airtime. I'm happy to report that my show is completely sold out. Even though I may not get to pick my own playlist it does not bother me at all. It is very easy to become a smug arrogant musical snob,but at least sometimes I hear new music and really do dig it. I may have never given these bands a chance to be heard had I not been forced to play them. Afterall,I knew about bands like the White Stripes long before anyone else did. In other words there are some very cool perks involved. Not the least of which is covering the last three Stones' pressers. And hey,it beats the shit outta digging ditches!
Riffhard |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
>Well I can honsetly say that I have never sucked cock!<
Obviously, I didn't mean that literally. I meant that you have to suck the cock of corporate radio. And you do. You have no choice.
>There is no station in the USA that allows their jocks to play what they want. Excepting,ofcourse,college stations.<
Yeah, and isn't it funny how college radio is always better and more interesting than commercial radio. To me anyway.
>If I were to play only what I dug then the continuity of the station would go out the window<
You are not the first, or last, radio guy that I've had this discussion with. I hear this argument all the time. Here's what the last guy who used it said. One of our local stations has a "request" hour at lunchtime. At least they used to, I haven't tuned in in over a year, so I don't know if they still do. But anyhow, I called in and asked for something pretty mainstream, I don't remember exactly what it was. This guy told me he couldn't play it because it was "out of format". I said so what, it's a request show. He said that they can't play just anything that people request or you'd lose all your continuity. Now this sounded(and still does)crazy to me. It's a one hour long by request show....you got 23 other hours in the damn day to have your precious continuity, play the request. He said that they can't do it because if they played all the requests then they would be playing Patsy Kline followed by Green Day followed by Slim Whitman followed by Brittany Spears followed by Frank Sinatra. I said, yeah, that sounds great, I'd tune in just for the fact that I wouldn't know what was comming! So then I say, so what you are telling me is that I can only request a song that was going to get played anyway...to which he said...YES. I just said to forget it, and hung up. Whatever. You'll never get me to buy into this continuity thing so don't even try. Variety is the spice of life.
>I make no bones about the fact that Greenday sucks for example.<
Spoken like a true Republinazi. I guess if they were calling me an American Idiot I'd think they suck too. I wouldn't expect anything less my man.
>A party that I would not have been invited to had I not worked in radio,by the way.<
Oh yeah, I'll bet the perks are great, and I don't begrudge you that stuff. But you know there is a bit of corporate shittiness about that too. Sure you play the songs on the radio....but I BUY the product, I PAY for it. And I haven't bought a single album because of radio play in the last 10 years. So who deserves that swag more dude? You get paid to play the songs, and I pay the record company to have those songs. If anything it's the CONSUMER who deserves that swag.
Example: take FPM's trip to BB King's for the Hubert gig. That was cool that your buddy got to go backstage and meet Hubert and hang with David Jo....but who do you think deserved that meeting more? Flea, who fucking BLEEDS blues(did you feel the passion in his review?), or your pal? I mean, c'mon, it's not even a contest man. You see where I'm coming from?
>Some people think that if your on the air that you pick the music that you want to play<
I'm not one of those people. I know you don't get to pick. And that sucks. I'd be willing to wager that your show would be 10X better if you got to pick.
>It is a bussiness afterall.<
Yup. And the music business sucks hard. I think we can all agree on that.
>but at least sometimes I hear new music and really do dig it.<
Well isn't that nice. I hear new music every day, some I like, most is crap. Google is bad ass.
>Afterall,I knew about bands like the White Stripes long before anyone else did.<
Wanna bet? I had a tape of White Stripes 7"s before they even released their first album. Not the re-release...the indie release...which is the one I own. I would amend your statement to read "before anyone else who is normal did."
I'm glad you like your job Riffy. You are way more cool than most of the radio dicks that I know(and I do know a few). Commercial radio and I are not compatible. Never will be. I'm not your average bear. I don't hold your job against you, lord knows I couldn't do what you do(although in my county, according to a recent survey, more people listen to PD and Fire dispatch channels than listen to commercial radio...so I'm one of the most popular "on air" people in the county! LOL!), and I know you don't make the rules. Like I said, I hope you don't take any of this personal because it isn't. |
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