OTBT on Lancaster.Internet

My first Off The Beaten Tracks show on Lancaster.Internet will be broadcast on Sunday evening between 7 and 9 pm. I went along to familiarise myself with the equipment and so only took a few cds, one of which wouldn't play in the cd deck but I ended up recording a show. It is about 50 minutes long and this is the playlist. Hope you can tune in at http://bit.ly/IAFZoV

The Low Countries - Wino
Duotone - Turning Pages Over
Darwin Song Project - Heavy In My Hand
Darwin Song Project - We'll Hunt Him Down
Greenheart - Lemongrass
Greenheart - Walk In The Park
Moll Baxter - Passenger of Love
Duncan McCrone - Waiting Here For You
Seth Lakeman - Blacksmith's Prayer
Treacherous Orchestra - Superfly

For gigs in the Lancaster & Morecambe area check out Ron Johnson's page :

http://www.lunevalleyaudio.com/wall.htm  

He also posts daily updates on his Facebook page :

Beside The Seaside

The end of Diversity FM... but we may be back!

Some news from Duncan Moore (ex-volunteer co-ordinator at Diversity FM) -

"After a couple of weeks discussion with Ofcom and putting a number of plans before them I am sad to say they have refused the license extension, this makes it impossible to seek a transfer to a new group. The reason for not extending the license was on 'legislative' grounds and their decision, which was taken at a senior level, is final. Sadly this brings 8 years of community radio history in Lancaster to an end, the transmitter will be turned off shortly.

However... the next round for community radio licensing for our region begins early in 2013 and I will be putting together a license application to bring back community radio to our district. I have recently spoken to a number of other people from the community radio sector in the north west who would be interested in forming a limited company to move this forward and I will have an initial meeting with them soon. I have today agreed to purchase the transmitter from the YMCA so it will stay in its current location until we need it. So watch this space!"

In the meantime the cloudcasts continue and I will hopefully be meeting up with Gordon Smith next week to talk about doing shows on Lancaster.Internet. 

The latest cloudcast includes two tracks from Duncan McCrone's new album 'Colourblind' and tracks by Didi Bergman, Chas Ambler, The Darwin Song Project, The Midden and Martha Wainwright.

Check it out at http://www.mixcloud.com/cmbertram/off-the-beaten-tracks-06/

Internet broadcasting

There probably won't be a cloudcast this week partly because I've been away for the last few days but also because fellow ex-Diversity DJ Gordon Smith has set up an internet-based radio station and I'm going to get involved with that. There is a page on Facebook under the name Lancaster.internet and there will be broadcasts on Thursdays and Sundays from 6pm to 9pm.

Unfortunately I've just heard that Gordon is unwell so I'm not sure when my first show will be going out, but check the Facebook page and Twitter - @thebeatentracks - for updates.

I will carry on playing folk, acoustic and roots music but I'm going to make my playlists a bit more varied. The latest one includes a bit of boogie woogie from John Sylvester and a jazz number by the Dave Milligan Trio.

Do check out my cloudcasts on Mixcloud. 

Keeping busy

Despite the closure of Diversity FM at the weekend I'm having quite a busy week. This week's cloudcast is recorded and will be uploaded tomorrow. I've gone for some oldies by George Harrison and The Pogues as well as recent tracks by Franka De Mille, David Ferrard and The Thyme Machine. 

I picked up the latest edition of Songlines magazine and there are some great tracks on the Top of the World cd by Fidil, Duotone and Treacherous Orchestra. I will probably include one or two of them in the next cloudcast.

I've updated the settings on my Soundcloud pages so you can now download any of the cover versions I've recorded. There's a link at the bottom of this blog.

On the book front I've decided to release it on Amazon for the Kindle market so I've been busy formatting the text, designing a cover and making final decisions about which images to include. It feels like I'm finally getting somewhere with it and hopefully it'll be available to download (and more importantly, buy) later this month. I'll then look into how I might get some actual books printed but one step at a time.

A few gigs to mention...

Gren Bartley

Thursday 5th April

Robert Gillow, Lancaster

Plainview + Boz Hayward + Jess Thomas + Joanne Levey + Marc Nellis

Thursday 12th April

The Yorkshire House, Lancaster

Martin Simpson & Martin Taylor

Friday 27th April

The Platform, Morecambe

Fairport Convention

Wednesday 9th May

The Platform, Morecambe

Twitter : https://twitter.com/#!/thebeatentracks
Mixcloud : http://www.mixcloud.com/cmbertram/ 

Soundcloud : http://soundcloud.com/the-beaten-tracks