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Monday 27 May 2013

Chernobyl Children's Project

Press release relating to a song you heard on yesterday's show


Last year two friend's of The Procession, Luke and Katie, got involved in a charity called "Chernobyl Children’s Project", (CCP UK), by way of hosting a recuperative holiday for 2 young girls from Belarus. The girls were just 2 of many children living today in Belarus and the Ukraine whose lives have been affected by the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. Even after so long since the disaster, babies are now being born with cancer or leukaemia or with genetic disorders.

The charity provides recuperative holidays in the UK for about 300 children from Belarus. For children who cannot come to the UK, they organise a holiday camp in Belarus, delivers convoys of humanitarian aid, purchase urgently needed medicines for the Children’s Cancer Hospital in Minsk, and support the Children’s Hospice Movement. Volunteers from the UK also can go over to Belarus to help out in orphanages’, hospitals, holiday camps, and so on.

Seeing at first hand through Luke and Katie the benefits of this charity, we felt obliged to try and help out, especially as after March 2013 the UK government will start charging £85 for the visas for children coming from Belarus to England for recuperative holidays, even those for five year olds in remission from cancer.

We have a government petition in place regarding the visas. We are desperately trying to raise awareness of this; as if we can get 100,000 people to sign it we will be able to force a government debate on the issue. As well as this we are looking to volunteer ourselves to go over to Belarus to help out, as well as be involved with the children when they come over here. Even just donating an evening to playing football with some of the kids is a big help.

We are also looking to raise funds, specifically for visa's for 2 children to come over again to stay with Luke and Katie, and also for the trip to Belarus for Katie and Ewelina (Martin's girlfriend), and potentially Paul and Martin from the Procession who have Visa applications awaiting approval. Any additional funds will help with the charities existing projects.

In order to raise both funds and awareness, Martin has organised an all day charity gig at Scruffy Murphy's in Birmingham. As well as the great line up including The Procession as well as established tribute and original acts, lots of local companies have donated prizes, so there will be many fund raising activities throughout the day. The Procession will also be releasing a single which will contain information about the petition with any funds raised from sales going to the charity. The Procession will also be getting involved in summer activities in the UK with the kids on recuperative holidays.

Additionally through the presenter Tom Mallow, we are looking to setup a wider awareness project using a charity called "Sky Badger". They help other charities with similar causes, and have some high profile backers. Tom has helped promote the cause with interviews on his radio show with Martin and Luke, as well as with several people involved with Sky Badger, and is looking himself to organise a charity event in August. In addition to this we hope to promote many more events to help the cause.

Key Dates

26th April - Season’s Charity single release to mark 27th anniversary
27th April – All day charity gig at Scruffy Murphy’s to raise funds / awareness
May - Katie visit to Belarus
May - Martin, Paul, Ewelina visit to Belarus
3rd/4th August – Sky Badger Festival, Lutterworth
All August – Belarus Children visit U.K. – Several fun activities to be planned with the kids
7.     31st August – E-Petition Closing Date

Links:
2.    27th April, Birmingham Gig Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/events/394568270632638/?fref=ts
5.    Sky Badger: http://www.skybadger.co.uk/
Today was going to be a bit of a struggle, as it was the Dot To Dot festival in Nottingham. Gary was out and about at the festival and tweeted reports, and I had a live session from POM.

7pm-8pm

The Planet Smashers 'Never Gonna Drink Again'
Me First And The Gimmee Gimmees 'Over The Rainbow'
The Polecats 'John I'm Only Dancing'
NYA 'Driving The Nails In'
POM live in session
The Fugs 'Carpe Diem'
The Sea Above 'Empires'
Centre Excuse 'Don't Let Go'
Nine Inch Nails 'We're In This Together'

8pm-9pm

Morrissey 'Drive In Saturday'
Steve Jones 'Suffragette City'
The Plastics 'Last Train To Clarksville'
Skatalites 'Simmer Down'
The Skunks 'YMCA'
The Maytalls 'A Man Who Knows'
Barenaked Ladies 'If I Had $1,000,000'
Buck Owens And The Buckaroos 'Act Naturally'
Talking Heads 'Slippery People'
Gary Numan 'This Wreckage'
Ron McElroy 'World At War'
Throw The Goat 'Southeast Bound'
Wee Willie Harris 'Rocking Chair On The Moon'
The Charlie Daniels Band 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia'
David Bowie 'Let's Spend The Night Together'

POM's website is here

Monday 20 May 2013

I wasn't going to do the comedy songs at the top of the hour for the 'new' show, but I wanted to pay tribute to Paul Shane so played a clip from Hi-De-Hi followed by his legendary rendition of 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling'.

We were pleased to welcome Ryan Thomas in for a live session, it was only organised a few days ago, but it went really well. He's a bit quiet and not very talkative which made me struggle with the interview, but with a voice as magnificent as his, the music does the talking!

7pm-8pm

Paul Shane 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling'
Joy Division 'Inside The Line'
Ramones 'Do You Remember Rock 'n'Roll Radio'
Iggy Pop 'Nightclubbing'
Johnny Cash 'Hurt'
Red Hot Chilli Peppers 'Give It Away'
Ryan Thomas 'Down That Road'

Ryan Thomas live session:
'Skinny Woman'
'Elstree Drive'
Walking Blues'
Ain't Gonna Cry'

Ryan Thomas 'Never Did Like The Rain'

8pm-9pm

Mr Bungle 'Egg'
Gregory Issacs 'Puff The Magic Dragon'
Jarvis Cocker 'Heavy Weather'
The Cribs 'I'm A Realist'
Jake Morley 'Freddie Laid The Smackdown'
Calling All Astronauts 'Freaks'
Jesus And Mary Chain 'My Girl'
The Lemonheads 'Into Your Arms'
Carlton And The Shoes 'Just Me'
Be Bop Deluxe 'Fair Exchange'
The Editors 'Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors'

Ryan Thomas can be investigated further here.

Monday 6 May 2013

By George I Think We've Got It!

We have done it. If the BBC don't come knocking first thing tomorrow morning with a sack full of tenners and a slot on 6Music, then it's their stupid loss. Tonight's show was the turning point in which I felt that we delivered something fucking special. Gary has become a valuable part of the show as a co-presenter, and our live music segment worked a charm. It was an acoustic session tonight, which was a nice change for the band too as it isn't what they are known for. In addition to the new system of the bands introducing themselves, we started something else. We played a studio single by Centre Excuse before their set, and to end their set they introduced the new single, which we had ready. It worked really well, and will definitely become part of the system from now on. The other advantage of doing acoustic sessions is that it doesn't take as long to get ready. Last week's band were good and everything, but they were a six piece and they took ages to sound check.

7pm-8pm

Calling All Astronauts 'Faith In Your Cause' (I was thanked in the sleeve notes for their debut album, so I had decided to play a few of their tonight to return the compliment)
Splodgenessabounds 'Two Little Boys'
The Clash featuring Ian Dury 'Janie Jones'
Snuff 'I Will Survive'
The Hives 'Main Offender'
The Maine 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'
Centre Excuse 'In Your Mind'

Centre Excuse live session
'Game Set Match'
'New Sound'
'Where Do We Go?'
'Introverted'

Centre Excuse 'Control' (new single)

New Order 'Ceremoney'
Calling All Astronauts 'Someone Like You'

8pm-9pm

David Bowie and Gail Ann Dorsey 'O Superman'
Calling All Astronauts 'Scenesters vs The World'
Fuzzbox 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
Plumtree 'Scott Pilgrim'
The Beatles/Joan Jett/Cypress Hill/Rage Against The Machine 'Mash Together'
Flutatious 'Mesmorise'
Calling All Astronauts 'The Demise Of Society'
Joe Brown 'I'll See You In My Dreams'
Pat Boone 'Paradise City'
The Ramones 'I Wanna Be Sedated'
The Jam 'Eton Rifles'


Centre Excuse website is here