Manchester la la la!

October 1, 2007 – 5:01 pm

A quick trip up to Manchester for the Fuse FM launch party, some PPE curry, a meal with Dan, Lizzie and Claudio, and a trip to the opening night of The Warehouse Project managed to finish a seventeen night sprint of being away and with only one night in my own bed. Andy ‘squater’ Jackson indeed.

Who even uses CDs these days…

The Fuse FM Launch party for broadcast 15 was an excellent occasion and a well organised event that brought well needed pennies to the Fuse coffers. The fancy dress theme was pop idols, I came as me, not because of any huge radio ego of mine, but because I’d only had a 2 minute turn around at home after work. Needless to say I wasn’t easily forgiven.

Several Fuse DJs were on the decks, including one tall gentleman who was playing some old school 45s. Big respect. Not quite so much respect for the penultimate chappy though – let DJing from iPods be a lesson to you all.

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|New Fuse FM Website|

Much much better in the new venue underneath Piccadilly train station

The Warehouse Project is back, and its better than ever. The new venue is excellent. Put away all your fears about bad sound and replace them with mild concern that the bass is so loud the mortar falls from the ceiling.

Set underneath Piccadilly train station, you don’t actually go underground despite previous ‘beneath the streets’ slogans. Nevertheless the location is suitably industrial and fits my pre-uni conception of Manchester club nights as set in big open warehouses with lots of people and sound – just like that scene from 51st State.

Layo and Bushwacka! were a little flat for my liking and there were definite flagging dangers, but a red bull later and a change of DJ to Armen Van Helden and we were away. Quite an a eclectic set – a lot to jump up and down to, he even played the SebestiAn remix of Rage Against The Machine‘s Killing In The Name Of. Nevertheless, having dipped his stylus like toe into the Kitsune pool of French electro it did leave poor old Detroit favourite Felix Da Housecat as a bit of an anti-climax. But to be fair, its not really his fault, what with the current dance music tide being neither east coast or west coast but very much continental, to play a similar set as the one he did in Sankeys 15 months ago would have left him looking very dated indeed.

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|Claudio Post-taxi Reaction Video|
|Spangly New Camera Video| [Warning contains high levels of G.3.3.K.]

By Andy | Also posted in Manchester | Tagged | Comments (0)

The London Design Festival

September 26, 2007 – 3:51 pm

Righty, well! The observant amongst you might notice that although this post says that it was written on the 26th of September it in fact wasn’t. Basically, I’ve been up to a fair bit lately and rather than let my laziness be reflected on my site I’ll just cheat instead. So, Scooby Doo style time travel back to September….

Some people are just very particular about others using their equipment

I’ve just got back from London [ahem] where I’ve spent the last twelve days or so. A big thanks to Fash, Will, Ed and Dave for being so patient and offering me a roof over my head. I think I’ve successfully earned the title ‘squater’. The main reason for my trip was to volunteer and earn myself some valuable creative industry brownie points. However that didn’t stop me going to Fabric first… The night before I was due to start.

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|DJ Yoda Super Mario Bros Video|

I was dead chuffed with that shot. I did it all myself :)

The first weekend of the London Design Festival was pretty quiet, however the area around the South Bank centre was not, because all weekend it was the Thames River Festival! Kate and her bar crew were working it too so a few sneaky free cans of heineken and no tea and I was on my way for a great night. And of course Cat was working Saturday night, and so was my bestest West Country pal Brendan [kidding Kate].

Cat came up again on the Sunday with her mum and we watched the carnival and the fireworks to finish it all off. They were awesome. So awesome that in a fit of pyromania I recorded the whole display on my spangly new camera.

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|Thames River Festival Fireworks Video|

No, we didn’t get to drive them :-(

So finally the actual reason for my trip down to London in the first place [other than to escape the siege at home]. The London Design Festival was an eleven day long series of design orientated events across London. I volunteered to help out on the nitty gritty elements of running a festival but was pleasantly surprised when the rest of the volunteers and I were able to get into London and report back for the Backstage Blog.

In addition to the 7:30am starts [for the FT of course], 10 hour days, blogging, vlogging, and heavy lifting I did get to see some awesome design, learn ALOT, eat some free food and drink the occasional free beer/cocktail [simple things for simple folk]. I was also really fortunate to sit in on i-Design: Design for life talks which focused on digital design and how it is affecting, and can affect our lives. I even asked a question and referenced Bertrand Russell, I was shot down pretty quick mind.

And of course I spent 11 days with some really cool people. I’d like to thank Will [the man behind this] for giving me the opportunity to get involved, and also a big hand to Jay who would have been my podcast partner in crime had the technology worked, but instead just gave me advice on life [not a bad trade I reckon].

|Photos|
|LDF Backstage Blog|
|iDesign: Design For Life Podcasts|

By Andy | Also posted in Manchester | Tagged , | Comments (0)

So that was summer…

August 28, 2007 – 7:48 pm

Well I think we’re all agreed that Summer 2007 has been pretty crap. No denying it really but what with the combination of rain, flooding, lack of sun and the massive downer that is graduating [for me at least] it hasn’t been fun.

However there have been a couple of notable exceptions. In July I worked at a festival bar down in Ealing, a job I got through my course mate Kate. It wasn’t quite my mother’s dream job for her son graduating from Manchester with a PPE degree but I did make some money, have a laugh and meet some cool people. ‘Nuff said. On top of that I managed to squeeze in a trip to Brighton to see Vanessa, Claudio and Klara, an adventure being stranded in Swindon, and a night out in Soho.

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And of course last weekend saw Petestock. Gone this year was the the couple of gazeebos and the separates system that normally accompanies the annual dreFest shenanigans, and in its place there was a proper tent, stage, bands, ale, hog roast and, by some fluke, good weather.

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Big thanks to Consoles and Players, The Roulette and Adam Slack for playing. Also, many thanks to Jam, Tim and Stu for helping me out with all of the preparations and the night itself. And, of course a big thank you to Pete for hosting the event.

By Andy | Also posted in Derby, Manchester | Tagged | Comments (0)

Busy busy busy

July 7, 2007 – 6:53 pm

Well, apologies for the lack of posts recently. Since handing in dissertation/birthday there was more revelry followed by exams followed by more revelry followed by moving out of Manchester. And in that time I managed to go to Rockness up in Inverness, Glastonbury Festival down in Pilton and graduate back in Manchester. So here we are: a mega triple post.

Unfortunately Dan couldn’t be with us :(

So, Rockness. Basically I was at the end of my first week of work experience at XFM in Manchester and just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I was offered a pair tickets, got cocky and asked for another, a quick phone call to Claudio to see if he was up for driving the 800 mile round trip, and jobs a good ‘un

We started as meant to go on with Cat, Vanessa and I seeing Justice at Sankeys on the Friday night – who were just an unfathomably immense wall of fist thumping neo-naxi boot stomping sound [the only time I've been to see DJs and moshed]. We had the best of intentions to at least catch one or two hours sleep but by the time we waited till finish at 5, fannied about with buses and walked a bit home it was 6am anyway: just enough time to grab a quick shower [lots of topless sweaty men down the front at Sankeys] and make Claudio a quadruple espresso.

Given that we didn’t know we were going until the day before I didn’t have any preconceptions or expectations, and no plans to see any bands in particular. Saturday night we caught Groove Armada [in the biggest tent I've ever seen - old skool Glasto dance tent eat your heart out] and The Chemical Brothers, who we watched from afar in the eeriest late night mist I’ve ever seen. I tried not to follow it too closely for fear of spoiling Sunday night at Glastonbury. On Sunday we saw, much to my delight, the Levellers, and a very good show they put on too – my first for a long time, and in the evening decided to sack off queueing to see Mark Ronson, stocked up on life-juice, and watched the the immensity of Daft Punk.

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|video to come…|

Hi-viz Kids

Glastonbury Festival needs no explanation, other than a quick reiteration of the vast numbers of people that came this year and a big thanks again to Will and Debs for sorting out tickets for a LOT of people.

Also my top tip – don’t mix beer, vodka and cider in a short space of time on not a great deal to eat. That is unless you enjoy missing 1980s ska legends and Brightonian super star DJs in intimate venues. Yes, I am still upset with myself.

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|The Wombats video|

The mortorboard – the difference between being a student and unemployed

Unfortunately that time had to come. The official end of our student lives. It sounds sad, but to be fair it was in the end a good old knees up. Despite myself being objected to a white wash hit and run from a bus, all the PPE crowd managed to collect their respective certificates and shake some old fart’s hand without tripping up or making a fool of themselves. There was a bit of a reception beforehand with most conversations starting with body language which read ‘oh you made it too’, briefly followed by ‘is that free booze you’re drinking there?’.

I made the snap decision to stay in Manchester that night and enjoyed a good meal in The Northern Quarter [one of those places I only managed to first visit in the dying moments of third year], a few drinks in Font, a good old bop in Sub-space, and then off to Manchester 235 Casino where I shamefully sat by the 25p Roulette all night and came out even. But then at least I didn’t have to call an attendant out because the machine wouldn’t give me my £1.25 back…

Anyway, a big good luck, well done and thank you to all my coursemates and people I’ve shared classes with over the past three years. I can only hope you become rich and famous, and that you’ll let me kip on your floor if I need to. Ta ra.

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By Andy | Also posted in Derby, Manchester | Comments (0)

Schools out!

May 3, 2007 – 2:10 pm

…well until Monday at least.

Enjoying the nice weather with a post-dissertation pint[s]

I’ve given myself the week off. Its the least I deserve after spending the past five weeks trapped in my room watching the sunny days going by. But thankfully the dissertation has been handed in and I’m sure that’s a load off of everyone’s mind. A lot of people have asked me what my dissertation was about and said it sounded quite interesting. I apologise for not being more enthused by your polite enquiries at the time, so if you’d like to find out what the finished article was all about have a ganders over here.

However, much more exciting than doing the dissertation was celebrating having done it. I took lots of photos of people enjoying the sunshine with a pint outside the union. I would say they were out for my 22nd birthday, but that’d be lie. Although some kind souls bought me a pint. Bless. Photos here.

All the PPEists. Good looking as well as clever.

Last night saw what can only be described as an invasion by the PPE massive of the BA Econ Ball. Big thanks to the BA Econ committee for organising the ball and offering us a discount. Thanks to Kate, Lydia, Dom, Lizzie, Ben, Chellsie and everyone that was involved in getting all the PPEers money together to buy our bulk tickets. I couldn’t quite believe that students could be so organised. And of course a big thank you to all the PPEers and their guests that attended. It was really good to have you all their and I hope you enjoyed yourselves.

Photos of the night are available here, and some videos here and here. Well played to the tables that won prizes by the way. The third year table didn’t get owt, accusations of a fix are continuing for a second year.

By Andy | Also posted in Manchester | Comments (0)

A Week At Radio 1

April 21, 2007 – 10:40 pm

First off a big thanks to Colin Murray, Jimmy Devlin and Deirdre [spell?] for having me shadow them this week. They were really fun guys to work with and I really enjoyed my time with them.

Secondly, thanks to Neil Sloan for organising it all and for supervising Dan and I when we were let loose in the Radio 1 studio. He proved that you really can ‘polish a turd’ [as Dan so eloquently put it].

Finally, thanks to Dan for holding my hand while we did the show. He didn’t get to say as much as I’d liked, it wasn’t quite my usual wandering banter between me and him, but it was comforting to just be able to stare at his perplexed face during links and to shout at him when it all went wrong.

In case I haven’t forced it down your gullet already Dan and I did were on BBC Radio 1 and did the Early Breakfast show from 4:30am till 7am. You can still listen again by following this link. But hurry it’ll only be up there until the 27th April!

What have I got to show you of my five days? Well there are some photos, a video of Dan and I pratting about in the studio and an egotistic selection of links to various articles about me in the local press, and two audio clips of me on BBC Radio Derby [

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

and

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

]. What can I say?

Oooo and of course. Big thanks to all of you who got up at silly o’clock and listened to the show. Thanks for your texts, I really appreciate your comments.

By Andy | Also posted in Manchester | Tagged | Comments (0)

Good Friday

April 9, 2007 – 5:45 pm

DO NOT APPROACH THIS MAN. HE IS SAID TO BE ARMED AND VERY DANGEROUS.

Good Friday photos here.

By Andy | Also posted in Derby | Comments (0)

Glastonbury 2007

April 1, 2007 – 10:46 am
The ticketman: Will Butler

Congratulations to everyone that got Glastonbury tickets, commiserations to those who did not. To those of you that engaged in a rather frantic MSN conversation with me then you need to know that Will Butler was in fact the star of the show and was processing all your details at Glasto-Ticket-Wales-recycling-plant HQ. Its official you all owe him and his support team [those that took over when he needed a wee] a pint.

Erm, to get you excited there’s all my previous glasto albums linked below and a few youtube videos as well. Enjoy.

Glastonbury 2000
Glastonbury 2002
Glastonbury 2003
Glastonbury 2004
Glastonbury 2005
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uweGMeWu79o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OklV4QtkndM

Now once you finished panicking about when that confirmation email is going to come through, you can start worrying about where to camp.

By Andy | Also posted in Derby, Manchester | Tagged | Comments (0)

A week since the end

March 14, 2007 – 12:01 pm

It’s been a week now since the very last Andrew Jackson Show. As much I am now enjoying my Monday evenings and Wednesday afternoons student radio will be sorely missed and I can only encourage people to get involved and make the most of Fuse FM or your respective student radio stations while you can.

Nevertheless it isn’t all doom and gloom. First up, Mr. Harry Garne of Anablogue and Wilfully Twisted fame has been named head of music. As many of you may know Harry was assistant station manager this year and many expected him to apply for ‘the big one’ for next year. However, this wasn’t to be so, but Harry assures me there are even more enthusiastic, dedicated and talented people than him vying for the job, so all you fusebies make sure you’re there to vote at the end of the year.

On a slightly different note, this week is the week of the union elections. I can not stress how important it is for you to vote, even as a third year. This is the largest university in the country and last year 94% of students didn’t vote. That is truly disgusting. And don’t even say that union politics is a waste of time because you don’t get involved. The reason why union politics is in such a sorry state of affairs is because the people voted in by a minority of the student populace are not representative of the majority. Quick way to solve that… go and vote. Interestingly enough three second year PPEists are up for posts of Gen Sec, Student Direct Officer and Environment and Ethics Secretary. Find out more about them over here.

Bringing things back to radio, a demonstration of why a good union is so important is so that the radio station can get bigger and better. One uni to aspire to is Cardiff; they have the Guardian student newspaper of the year and get well behind their student radio station so that they can pull off big launch nights – just like the one I videoed here.

If you listened into last weeks show [if you didn't then it is still available for a short period of time on the podcast] then you will know that the week before I wrote a letter to Swizzels Matlow confectionery company highlighted to them the lack of a ‘refreshing centre’ in a succession of strawberry refresher bars. Today I got some post from Mr Matlow and Mr Swizzels with some freebies to say sorry. For the whole story including my original letter have a ganders here.

If I haven’t made you write it in your diaries already I will be presenting [with Dan] the Early Breakfast Show on Friday 20th April on 97 to 99 One FM. Admittedly that show is on from 5-7am, but come share by early morning pain and listen in… or use the listen again function. “So you’re listening to Andy and Dan on early breakfast on radio one, text in on 81199 if you have any views on crumpets…”

Finally, if you ever fancy a good look back to the glory days of The Andrew Jackson Show I’ve uploaded a Fuse FM gallery to the uni part of the site.

By Andy | Also posted in Manchester | Tagged | Comments (0)

Stu’s 22nd Birthday

March 10, 2007 – 9:35 pm

Just got back from my 24 hour flying trip to Cardiff to celebrate Stu’s Birthday. Generally fun had by all and at last met the legendary Geoff/Jeff. Photos here, and a video and rant of Xpress Radio’s [Cardiff Uni Student Radio Station] launch party here.

What do you get if you take a number of doors, a bored Friday night and a number of students? A house of doors of course!


About the only amusing thing to come of the new fire door regulations for rented accommodation.

By Andy | Also posted in Derby | Comments (0)